So about a week ago, Arline and I used up our TravelZoo vouchers at the Mandara Spa in the Grand Californian Hotel. It was a deal for $99 you could choose $200 worth of spa services. We started off our day at
Disneyland. It was a little after 11AM when we arrived, the crowds werent too bad.
Our first stop would have been the Matterhorn, however it is still undergoing extensive renovations. Supposedly they are putting in all new cars which also require new tracks.
So we went with our second choice.
The neat thing about the Monorail is that you get a sneak peek into the construction on Buena Vista Street.
And of course a look at the Grand Californian Hotel
And Downtown Disney
Our Monorail broke down for about 10 minutes at the DTD stop. Arline did her first pin trade with a little girl who was in our monorail car. After that we exited in Tomorrowland and got our super fast passes for Star Tours. This time Darth Vader tried to stop us from getting away, we ended up in the middle of the pod races, and almost got blown up by a Bounty Hunter!
We had time to do one more quick ride before going to lunch. I was debating between the train and Mr. Toad. Since the Train is not quick we opted for the toad.
We narrowly escaped the cops and did burn in hell, so we decided that was enough that we needed some nourishment, and with that we headed out of the park.
My choice for dining was going to be the Uva Bar, but it has been completely dismantled and the Disney fences were up. It turns out though that Catal was serving the same menu for lunch as the Uva Bar, so we decided to there.
Our view
They had salad growing next to our balcony view table.
Arline ordered the Cobb Salad. She said that her tomatoes were incredibly delicious, and I had some of the bacon and it was really tasty. I imagine all of it was pretty good!
I was torn between their French Dip and the Lamburger, it came with Feta, some kind of Aoli, Arugula and pickled piquillo peppers and Uva fries. I asked the waiter and he said, Oh for sure, the burger, we are known for them. I was so glad that I did! First off, over 10 years ago, Fran and I took a weekend weekday at home. We booked a room at a hotel in Costa Mesa where they had a Patina Group restaurant just to get away from life, but not be too far away. We dined at the restaurant for dinner the night of our stay, and ended up there for breakfast as well. I remember back then we checked out of the hotel sort of late and missed breakfast (or I just wasnt in the mood anymore) so my first meal was Steak and Pomme Frites. They were the BEST fries Id ever eaten and they were the same ones that they served me at Catal. Here was my meal.
The only drawback was that we sat down to lunch before 1:30PM, we were supposed to be at the spa at 2:45PM and while our meal arrived quickly, after that our server was hard to find. We wanted to ask for the check from 2:15 on (maybe earlier). We hardly got out of there by 2:30PM and make it to our appointments by the skinny skin skin.
The rest of the day was heavenly. We both opted for massages with a salt body polish. Because the place is so small, I did the salt polish first and massage second. Arline did the massage first and then salt polish. We were done with showering off the salt and getting dressed by about 5PM, settled up the bill and hit the road to go back home.
It turned out that we ended up that evening going out to the Sears outlet in Brea to get credit for a stove that we decided against installing in the current apartment in renovation. We closed the outlet with Arline and I shopping for clothes, and ended up at a local BBQ chain for dinner.
So after this Ill have one more update on this PTR and I think Ill let it go by the wayside. Dont despair, Ive still got the Cheating on Mickey with Harry PTR which Im hoping might have some updates as F&W events are announced. Im also going to start my cruise PTR because I have all kinds of things to tell everyone about on that. Plus the cruise forum has all kinds of people interested in TRs, and Im hoping some people will come on board and help me out with some of our dilemmas.
Thanks for reading, and now that the Long Beach parade is over, I hope I have some breathing room! BTW we were a big hit today. Im exhausted and about to hit the hay!
I think it's neat that you have so much pride in your faith without being preachy. Without treading into fobidden subjects, I think that "pride without judgement" is something many other people could use to learn.
I think the reason you think my dates are changing is because you keep messing with YOUR plans and assume that others do the same
(although I suppose I know others who have been known to do that too
). Once I book the airfare the only change is cancellation.
She's got the two dx, that you read about in my ptr, and she's the most soulful child I've ever met. She's been in religious school for years so the prep for this one day has been major. I'd go into specifics but don't want to get too off topic. 
Love SW and JetBlue. Delta is good. Frontier hasn't been good to me. 
