The Oregonian birthday trip report!

[HeatherAnn23]

Here goes - everybody buckle up for my first trip report. I'm going to do my best, bear with me!

The family:
Me (Heather) - I'm a first grade teacher, and forever doomed to travel during peak season. Huge Disney fan and can never really get enough!

DH (Kevin) - While I think he enjoys a few rides, he generally puts up with my obsession.

DS9 (Cody) - Loves rides, and is excited to celebrate his 9th birthday at Disneyland this year. (He celebrated his 4th birthday at WDW, and is generally the lucky one to have a birthday during summer break!)

DS4 (Hunter) - A Disney souvenir himself, loves the parks and can't get enough of the characters. At 43 inches, this will be his first trip that he is tall enough for most of the rides.


We started thinking about a summer trip last winter. We weren't sure if we wanted to do Disneyland (recent trips in 2007, and 2006) or WDW (recent trip in 2004). When they released the 5 for 3 promotion we decided it was a better fit for the boys right now. The flight to Florida would take way too long for my nerves (scared to fly!) and take a chunk out of our park time. The last two times we drove to DL, so it was a treat for us to fly this time. After months and months of obsessive planning and reading everyone else's trip reports - it was finally time for us to go!


On Tuesday, July 28th we headed up to Portland to stay at a park and fly hotel. Our flight takes off at 7:30, so we wanted to stay close! We got up at 4:30AM to get ready to go to the airport after a sleepless night (too excited to sleep!!)

The kids were a little sleepy!!

We made it to the airport, and got everything checked in. Of course, that morning one of the latches on our Samsonite suitcase wouldn't stay shut. We just jammed it closed and checked it, hoping for the best! We were going to Disneyland - who cares if my clothes end up all over the tarmac, right?


The kids were excited to fly, and I was white knucked with dripping palms, but we were on our way.

 

[HeatherAnn23]

We landed in Orange County about 30 minutes earlier than expected which was awesome. Of course, landing in SNA is crazy with the short runway, but after a few rounds of lamaze breathing I was ok......kinda.

So, we hustled off of the plane to go round up the bags, and realized we forgot the stroller in the back of the van. Hunter is a wanderer, runner, and generally slow walker - we'd have to figure out a plan for this later.

We picked up our bags, (with the Samsonite wrapped in TSA tape to stay closed ) and hustled to catch the 9:45 Disneyland Express bus. Everything went smoothly, handed in the prepaid voucher, and hopped on the bus. We had a hilarious driver, Jeff, who entertained my husband with southern humor (Kevin is from Georgia) for the whole trip. Come to think of it, I think this might have been his favorite show of the vacation. I hope he tipped him well.

After dropping 2 girls off in front of the crosswalk on Harbor, we were dropped off at our hotel, the Grand Californian. This is my favorite hotel in the world, really. This was our third stay here, and it is just a place that makes me very happy. We have stayed at Hojo, BWPPI, and the Tropicana - it is a totally different vacation for me at the GCH.

So, I check in with happiness and excitement oozing from my pores, and they didn't disappoint. They had honored my request for a bunk bed room, and were ready with birthday and celebration buttons for the family. She dissapeared for a moment and returned with a signed picture wishing Cody a happy birthday, and whispered to me that they would have balloons in our room for him later. Perfect, perfect. So, I decided to push my luck - I asked how much it would be to upgrade to a view room from our standard reservation. We were upgraded to a theme park view our first visit, no upgrade and a courtyard view on the second. After a little more time in the back room, she came back and said we would have a pool view - yippee! But of course, at 10:30 AM it wasn't ready. She gave us the keys, and info, and said to call around 2:00 to check. We had our bags stored and headed to Disneyland!!

We decided to rent a stroller today, until we figure out what we were going to do for the week (we have planned 6 days in the parks!).

First stop: FOOD! We were starving!! Walking down main street, the Carnation Cafe had a 20 minute wait so we kept walking. Corn Dog cart ahoy! We were off!!

I think the corn dog is bigger than Hunter's head!!

Next stop....the first fastpass, soon followed by the first ride!

 

[HeatherAnn23]

Corn dogs - check.
Normally we are early morning park commandos, so we weren't used to walking in to the park already this crowded. But, we were finally at Disneyland! So, we zipped over to Adventureland, somehow escaped the gravitational pull of the Tiki Room, and grabbed fast passes for Indiana Jones. From there we stowed the stroller, and headed to a perfect first ride: Pirates!

It had a short line, and our stamina was high.

Hunter was a little nervous about those drops, but we had a blast. Next, a quick trip through Tarzan's treehouse.

 

[DisneyMomma81]

Lovin' it so far ~ can't wait for more!

 

[HeatherAnn23]

Now we were ready to see the Zippity Do Dah train! Hunter is a huge fan of the Disneyland Fun Sing a Long video, and they ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad during Zippity Do Dah, so he has been looking forward to this for months.

By now we were starting to wind down and get hot! The sun was high, and we were feeling our night without sleep. What to do......It's a Small World!

It was still too early to check on our room, so we headed over to Star Tours. Cody is a HUGE Star Wars fan, so this is always a favorite that we ride many times! This was Hunter's first time, and we were eager to see how he would like it. I think he was a little shocked my BTMRR, but it was nothing that a little Small World couldn't take care of!

By this point we were getting really hot and tired, so we called on our room. Not ready.
So we headed around the castle and got a drink. Walked around Main street a little bit, and called back! Still not ready.
This was around 2:00 and they said they would call me back when it was ready. Hunter had fallen asleep in his stroller and we were all jealous, so we headed back to Adventureland to use the Indy fastpasses. Kevin and Cody rode, and by the time they got out our room was ready - thank goodness! We hightailed it back to the GCH and checked out our room!

 

[teatime]

YAY great so far!!!!!!! I am dying to see the food pictures to !!

 

[HeatherAnn23]

We were more than ready to be back "home" at the GCH! We were in room 3322. I thought it was a great location, kind of between elevators, nice pool view with a little bit of theme park. I even managed to find the *Secret* stairway!

We called for a baggage, and of course I didn't remember to take pictures until the room was already plundered!!

Then it was naptime!

I used my time to post in the Dis! I got great suggestions about ways to fix our forgotten stroller problem, but more on that later. Everyone took some sleeping/down time before our dinner at Goofy's Kitchen. We had a priority seating time of 6:50, hopefully everyone would be rested by then!

 

[HeatherAnn23]

While the boys were sleeping they delivered balloons. It was so nice, they gave me a large bunch for the birthday boy, and they also gave me a smaller bunch for his brother. I thought that was so cool.

So, once everyone was revived, we started the walk to the Disneyland Hotel for dinner at Goofy's Kitchen. We'd never eaten there before, but with all of the great reviews here we thought it would be a fun "birthday eve" dinner for Cody.

On our way we stopped in front of the big stars for a photo opp. Cody was very hungry, and we learned on this trip that it is best to keep his blood sugar fairly steady. He was past the tipping point on our way to dinner.

Then after the picture Hunter pushed him into the ivy around the star! Instant meltdown.

Finally we calmed down and checked in at Goofy's at about 6:45. They told me that they would be bringing Cody a cupcake and singing to him at one point during the meal. We took some photos with Pluto (we opted not to buy them, they weren't very good, and $30 is more than I want to pay for cruddy pix!) then they showed us to our table. Cody ran to the buffet and dug in. I have heard a lot about this buffet on the boards, but it really didn't do it for me. The roast beef was good, but a large portion of the choices were sweets. Cody came back with a bunch of grapes and the rest desserts! The hotdog buns were so hard the tongs wouldn't stick in them, and there were many saucy salad type things. Kevin tried some ribs he said were horrible, very tough.

As a side note, I've been doing weight watchers for the past month, and had lost 8 pounds before the trip. I didn't track my points or deprive myself on this trip, but I stayed aware of portion sizes and tried to make some semi-smart food choices.

We had some visitors during dinner, and there were a couple of group activities down by the buffet for the kids. For the first one they helped Goofy make a pretend cake, and the second time they all danced the twist. My kids are not very aggressive, and weren't really noticed or included in these.

After about an hour, we had noticed the three tables around us had all had treasure chest cakes delivered and birthday songs. I didn't buy the cake tonight, and no cupcake ever showed up either. Our server had long since disappeared and the kids were crawling up the walls, so we cut our losses and left. On the way out I mentioned to the hostess that the cupcake never showed up, she apologized, I get the feeling that it wasn't the first time. After dinner we headed to the monorail station to go back to the park! (Is this the longest first day ever or what? Rest assured, my pictures and memory degrade over the days!!)

 

[HeatherAnn23]

After dinner we took the monorail over to Tomorrowland. In all of our trips to Disneyland we never ride the monorail, so this was a fun experience for train loving Hunter!

Once in Tomorrowland we headed over to Buzz. Hunter is Toy Story crazy right now, so we thought this would be super fun for him. Cody and Kevin are in a constant score battle, so we all love this one.

At this point the park was getting packed for fireworks and Fantasmic, and we were worn out. We decided to try to get back to the hotel and get some sleep so we could do Magic Morning tomorrow.

Back at the room we were greeted with a fun washcloth birthday cake for Cody and Hunter's bedtime buddies arranged on his bunk. We were exhausted, I didn't look forward to prying the crew out of bed the next day!!

 

[Docter419]

Awesome TR! My wife and I stayed at the GCH last October for our honeymoon and it was the best. She is also studying to get her teaching credential so reading you TR gives us hope that we'll be able to afford it again. Keep writing! I'm going to sub this one.

 

[cinderella-princess]

So...it might be lame to post right under my husbands post, but too bad!

I am loving your TR so far. Especially how you fast passed Indy and then hopped on Pirates first thing. That is a tradition of Jason and I's so seeing (or reading I suppose) someone else do the same thing is pretty cool!

And I'm super jealous that you are staying at the GCH.

 

[HeatherAnn23]

Thanks for the feedback folks! It's nice to know someone out there is reading! Although I'm guilty of lurking my way through many posts, so I'm not going to judge all of you just hanging around!!


Ok, Day 2!
This was a Magic Morning, and we were staying at the GCH (we also had 6 day park hoppers) so I woke everyone up early! Nobody was too happy with me, but I mostly didn't care!

Today was Cody's actual birthday day - so I packed up his birth certificate and the print out that Disney sent me so we could get his fun card! As we cleared security at about 6:55 there were a few ticket booths opened, so we hustled over there to take care of business. It took about 3 minutes and we were on our way, and Cody was $64 richer.

Once in the park we rented another stroller - during our break today we planned on taking care of the stroller issue. Getting back and forth to the room was hard, and carrying Hunter at 40 pounds was getting old already.

This morning was our Fantasyland blowout - so we headed straight to Peter Pan.

Of course we all loved it!!
Next over to Dumbo to walk right on. We missed the feathers, the last time we were here 2 years ago they were still handing out feathers as you got in your Dumbo.

 

[HeatherAnn23]

On to Mr. Toad!

Then Snow White....

and the Matterhorn! (My favorite!!)

Walked over and on Alice and Wonderland.

and as it was now just after 8:00 we smooshed in Space Mountain and fastpasses before breakfast.

 

[HeatherAnn23]

Probably my favorite breakfast spot in the park is Riverbelle Terrace. So, that's where we went for our first breakfast in the park!

Hunter was showing me his big muscles from his chocolate milk and trying to convice me that he didn't need to eat any of his Mickey pancake!

Next we went over to get some Splash Mountain fastpasses and ride Pooh.

Pooh is Hunter's favorite and we rode it many times on this trip!

Next over to the Haunted Mansion. The boys were a little nervous, but we pressed on!

Luckily we had a really mellow group with lots of kids in the stretching room, so it was no problem. By the time we got to the Doom Buggies Cody told Kevin he wouldn't ride with him - Kevin has been known to do a little scaring of his own and Cody wasn't having it! So I got to ride with Cody this time!

Both of the kids said they loved it when it was over. Wanna do it again? No way!

 

[HeatherAnn23]

Next we headed over to the Tiki room. This was what Hunter was most looking forward to on this trip, as we have several versions of this song that are on my ipod! I told Cody that I'd give him $50 if he stood on a bench and did the Macarena in the Tiki Room (Hunter's favorite song version) but no go.

Next we looked into some stores around Adventureland.

At Pin Traders my husband scored his favorite item of the trip. The set of pins from the Haunted Mansion limited release that look like the changing pictures. You use a blacklight to make them change. He had fun showing those off throughout the trip. The kids had fun trying to blind me with his black light bat!

It was getting really crowded at this point, so we decided to go over to CA. First stop, Playhouse Disney. It was 5 minutes away from the 11:30 show and hardly anyone was in line. Cody and Kevin wouldn't even sit with us in the theater, but Hunter and I had a ball!

Then we went over to ride Monsters Inc. with a short line - less than 5 minutes I think.

We had 1:00 reservations at the Rainforest Cafe for Cody's birthday lunch, so it was time for us to start walking down there.

 

[HeatherAnn23]

Cody picked the Rainforest Cafe for his birthday lunch. Kevin and I were less than thrilled because we've just never been really impressed with the service and quality of food here. Of course, there is also the price. But, it WAS his birthday, so we sucked it up. I had earned a couple of Rainforest gift cards through online sites (not sure if I can talk about that here or not) so I thought that $50 would at least take the edge off!

Oh, I forgot to mention that Cody popped a fastener on his Crocs yesterday, so we were looking to replace those too. He had his Keens with him, but he really likes his Crocs. We finally saw some Crocs in the Rainforest Store, so we planned on picking those up on the way out.

So we were seated within about 5 minutes, but Cody was STARVING! He gets impossible when his blood sugar crashes, and we just didn't make the deadline.

We were actually served very quickly, and had the best service we'd ever had there.
Kevin had the ribs, I had a cheeseburger I think, Cody had pizza, and Hunter looked at the grilled cheese (he didn't eat it!)

 

[HeatherAnn23]

We had a pretty good table really close to the aquarium on the way in. We've sat outside/upstairs before, and I think this was the best location for the kids and for the service.

The reason Cody wanted his birthday lunch here was the VOLCANO! As we ate we saw several of these being delivered with a pack of servers screaming "voooooooooooooolcaaaaaaaaaaaanooooooo!" Cody's showed up with a candle in it, and they did a birthday chant too. Note the smile back on his face after he'd eaten!

We all shared this, and this is what it looked like when were were done. It was VERY sweet - I had to keep giving Cody pep talks to stop when he was full so he didn't get sick!

After lunch we headed back to the GCH. I took the kids swimming while Kevin went on a little excursion. He's a geocacher and he wanted to find some local caches (as well as a stroller!).

The pool was pretty calm, and the kids had a blast. There were no lounges for us to use, but the pools weren't crowded. Cody loved the big slide, he's a really strong swimmer. (He's had weekly swimming lessons for the last 5 years, he should be in the olympics! ) Hunter loved the little slide.

About an hour later we reconnected for naps! Kevin bought a little umbrella stroller at the store near CCI for $25 or so I think. Our room had been cleaned, and we sacked out!

 

[HeatherAnn23]

After naptime we headed into California Adventure, I know it seems like we just ate - but we were hungry again! We played some of the boardwalk games, looked at the 60 minute Toy Story line, and kept going in search of dinner. I think it was around 7:00 at this point, and the counter service lines were long. We asked at the Wine Country Trattoria how long a wait, and they said 10-15 minutes so we wandered into the Blue Sky Cellar until the pager buzzed. We had an outside table, but not near the wall. We were hoping to get through dinner in time to go watch the parade streetside, but it was a little past 7:30 when we sat down. Unfortunately they had a cute little table next to the podium with all of the birthday options, and Cody decided after seeing them at Goofy's that he would like a treasure chest cake for the night of his birthday. (Because the volcano just wasn't enough I guess! ) We thought the food was wonderful, service was ok, a little slow actually - but we were trying to hurry a bit for the parade. Kevin and I had the veggie lasagne, Cody had the pasta (it came with a chicken breast, but he didn't eat it)and Hunter had another grilled cheese.

As we were waiting for the treasure chest, they started making announcements for the parade. I started to get ridiculously antsy, and was ready to run and get a spot! Fortunately Hunter is my partner in Disney obsessions, and he couldn't stay at the table much longer either. Kevin gave the go ahead for us to watch the parade, and yes, I left my birthday boy at the table waiting for his cake! Hey, his dad waited with him!!! Well, they had roped off the restaurant, so we found a nice spot right at the top of the ramp to watch. I kept an eye on the table, and when the cake came, I did go back and take pictures.

Then we helped Cody gobble it up and ran back over to our spot! Kevin waited and took care of the bill - can you believe it - he said he'd seen the parade before so he didn't mind. Sometimes I wonder about him.

After the parade we joined the battle to get over to Disneyland. We weren't really trying to see the fireworks, but use our Splash fastpasses and ride some rides. The congestion was a mess. We didn't enjoy our nights in the parks this trip because of this - it was toe to toe every night. We got in the park, and took the train to critter country.

 

[HeatherAnn23]

Kevin and Cody rode Splash, while Hunter and I rode Pooh again. Then we poked around in some shops a bit. Hunter finally saw the hat he wanted, so we got that for him with his name on it.

After we met up with Kevin and Cody again we walked around to Fantasyland (to get away from the Fantasmic hoard!) and rode the carousel.

Cody really wanted to ride BTMRR at night, but the crowd was thick, and the line was long, so we promised we'd get fastpasses in the morning to ride it tomorrow night. We watched some of Fantasmic, but Cody was getting cranky, so it was bedtime!! Tomorrow was a non-Magic Morning day, and Kevin was dragging, so we decided to sleep in, and go to Minnie's for our 10:30 priority seating.

 

[HeatherAnn23]

Well, I woke up about 7:30 to find Hunter up and ready to go.

That's my boy!

So we hung around a little bit waiting for Kevin and Cody to wake up when......the fire alarm went off!! This has happened to me in a hotel before, so I had enough wits about me to take care of important things, like changing into clothes (out of jammies) and bringing my wallet and room key with me! Of course it was a forever walk to evacuate, and some guests were a little freaked out, but we ended up in Downtown Disney with half of the guests in robes and the staff looking irritated at the crowds of people. There was actually one set of CMs shooing us away from the hotel, and another set shooing us back so we didn't block walkways! We had just gotten in line for some coffee and breakfast ice cream from Haagen Daz when they gave us the all clear. We headed back to the room, got ready, and made it to Disneyland by 9:15 ish.

Cody didn't want to wear his button today because he was tired of the birthday attention. I'm one of *those* moms who is trying against the odds to teach my kids manners, and so everytime someone wished him Happy Birthday, I told him he needed to say Thank you. I guess this was utterly exhausting, because a day and a half of it and he could take no more.

We were hungry after the crazy morning and coffee interuptus, so we went to Minnie's about 9:30 to see if they could get us in about an hour early. No problem! We got a great table near the buffett, and dug in. Ok, we tried to dig in but those darn characters kept showing up!!

Hey, this is Minnie's! Many more pictures to come!