We Need More Cowbell! Aug 2012 TR *NEW*10/15 - Last Day & Wrap Up 4 NEW POSTS!

[khertz]

Hi, everyone! Welcome to my second Disneyland TR. It was a magical 4 day weekend shared between my DH and I for our 5 year wedding anniversary. Although it came to a rather abrupt and dramatic ending, it was still a wonderful trip that I'm excited to share with you!

We Need More Cowbell!

Introduction

Friday August 24th
Day 1 Part 1: We're going to Hollywood!
Day 1 Part 2: Employee Discount
Day 1 Part 3: The Hollywood Hills
Day 1 Part 4: Off to the Happiest Place on Earth!
Day 1 Part 5: A Dancing Wolf

Saturday August 25th
Day 2 Part 1: Life is a Highway
Day 2 Part 2: The Race Is On!
Day 2 Part 3: A Morning at the Pier
Day 2 Part 4: Come On, Man!
Day 2 Part 5: Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirate's Life For Me!
Day 2 Part 6: Happy Anniversary!

Sunday August 26th
Day 3 Part 1: Taking it Easy
Day 3 Part 2: Under the Sea
Day 3 Part 3: Hunt for Disneyland History
Day 3 Part 4: Coming Undone

Monday August 27th
Day 4 Part 1: Early EARLY Start!
Day 4 Part 2: Official Wait Timer
Day 4 Part 3: A Not So Perfect Ending


Souvenirs & TR Wrap Up
​

 

[khertz]

First, a little background on who we are and how we ended up at Disneyland again for the second time in the span of 3 months! Here's a picture of us from our first trip there as a family this past May.

WHO?
Myself & DH were the two participants on this trip! See that cute little guy on the right in the above picture? That's our adorable and hilarious DS who will be turning 2 in October while we are in WDW. He did not come on this trip this time, but he had a fun weekend with my parents, his Nonni & Poppi!

WHAT?
4 days/3 nights in California with 3/4 of a day in Hollywood and the rest Disneyland. We used our Premier APs for the 3rd time. We flew round trip from New Orleans on Delta Airlines and rented a car through Avis.

WHERE?
We stayed 3 nights at the Peacock Suites in Anaheim, just a few minutes drive from Disneyland.

WHEN?
August 24-27

WHY?
To celebrate 5 years of marriage! Our anniversary is not actually until the end of September on the 29th. However, with the fact that we are taking a family trip to WDW in October to celebrate DS's birthday, we knew we would have to push up our travel time so that the trips wouldn't be SO close together. This was the best weekend to travel away from our jobs so we went with it. We had originally planned for a weekend in WDW to celebrate, but it turned out to be just as expensive for us to go to DL again. And since our Premier APs will expire this year with no plans to renew them, we knew this was a great opportunity to experience DL just the two of us while our tickets are already "paid for." Random weekend trips to WDW will be much easier to accommodate in the future, but probably not for DL, so it was now or never!

That's our trip in a nutshell, but I hope you will follow along for the details! Because it was just the 2 of us, we didn't think we'd take that many pictures, but we came home with 1500! Although not every one of them is usable, you can expect a lot of pictures in this TR! So if you like that sort of thing, or if I have mildly interested you with this information, or even if you just want to know what cowbell has to do with anything, I hope you will join me on our anniversary adventure!

 

[khertz]

DAY 1: Friday August 24th

We started off our adventure the way we usually do...the night before we were leaving, we headed off to my parents house. They live outside of New Orleans, and it is usually cheaper and easier to fly out of that airport vs. our regional airport. Plus, it's an easy way to drop off our cat (and in this case, DS) for them to care for while we are gone. Usually we don't sleep well there and are completely exhausted for our travel day, but we discovered the culprit...a plastic mattress cover my mom had on her guest bed. Took that off and we slept great!

It was a good thing because our flight was for 7:15 am, so we were up and moving at 4:30 am getting ready. We had said our goodbyes to DS the night before. :-( As we were getting in the car a few minutes after 5 am, my mom ran outside to ask for our insurance card in case DS needed to go to the doctor while we were gone because she had heard him coughing all night on the baby monitor. Not a good sign of things to come, but we gave her the information and were on our way!

We seemed to catch every red light on the way, which was so annoying, but we made it to the parking lot across the street from the airport with plenty of time before our flight. We had gotten a Groupon for their lot, so it cost us only $13 for 4 days of parking. Not bad! They immediately got us on a shuttle and dropped us off at the airport. With no bags to check, we headed straight through the short security line and had time to grab some breakfast, a cinnamon roll for DH and a blueberry muffin and bottled water for me. We settled down at the gate to wait for boarding, and I checked my countdown app on my phone to take this picture.

We boarded the plane at 7 am and took off pretty close to the planned time of 7:15. The flight was only about half full, so people spread out quite a bit. I passed the time catching up on my Entertainment Weekly issues and watching half of the movie The Town, both on the iPad. I was able to put so much on there I didn't need to bring anything else!

We landed with no problems at about 9 am California time. After a quick potty break, we went outside and grabbed a shuttle to Avis within minutes. Hugely different experience than when we waited forever for an Advantage shuttle in May! We got another Nissan Altima like we had last trip, and soon we were on our way on a hunt for food. Even though it was barely 10 am, it was lunchtime to us and we were starving!

With a destination already in mind and Google maps in hand, we headed out. With traffic, it was about 11 am before we ended up here.

We both got burgers and fries, and while the burgers were good, the fries tasted like cardboard. I was pretty excited to try the food here, but we both decided we should have stopped at the Five Guys we passed up along the way. lol

After lunch, we drove through Beverly Hills to get to our destination for most of the rest of the day, Hollywood. We were able to park in a garage near Grauman's Chinese Theater for just $10. Nice!

I made DH take this picture because it reminded me of the show Person of Interest​

We kind of just picked a direction and started walking. We didn't really have a destination in mind, just wanted to check out the stars on the Walk of Fame and stop at souvenir shops that caught our eye. We have TONS of pictures of stars, but I whittled the list down for this TR because I could never post them all!

First up...Uncle Jesse!

​

Pretty quickly, we ended up at the end of the Walk of Fame and found this walkway.

We started walking up the other side of the street stopping for more pictures of stars we enjoy and especially the ones associated with Disney!

Not Disney associated, but seriously, it's Chuck Norris!

As we came upon the Chinese Theater from across the street, DH had to take several shots before he got this one of a fairly decent Mickey Mouse on Hollywood Blvd.!

We stopped in front of the El Capitan to check it out. The exterior is so amazing! If we would have had the time, I would have loved to go see a movie there. They were showing Cinderella that day.

The ceiling over the ticket booth

We got this one from in front of the Disney Soda Fountain but we didn't go in yet

Continued in next post...

 

[khertz]

Day 1 Continued: Friday August 24th

DH with his favorite Disney character!

DH just thought this was funny!​

We saw a lot of fun things in Hollywood. First up was this chanting and dancing troupe yelling about Jesus. It struck me as funny because they were all had heavy accents so about the only word I could even understand was Jesus!

We also saw lots of people dressed up as characters with their fanny packs on for tips. They have to be so hot out there!! We saw Bumblebee from Transformers, Cookie Monster & Elmo, several Spidermans, Jack Sparrow, Barbie, Joker, Mad Hatter...it was insane.

Another Mickey & Minnie
​

We stopped at an outdoor mall whose name is escaping me right now. We didn't really shop there, but it was a great place to see the Hollywood sign off in the distance.

Finally, we went across the street to the Disney Soda Fountain & Shop for some ice cream!

We got seats at the counter and both ordered a make-your-own sundae. I got a scoop of chocolate and scoop of vanilla with M&M's and chocolate sauce. DH had 2 scoops of chocolate chip with Reese's Pieces and caramel sauce with whipped cream on top. Heaven!

About this time I got in touch with my mom and found out DS had woken up with green crud coming out of his nose and an eye that was red and a little puffy. Not what I want to hear my first day away from him!

A few pics from around the Soda Shop...

I loved looking at the ones of the celebs visiting, especially those that I posted above. Hayden Panettiere's caught my eye first and I loved that she signed it "Save the cheerleader, save the world." I loved Heroes!

We filled out a survey card for our experience and got a coupon for $5 off our next purchase but somehow DH convinced the CM to let us use the coupon for the t-shirts and magnet we bought that day! I'm not sure what the CM ended up doing, but he gave us a 35% discount instead!

UP NEXT: Hollywood Sign and Peacock Suites

 

[rdkeim]

Yay! Loved your last trip report. We're headed there in 42 days so I'm anxious to hear how your trip went. Hope your son didn't get too ill!

 

[khertz]

Yay! Loved your last trip report. We're headed there in 42 days so I'm anxious to hear how your trip went. Hope your son didn't get too ill!

I'm glad to have you along for our second trip! And yours is getting so close, how exciting! I'll just say my poor little man had a pretty rough weekend.

 

[skier_pete]

Hey there...count me in. We didn't get to really go to "Hollywood" on either of our LA legs, but did enjoy an "In-And-out" burger our last night. Thought the burgers were really good. The fries weren't all that, but we found out you could get the fries "animal style" which is covered in meat-onions-cheese sauce mixture, which made them MUCH better. Still agree that 5-guys are just as good!

1500 pictures in 4 days, WOW! We took 1500 pictures in 4 weeks!

 

[jenny105]

Yay another Disneyland TR!

You guys rented from Advantage last trip? I'm renting from them at MCO. There's no shuttle there since it's in terminal so other than that, how'd it go? I should go back to your other TR and read but I'm feeling lazy at the moment LOL.

Great pictures! Lots of poor man's Mickey Mouse LOL. They have those in NYC too.

 

[khertz]

Hey there...count me in. We didn't get to really go to "Hollywood" on either of our LA legs, but did enjoy an "In-And-out" burger our last night. Thought the burgers were really good. The fries weren't all that, but we found out you could get the fries "animal style" which is covered in meat-onions-cheese sauce mixture, which made them MUCH better. Still agree that 5-guys are just as good!

1500 pictures in 4 days, WOW! We took 1500 pictures in 4 weeks!

Seeing Hollywood was one of those things we had every intention of doing last trip, but we were so excited to get to DL that we didn't. This time, we knew we didn't need as much time in DL, so we were able to dedicate some time to sightseeing. And it was probably better to do it this time when we weren't pushing around a cranky kid in a stroller who needed a nap!

I didn't know about the other fries, but I can imagine slathering those fries in just about anything would make them taste better. They were so blah!

DH likes to take a LOT of pictures! I kept telling him he didn't need to take so many pictures of things we had taken pictures of last time, but I think he just can't help himself.

Yay another Disneyland TR!

You guys rented from Advantage last trip? I'm renting from them at MCO. There's no shuttle there since it's in terminal so other than that, how'd it go? I should go back to your other TR and read but I'm feeling lazy at the moment LOL.

Great pictures! Lots of poor man's Mickey Mouse LOL. They have those in NYC too.

The timing was the only problem we had with Advantage...took a long time to get the shuttle, a long time to get to the rental place, and a long time to pick up the car once we got there. Other than that, we had no problems, so if you get to avoid all of that and go right to the counter at MCO, you should be okay! The problem at LAX is that there are no rental car places AT the airport, they all require a shuttle. But most of the other companies are much closer and have bigger & more frequent shuttles. We could have saved some money and gone with Advantage again, but didn't want the hassle. When we walked right out onto a shuttle that was huge and air-conditioned and it only took 5 minutes to get to the rental car place and less than 10 minutes to get the car, we were both happy we had paid extra!

I think we saw at least 3 different Mickeys...that whole thing is so creepy to me!! But I guess they must make good money or why else would they stand out there in those hot costumes in 90 degree weather?

 

[DaveinFallsChurch]

Joining in and love your TR so far!

Have to agree with you - Five Guys beats In-n-Out in my book. That Sorcerer Mickey looks pretty darn good as far as knock-off go.

Can't wait to read more! Hope you and your parents did okay with Isaac.

 

[khertz]

Joining in and love your TR so far!

Have to agree with you - Five Guys beats In-n-Out in my book. That Sorcerer Mickey looks pretty darn good as far as knock-off go.

Can't wait to read more! Hope you and your parents did okay with Isaac.

Happy to have you here!!

We almost stopped at Five Guys just because we were passing it and we were starving! But what stopped us is they are actually building one locally, while we might never have a chance to try In-n-Out. Now I wish we would have just stopped at Five Guys! At least I can say I tried it though.

Sorcerer Mickey was the best knockoff we saw all day! Well, the Transformer Bumblebee was pretty good too, from far away at least.

 

[Minnie Sue Oz]

Hi there

Looking forward to reading all about your adventures at the happiest place on earth!

Your DH and I are the same when it comes to taking pictures! On our last trip to the USA I took over 4000!!! I think when you live so far away, you need to take pictures of everything and all the little details. We will be back in just 50 days and I have a new camera for this trip..........who knows how many we will end up with!!!

Can't wait for more!

 

[khertz]

Hi there

Looking forward to reading all about your adventures at the happiest place on earth!

Your DH and I are the same when it comes to taking pictures! On our last trip to the USA I took over 4000!!! I think when you live so far away, you need to take pictures of everything and all the little details. We will be back in just 50 days and I have a new camera for this trip..........who knows how many we will end up with!!!

Can't wait for more!

We just can't seem to help but go crazy taking pictures on vacation! We love pictures of the details, and DH likes playing with the settings on the camera to try and get that JUST RIGHT shot. So we usually end up with a ton. I always ask him if he really doesn't mind seeing most of the vacation through the camera lens, and he always assures me he doesn't!

Glad to have you here.

 

[DisneytheKid]

Loving the trip report so far! I was laughing at some of the interesting pics! Can't wait to read more!!!

 

[MEK]

Here, but back to get caught up on your other TR! Welcome back!

 

[khertz]

Loving the trip report so far! I was laughing at some of the interesting pics! Can't wait to read more!!!

I'm glad to see you here! Thanks for joining in.

Here, but back to get caught up on your other TR! Welcome back!

Thanks! Happy to see you here!!

 

[CandleontheWater]

Oh gosh, I hope things didn't get too bad with DS! That is one of my big worries when I leave Everett!

It seems like you had a great start to the trip! Sorry your in and out burger experience wasn't great, but I agree that 5 guys is the way to go!

I've always wanted to go to the Disney Soda Fountain, epecially since they have such great pins! The ice cream didn't look half bad either!

 

[MEK]

So, I'm not caught up on the pictures but enjoyed reading about the beginning of your trip.

I hope DS does not get sick. Oh No! Please tell me he's fine. I always worried about that when my kids were little.

Now tell me the truth - is it going to be hard to give up those premium APs when they expire? I am going to have a funeral for my AP when it expires in December.

 

[afwdwfan]

I guess I'm a little late to the party since you apparently added the link to your post 2 hours after I'd already read it.

You didn't include Chuck Norris in your TR. He allowed you to be a part of his. Sorry... can't resist a good Chuck Norris reference.

I like the tour of Hollywood before hitting the parks. Neat to see all of that stuff.

Looks like the trip is off to a good start aside from some green crud back home.

 

[julsmom]

Ready for more!