TR: And now for something completely different - a WDW Family did DLR *(new - 4/15: HK Disneyland)*

[horse11]

Thank you! Did you like Pan? It seemed interesting, though not sure if any other version will top Hook for me

Glad I gave you a chuckle picturing your husband having to do all the packing. I think we just don't have enough extra clothes to pack that far in advance ... usually we are a bit better about having the lists done earlier and at least piles of clothes started earlier .... just been super busy lately so hard to find the extra time and when we do we just collapse on the couch or in bed

Hey, the Cubs had a great year too and I think both the Cubs and the Mets are set up to be pretty darn good for the next few years! Also sometimes just about match-ups.

haha - definitely feel that way reading other reports as well ... sometimes also makes me start investigating menus at Disney even when I don't have a trip planned!




Our family loved Pan!!! We will probably buy it and add it to our Disney collection!!

Yeah we kinda luck out on our trip since they usually are in the beginning of May and in Central Illinois it is usually still too cool for shorts weather. This allows us to pack our summer clothes ahead of time.

All in all the Cubs made it a lot farther than anyone would expect so here is to next year!!

You are soooooo right!!! There are places at Disney I would have never thought about eating at but looking at a trip report makes me want to investigate!

 

[horse11]

Ok so I am exhausted just reading your trip through the airport lol!!! Love the video of Peter riding the carry on, Priceless!!! Emma is such a doll but with that much energy and with the squirming I bet that cuteness saved her life lol!!! Such luck to get a unoccupied seat!!
So this time I was ready for your trip report and had dinner before reading yet those burgers still looked pretty good!
I bet the kids love the elevator!! It looks really cool!!

 

[annie170]

Phil, you just make me laugh! I enjoy people with a sarcastic wit about them.

Those In and Out burgers looked tasty. $18 is very reasonable. Are they only in California?

I agree with Judi regarding those railings in hotels and buildings. They make me nervous with children around. Or people who have been over served. Or people who just act stupid.

I love suites. Once our kids got older, we pretty much had to get a suite or two adjoining rooms.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

That gif of Peter riding the suitcase is adorable!

Swimming upstream on the plane could not have been fun, but I'm glad everything worked out and that Emma even got her own seat!

I can't believe you didn't let Judi stop at the strip club, it's her vacation too!

I'm glad you got to try In-N-Out and enjoyed it!

Love the pic of Emma in the tub, so cute!

Him riding the suitcase was one of those things that I know he really shouldn't do, but where we were wasn't very crowded and he was under control and just so darn cute doing it!

I know, but I promised her next vacation would be nothing but strip clubs! Breakfast, lunch, dinner, everything - at a strip club!

Definitely glad that we got to try in-n-out and if it hadn't come up as a suggestion in the pre-trip report I might not have thought of it!

Great update! Ah the stress of traveling with kids!

Thank you! Traveling with kids is the number one reason it is a "trip" and not a "vacation"

A successful flight all in all! The not being able to fold the stroller thing, UGH THE WORST!

Emma is to cute, love her on the plane and in the bath tub!

IN-N-OUT YUM!

Flight definitely could have been worse. Just felt so under the gun and pressured and then like an idiot when I couldn't get the stroller folded

Emma definitely takes some cute pictures!

So, I feel like I'm some sort of superhero when I manage to get a kid, carseat, backpack, and bagged stroller down the ramp, but this just blows me away! I have no idea how you handled so many things. (Well, I guess you threw them. )

Glad that worked out well! Always nice to have the extra room with a squirmy toddler.

And that is exactly why I always bring Izzy's carseat on flights. A restrained toddler is so much easier to manage and so much more likely to nap. And it is so easy (and fun!) for them to unbuckle those regular seatbelts on planes, so that's not a restraint at all.

Though, sometimes you travel by yourself without Dug - I don't know how you manage that. even with all our stuff having the tow of us and one can watch the kids while the other throws the stuff around helped

Definitely - would have made for pretty miserable trip for Judi and Emma did not want to be held. Fully agree with you about the car seats ... only issue is that it brings their feet closer to the back of the seat in front of them so I was constantly watching Peter's feet and had to tell him several times not to kick the seat in front of him

Yum! Glad you enjoyed it.

So, the second I saw that atrium, it reminded me that there was a very similar incident sometime last summer - a girl on a Disneyland trip at an Embassy Suites fell. Very sad.

Gosh, that's not really what I want to end my comment with so, um, looking forward to all the fun updates!

Definitely enjoyed In-and-Out - especially for the price seems like a good option!

Wow, that is sad! Guess it is good that Judi noticed them so quickly so we were always on the watch!

more fun updates coming soon!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

I'm glad that your flight went as smoothly as possible. That's great that you were able to find an extra seat (and subsequently a carseat) for Emma! Restraining the toddler is always a good idea!

In-N-Out Burger does sound yummy! And bonus points for such friendly staff!

The hotel does look very nice. The boys are always fans of the glass elevator so I can see why that was a big hit.

Excited to read more about your time in San Diego!

When you write it out like that - "Restraining the toddler is always a good idea!" - it sounds kinda bad .... but in the case of flying is definitely applicable!

I have to say we encountered a lot of friendly staff out in California so it might be that the NY area is just more full of grabby people

The kids loved the atrium area too - it had winding ponds with koy fish and bridges and stuff ... overall it was a hit!

More San Diego coming up soon!

Our family loved Pan!!! We will probably buy it and add it to our Disney collection!!

Yeah we kinda luck out on our trip since they usually are in the beginning of May and in Central Illinois it is usually still too cool for shorts weather. This allows us to pack our summer clothes ahead of time.

All in all the Cubs made it a lot farther than anyone would expect so here is to next year!!

You are soooooo right!!! There are places at Disney I would have never thought about eating at but looking at a trip report makes me want to investigate!

Glad you enjoyed Pan - it looks fun. Though I think this version was done by Warner Bros not Disney

Ah, that makes sense - I think we were in transition mode by us, but if we had thought ahead more we probably should have just set aside the summer cloths, or just packed them right away

I think especially some of the restaurants at the resorts that unless you were staying there you wouldn't think to even check out, but then a TR or Dining Report brings them up - always good to have new and different options!

Ok so I am exhausted just reading your trip through the airport lol!!! Love the video of Peter riding the carry on, Priceless!!! Emma is such a doll but with that much energy and with the squirming I bet that cuteness saved her life lol!!! Such luck to get a unoccupied seat!!
So this time I was ready for your trip report and had dinner before reading yet those burgers still looked pretty good!
I bet the kids love the elevator!! It looks really cool!!

Oh all of our kids get saved by their cuteness ... and the know how to use it to their advantage too! Sometimes when I am at my whits end with Peter he will come up and be all like "Dad, I love you!" ... and then it is hard to stay mad at him!

I feel bad that so much planning has to go into just reading my TR, but hope that helped! And I guess that is a good sign when food still looks good even if you aren't hungry

They definitely loved the elevator!

Phil, you just make me laugh! I enjoy people with a sarcastic wit about them.

Those In and Out burgers looked tasty. $18 is very reasonable. Are they only in California?

I agree with Judi regarding those railings in hotels and buildings. They make me nervous with children around. Or people who have been over served. Or people who just act stupid.

I love suites. Once our kids got older, we pretty much had to get a suite or two adjoining rooms.

Well, if you were looking for sarcasm this is probably a good TR for you! though, I suppose if I try to be sarcastic it will lose it's impact, so don't expect elevated levels of sarcasm after making that comment - just my normal high level of sarcasm

I believe In-n-Out are in multiple states but mostly out West ... definitely none near the Northeast where I live

That's a good point about not just kids but stupid or drunk people - or especially stupid, drunk, kids. And while we were there some business convention was going on and having attended a few in my day there is often quite a bit of drinking going on ... wonder if that has ever been an issue there.

Disney is better than most places at having rooms that can sleep 5 and we did ok in our room at the Contemporary last year ... but definitely, having more space is better which is why we often go with an off-site timeshare when we go to WDW - having a 2 bedroom suite is worth the trade off of being just outside the bubble.

 

[afwdwfan]

After finishing our lunch, we headed to our gate - and Peter decided to get his carry-on there by riding on it (thus the name of this chapter):

Hey, if you can find an easier way to do a job, more power to you!

So I get to the back and start to strap the car seat into the window seat in our row when all of a sudden the announce over the loudspeaker that I need to come back to the front of the plane. Did I mention we were in the back of the plane? So I basically had to swim upstream the entire way back to the front of the plan while everyone else was trying to come on to the plane and get settled ... so I roughly looked like this:

Oh, fun! I'm glad it wasn't anything serious though, and that you eventually figured out how to fold the stroller.

Peter struggled to tell when we were on the ground vs flying, especially for take off and asked roughly 3,267 times if we were flying while still on the ground waiting for our chance. So that started to get annoying.

She even fell asleep for a few hours - and that totally helped - like a lot.

The airplane gods were smiling down on you.

All-in-all, the flight wasn't too bad - and certainly not as bad as I feared

And that's all you can ask when flying cross country with kids.

and then I think we got to see some of the not so best parts of the town in getting to In-N-Out (including passing a few strip clubs .... and despite Judi's pleading, we didn't stop).

(picture is actually from the next day, but apparently with all the bags, didn't take a picture of the elevator that first day)

I can't imagine why taking a picture wouldn't have been a priority when you were checking in.

Overall the room more than met our needs and it turned out to be a great location, at least given the activies we had.

Looks like a great place to stay. Your travel day looks like it turned out about as well as could be expected.

 

[SimplyGoofy]

Despite the issues with the gate-check items and the stroller, I'm glad you had a very easy flight. I realize she was in earlier pictures, but I can't get over how much older Emma looks in the picture of her sitting in the airplane. Kids grow up so darn fast!

I've yet to try an In-and-Out burger, but it appears that I should add it onto my list! I had to Google what "animal style" meant - anything with extra pickles sounds like a win to me!

Your room looks very nice! I'm looking forward to the next update - two brunches sounds right up my alley!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Hey, if you can find an easier way to do a job, more power to you!

Oh, fun! I'm glad it wasn't anything serious though, and that you eventually figured out how to fold the stroller.



The airplane gods were smiling down on you.

And that's all you can ask when flying cross country with kids.



I can't imagine why taking a picture wouldn't have been a priority when you were checking in.

Looks like a great place to stay. Your travel day looks like it turned out about as well as could be expected.

fair point, should praise Peter for his ingenuity ... though afraid 20 years from now I will find him with a "drinking bird" doing his job by pushing "Y" on the keyboard repeatedly at this rate

Definitely worked out ok - if there wasn't that extra seat and of Emma didn't nap at all it would have been a roughly 7,367 times worse flight

Not at that point, when it was after 10pm pacific time, which was 1am our time - glad I got a couple in at the beginning though before our stuff was everywhere

Definitely worked out - especially considering I used points so stay was "free"

Despite the issues with the gate-check items and the stroller, I'm glad you had a very easy flight. I realize she was in earlier pictures, but I can't get over how much older Emma looks in the picture of her sitting in the airplane. Kids grow up so darn fast!

I've yet to try an In-and-Out burger, but it appears that I should add it onto my list! I had to Google what "animal style" meant - anything with extra pickles sounds like a win to me!

Your room looks very nice! I'm looking forward to the next update - two brunches sounds right up my alley!

"very easy" might be taking it a bit far, but definitely was much better than I feared it would be, so really can't complain. It is kinda nuts how much Emma has grown ... even little things like she can now go to the pantry and pick out what cereal she wants and bring it over to us - wasn't that long ago she couldn't even crawl or anything!

Definitely think In-n-Out is worth a try ... always fun to try regional places like that. Obviously nothing special to the people there but new to us!

Hoping to get the next update in the next day or so - dang work always getting in the way!

 

[Volunteer]

In N Out San Diego

 

[Imagineer5]

Phew what a travel day!! I remember being relieved when Aria turned 2 and we *had* to buy her a seat on the plane - sitting in a car seat helped immensely for flights esp for napping. Glad Emma was able to sit in Peter's seat and you had that extra seat available! What made you gate check the other two car seats vs. checking them with the other bag? JW if that would have helped go through the airport with less stuff. (Deciding what to do with our 2nd car seat in Jan lol).

Hotel looks great, though I have to agree with Judi that the railing would freak me out too! Esp with 3 kids to watch. Nice amount of space in the room though - looking forward to the next day!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

In N Out San Diego

Definitely wasn't a bad way to start things off and really kicked off vacation being that we don't have them near us and we had never been to one!

Phew what a travel day!! I remember being relieved when Aria turned 2 and we *had* to buy her a seat on the plane - sitting in a car seat helped immensely for flights esp for napping. Glad Emma was able to sit in Peter's seat and you had that extra seat available! What made you gate check the other two car seats vs. checking them with the other bag? JW if that would have helped go through the airport with less stuff. (Deciding what to do with our 2nd car seat in Jan lol).

Hotel looks great, though I have to agree with Judi that the railing would freak me out too! Esp with 3 kids to watch. Nice amount of space in the room though - looking forward to the next day!

It just seemed so pricey for 4 tickets across country, and especially since we were trying to save where we could that adding the 5th ticket was just money we didn't want to spend. If it was cheaper we may have bought an ticket for Emma ... this was probably the last time we will fly with her as a lap infant.

To be honest, until you posed the question I am not sure if we really even considered checking the car seat with the other bag. I know some places recommend not doing that as there is a greater chance the car seat is damaged with how luggage can be treated - I think it just comes down to us wanting to know where they are and not risk them getting damaged or lost or something. Looking back it definitely would have made things easier though!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Chapter 8 - San Diego Day 1 - Part 1
October 11th
First brunch, first beach​

So we definitely got to bed later than we planned the previous night - about 11pm or so which was 2am to our bodies with the time change. Part of this was trying to get some additional sleep as both Peter and Emma did not sleep so great (though, that seems to be a trend for them even at home). This resulted in us getting up and going a little later than I had expected. Still out the door by about 7:15am ... but I had visions of us up super early and really getting a start to the day. But still not too bad.

We were first off to our first brunch location for the day - though I suppose at that early time it really could just be considered breakfast. But that would ruin the fun, so we won't

Where we were going was to Snooze an AM Eatery, and to their location on Del Mar Road to be specific. It was located in a shopping plaza that seemed pretty nice and even had outdoor escalators (to people from the North East this seemed like quite the novel concept). We found a parking spot and walked up to the restaurant.

They do not take reservations and since we were a bit later than we wanted (near 8 by the time we got there) we did have to put our name on the list and wait a bit. They are definitely prepared for people to have to wait as they have cornhole and hoolaloops around for the kids to play with. Emma also took this time to wander around the outdoor seating area they have which is fenced off. You can bring your dog to this locaiton and eat in this outside area so she had fun looking at all the dogs.

After about 10-15 mins our name was called and we were led into the space ... which I apparently didn't take many pictures of. I was pretty loud and vibrant and we were brought to a large circular booth in the middle of the floor. Only hiccups was there must of been a run on high chairs as there wasn't one available for us and Emma was being super squirmy, so that wasn't so much fun. Eventually we got one and that definitely helped - especially once the food came. Our waitress (Rachel, though she said to call her Ray) was quite nice and everyone there seemed pretty laid back (though, perhaps that is just everyone in California compared to NY). The food did seem to take a while to come out, but once it did we quite enjoyed it.

They do a lot of different types of pancakes here and one thing you can get is a pancake flight - which is your choice of any 3 pancakes. Judi did this and chose the Sweet Potato Pancake (Our signature sweet potato buttermilk pancakes topped with homemade caramel, candied pecans and ginger butter), the pancake of the day which was a Peach Melba type pancake and the Pineapple Upside Down Pancake (Buttermilk pancakes with caramelized pineapple chunks, housemade vanilla crème anglaise and cinnamon butter)

Overall we both like the pancake of the day the most (I a typically am not a big peach person). The others were good - but you had to get each element in each bite you took or they fell a little flat. Knowing what I was getting at the next brunch location I decided to get something a bit more savory here and went with one of their sammies, the Sandwich I am (A soft pretzel roll filled with scrambled eggs, cheddar cheese and a sausage patty, served with a side of smoked cheddar hollandaise & house hash browns.):

This was quite good and very large - also pretty messy. The smoked cheddar hollandaise along with being on the pretzel roll definitely added some different elements to this. Definitely would get it again!

We ordered the kids eggs which she enjoyed (and also ate some of the food the rest of us had):

Olivia ordered a chocolate chip pancake, which of course she loved:

And Peter wanted a blueberry pancake. Here they do two different versions and he opted for the Blueberry Danish Pancake (Buttermilk pancakes topped with blueberry coulis, sweet cream and almond streusel surrounding a center of lemony cream cheese filling) and we are really glad he did as we all wound up loving this! Probably our second favorite next to the peach one - definite recommend!

After stuffing ourselves with lots of carbs we figured a trip to the beach was in order. But first we needed to pick up some stuff so we went to a nearby Target. We wanted to get beach towels (rather than bring them figures we could get cheap ones out here) and also some more clothes for Emma as I did not do a great job packing for her. To be fair I went with what was in her drawer which was not much and what was there was mostly long sleeves and pants (apparently she had other clothes in one of the clothes bins or something, oh well). Emma fell asleep in the car so she stayed and napped, Olivia wanted to stay in the car and play on the kindle, while Peter wanted to go in with Judi (he also needed to use the rest room). I actually used the time to catch up on the DISunplugged Universal Edition which was covering Halloween Horror Nights - not really fitting into the warm beach weather, but whatever.

Once they were back we had some more discussion about which beach to go to as there were quite a few in the area. Ultimately we decided to try to go to the Del Mar beach near 15th street as it is supposed to be one of the nicest beaches in the world and at least start there. One thing I did see noted online is the lack of parking and that definitely proved to be the case. Given that we didn't have a ton of time we ultimately decided to park in a public lot which did cost $15 for two hours, but saved the stress of trying to find a spot and was pretty convenient to getting to the beach. We took a pathway that we near a hotel that brought us right to one of the beach entrances/showers/bathrooms/etc. areas

Also was this neat bench with a nice saying on it (of course the kids didn't let me get a clean shot) but it said: "May your joys be as deep as the ocean, your sorrows as light as its foam."

We got everyone all sunscreened up and went down onto the beach which wasn't too crowded and found a spot to put our stuff and then wanted to get in the water. Here is a picture of the beach from the water - in the middle are Judi and Emma on the beach:

*WARNING: I must apologies in advance if anyone is blinded by the pastiness that is our northern selves in swimwear shown in the following images*

This was everyone heading into the water:

Emma had a blast though dealing with the waves and undercurrents was definitely new to her, so she would get turned around/knocked off balance often:

Olivia really, really loved the waves and was just throwing herself into them and body surfing back ... and then would go right back out and do it more. Basically she did this the entire time:

But she also enjoyed hanging out with me in the water a bit - we went out a bit deeper than the rest, though this shot is from closer to the shore:

Peter wasn't into the water as much - usually take a while to get him used to being in large volumes of water be it a pool or the ocean. But he did have fun playing in the sand. The sand was really cool there as after the water returned back to the ocean it would leave these cool black patterns in the white sand. This was the best picture I could get of it, but doesn't really do it justice:

All in all we spent close to an hour actually at the beach - then took a while to get the kids all showered up (they got sand like everywhere) and changed - as we were heading to brunch number 2!

TTFN

 

[afwdwfan]

It was located in a shopping plaza that seemed pretty nice and even had outdoor escalators (to people from the North East this seemed like quite the novel concept).

Yeah... they just have no concept of bad weather there. And if it just rains, they all pretty much shut down.

They are definitely prepared for people to have to wait as they have cornhole and hoolaloops around for the kids to play with.

Cool! Always nice when they try to make the wait easier.

They do a lot of different types of pancakes here and one thing you can get is a pancake flight - which is your choice of any 3 pancakes.

This sounds awesome! I've never heard of a pancake flight before, but I like the concept. I'm glad everyone seemed to find something they liked.

Peter wasn't into the water as much - usually take a while to get him used to being in large volumes of water be it a pool or the ocean. But he did have fun playing in the sand. The sand was really cool there as after the water returned back to the ocean it would leave these cool black patterns in the white sand. This was the best picture I could get of it, but doesn't really do it justice:

That really is a cool effect. Looks like a fun hour at the beach.

 

[missangelalexis]

Breakfast looks delicious! I'm sure I would have tried a pancake flight!

Love all the beach pictures, sounds/looks like such a nice time!

 

[Disney Khaleesi]

A pancake flight! Super jealous, that looks absolutely delicious.

Your beach day looks like a lot of fun! I couldn't stop laughing at that little clip of Emma dealing with the undercurrents-so glad you included that!

 

[horse11]

OMG that breakfast!!! I have got to go there lol!!! Been waiting for that review lol!!!
Love the pictures at the beach. You had me on the floor laughing about your comment"*WARNING: I must apologies in advance if anyone is blinded by the pastiness that is our northern selves in swimwear shown in the following images*
What a cool image of the sand that the waves made. It looks so haunting!
Your post confirms my thoughts... All kids are the same lol!!! my boys loving rolling around in the waves and look just like Olivia in our last trip to Virginia Beach this past summer. That was their first taste of the ocean and it was so much fun to watch! Watching Olivia brought back some fun memories!!!

 

[schmass]

Great updates! Traveling with 3 kids looks stressful. I am nervous for the first time we have to travel with 2!

I would love to check out one of Michael Symon's restaurants. I'm a big fan of his, and really enjoy watching him on The Chew!

We stayed at an Embassy Suites in Colorado Springs once, and it looks exactly like the pictures you posted, how funny. Maybe they all look the same?

Seeing your pictures of breakfast at Snooze makes me wish we still had one around us (we used to live in Denver and they have a Snooze there). Now I want a pancake flight. Yum!

I'm glad the kids enjoyed the beach!

 

[DisMom1981]

Ha the videos are hilarious! The beach looked amazing.

 

[ljcrochet]

great report so far. Planning on surprising my girls with a trip to Disneyland in April just hoping for no snow so we don't have to take them out of school.

 

[Volunteer]

Looks like you guys had a great day at the beach!