Chellymouse
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 30, 2007
Hello Everyone! Welcome to the world's longest trip report! Ok, maybe not that long, but this was a 15 day trip that was 18 months of planning, an "emergency" add on and a celebration of 15 years of marriage. Of course, as you all know, I am known as the bottomless pit because, well....I like to eat! Accompanied by my favorite travelling companion, my spouse who is now known as my squatch because....well, he resembles a squatch! We live on the East coast so it made sense to visit Disneyland (where it all started for me) and to celebrate Disneyland's 60th birthday on our way to Aulani, so without further adieu.....here we go!!
Friday 9/11: Yep, we left on 9/11.(My thanks goes out to all of the servicemen and women and first responders.) So, our flight was at the crack of dawn, we made it to the airport (thanks to my DMIL for the coffee stop), TSA pre-check is now our new favorite money well spent, and on time we were off. We arrived in Denver for what was supposed to be a short layover and delay....for over an hour GRRRR! We found a brew pub so we decided to have beers and breakfast. Well....unfortunately, the second Friday of every month is when the take apart all of their taps and clean them. No beers! Oh well, beer was substituted for a Tom Collins which pared nicely with my breakfast. Finally, the plane showed up and we took off about an before we should have landed. We finally landed at John Wayne around 10:45am (thankfully only an hour late) and off to baggage claim and our to meet our driver. Love supershuttle, private car service is the bomb! Except they sent a car and we had a ton of luggage because, it's a 2 week trip. Eventually, all of the people and luggage were stuffed into the town car and off to the Fairfield. Unfortunately, due to no availability at GCV, if you have to use cash....walk across the street. It's a HUGE savings! We arrived and had booked a king room, however, there were no king rooms available. WHAT?? So they offered us an "upgrade" of a themed room (which happened to be directly next to the elevators) ok, whatever, give me a key so we can get across the street. Our themed room (note the large quantity of fatheads)
Ok , now that we have been underwhelmed by our "upgrade" across the street we go!
Walking into the park was a flood of memories for me. Growing up, my family always went to Disneyland because our family vacations were always to SoCal to visit family and DL was always one of our family days. It's also the only park Walt ever set foot in so there is nostalgia in addition to now as a grown child, I can fully appreciate. We walk up Main St USA and what does the squatch say? (not be confused with what does the fox say) "Where's the castle?" ba boom boom boom....yes, he will be for the remainder of the 2 weeks. We have to remember, this was built in 1954-55 and was huge at the time!
We wandered around for a few and since it has been 17 years since I've been here (and let's face it, been to WDW about that many times since) I didn't quite remember where everything was. At one time, I knew this park as well as the WDW parks. So, as you all know, mostly I make a beeline for a Dole whip and POTC the minute we get in the park, however, my very first roller coaster (I was 6 when I was finally tall enough to ride) the Matterhorn!
Let's face it, Walt's use of the first steel tubular track has inspired generations of coaster designers (yes, I'm a roller coaster junkie) We arrive to the mountain only to find it's currently closed due to technical difficulties (this will be a trend throughout our stay) Crumbs!! Wouldn't you know, what does the squatch find.....yep, you guessed it! His favorite way to annoy me!
How pitiful! First time back in many years and I'm forced onto IASW!! That's just wrong! Oh well, as soon as we were off, I noticed the Matterhorn was back in business and we made a beeline for it! As it had just reopened, thankfully the wait was pretty quick as this does not have FP. I should also mention, we were back to old school FP! WAHOO!! (yes, I hate FP+) anyway, after our trip on the Matterhorn, it was snack time. Unfortunately, in California, there is an unhealthy number of churro stands. And here you have, a snack the pit does NOT Like. The Churro. Now I know there are some of you out there who will stop following this TR at this revelation, however, it is one of the very few snacks I just don't like. Call it an East coast thing. At last we found some popcorn! Yay!! I have to say, the original Fantasyland far surpasses it's younger Florida sibling. After my snack, guess what the squatch found? Yep....those rotten tea cups! He finds it hilarious to spin those things ridiculously fast, usually after I have just eaten. bad squatch! However, the tea cups at DL Are outside and therefore, have rubber coating the spinning wheel, therefore stopping his ability to spin the cup into oblivion! Ha! that will teach him! He was over the tea cups so we wandered over to storybook land. Again, one of my faves as a kid!
we also stopped to pick up our photopass plus. After the storybook canal boats, we found Mr. Toad's wild ride!! I so miss Mr. Toad. After taking our wild ride, we stopped and looked around a few shops and after a quick time check, realized, the day was quickly getting away from us and it was almost time for dinner! We started to make our way over to New Orleans Sq , grabbed a FP for HM (which had just reopened with its holiday makeover this morning" and had just enough time for my all time favorite POTC! The original BLOWS the FL version clear out of the water! We also stopped for a quick pic!
After POTC, we had a little bit of time before my feeding so we tried to do Splash, which was.....closed temporarily due to technical difficulties so we visited the 100 acre forest instead. After bidding Pooh and friends TTFN, we noticed Splash had reopened! Sweet! So, the line said 15 minutes and unfortunately, after close to 30 and near the load zone, we had no choice but to bail because it was time to eat!
Up next, our first meal at DL!!
Friday 9/11: Yep, we left on 9/11.(My thanks goes out to all of the servicemen and women and first responders.) So, our flight was at the crack of dawn, we made it to the airport (thanks to my DMIL for the coffee stop), TSA pre-check is now our new favorite money well spent, and on time we were off. We arrived in Denver for what was supposed to be a short layover and delay....for over an hour GRRRR! We found a brew pub so we decided to have beers and breakfast. Well....unfortunately, the second Friday of every month is when the take apart all of their taps and clean them. No beers! Oh well, beer was substituted for a Tom Collins which pared nicely with my breakfast. Finally, the plane showed up and we took off about an before we should have landed. We finally landed at John Wayne around 10:45am (thankfully only an hour late) and off to baggage claim and our to meet our driver. Love supershuttle, private car service is the bomb! Except they sent a car and we had a ton of luggage because, it's a 2 week trip. Eventually, all of the people and luggage were stuffed into the town car and off to the Fairfield. Unfortunately, due to no availability at GCV, if you have to use cash....walk across the street. It's a HUGE savings! We arrived and had booked a king room, however, there were no king rooms available. WHAT?? So they offered us an "upgrade" of a themed room (which happened to be directly next to the elevators) ok, whatever, give me a key so we can get across the street. Our themed room (note the large quantity of fatheads)
Ok , now that we have been underwhelmed by our "upgrade" across the street we go!
Walking into the park was a flood of memories for me. Growing up, my family always went to Disneyland because our family vacations were always to SoCal to visit family and DL was always one of our family days. It's also the only park Walt ever set foot in so there is nostalgia in addition to now as a grown child, I can fully appreciate. We walk up Main St USA and what does the squatch say? (not be confused with what does the fox say) "Where's the castle?" ba boom boom boom....yes, he will be for the remainder of the 2 weeks. We have to remember, this was built in 1954-55 and was huge at the time!
We wandered around for a few and since it has been 17 years since I've been here (and let's face it, been to WDW about that many times since) I didn't quite remember where everything was. At one time, I knew this park as well as the WDW parks. So, as you all know, mostly I make a beeline for a Dole whip and POTC the minute we get in the park, however, my very first roller coaster (I was 6 when I was finally tall enough to ride) the Matterhorn!
Let's face it, Walt's use of the first steel tubular track has inspired generations of coaster designers (yes, I'm a roller coaster junkie) We arrive to the mountain only to find it's currently closed due to technical difficulties (this will be a trend throughout our stay) Crumbs!! Wouldn't you know, what does the squatch find.....yep, you guessed it! His favorite way to annoy me!
How pitiful! First time back in many years and I'm forced onto IASW!! That's just wrong! Oh well, as soon as we were off, I noticed the Matterhorn was back in business and we made a beeline for it! As it had just reopened, thankfully the wait was pretty quick as this does not have FP. I should also mention, we were back to old school FP! WAHOO!! (yes, I hate FP+) anyway, after our trip on the Matterhorn, it was snack time. Unfortunately, in California, there is an unhealthy number of churro stands. And here you have, a snack the pit does NOT Like. The Churro. Now I know there are some of you out there who will stop following this TR at this revelation, however, it is one of the very few snacks I just don't like. Call it an East coast thing. At last we found some popcorn! Yay!! I have to say, the original Fantasyland far surpasses it's younger Florida sibling. After my snack, guess what the squatch found? Yep....those rotten tea cups! He finds it hilarious to spin those things ridiculously fast, usually after I have just eaten. bad squatch! However, the tea cups at DL Are outside and therefore, have rubber coating the spinning wheel, therefore stopping his ability to spin the cup into oblivion! Ha! that will teach him! He was over the tea cups so we wandered over to storybook land. Again, one of my faves as a kid!
we also stopped to pick up our photopass plus. After the storybook canal boats, we found Mr. Toad's wild ride!! I so miss Mr. Toad. After taking our wild ride, we stopped and looked around a few shops and after a quick time check, realized, the day was quickly getting away from us and it was almost time for dinner! We started to make our way over to New Orleans Sq , grabbed a FP for HM (which had just reopened with its holiday makeover this morning" and had just enough time for my all time favorite POTC! The original BLOWS the FL version clear out of the water! We also stopped for a quick pic!
After POTC, we had a little bit of time before my feeding so we tried to do Splash, which was.....closed temporarily due to technical difficulties so we visited the 100 acre forest instead. After bidding Pooh and friends TTFN, we noticed Splash had reopened! Sweet! So, the line said 15 minutes and unfortunately, after close to 30 and near the load zone, we had no choice but to bail because it was time to eat!
Up next, our first meal at DL!!
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