To the Land....My/Our 1st Pre and Post Trip report EVER!!!! (Lots of PICS)!!!

[TinkandPooh]

So I finally made it over to the trip report boards!!! I say finally because our family like many of yours, is just filled over the top with Disney Fanatics who live near by, go often, as well as most all the time maintain APs. The visit to these threads are long over due for us, and I am excited to share with everyone about our upcoming Fall getaway, so this will start off as a pre-trip report and move into a post trip report. Along the way I will share moments of past trips with you, as well as pictures from past trips and some Disney facts about our family and our love for Walt Disney's wonderful gift to us all DISNEY THEME PARKS....and Disney period!!!

Trip # ???? really don't know, but 1st pre-trip and post trip report ever!!! This trip is set to be a quick over nighter on Wednesday October 22nd through the 23rd.....short trip, but will be many pictures as I am going to keep my fingers clicking the whole time we are there!!!

For starters let me introduce the CM's of this crew for our Fall Getaway:

I/myself DW and 32 year old mother of teen girls

DH wonderful husband whom had never done Disney until we were married in 2005 (I talked him into a Disney Honeymoon) and a week and a half at the GCH was all I needed to program his brain...hehehehe to the ways of Disney and now many, many, many, trips later I can say without a doubt that my DH is just as much of a Disney fan as I am now Gotta luv em!!!!

DD (14), I just love her! A freshman in highschool this year and just loves Disney like the rest of us!!! She is very into Jack Skellington and Pirates. She is our future chef who wants to work with pastries....mmmm.....yummy!!!

DD (13), Our youngest. 8th grader this year and the reason for our Fall Getaway!!!! Yeah!!!!! She is our artsy daughter and can draw and sketch like no other. She has a portfolio of many of her drawings (many Disney) and hopes to be either a Vet and work with animals or an artisit and maybe work for Disney in the animation department one day.

DD's Best Friend Forever (our 13 year olds BFF) or as she calls her: Her home skillet biscut jelly fried potato will also be joining us on this trip to help Celebrate our DD's 13th B-day!!!!

DD's Friend (our 14 year olds friend) will also be joining us on this getaway, because of course you can't let one bring a friend (even if it is their B-day) without letting the other have one along as well.




The Trip:
Well it started about 4 weeks ago when I asked DH what we should do for our DD's 13 B-day?
We finally decided that we would leave the choice up to her and let her decide between a party at home with all her friends or go to Disneyland and bring her BFF. She had no second thoughts and within seconds after informing her of her choices she shouted DISNEY!!!! That's my girl!!!!

Originally we were going to do a quick day trip, but as many other Dinsey Fans know sometimes these little things snowball into bigger and dare I say much better.....yes I do dare MUCH BETTER THINGS!!!!!
So thanks to securing an AP rate at our favorite hotel GCH we are now staying over night and have scheduled for VP to send a cake up to our room the first night for our DD's B-day party!!!! Yummy can't wait!!!!
Another first for us is that in all the years I/we have been doing Disney we have never done the MTOTP and this year we are!!!!! Wednesday October 22nd promises to be a fun filled and very long day as we arrive, get set into our hotel, enjoy the parks for the day, celebrate a B-day, and head out into the night for MTOTP!!!!

So I think for now I will take a break and then come back later to share some about our upcoming trip and past trips, as well as post some photos of past trips (I have 150 photos uploading to photobucket right now as I type) so there will be plenty of past photos to share!!!!!

One more thing before I sign out. I will have my LGM with me. I plan to have it hanging on my purse.....so for all you DISers who may be there during our trip dates keep an eye out for me, because if you spot me and ask me if I belong to DIS boards I will have a special little gift for the 1st to spot and ask me this!!! Yes a little magic and pixie dust from me to the first who spots my LGM and asks me about it!!!!
A couple hints:
I am 5ft 7in.
I now have short (really short) light brown hair (used to be past my rear).
My purse is purple.
I should be walking with a very very tall man (my DH) and may or may not have 4 teen girls following close by us, depending on wether or not they want to go off and see or do something other than what we are doing.
I have some tattoos and they are all Disney, I have one on each shoulder, one on my chest, and one right above my left knee.

Best of luck in finding me, I hope you do as I would love to meet another DIS board member there!!!!

More to come later......................................

 

[TinkandPooh]

This is just a test post to see if I know how to enter pics into a post, so that when I come back I can share some photos with everyone.
If the pic comes up then you will be looking at my DD (13) the B-day girl and her BFF or as she calls her....Her Home Skillet Biscut Jelly Fried Potato. My DD is the shorter one with the grey sweat jacket on and her BFF is in the white. This pic was taken on May 10th 2008 at DL on one of our many day trips to DL.

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[TinkandPooh]

Ok I am back. Not real sure if anyone is following this, but I will keep reporting anyhow.
So I went out today to get my LGM and now I work on them over the weekend and get them ready!!! Whooooo Hooooo. I decided I would put my screen name on it as it seems that many other DIS board members do that as well. I just want to make it cute!!!!! I also decided today to use our short getaway as an excuse for getting a few new clothing items so I stopped at the mall and picked up some new clothes for the trip.......some to match the new purse I got for the trip 2 days ago!!! Yet another expense I can say always comes along with a stay that is more than just a day trip, because it never fails I always seem to do it.
We are still trying to get the girls costumes worked out as they keep going back and forth about what they want to dress up as.
So really I thought I would check in and just post an update for today as we are now 7 days out from our getaway and I can't wait!!!!

I will leave sharing some photos from some of our previous trips to DL:

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This is the living room area of a 1 bd suite at the DLH

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This is at the GCH and reflects what we came into after a long day in the parks. It was our anniversary and MK made sure that the room was very romantic for us...........we were shocked and I cried!!!

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This next picture is at StoryTellers at the GCH and my DD was so excited because it was her first real Gluten Free meal away from home and it was REAL FOOD!!! It was so yummy....I had the same thing as her!!!! The Chef was fantastic and made a visit to our table to plan out what he would make for us that was Gluten Free. It may sound silly but this was really the highlight of this particular trip for her and I!!!

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This next one is a beautiful picture and was taken outside the main gates into DL as we were waiting in line for them to start letting us into the park. My daughter looked over at the bush and said look Mom there is a Hidden Mickey in the flowers!!! Sure enough there it was and it just grew natural like that!!!

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The last picture I will post for now until I share others is one of me when I was a little girl. This pictures without words clearly explains how my love for Disney started! I must also tell you that when I was a baby my entire nursery was Disney, mostly Pooh Bear but tons of Mickey as well. I can still remember from when I was like maybe 2 years old I had the big red ball thing that you sit on and hold the handle at the top and bounce with it..........it was red with a Mickey Mouse headand the top....I loved that bouncy thing!

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[10stime]

I am following and can't wait for more!!!

 

[TinkandPooh]

5 days and counting including today!!!!!

so totally excited!!!

So I am just checking in to share a picture of my LGMH that I have ready to go...all I need now is to attach them to my purse so and head out the door.......Oh Wednesday hurry up and get here please Did that work???

So we are spending the weekend getting the luggage out and getting things ready to pack. I have some baking to do for treat snacks that I am going to bring for all the girls so I will do that Sunday and then bag them up and get them tagged with Mickey Tags with the girls names on them. I will post pictures of the treats once I get them done, I plan on making htem in the shape of Mickey Mouse of course!!!

Ok so here is my LGMH...remember to watch out for me, because if you spot me on our trip and then introduce yourself I will have a little gift to spead the magic for you.

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[TinkandPooh]

I am following and can't wait for more!!!

Welcome!.......glad your following along...there will for sure be more to come.......I can't wait to get the trip report part of it because I am going to load the report down with photo's, photo's, and more photo's

So I will be back later to share some pictures and a trip story of the past.

 

[TinkandPooh]

Our things are ready, it's hours to go, can anyone sleep? I don't think so!!!

Hotel ressies confirmed....check
B-day cake order confirmed with Vacation Planning....check
Packed....check
Snacks....check
MTOTP Tickets....check
AP's in wallet....check
Itenerary printed....check
Park Hours and Schedule printed....check
Extra excitement ready....check
Even more excitement ready....check
Tons and tons of excitement ready....check
Too much excitement ready.....NEVER....it's Disney....there is always room for too much excitement!!!!

So we are off tomorrow and the CM/ crew have been feverishly working to get things packed and ready to go. We have a few last minute things to do today, like filling up the car etc and then we sleep....Yah Right...and then Disneyland.

So here are a few pictures of all our things ready including one of my purse with the LGMH I have on them....this is a big hint...because as I stated early on that if someone from the DIS Boards finds me then I have a littel gift for them....so I am making it easy to know what kind of purse to look for!!!

See you all in the Land!!!

Stay Tunned for Post Trip report with loads of pictures and as much information as possible....

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[bonita_babe232]

have great trip!!!!!!!!!!!! cant wait till ur back and finish ur TR!!!!!!!1 have lots of fun

 

[jlparedes]

Great so far! Love the pics. You've inspired me to do an itinerary also! Can't wait for more.

 

[10stime]

Have a WONDERFUL trip, I am anxious to hear if another DISboarder spots you! I hope your daughter has an excellent birthday, can't wait to see the cake! Enjoy the magic

 

[TinkandPooh]

Ok so here I am finally....I really did not think it would take me so long to get to our trip report but finally here is the 411 on day 1 Wednesday October 22nd, 2008.

By 5am we were on the road driving from just about 45 mins north Bakersfield California with our bags and AP's in hand we were all headed to the GCH for our stay to Celebrate our DD's 13th B-day.
Joy and happiness were in the air as we all listened to Disney CD's on the way down and sang disney tunes including This is Halloween (from Nightmare Before Christmas). There was laughter, some and by some I mean very little dozing (sleeping) as we all counted the hours until our arrival at the oh so wonderful GCH. I just love pulling into the GCH and looking over at those big beautiful doors that lead into the amazing and just stunning lobby!

So we made good timing and arrived at the GCH at around 8:30am. I had called from the Valencia area to pre register so when we arrived it was easy as they had our check in package all ready for us. We found our room was not ready but we had been upgraded from a standard view room to a pool view room (we had not planned on our room being ready due to such and early arrival) so we had the hotel store all of our bags and we headed over to Acorn gifts so that I could purchase a little gift that I could give out to another DIS Board Member should I run into one. I decided on purchasing a lanyard and a MTOTP pin to start the lanyard seeing as how DL was celebrating Halloween time.
After making our purchase we all headed to the restrooms in the lobby of the GCH before we headed to the parks for the day. As I was coming out of the womens restroom my DH asks me about my LGMH and asks if other DIS board members wear them as well. I explained to him that this was the point of the LGMH and he then tells me he just saw a group of people that had them. We headed for the parks and before we could even get out of the GCH into Down Town Disney there was the group of DIS board members proudly showing their LGMH so I ran up and say hey you are from the DIS boards the family turned to look at me and said yes.
I told them who I was on the DIS boards and then dug into my purse and handed them them bag with the lanyard and pin. It was so fantastic to meet another group of DIS board members and what was even more great was that we met them within the first 30 mins of arriving.
So CanyonGirl and family once again it was great meeting you
Too bad we did not get some pics together

So before I go on with the report, I figured now would be a good time to share some photos of our arrival.
The girls with the B-day girl and her BFF in the center. Waiting for us to get our check in package so we could all head off to the parks.

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Ok so I just found that photobucket did not upload all my pics right so I am uploading the rest of them so I will head out for now and come back later to share more pics and tell you all about the rest of day 1 including all about MTOTP.

Upcoming posts to include:

1.)Rest of day 1 Wednesday October 22nd 2008 including MTOTP (did I mention that it was hot 98 degrees) crowds were great though!!!

2.) Day 2 Thursday October 23rd 2008 (yet another hot day) including how we ran into the Dream Team not once but twice in less than a hours time!!!! Stay tunned for these stories and so much more..........lots and tons and lots of PICS to come!!!

 

[travelmel]

Mmmm those cookies and milk looked SO GOOD!

I loved the hidden Mickey flower.. I wonder if it was really natural or Mickey-made?

Great start! I was spotted by a dis-er on my last trip this summer but neither of us knew it (I had never heard of a LGMG ) until he happened upon my TR and then put two and two together realized we were sitting next to each other while waiting for our BB tables! Too funny.

Looking forward to your TR.

 

[Sherry E]

Disney is so clever with where and how it places its hidden Mickeys, and in what shapes and forms they are created - you never know, that floral hidden Mickey could have been very deliberate!!!

By the way, I, too, had one of those bouncy red things with handles on the top as a kid (grew up in the '70s). I loved it and would just bounce and bounce all day long!

I was staying in room 513 of the PPH on my last trip and Cseca, another member of DISboards, was staying in room 514!!! We were literally close enough to each other to have opened our doors and had a conversation across the hallway, and we never knew it. But we probably saw each other around the hotel and didn't realize it!

 

[TinkandPooh]

Sherry E and Travelmel great to have you both along
I had kind of stopped posting about the trip because I really thought I was just posting to myself but know that I know I have some others along on the trip with us I will pick up were I left off and keep going

As far as the hidden Mickey Flower you could be right Sherry E Disney is very clever and they very well could have had that placed just right.
Anyway it was done was great we found it so beautiful

Well I will be back very soon with many more pictures and more on the trip.

Please forgive me if things are sort of all mixed up because I am by no means a writter and tend to just jabber on, so I hope you all can understand me and the stories I tell.

Have a great evening. TTFN

 

[travelmel]

Well I will be back very soon with many more pictures and more on the trip.

You'll be glad you wrote it and we'll be here to cheer you on.

 

[TiggerNZ]

I'm reading too.....I really enjoy trip reports, so am looking forward to hearing more

 

[SeattleTink]

I'm reading too! Keep going!

 

[travelmel]