You're going again already?!? - PTR!/moments from past trips!

[roflclaw]

(title courtesy of my mom last night)

So even though we just got back from our Valentines trip last week, my boyfriend and I have already booked our hotel for the next one!


Cast of characters, huh?

There's me, Jenna!

And my boyfriend, Christopher!

Semi-quick Disney summary! - I'm a 23 year old student from Northern California. My first trip was when I was eight years old (my parents tricked me and told me we were going to see my dad's friends Michael and Mindy). Then when I was sixteen my parents and I went to The World for our first and only trip as a family. As my graduation gift, my parents paid for a week spent in DL with my bff. Then in 2009 my mom and dad took my boyfriend and I to DL for New Years as their Christmas gift to us. It was the first real vacation Chris and I had taken at that point since we'd only been dating 9 months or so.

Fast forward a few years and he and I decided we wanted to go again! By this point my parents were now separated and we'd gotten 3 day park hoppers for Christmas from my mom (.. Disney tickets are a trend for her), and my dad sent me $500 in cash, so a large chunk of our bill was taken care of. We went over Presidents weekend in 2013 and had an absolute blast. So much so, that we knew we would want to go back...sometime.

Throughout the year we contemplated buying annual passes but nothing ever came of it. In December my mom surprised us with premium passes as our Christmas gift! Oh man we were BEYOND EXCITED to start planning a trip. Chris really wanted to go before the year was over but I knew I wouldn't be able to afford it.. and I hate putting something on credit that I can't readily have paid for by the end of that month. We decided to start planning a trip for early 2014. I thought we should go before I went back to school, but my mom really wanted to go with us and wouldn't be able to make it on such short notice. So we figured, hey why not go during the weekend we went the year previously? Our February trip was born!

My mom, aunt, Chris and I spent 4 crazy days in DL and DCA and it was great! But there were so many 'lazy' things Chris and I like to do (like sitting around and drawing cast members...then having them sign it) that we weren't able to - we knew we'd be wanting to head back sometime soon.

Thus, helloooo spring break trip!

up next, trip details! But first I need to go make some chocolate chunk cookies, yumm



Easy links
Pt 1 - Trip rundown & dates
Pt 2 - February 2013 drawings & autographs
Pt 3 - February 2014 drawings & autographs


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[roflclaw]

Okie dokie, cookies are out and cooling

We reserved our hotel last night and Chris paid for it with his credit card.

Trip Dates: April 14th - April 18th. Weekday only trip!


This time we're staying at the Motel 6 Maingate. I've read some pretty good things about it and I'm the least picky person when it comes to hotels. It was around $308 for four nights, along with $40 for two 5 day ART passes it comes to about $350 for hotel and transportation to the park.

So, along with our passes we also have free parking. But after this last trip, parking was such a pain in the butt since we're both used to either staying within walking distance or using ART. We decided it's worth the money for us to stay a bit closer and not have to worry about driving anywhere ourselves.

I've made two food reservations so far. One at Carnation Cafe on the 14th for dinner the night we get there. And then our breakfast with Minnie that we've done twice already and have the GREATEST time at. Chris is a cartoonist and draws all of the characters as we're sitting at our table. We basically spend the entire breakfast drawing and having them come over and sign the cartoons. This past trip we had a cast member (who I'm like 98% sure was Eeyore!) come over to us and tell us that we're really rad for what we do. It was really sweet of her.

We became Landry's members this month so we'll be heading back to Rainforest Cafe again. (hooray to the $25 welcome bonus and birthday bonus!) It's a neat place and the food is pretty okay, but we really go for the craziness of the animatronics.

We were thinking of going to Naples for dinner or lunch one day, but haven't really decided yet.

I think most of our meals will just be go with the flow. This past trip we had a reservation for something each day and it put a lot of pressure on us to be in a certain area each day.

I'm really just hoping I don't kick myself in the butt for not making Cafe Orleans reservations this time around. I guess I can skip a Monte Cristo just this once! lol​

 

[luulu1999]

How awesome!! I wish we were going in April we have to wait all the way til July but we are a lot further away also!! Im following a long with your PTR and would LOVE to see some of the drawings!!!

 

[roflclaw]

Hi luulu1999!! Thank you so much for following along! You're only a few months off from my trip, and I'm sure it'll be a BLAST!​

PTR Update! - Last night I tried coming up with a budget of "what we might spend" and it came to about $850 for hotel, rental car, gas, and food. I average about $50 a day toward food for the two of us since we usually have one big meal and then snack the rest of the time. I'm definitely hoping we'll come in under the $850 since I'd like to go on another trip in a few months and not need to worry about money. I still have about $40 left on a gift card that will go towards April and Chris wants to put the majority of our big expenses (hotel & car) on his Amazon card to get points back and pay it off within the next few months.



Here's a few of the drawings from our trip last year.

Becca and Maite were two of the CMs that helped us get autographs from all of the characters we could during our breakfast at Plaza Inn. Becca especially was the most adorable person I've ever met. She FREAKED out over the one Chris did of her and had another CM take pictures of us with her on her phone. She had all of the characters coming back to our table to check out the drawings of everyone.

Chip and Dale went bananas over the pictures. We saw them a few times throughout the meal and Chip came back around and wrote "SMELLS" on Dale's drawing which wasn't very nice of him. Chip also wrote the "I am like so cool" and "DANCE" on his own picture too.

Hook was the most picky about his drawing. For the most part, we saw the characters across the way and Chris quickly drew them before they could get to our table. But Hook stood there waiting for Chris to draw it and kept pointing out each of the little details on his outfit. He'd point to all of the small details and wouldn't stop until Chris drew them, it was really cute. Max is our favorite Disney character in the entire world! He was honestly the only reason we even wanted to do this breakfast... we love him that much! I like that he drew a little skateboard below his name to go with the picture.

Rafiki was my favorite, because he came around a second time and had "forgotten" that we already had his autograph. Once he remembered that we'd already seen him and approved of his signature, he posed for a perfect picture to go along with his autograph.


Throughout the breakfast we also got Tigger, Eeyore, Pooh, Fairy Godmother, Pinocchio, and Minnie's autographs. We also saw Gepetto but he never came back around to sign the drawing. Later on in the trip we got Flik and Donald in DCA as well.

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[wiigirl]

Following along!

 

[roflclaw]

In February we were better prepared for autographs, and I decorated a little sketchbook with a few things from my Say Cheese kit. We had an entire sandwich baggie of different colored markers to work with!

Sorry about the quality of these guys, I haven't scanned them in yet and just took a few pictures with my phone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~


The first character we saw on the entire trip was, da da daaaa Donald!

I told Chris to write that he was number two... and Donald was none too happy about it. The best part of the entire interaction was the blank stare Donald gave Chris when he handed it over. He was sure to make the proper corrections before signing it.

I'll preface the Jake drawing by saying that I really love Disney Junior. Way more than any 20 something without children in her life probably should. Now, we were waiting in line to meet Sofia because I LOOOOVE Sofia the First. (.. like second next to Doc) We were probably 3 people behind and the CM told us Sofia was leaving and wouldn't be back for an hour or so But! that Jake would be around in a 10 minutes and that we'd be the first in line to see him. I would have rather seen Sharkey and Bones since they're my favorites from the show, but Jake was just as good lol. I remember I got some cute shots of Chris and Jake high fiving before he signed it.

The last characters we saw in DCA were Mr. and Mrs. Incredible! One of whom comes into play with Eeyore, but I'll get to that in a bit. They both loved the pictures and Mrs. Incredible gave Chris a big kiss in one of the pictures, it was cute!

But the greatest part of our entire trip!!! So the next morning when we went to Minnie's breakfast at the Plaza Inn and Eeyore was one of the first characters we saw. He came over and looked at the drawing and was so happy! Very unlike gloomy lil Eeyore. He made the motion for Chris to flip through the sketchbook and we thought he wanted to see the other drawings. Well, he only wanted to see one other drawing! Once Chris got to the Incredibles' page, Eeyore kept hitting his paw on the page... then circling around Mrs. Incredibles face and autograph. We were really confused at this point... then Eeyore took one of the pens we had and wrote on the little yellow card they give you at the breakfast for your table, "saw u yestrdy!" (in Eeyore handwriting, mind you) and went back to basically pounding his paw on Mrs. Incredibles' signature! I finally realized what Eeyore was getting at and asked him if he and Mrs. Incredible were really good friends and if he had heard about us from her, and Eeyore was so cute and shook his head up and down super fast and pointed to Mrs. Incredible again and had Chris flip back to Eeyore's page and pointed a few more times. They're the BEST of friends, apparently! Eeyore came back around to our table a handful of times after that, and would make a little heart with his hands and then break it in half when he had to walk away. One of the times he came back, Chris asked him if he had any requests for Chris to draw and after a few moments of charades... because c'mon it's really difficult to figure out what they're trying to say. I won the game and realized he wanted to see Pluto! So Eeyore went to making his rounds and Chris drew a Pluto really quick. We saw a few characters in between but then Eeyore came back and loved seeing little Pluto so much... that he made a motion to sign it.. and took a pen and really signed it! Chris asked him if he was a master at Pluto's signature and he shook his head no... but he did a pretty good job on it so maybe he was fibbing lol.

He did a few more charades for us and we figured out that he was going away for good Chris asked if we would see him anywhere else in the park that day and he shook his head no. So we said our goodbyes to him and he would walk away a bit.. turn around and look sad and wave bye-bye. Then walk a bit more.. and turn away and wave bye-bye looking all gloomy like Eeyore does. It was a sad goodbye

At the end of the breakfast we only needed Rafiki's autograph and were waiting for him to come around, when a young lady outside of the Plaza grounds was going PSSSSTTTT to us and Chris went over to her. I thought she was just someone walking by who saw that he was drawing the characters and wanted to say something about it... but Chris came back (as I was trying to record, take pictures, and try to decipher which color it was that Rafiki was pointing to that he wanted to sign with ) and told me that she was trying to be really quiet and told him that what he was doing was really great and that we were rad. He said she was with a pretty tall guy ( I think Tigger or Hook's best friend! ) and they were both kinda sweaty... so I've convinced myself that she's super best friends with Eeyore and Mrs. Incredible



Anyways, We saw other characters at the breakfast, I swear!

Chris drew hook and realized it looked like a promo picture for an upcoming sitcom or something, so he wrote "LADIES MAN" across the bottom and Hook really liked it. ... but I know Red Jessica is the only lady for Hook. (I told you I love Disney Jr) Next we saw someone we'd never seen before, Peter Pan! He photobombed a few photos we took with Hook and they had a little stand off before Hook left our table. I'm not a big fan of face characters, I just don't know how to have a conversation with them like I do costumed ones I guess But he was a good Pan and made sure to write "Rules" at the bottom of his page to make sure everyone knew he ruled.

Next come Tigger and Pooh! I don't remember all that much about the interactions we had with them. I know we saw Tigger a few times throughout the breakfast but nothing really sticks out to me. I think I was still starstruck with our time with Eeyore that everyone else sort of glazed by in my mind. Pooh sure does love his Hunny though.

He's Chip! ... and he's not! I made the "mistake" of mentioning to Dale that Christopher liked Chip better and Dale went bonkers! So much so that he grabbed the ketchup bottle and opened it and pointed it at Christopher... who had Chip behind him letting Chris know that he's got his back.

This was the best shot I got of it. I especially love the woman behind Chip and Chris has a "WHAT ON EARTH?!?" face going on.

Max! ... as Powerline! As our favorite character in the history of everything Disney, we knew he had to be dressed as Powerline. (Seriously if you haven't seen A Goofy Movie go watch it now. Especially 9 minutes in because it's the best song and dance sequence ever. Science slumber parties anyone?!?) Then Rafiki! If you read the big story about Eeyore before then you'd know that I was really flustered when Rafiki came over but I love that he drew the little staff in the R of his name to go along with it.

Now the queen herself!

I think this is my favorite picture from the entire trip. Including photographs that were taken! Chris drew himself getting kissed by Minnie... with a very angry Mickey in the background screaming "WHAT!" Minnie and all the people at the tables around us loved this one. It was definitely a big hit with the crowd.
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[gusgusandmimimouse]

Chris and you are both so rad! I read all these trip reports and love them all but this one's the most unique and what a different perspective you get with the character interactions. Can't wait to read more.

 

[Daisybelle]

Oh my goodness, those sketches and stories are the coolest ever. What a special memory!!

 

[luulu1999]

WOW!! Love the drawings!!

 

[roflclaw]

We're just about 3 weeks out!!


I'm starting to worry about money and being able to afford everything without being broke when I get home. Chris wants to put everything on his card but since we've already put our hotel ($308) on it I'm super leery of adding more and more to it.

...so I spent the evening pricing out our meals since that's really where all of our money goes! We do breakfast in our room, but all other major meals and snackies are done inside the park.

I went through the most recent menus with prices and think of what we'd probably eat and add it all up. I know it's not exact, but I can get a rough estimate of whether we're probably spending $40 or $60 on a meal before tip.

April 14th - We have dinner reservations at Carnation Cafe the day we arrive since we've never been there. My prices came to about $35.xx.

April 15th - Dinner reservations at Rainforest. We have $50 on our Landry's card and unless we get alcohol we'll most likely be under that amount. So FREE! (well I hope!)

April 16th - We don't have any reservations but I'm a million percent positive Christopher's favorite place in the entire Disneyland Resort to eat at is Boardwalk Pizza & Pasta, so we'll most likely have lunch here sometime that day. We always get the same thing and it comes out to ~$34.xx.

April 17th - Breakfast with Minnie! $50 for two. (thankfully it doesn't go down for refurb until after we're gone!)


I also priced out a meal at Hungry Bear, we stopped by there one night on our last trip. We thought the food was really good (especially the fries omg!) and there was barely anyone else around.. so a nice place to relax and take a breather. ~$30.xx I think we'd probably stop by here on the day of our breakfast if anything, for a quick dinner bite before hitting up Pooh's Corner.

April 18th - we leave so most likely no food purchases except something on the road which I won't count in my budget.

Those 5 meals comes to about $150 before tax, tip, and my AP discount. Then add $30 a day in snacks for the four days (we've always been under my snack budget...but I like the estimates lol). That's $270 on food alone!

... and we like us some sweets so we'll probably spend between $20 and $40 at Pooh's Corner at least I think we spent around $40 last time, but it did include packaged fudge for his momma... so it wasn't all for us!

Non food expenses!

Rental Car - $170.xx for 4/12 - 4/19
Gas - depends on the car, but ~$100
ART Tickets - $34. Two 1 day passes, then two 3 day passes. ( we could just get two 5 day passes..but this saves us 6 bucks, and that's like two churros!)

Grand total, da da daaaa...

A bit over $600! I set an imaginary budget of $650 so if we're under, that would be really great.