Rain, Rain Go Away...and the crowds too!

[pumpkin5156]

Hey Guys! This is my first trip report ever, so I apologize if it's not the greatest thing in the world. I will preface this with a little background info:

DS: is 16 months old and has been to DL twice when he was 4 months old.
DH: is 32 and loves, loves, loves anything that brings a smile to me or my son's face. Wasn't a Disney fan before he met me, but now he actually gets excited for DL trips. Works in construction.
Me: 24 and think I have the best little family ever. I am a Disney fan big time, but you'd never think it just by looking at me. I am a front desk agent at a Marriott.
Here is a pic of my family last year at DL at Christmas:

We live in San Diego and hit DL about once or twice a year. I just got an AP for my birthday, so DS and I will be going for a lot of day trips. Here is our little family:

And just for good measure here's another pic of my son:

The itinerary will be in the following post. I promise to take lots of pictures and tell you guys how it all went down.

 

[pumpkin5156]

Okay, here's how the trip happened:

I found out at work that I got two free nights to stay at any participating Marriott in the world as a holiday perk. I got a DL AP for my birthday and all I wanted for Christmas and my birthday (Dec 3rd) was to take my son to DL. So I got two free nights at the Fairfield Inn on Harbor and paid $102 for my DH's 2-day Park Hopper. DS is free.

Here's the plan:


Saturday the 8th

When I get home from work we'll try to leave by 4pm to drive up the 5. Stop at the Subway on Harbor and then check in at the hotel. Depending on the weather (looks like rain), walk around DTD or hang in the hotel, pack for the next day in the parks, and go to bed early. Goal is to have DS in bed by 7pm.

Sunday the 9th

Wake up 6:45-7am. Eat cereal and fruit in the room.
Walk to DL turnstiles by 7:30am (opens at 8am). I will go straight to the Main Street Bank and get my AP verified and picture taken. Depending on how long that line is, my DH and DS will do some FL rides. I will join them when I am done and this may be the perfect time to get something yummy at the Blue Ribbon bakery.
Again, depending on time, walk over to DCA (opens at 10am). Do Flik's Fun Fair and PlayHouse Disney Live. Eat lunch at 11am, not sure where yet.
Depending on DS (usually naps from 12:30-2:30pm), go back to hotel for naps/snacks. Back to DCA until we're tired or hungry. May have dinner inside the park, but may opt for Mimi's which is right by our hotel. Possibly see fireworks show at DL, though doubtful because of DS bedtime.

Monday the 10th

Wake up at 7:30am. Eat cereal and fruit in room. Walk to DL turnstiles by 8:30am (opens at 9am).
Head for FL and do PPF, Dumbo, and whatever else seems good. Then Pirates and HM, Jungle Cruise. Bengal BBQ for lunch while we're over there.
Possibly go back to hotel for nap, but we're going to try to have it in the stroller (we'll see....)
Toon Town will happen at some point, and we'll be checking Nemo every now and then. Not a big deal if Nemo doesn't happen. Dinner at Pizza Planet, parade at 6:30pm with churros and hot chocolate, and Fireworks at 8:45pm.

Then it's back home we drive and wake up Tuesday and go to work! I'll let you know how it turns out and I will show you all the pictures! Thanks for reading.

 

[Hound 109]

Hi Pumpkin.....I'm in.

We also arrive at 7ish Sunday Morning (for 3 days). & I also will activate my AP on Sunday.

Have a great time. But I'm sure you will.

 

[pumpkin5156]

Hi Pumpkin.....I'm in.

We also arrive at 7ish Sunday Morning (for 3 days). & I also will activate my AP on Sunday.

Have a great time. But I'm sure you will.

Cool! Maybe we'll run into you guys, although I don't know how I'll recognize you.

Thanks for hopping on. Are you going to do an trip report too?

 

[Hound 109]

Cool! Maybe we'll run into you guys, although I don't know how I'll recognize you.

Thanks for hopping on. Are you going to do an trip report too?

I mentioned on the "hound family invades dlr" thread , but if you see a 50 y/o guy (greying hair 6'....15 lbs overweight), his pretty 25 y/o, blonde (jennifer anniston look a like), petite daughter, along with my 8 y/o (cuter than heck) son (who is Korean)....that would be us.

We will likely be comando-ing though, since DW decided to stay home (we've been twice this year).

Great pictures of your family.....cute little guy. Hope it doesn't rain on all of us.

Take lots of pics, pumpkin....especially over at Pooh Corner. (& get a tigger tail. )

 

[DorkyDisneyMom]

Oh my! Your son is soooo adorable.

I'm in. I can't wait to hear more.

 

[pumpkin5156]

I'm at work right now and I am counting down the minutes until my shift ends and we go to DL!! 45 more minutes, 45 more minutes...

My DH called and says, "I'm really excited Babe. I can't to see Wesley there and to just spend time together."

I am a lucky, lucky girl.

 

[mla1977]

I'm in! I'm hopefully going to DLR for a few days in February so need to start reading up on Disneyland TRs and wean (sp?) myself off of WDW for a little while.

 

[pumpkin5156]

Getting ready to go was a little bit stressful when I got home from work. DH hadn't given DS a bath, hadn't finished packing, and didn't really have himself together. Luckily, I got off work a tiny bit early and I snapped some quick pics:

It was pouring almost the entire drive and sprinkling when we arrived in Anaheim. We left home about 3:35pm. We hit a bit of traffic but pulled into the Subway on Harbor about 4:50pm. We inhaled our food (well I did, I was super hungry).

Subway review
Good prices and good food. Horrible service. Bunch of kids who did not want to be there and took forever to take our order, despite no one being in line in front of us.

Then we drove right down the street to the Fairfield Inn by Marriott. I read some Trip Adviser reviews on this hotel and was freaked out. None of them were very good. But me being a Marriott employee knew the Marriott standard and had a hard time believing it was really that bad.

I was right. It wasn't bad at all! It was nice actually. We were on floor 8 of the 9 floors, on the Matterhorn side of the park. They had the extra towels and pillows I asked for in the room already.The crib arrived within 5 minutes of us walking through the door. The Pack N Play was very used, but still safe and working. I wiped it down with antibacterial wipes and brought our own sheets from home. Here are a few pics, and sorry our stuff is everywhere.

We thought there'd be a closet we could stick the crib in, but there wasn't. Here's what we came up with:

After we settled in we took a little walk to DTD. It was freezing cold and drizzling.

I thought I would ask about verifying my AP even though Saturday is a blackout date for me. The guy at the ticket booth said I could go in, but he recommended doing it Sunday morning first thing. Another CM verified the same thing, because of the crowds.
*Side Note* I called DL a few days prior to my trip to ask if I could verify on a blackout date and was told that I could not. *End Side Note*

We walked back to our hotel because of being purely frozen through. DS took a little longer to get to sleep than normal, but it worked out. The fireworks woke both him and I up at 9:25pm (me with earplugs). I went out to watch them form our hallway. They were right in front of me and made every car alarm go off in the entire parking lot. That was fun....

DH went to the ESPN Zone to watch the fight and smoke a cigar. He ordered a cup of coffee and fries and said they were both sub-par and extremely overpriced. He was then asked to move off of his lounge chair (after being there for over less than an hour) because it was for being ordering. He looked at his food and looked at the hostess and got up and left. He's not one to argue. He thought that very weird since last year he sat there for 2 hours and didn't order one thing.

DH and I finally got to sleep at 10:30.

More to come with lots of pics!

 

[pumpkin5156]

My DS woke me up at 5:45 am.....blah! Somehow I don't think it was because he was excited for DL. I walked outside and took some pics from our hotel hallway. The parks at dawn:

Walking to the park:

Waiting in line and DS running free:

"Who wants to go to Disneyland raise their hand??"

Pics I took while waiting:

We ate our cereal and fruit and got to the front of the line at DL at 7:20am. The park opened at 8. The plan was for me to go to the Bank and verify my AP, while DH and DS waited for me. This is a picture we take every year in front of the Christmas tree:

I was first in line and it took about 7 minutes to get my AP. Yay for me!! More DL this year!!

The first person we ran into was Donald. This was DS first time ever to see or be close to a character, so we were cautious. But he did great!! He kept saying, "Duck! Duck!"

Heading to Fantasy Land:

We hit up Peter Pan first, about a 3 minute wait:

Then Dumbo, about a 5 minute wait:

The Alice, about a 2 minute wait:

Day 2 continued in following post...

 

[momto2nenas]

Oh, anxiously awaiting more trip report! Keep the pics coming, what a cute little guy you have!

 

[JollyHoliday23]

Your son is so adorable =)

I really like seeing all the pictures. It's making me even more excited (didn't think that was possible) about my trip in January!!

 

[pumpkin5156]

Here we go...

After Alice we went on Small World with no wait and only 3 other people on the boat with us. DS was super funny on this ride. He just sat on my lap and didn't move the entire ride. Too much going on I think!

Then we went to the Blue Ribbon Bakery and had a snack. DS and I shared a cinnamon roll (sorry it's already eaten), and DS and DH shared a blueberry muffin. DH also had a coffee. The line was super long here, but went fast. It was FREEZING so everyone wanted warm thing sin their bellies.

The we went to DCA at 9:45am. They opened up the front part early.

My first name starts with "R."

We stood at the Hollywood side for about 10 minutes and watched the entire Tower crew do the opening and everything. It was crazy. People were being super rude and pushing and totally acting like children. They were not staying in their place in line....just cutting and running even though the CM's asked several times for people not to do this. I was actually embarrassed for them.
My DS was sleeping this entire time, so we got the baby swap and I went on Tower first then DH. The entire ordeal took about 25 minutes.

The on to Flik's Fun Fair once DS woke up. The park never felt crowded all day: It was lovely.

Then we went to Donald's boat and looked at the Christmas tree and scoped out where the Block Party would stop later that evening.

DH really wanted to watch the Charger game, so we went to ESPN Zone for lunch. It was about 11:20am and the place was packed!! They told us 25 minute wait, so DH went to the bar to watch the game while I took DS up to the games. We found several games already filled with credits so we raced cars most of the time.

I went down to DH and we were both so hungry! We waited 10 more minutes and our buzzer still had not buzzed. It had been about 35 minutes. There were two empty tables this entire time in back of us. So I asked the hostess and she said those were reserved for a party of 21. I said, "Good luck fitting 21 people at two tables for 4." We could have ordered, eaten and paid in 35 minutes.
We just ordered sitting at the bar. I had the grilled chicken finger salad and DH had the pulled pork sammy with fries. Both were decent but way overpriced. At the end of our meal (which was about 20 minutes long) our buzzer rang. We ignored it for a while, then gave it to a couple who was waiting. They were pretty happy to get seated right away!

I headed back to the hotel for a nap with DS. DH finished the game and met us back about an hour later. It was wonderful to lay down and rest in a dark, quiet room.

We headed back to DCA to make the 4:15 showing of PlayHouse Disney. This was DS favorite since he knew the characters. He was trying to run on stage when Bear came out. It was so great!

Walking to get dinner:

Then I got pizza at Omm Mow Mow and DH got a corndog. We waited for the parade while we ate. DS walked around for about 30 minutes exploring every thing he could find. He loved the parade. He was riveted the entire time!

Then we took the monorail over to DL and went on Pirates with no wait at all. We all love that ride, and DS kept saying, "Dog, Dog," at all the animals. It was funny.
Then off to bed only to be awakened around 9:30 from the fireworks. Good times.

Disneyland tomorrow and getting my AP for the first time! Yay!!