To a galaxy far far away: March-April-May...no wait...Nov 2020 PTR

[VandVsmama]

This is our current itinerary:

Sat 3/7:

• drive to Fontana. Not sure what time we'll leave home. I want to leave in a.m. as soon as possible so we have more mental "vacation time." DH will probably wait to wait until noon to hit the road! No thanks!
• dinner w/friends at their house.
• Prep breakfast for Sunday morning, kids shower Sat evening, everybody to bed early.

Sun 3/8:

• 5:15 am - leave Fontana. Well, WE are leaving at that time. If our friends choose to drive in a little later, that's totally fine!
• 6:00-6:15 am-ish - drop DH & kids off at the drop-off area on Harbor Blvd near the entrance to the Esplanade/bus area
• ~ 6:15 am - I go drive to Toy Story lot and get in the line of cars to park
• 6:30 am - park the car, take bus to Esplanade, go through security
• ~ 7:00 am - join DH & kids in line at Esplanade. Make sure kids go to the bathroom! Note to self: harass the children about using the bathroom before we leave Fontana. YDD will be super grumpy about this.
• ~ 7:00 - 7:55 am - We do the waiting game. Wait for the turn stiles to open, then go find good spots in the park to wait for 8:00 am...spots with good cell phone reception. Link our tickets on my & DH's phones. Use Max Pass to get a FP for a ride (good way to test that your tickets are linked). Meet up with our friends and get their tickets linked with ours.
• 7:55 am - do a hard reboot on everybody's phone. Hard close all apps. Open Atomic Clock app on my phone & do the clock watch/countdown.
• 8:00 am - join the Star Wars lottery and pray for a few seconds.
• Go enjoy Disneyland! Kids will probably be hungry mid-morning. I think we'll end up doing an early lunch somewhere ("early lunch" being 11 am).
• 2:30 pm - Oga's Cantina reservation
• 8:45 pm - check in for Savi's Workshop reservation. Reservation is for 3 people: ODD, YDD, Friend 2. Disneyland said to check in 15 min before your appointment.
• 9:00 pm - Savi's Workshop reservation - made this reservation later in the day so we wouldn't have to carry our lightsabers all around the park for several hours. Plus, we'll get some cool pics with a Photopass photographer with the light sabers in front of the Millennium Falcon afterwards.
• 11:00 pm - park closes for the night. We've had great success in the past getting on 1 last ride SOMEWHERE in the park right before closing. Maybe Pirates? That would be awesome! I think Savi's takes up to 30 min in total, so if you factor in photopass pics, then we'll definitely have a good hour more of ride time before the park closes. There's something really magical walking through an almost empty park at the end of the night.
• Make the long sad walk to the exit. Drive an hour back "home" to Fontana and crash into bed.

 

[VandVsmama]

Monday 3/9:

• no plans other than tentative plans to meet some other folks for lunch mid-day.
• sleep in!
• recuperate from Sunday
• go to bed early, do the same routine that we did on Sat evening

Tuesday 3/10:

• 5:00 am - leave Fontana
• 6:30 am - drop DH & kids off at drop-off area on Harbor Blvd
• ~6:30 - 7:00 am - park car, take bus to Esplanade, go through security, meet DH & kids in line. MAKE KIDS GO TO THE BATHROOM!
• ~ 7:30 am - DL probably starts letting people in the park
• 7:30 - 8:00 am - same routine as Sunday. Hopefully, we get a boarding group for ROTR!
• 8:00 - 10:20 am - go on rides. I think that on Sunday, we'll focus on starting with Fantasyland since Tues will be a MM/EMH day (so there will be people in DL park already). On Tues, we'll start with Tomorrowland instead.
• 10:20 am - character breakfast at Plaza Inn
• ~ 11:30 am - done with character breakfast. Everybody's full, refreshed, & relaxed. Use a FP for something. Enjoy DL until our boarding group is called for ROTR.
• 8:40 pm - droid building reservation for ODD, YDD, & Friend 2.
• go on rides commando-style until park closes at 11 pm, then make the sad trip to the parking lot to go home!

 

[VandVsmama]

So now let's talk about some other fun stuff...what else do we want to do while we're there? I purposely cancelled previous plans to see Fantasmic and have other ADRs because this is a Star Wars-focused trip, so I didn't want a bunch of our time being set aside with reservations. Tried to minimize that as much as possible.

DH usually wants to go on or experience:

• Indiana Jones - twice a day and he's a happy camper
• Pirates as often as possible
• Davey Crockett Explorer Canoes
• Star Tours
• Buzz Lightyear
• HM
• Mr Toad twice a day
• eat a corn dog from the Little Red Wagon

ODD & YDD want to go on:
EVERYTHING! This will not be possible, of course. Their "top picks" are quite long. For example:

• Mad Tea Party
• Alice in Wonderland
• Mr Toad
• Pinocchio
• Roger Rabbit
• meet Mickey in Toon Town
• it's a small world
• Matterhorn
• Star Tours
• Autopia
• Buzz Lightyear
• YDD wants Space Mtn. ODD says no way
• Everything in Adventureland except for the Tiki Room. YDD wants to go on Jungle Cruise 6 times.
• everything in Critter Country
• BTMRR
• POTC
• HM
• Millennium Falcon & ROTR
• eat a big hot fudge sundae from Gibson Girl ice cream parlor

Here's MY list of wants:

• POTC
• HM
• Millennium Falcon & ROTR
• Sailing Ship Columbia
• Dave Crockett Explorer Canoes
• it's a small world
• 1 loop around the park on the train
• Star Tours
• Space Mtn
• get silhouettes of the kids at the silhouette studio on Main Street
• hopefully see the new parade
• find a couple of CMs to put in thank you's for at City Hall
• meet Goofy while I'm wearing my Powerline t-shirt
• eat a corn dog from the Little Red Wagon

 

[VandVsmama]

TGIF, Disneylanders!

It's Friday and that means that 3 weeks from tomorrow, we are hitting the road for our trip! YAY!

It also means that 1 week from today, my sister and I are doing a short road trip to northern CA. YAY! The road trip came into being before the Disneyland trip. My sister moved a few months ago to the SF Bay Area and has some stuff stored here in AZ. Not a lot of stuff, but she has a few things that she wants to bring to her pad near SF. She didn't want to pay for a mover to move a car's worth of stuff, so I offered to go with her and we can split up the driving.

So a week from today, she and I are hitting the open road. Driving to southern CA on Friday and then spending the night with friends in the LA area. On Sat morning, we're apparently having brunch with a good friend of hers in LA and then we are getting back on the freeway to get to her place south of SF by about dinner time.

Then...on Sunday...I convinced her to go with me to...

THE DISNEY FAMILY MUSEUM!

Then on Monday morning, I fly back home. DH will pick me up at the airport. I've never been to the Disney Family Museum before, so I'm looking forward to it!

Here's their website in case anybody is interested --> https://www.waltdisney.org/

 

[StarlitNight05]

TGIF, Disneylanders!

It's Friday and that means that 3 weeks from tomorrow, we are hitting the road for our trip! YAY!

It also means that 1 week from today, my sister and I are doing a short road trip to northern CA. YAY! The road trip came into being before the Disneyland trip. My sister moved a few months ago to the SF Bay Area and has some stuff stored here in AZ. Not a lot of stuff, but she has a few things that she wants to bring to her pad near SF. She didn't want to pay for a mover to move a car's worth of stuff, so I offered to go with her and we can split up the driving.

So a week from today, she and I are hitting the open road. Driving to southern CA on Friday and then spending the night with friends in the LA area. On Sat morning, we're apparently having brunch with a good friend of hers in LA and then we are getting back on the freeway to get to her place south of SF by about dinner time.

Then...on Sunday...I convinced her to go with me to...

THE DISNEY FAMILY MUSEUM!

Then on Monday morning, I fly back home. DH will pick me up at the airport. I've never been to the Disney Family Museum before, so I'm looking forward to it!

Here's their website in case anybody is interested --> https://www.waltdisney.org/

Oooo! The Disney Family Museum is AMAZING! Have so much fun!

 

[VandVsmama]

Oooo! The Disney Family Museum is AMAZING! Have so much fun!

Thanks! I'm excited about going to see it!

 

[VandVsmama]

I have more Friday Disney Fun for all of you on this lovely Valentine's Day!

Like someone on another thread about ticket prices recommended, I called Undercover Tourist this afternoon to confirm that they were still processing my ticket purchase from yesterday and to also confirm that the ticket would be valid to use for our trip in March. The agent I spoke with DID say that they've been a little behind lately. Probably from all of the DL ticket purchases like mine! Anyway, a few minutes after the phone call, I got an email from Undercover Tourist saying that the ticket was now available and it included a link to click so I could download and print the ticket.

That document looked like this:



At the top right above the "Disneyland Resort" logo, is a bar code. The same bar code is also at the bottom right of the same page. I'm not showing that here for obvious reasons.

So after that, I went into the DL app on my phone and was able to scan in this ticket, assign it to DH's name, and now all 4 of our park tickets show up there. It really is like the other DISboard'ers have said...with Undercover Tourist it is THE SAME as buying it directly from Disneyland. You DO NOT have to go to the ticket booth first!

YAY!!!!!

Tickets purchased? check
Parking tickets paid for? check
travel hand sanitizer ready? check
travel pack of disinfecting wipes ready? check (I'm a germophobe)

 

[VandVsmama]

Some hilarious stuff happened this morning while DH was driving the kids to school. YDD takes after my sister, so she is NOT a morning person. You need to get something in her stomach first and give her time to wake up and then she'll be human. On the way to school, YDD sent me this:


Then she sent me this....


IS THAT NOT FUNNY, OR WHAT? Then this happened:


And then the grand finale from YDD... (she's the one in the gray text boxes, I'm the one in blue)

 

[VandVsmama]

It's 20 days until we leave for our trip! YAY!!

 

[midnight star]

Just catching up. Your memes are hilarious! It stinks about the maxpass increase. I do think it's still a good value but yeesh! $20 is steep!! Going forward, if I have friends or family visiting the parks, I am going to advise them to purchase maxpass in advance on their tickets so they don't get caught in mid-year increases.

 

[VandVsmama]

After today, it's 18 days until we depart! Yahoo! Some sort of creeping crud virus appears to be going around. YDD had a cold all last week. No fever or anything, just headache and congestion. It went away after 6 days.

Then yesterday evening, DH started coming down with the same symptoms. Today, he sounds terrible and he stayed home from work today. He's taking a sick day tomorrow as well.

As for me? I'm sleeping in the spare bedroom so I can stay healthy through this weekend (you know, for Road Trip Weekend!). And I'm taking 3000 mg/day of Vitamin C and 2 zinc tablets a day. Cross your fingers. Of course, my family thinks I'm crazy. Inside my head, I'm ready to don hazmat suits and engage a Level 3 containment field around DH.

 

[midnight star]

After today, it's 18 days until we depart! Yahoo! Some sort of creeping crud virus appears to be going around. YDD had a cold all last week. No fever or anything, just headache and congestion. It went away after 6 days.

Then yesterday evening, DH started coming down with the same symptoms. Today, he sounds terrible and he stayed home from work today. He's taking a sick day tomorrow as well.

As for me? I'm sleeping in the spare bedroom so I can stay healthy through this weekend (you know, for Road Trip Weekend!). And I'm taking 3000 mg/day of Vitamin C and 2 zinc tablets a day. Cross your fingers. Of course, my family thinks I'm crazy. Inside my head, I'm ready to don hazmat suits and engage a Level 3 containment field around DH.

Uh oh! Stay healthy. This flu season has been rough

 

[VandVsmama]

Just catching up. Your memes are hilarious! It stinks about the maxpass increase. I do think it's still a good value but yeesh! $20 is steep!! Going forward, if I have friends or family visiting the parks, I am going to advise them to purchase maxpass in advance on their tickets so they don't get caught in mid-year increases.

Yeah, $20/day per person is a hard pill to swallow. For this trip, we lucked out with being able to get the tickets at the $15/day per person rate. In the future, instead of 3 days at DL, we might do 2 days open-to-close instead with Max Pass. I think that for the trip after this March (the next trip will be some time in 2021), we'll stay at a Harbor Blvd hotel but take a day off in between our 2 mega-park days. And on that day off in between, sleep in, swim, and have dinner at the Tam O'Shanter in LA.

 

[VandVsmama]

Uh oh! Stay healthy. This flu season has been rough

It sure has! One of my kids' classmates was out a whole week with the flu, as was the english teacher. In YDD's case, I'm pretty sure she just had a nasty cold because she never got a fever and it wasn't strep throat either. DH was around YDD a lot last week and his symptoms are exactly like hers, so I'm pretty sure that he'll be feeling better 5 days from now.

But in the meantime, I am doing a copious amount of hand washing!

 

[Jaina]

I am so excited you are going to the Disney Family Museum! We went (my husband and I) about 5 years ago and I thoroughly enjoyed it! Yes, the ticket price increase made me panic at first... I then ordered the three tickets we need for our March trip from Getawaytoday, plus an extra because I know I'm taking my older son on a two-day trip in October also. Just taking the youngest two for one day sometime in there, and we'll hope to go on a value day. Now I might need another 2-day ticket this year, so I'm thinking about grabbing one from Undercover Tourist today. Choice, choices. Your itinerary sounds great! Actually, for our last trip, we all picked 5 "must do's" and number one on my list was lots of full-family pictures without a lot of complaining or feet-dragging. And since it was Mom's number 1, they did it!! That was a good choice, I think...

 

[kellys520]

BUT....now there's this new section of the 202 freeway which totally bypasses downtown Phoenix entirely! We went on it over Christmas because we went to southern CA to spend Christmas with friends (same friends we're going on this DL trip with).
View attachment 470332

I just started reading along. We will be there for almost the same days (3/8-12) and also coming from AZ. I have to say I was very happy to see I’m not the only one excited about being able to take the new section of the 202 towards Cali! We live out in Maricopa so I’m hoping this will be a little bit of a time saver to get us through Phoenix as I don’t really like using the other Phoenix by-pass route (238 and 85). My husband always gives me a little eye roll when we drive by the new 202 West exit signs and I tell everyone “only xx more days till we get to take the new road towards Disneyland!”

 

[Jaina]

I just started reading along. We will be there for almost the same days (3/8-12) and also coming from AZ. I have to say I was very happy to see I’m not the only one excited about being able to take the new section of the 202 towards Cali! We live out in Maricopa so I’m hoping this will be a little bit of a time saver to get us through Phoenix as I don’t really like using the other Phoenix by-pass route (238 and 85). My husband always gives me a little eye roll when we drive by the new 202 West exit signs and I tell everyone “only xx more days till we get to take the new road towards Disneyland!”

When is this live? Or is it already? I live right on the 202 in north Mesa, so I'm curious if it helps me avoid downtown Phoenix too. (I think so?) I usually find myself driving it super early in the morning, so traffic isn't too bad, but I'm always up for less freeway-changing! (Edit: Nope, DH explained to me where it is, and how it has zero affect on our usual travel route, haha!)

 

[VandVsmama]

When is this live? Or is it already? I live right on the 202 in north Mesa, so I'm curious if it helps me avoid downtown Phoenix too. (I think so?) I usually find myself driving it super early in the morning, so traffic isn't too bad, but I'm always up for less freeway-changing! (Edit: Nope, DH explained to me where it is, and how it has zero affect on our usual travel route, haha!)

The 202 loop extension is open!

 

[VandVsmama]

I'm back home now in AZ this afternoon. We didn't make it yesterday to the Disney Family Museum in SF...went to the SF Botanical Garden instead. That place is pretty great. Had brunch w/my sister and a couple of her friends & by the time we were done w/brunch, it was kind of too late to go to the Disney Family Museum. Wouldn't have had enough time to explore the museum to my satisfaction.

I thought that Disneyland prices for food were expensive. Holy cow, the SF Bay Area's restaurant prices were pretty crazy. I had some major sticker shock. I'm glad I don't live there. It's fine to visit, but I'm glad that I live where we are right now. Looking forward to DL in 12 days!

 

[StarlitNight05]

I'm back home now in AZ this afternoon. We didn't make it yesterday to the Disney Family Museum in SF...went to the SF Botanical Garden instead. That place is pretty great. Had brunch w/my sister and a couple of her friends & by the time we were done w/brunch, it was kind of too late to go to the Disney Family Museum. Wouldn't have had enough time to explore the museum to my satisfaction.

I thought that Disneyland prices for food were expensive. Holy cow, the SF Bay Area's restaurant prices were pretty crazy. I had some major sticker shock. I'm glad I don't live there. It's fine to visit, but I'm glad that I live where we are right now. Looking forward to DL in 12 days!

I know what you mean about the SF Bay Area prices. Crazy! I live in Sacramento now but grew up in the Bay Area most of my life. Other areas in California can be nuts pricing-wise too -- like the Napa Valley or along the coast. For instance, DH and I were considering a stay in Bodega Bay for our anniversary. The rooms started at $400 a night! I've trained DH right -- he proclaimed "We might as well go to Disneyland!!" That works for me!!