Sweet Sixteen Celebration

[Kristi391]

We are back!!! We had such a good time...just a few bumps.

I picked Jess up about 7:30 on Thursday and my brother took us to the airport. All was going well, I was even able to change our seats on our flight from Newark to orange county so we were sitting together. We went to our gate to wait...then we found out that flight was delayed an hour. So, we missed our connection in Newark. They didn't have any other flights to oc so I said we would fly to lax. The lady booked us on a 4:30 from Newark to LA but told us there were flights at 1 and 3:30 so we could try to get on one of those stand by. So, we made it to Newark and managed to get on the 3:30 flight. I was a little concerned as to where my suitcase would end up, but it was in LA when I got off the plane in LA! We were ready to head to the hotel.

I rebooked super shuttle and they got us to the hotel by 7:30. I asked Jess what she wanted to do and she admitted she was exhausted and justed wanted to watch tv and go to sleep. So that's what we did.

More later...I have a hungry baby on my hands!

 

[kaoden39]

That kind of sucks about the flights. I am glad you had a good time and I can't wait to hear more.

 

[Kristi391]

So back to my report...

Friday (July 30) morning I woke up pretty early...I think I was probably still on East Coast time...so I read for a little while and then got up and ready around 8. When I got out of the shower, Jess was up and ready to go. Our plan was to do California Adventure today, but since we were out early, we went over to DL so Jess could ride her favorite ride, Small World. She was so impressed with how different it was from WDW. We walked right on and I think we were the only 2 people in the boat, which was kind of funny. We then went on Story Boat Canals, which was lots of fun. We only waited about 5 minutes to get on that one. By this point it was about 9:20 so it was off to CA.

Our first stop was to get Soarin fast passess, which we did. Then we observed the WOC FP line...it was CRAZY long. We headed over to get into the mob of people waiting to get into Paradise Pier. 10 am hit and we were off to Toy Story...the wait was about 20 minutes, so that wasn't bad at all! It was so much fun! I love how they have the different effects in the games, like the air shooting at you or mists of water when you pop balloons!

After TSMM we went on Mickey's Fun Wheel (swinging gondola) and MM. Both rides were pretty much walk on. Then we headed over to get some food at the pilot place near soarin...Jess ordered a chocolate shake, but it was unavailable, but what can you do! After the quick bite we did Soarin and then we headed over to Hollywood and went on Monsters, Inc and watched the Turtle Talk with Crush, which is always entertaining, due to little kids saying the funniest things!

We then went to the Aladin show, which was great as always. I asked Jess if she was going to go on TOT (I don't do drop rides) but she said she didn't want to, so we walked around Bug's Life land and the wharf. Then we went to see if we could get a FP for GRR, which we did. Then we went and did some shopping at DTD, which took a little longer than anticipated so when we got back into the park it was almost time for our 5 pm Ariel's Grotto WOC dinner, so I figured we would just go on GRR later. We headed over to the grotto and were called in around 5:10.

I know there has been a lot of differing opinions on the WOC dining, but for us, it was fantastic! I got the herb chicken dinner, which was great and Jess got some seafood thing with lobster. According to her, "the items I could identify were wicked good...the ones I can't are gross!" We both loved the dessert plate...and luckily we both loved different items on it!

After dinner we headed over to Sunshine plaza to watch the start of the Glow Fest. This was a very strange show...started off with people in big neon inflatable balls and they were bouncing around (Jess wanted to go in those!) Then these weird dancers came out and one guy sounded like he was making monkey noises...at that point I turned to Jess and said, "This is weird, right?" She agreed! Then they had some Bollywood type dancers and they were good. After that we headed over to the Pier to stake out our spots for WOC.

I have to say this was the most disorganized part of the trip...we asked 3 different people where we were supposed to go and we got 3 differnt answers, which was annoying. (Signs were not up yet). Finally got some correct info and went to where we needed to be. Our FP said go at between 8-8:30 and early and late arivals could not be accomodated. That was a big fat lie! We got there around 7:15 and we were let right in to our area. We were able to get a good spot up by the railing and were able to see very well. The show was great, although I am not sure it is better than Fantasmic, but we both really liked it...Jess was very excited because she recorded a lot and was excited about bringing it home to show her mom.

After WOC we went to check out Glow Fest. Jessica absolutely LOVED this. She thought it was the cooles thing ever! I am not so into dance club type things, but I was very happy she was enjoying it.

We headed back to the hotel (Red Lion on Habor...very nice hotel :thumbsup) for some much needed sleep.

More to come!

 

[kaoden39]

It all sounds so fun. You are a great aunt!!

 

[Kristi391]

Day 2

Saturday we could use our early entry...Jessica is a typical teenage girl who likes to sleep in, so I had given her the option of getting up early and getting to the park before it got too crowded or sleeping in and just having to deal with longer lines. Thankfully she chose to get up.

We got to the DL at about 7:15 and walked on to Nemo, Space Mountain, Matterhorn, Mr. Toad, Pinochio, Thunder Mtn, Splash Mountain, Pirates, Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise and Roger Rabbit. We went to HOB for lunch and we both got the country fried chicken, which we both thought was really good...I was psyched because I had gotten a $25 gift certificate for $3 on Restaurant.com, so lunch was fairly frugal. We had gotten a FP for Indy so we headed over there after lunch and only waited about 15 minutes for that one. Around 1 we went over to DCA to go on GRR...that was our longest wait at about 35 minutes. At this time it was getting really crowded so we went back to the hotel to rest for a little while (and change our we socks) before heading back into the park later on for Fantasmic. We were still fairly full from lunch so we just had ice cream for dinner (shhhh, don't tell her mom) and staked out a spot for the 9 pm F! show.

I have to say, while I love the show, I just wish they had the same type of amphitheatre viewig area that WDW does...it just makes the waiting much easier! That show has been going on for a long time and I don't understand why they didn't build one while planning DCA. This is the one area that I really feel WDW beats DL hands down.

After the show we headed back to the hotel, as we were both pretty tired.

Our 3rd and last day to come!

 

[tinksdreamwishes]