Having had a very late night and having retired with very tired legs, we all slept like rocks and stayed in bed clear until...7:30. Yep, you heard that right. I take full blame, because Nathan and I are not very good sleeper inners.
So we woke up and showered and dressed and by then we had the Hogan's stirring. Carrie got ready and then we took the boys downstairs so Scott could have some privacy. The little cartoon room at the PPH came in great for getting Jack's blood sugar checked and his insulin injected. Then we were off to have breakfast with Lilo and Stitch.
I think this is a great value, if you are a big breakfast eater. With the AP discount it is about $19 for adults and $11 or so for kids, as I recall. I love the salmon and rice that they serve. Nathan ate basically nothing, maybe a few bites of cereal, and a pancake or something but he did drink his hot chocolate, which is included and if I bought that seperate it would have been $3.75. And let's face it, I would have had to order him something that he also would not have eaten, so I figure I came out okay. I could have shared something with him, but then I would have been compromising on what I needed for breakfast. All around better as two buffets, for us, that is. Carrie ordered off the menu and then ordered coffee and it was the same price as the buffet
Anyhow, I quite stuffed myself and then was not in need of food again for some time.
The kids were sort of so-so about characters, but out of all of them, seemed to enjoy the ones here the most. Lilo and Stitch were a hoot, and Pluto is always a favorite.
They gave the boys each a birthday card for the characters to sign. They liked that part.
The Birthday Treats: Of course everyone was so stuffed by then that nobody ate them.
For any of you that might be planning for a gluten free and/or diabetic experience at disney, I just have to say it is not that easy. They try, but don't really get it, ya know?? If they can't provide carbs, they should provide serving size information in addition to the packaging, or something. That being said, both Carrie and Jack had gluten free pancakes for breakfast and they were really great tasting. The only problem was no ability to know the carbs, so difficult to dose the insulin. A good guess was made, but as we found out later, they probably were much higher in carbs than what they had guessed.
So, with breakfast under our belts, we were off to
Disneyland for The Hogan Family's first time ever in Disneyland. We ended up walking the same route through The Grand and Downtown Disney, through the bag check line and into the front gates of Disneyland.
We had a tour scheduled for 10:00 and it was about 9 or so, and I knew that we were going to have to get strollers to get through the day. So I sort of left the Hogans to absorb the Mickey Head Floral, get a picture taken, etc. while I got strollers.
After we got the kids loaded into the stroller, we went through the tunnel and around the corner and got the kids out of the stroller to go up onto the Main Street train platform. We had about 40 minutes until our Welcome to Disneyland Tour, and I thought it would be nice to do the full circuit around the park. After we got our strollers parked we got in line for the train and were all aboard in no time at all.
Notice how blinged up I have gotten Scott, the mechanical engineer:
Carrie and Nathan:
After sitting down on the train, I decided that it was probably smart to get Scott trained at fast pass. So I quickly gathered up all the tickets and Scott and when we reached New Orleans Square, we jumped off the train and instructed Carrie to stay on the train until she was back at main street. Scott and I then went to Haunted Mansion fast pass distribution center and got fastpasses for all of us to get to experience the Holiday Haunted Mansion. Fast passes in hand, we headed over the bridge and past Tarzan's treehouse, through adventure land, past the Tiki House, past the partners and down mainstreet back to the train station, and we still had to wait for Carrie and the boys to arrive. While we waited I ran into City Hall and picked up the list of Gluten Free options. It is great that they have that available, but we found that some of the restaurants and counter service places didn't even know that they had those options. I also got first visit buttons for all the Hogans and Honorary Citizen buttons for the boys. Since they had gotten their bday buttons as well their celebrate buttons, they had decided to collect buttons, and had gotten Lilo and Stitch that morning as well. You will see in the pictures that they were all worn at the same time.
Carry and the kids finally arrived and we checked in for the tour and had a potty break and got all ready. I had researched the Welcome Tour and everyone had such great reports, and I thought the introduction would be great for first timers, and then the extra fast passes and the VIP seating reservation all sounded great. Our tour guide was Diane, and she was a lovely lady. We ended up with a group of about 6 annual pass holders, another family of 3, there for the first time, and then our group of 5. I was concerned about the pace, but Diane really gaged everyone and kept things moving along fairly well. (I did sneak her aside and explain that one of our kids was diabetic and we were utilizing our strollers to manage the energy level, as well as the blood sugar). That being said, in spite of how wonderful our guide was and the other guests too, our two boys were totally board out of their minds and I would never suggest kids on this tour. Basically, we headed to DCA, went to the backlot, learned some interesting things, walked out to the Wharf and learned about the bakery and the tortilla factory and had a sample. The boys each got a bag of corn tortillas, which were not that great, in honor of their birthdays.
Our Tour:
We kept running into these shows and Diane would give us a little tidbit of info and we would pause and watch. It was really cool:
These guys sing so well.
Grammy winning group of women mariachi players.
After that we went through the "Tough to Be a Bug" show. It was fabulous and was on my "to do" list. The kids were sort of freaked out for sure! If you have not seen it, I do recommend it as the effects are quite amazing.
We then headed back to DL and toured a bit and got more interesting information on our way over to Pirates of the Carribean, which we were allowed to enter through the exit and ride as a group. It was fun and Diane challenged us to figure out the storyline as we went through, starting with the old guy sleeping on the porch by the Blue Bayou. I won't tell you the answer though!
After we got headed into the attraction, we decided to check Jack's bloodsugar. Something about how he was looking and the fact that he had spent the last 30 minutes curled up in a ball in his stroller.
Sure enough, he was way high! We made it through the ride and got him a correcting dose of insulin as soon as we landed. We then headed around the corner to get on the train for the last segment of the tour.
I have to say, Nathan at this point was way done, and as soon as we got on the train, he said he had to go to the bathroom and could not wait. The tour was headed to Tomorrowland but I grabbed Nathan and his stroller and jumped off the train at Toontown, so I could get him to the bathroom.
I don't know what all they did on the tour, but Nathan and I hit the Princess Fair restroom and then headed through Fantasyland, and were able to catch one of the mainstreet vehicles back down to Mainstreet. It was the first time Nathan and I had taken time for this, and it was really fun. The driver was super nice and let Nathan sit in the seat and honk the horn after we arrived.
We grabbed a churro, which I wanted Nathan to eat before Jack arrived because with the gluten, Jack could not have a churro. We had a nice CM take our picture both with Photo pass and also with my camera. I then realized that I could not get my camera to focus and he took a look and showed me that the focus button had been moved from auto to manual (funny little 6 year old fingers!). Thank you Mr. Photopass man! He took this picture for us with my camera:
And here is the photopass picture:
And then I looked over and I saw the tour arriving back at the tour garden, so I quickly gathered Nathan up, told him to finish up that churro and ran over to meet up with the group again. Diane had already said good bye and given our "envelope" with passes in it and our priority seating for Aladdin that we had requested for the next day. I wanted to say thank you to Diane and give her a little tip because she was so sweet and truly shared her love of the parks with us. When I opened my wallet and asked if I could please give her a bit of gratuity because she had done such a great job, she backed up, blew us a kiss (yes really!) and said you all have been such a great group and that is all the thanks I need. Have a great day! ...and off she went. Well, I tell you, she totally made the tour what it was and I was glad that we went. I do have to say one of the reasons we signed up was because we had heard that you got two fast passes for each person that were good for up to 6 people each one on the fast pass ride of your choice. Well, if you are a ride junky like me, and know how miserable the park is on busy days when they actually stop letting people in, then you will understand how dissapointed I was to see that our fast passes were for Buzz Lightyear, not good until 6:30PM and then for Soarin' Over California, not good until 5 or so either (on a night they closed at 7 for the TOT party). I was pretty darn ticked to tell you the truth. I just don't understand why Disney can't "McDonaldize" their systems a bit. It is so dissapointing when you hear that it is one way and then you experience it in a "downgraded" level. Just unacceptable! But, as I said, our tour guide created a good experience and it was only 2.5 hours of our life, so we decided to just move on. I will say, I actually knew most of what Diane had to tell us, and actually more about the actual functioning in the park as a visitor. For example, when our tour got over at 12:30, she suggested we head over to the Golden Nugget to watch Billy Hill. Well, too bad every table was already taken, right? Big surprise there. I had actually planned on waiting a bit for a later lunch, but that was not possible at this point. The Hogans needed their meal, and it was hot and everyone needed a break. So we fought the crowds at Rancho Zocalo (however you spell that) and found a table in the shade. Carrie went in the line and bought as much food as she could carry. Nathan wanted a plain been buritto, but it had cheese in it, so he would not eat, but I had protein bar or something, so he made do with that and I ate his kids meal. Good thing I was smart enough not to order anything, as usual. I know I snuck over and got fast passes to Big Thunder during this lunch.
When we got done, we decided that it was time to hit Jedi Training which was on Jacks must do list. The timing was perfect and both boys were in sync with that decision.
Continued on next post as it is very picture heavy.
