Pammer
02-18-2009, 01:53 PM
Travel dates: January 29 – February 2, 2009
Travel method: Plane
Resort: Anaheim Del Sol Inn (Off-site)
Accommodations: Standard
Ages Represented in Group: Adult
Disney Resort Experience Represented in Group: Veteran
Comments: James’ Birthday Trip
Cast of characters:
Pam, 48: trip planner/writer and self-proclaimed Disney Queen
James, 48/49: Pam’s husband & the birthday boy
Carol, 51: James’ sister
Bruce, 62: Carol’s husband
Jessica, 21: Carol & Bruce’s daughter and a Disney princess
Ryan, 23: Jessica’s husband and fellow Disney geek
Patty, 28: Ryan’s sister and another fellow Disney fanatic
The Reservations
The main reason for the trip (as if we need one!) was to celebrate James’ birthday on January 30th and collect his free Birthday Fun Card!
Lodging: As usual, I made reservations at the Anaheim Del Sol Inn on Harbor Blvd. (a 5-minute walk from the parks, total for 4 nights = $330). Everyone else lives near San Diego, and we would see them at some point during our stay.
Transportation: I booked our airfare on Southwest Airlines from Sacramento to Orange County ($316 round-trip), plus made reservations with SuperShuttle for travel to/from the motel ($22 round-trip after applying the Entertainment Card group discount).
Tickets: Carol & Bruce were not going to the parks, and everyone else has Annual Passes.
Priority Seating: We usually just use counter-service, but I did make reservations at 11:30am on 1/30 for James’ birthday lunch.
The Itinerary
The pre-planning was done, and we were ready to go! Here was our planned schedule:
January 29: Arrive at the Resort; Disneyland/DCA
January 30: Disneyland/DCA (Ryan & Jessica to join us)
January 31: Disney’s Character Warehouse Outlet; World of Disney
February 1: Disneyland/DCA
February 2: Disneyland/DCA (Jessica & Patty to join us); fly home
One more thing: right before we left, I loaded my Disney Visa Rewards Card (DVRC) with the $65 balance I had previously accumulated…yippee!
Thursday, January 29, 2009 (81 degrees)
Plan: Arrive at the Resort; Disneyland/DCA
Actual: We said goodbye to Cyrus (our kitty) and left the house at 8:15am to drive to the Sacramento airport for our 10:20am flight to Orange County. We parked the car in the Economy lot and were quickly picked up by the shuttle bus. Check-in and security went smoothly and we stopped at the food court so we could have some breakfast. James opted for Chinese food (chicken rice bowl = $10) and I chose a Jr. Whopper combo from Burger King ($5). We both enjoyed our meals and then I bought a bottle of water ($2.39) before walking over to Gate A16 to wait for our plane to arrive. We boarded and departed on time, and had a slightly bumpy flight to Orange County because of the winds. The plane was freezing (it was still only the low 40s outside by now), so we grabbed a few blankets & pillows for our seats in the exit row. We enjoyed the complimentary snacks that Southwest Airlines offered en route (I had a Diet Coke and peanuts and James had a ginger ale with pretzels), and we were soon arriving at our destination!
After our on-time arrival at the John Wayne Airport, we retrieved our checked bag and went outside to catch our SuperShuttle van. We were the 1st ones onboard, but it didn’t leave until it was full. We were the 2nd ones dropped off ($3 tip), and we greeted our friend Jamil at the Anaheim Del Sol front desk when we checked in. We have stayed here many times, and Jamil always recognizes us and treats us wonderfully each time. The Del Sol is a small, clean non-smoking motel that includes a refrigerator, microwave, and Continental breakfast…just what we want since we spend a majority of our time at the parks.
I love visiting during the slow season…we pretty much had our choice of rooms, although we did have to play ‘musical rooms’ at first! We prefer to stay over the carport, so I asked for room #237. Jamil said that it didn’t appear to be ready yet so he gave us room #235. We had trouble getting the door to open at first (finally figured out that the handle needed to be turned upwards on this room because it was a little bit loose). When we opened the door, we found that the comforters were missing (still being cleaned). This surprised Jamil, who checked #237 and found that it was ready after all!
I went back to the office to have the keys re-keyed to room #237, but they accidentally got re-keyed to #235 when Jamil was distracted with a phone call during the process! We stopped at the office on our way out to have them re-keyed one more time to the correct room number, and headed over to the Quizno’s down the street.
We picked up a large veggie sub and a large turkey sub ($17), and headed back to the room. We stopped at the Desert Inn mini-mart to pick up 4 liters of water along the way ($13), and then ate ½ of our sandwiches in the room. We put the remainder into the fridge along with the water, and headed out to Disney’s California Adventure (DCA) around 1:45pm.
We stopped just inside the entrance to have some pictures taken with the PhotoPass photographer, and then picked up fastpasses (FPs) for Soarin’ over California (2:25pm). We next headed over to ride DCA’s newest attraction: Toy Story Midway Mania (TSMM)! The wait was listed as 20 minutes (it was closer to 25), and James beat me 167,900 to 107,300. James won a ‘cat’ every time we played this, whereas I always won a ‘beaver’ (I suck at video games!)
We walked around Paradise Pier and hopped onto the Jumpin’ Jellyfish for a quick ride. Unfortunately, the construction of the DVC villas at the Grand Californian Hotel blocked our view of everything over at Disneyland when we were elevated, so we apparently picked the wrong ‘jellyfish’ for this ride!
We kept walking over to the Pacific Wharf, enjoying the wonderfully warm & sunny day. I have listed the temperature highs with each day’s heading, so you can see how lucky we were the whole weekend with the weather!
We took The Bakery Tour and the Mission Tortilla Factory tour, where we enjoyed a slice of sourdough bread and flour tortilla respectively. They used to always give you two slices of bread in the past…is this a victim of cost-cutting? I was also disappointed to never time it right to enjoy a corn tortilla…we always caught the flour side each day. Oh well…still delicious as always!
We stopped in to check out the exhibits in the new Walt Disney Imagineering Blue Sky Cellar, which had models of the revamped Paradise Pier area among other things. I took a few photos of the models, and then took the quiz and got 4 out of 5 questions correct!
We next went back to ride Soarin’ with our earlier FPs, and then James picked up more FPs (4:10pm) while I purchased a Coke Zero ($2.75) at the refreshment stand nearby. I discovered Coke Zero on my trip to Walt Disney World last fall, and both of us are big fans now!
We shared the soda as we walked over to check out the line for The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (ToT), but it was 40 minutes so we decided to skip it. There were several school groups in the park today, which may account for the long line here. We decided to ride Monsters, Inc. instead, since it was a walk-on and we always enjoy it!
We walked through Off the Page for a few minutes, and then caught the Aladdin show at 4:15pm. We managed to squeeze into two empty seats in the front section, and had a lot of fun as always. The cast is very talented, and the Genie is always entertaining!
The sun was starting to go down as we exited Aladdin, so we decided to go back to the motel for our jackets. We stopped at Guest Services along the way to pick up James’ birthday button for tomorrow, as I knew the lines would be longer tomorrow morning when they opened.
We ate our Quizno’s leftovers while we were at the motel, and then geared up for our night-time touring with jackets and our nightlights (we like to ‘light up’ at night, and have various items that we wear…our main ones include a light-up Tinkerbelle for me & a light-up Little Green Man for James).
We arrived back at the parks around 6pm, and since DCA was closed we headed into Walt’s original park = Disneyland (DL)! As Goofy would say, “Gawrsh, I love this place!”
We went first to James’ favorite attraction here: Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters (Buzz). He would ride this thing 13 times this trip! Insane… Anyway, Buzz had a 10-minute wait, and James spanked me as usual with 416,000 points vs. my 95,300. Our photo ranked James’ score as #100, and I emailed it back to our home (love this freebie!).
We walked through Fantasyland to check out Peter Pan’s Flight, but the line was long as usual and we kept walking. We next headed over to ride Jungle Cruise, as James prefers to ride it at night now ever since we had a very funny trip at night several years ago. We enjoyed the antics of Skipper Chris on the Congo Queen, and then walked next door to check out the queue for the Indiana Jones Adventure (Indy). The queue was listed as 55 minutes with no FPs available, so we skipped it for tonight and rode Pirates of the Caribbean (Pirates) since it was a walk-on.
We were looking for things to do since it was still another 25 minutes until Fantasmic! started at 7:30pm, so we checked out the queue for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (BTMRR). It was listed as 25 minutes, so we headed on over to Fantasyland. Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride (Mr. Toad) had a long line as well, so we decided to ride Pinocchio’s Daring Journey (Pinocchio) as it was a walk-on.
After we exited Pinocchio, we headed back towards Frontierland along Big Thunder Trail and I called Jessica to firm up plans for the next day. I had trouble hearing her as they were making these loud announcements on BTMRR to stay seated until someone came along to evacuate them! So it was a good thing we didn’t try to ride it tonight after all.
We stood on the bridge above Pirates and enjoyed Fantasmic! as always. I just love Disney music, and this soundtrack is no exception. I also get such a kick watching Mickey triumph over the villains…my hero!
The park was practically closed now at 8pm, so we headed down Main Street. We stopped in at City Hall to pick up personalized ‘Celebrate’ buttons, and then exited the park. We walked back to the motel and watched the last hour of American Idol. For some reason, our local channels were blurry the whole weekend (the cable channels were fine), so it was a bit of a challenge to watch the local shows like we usually do. I took a shower and updated my trip notes, and we both were in bed shortly after 10pm.
Friday, January 30, 2009 [James’ Birthday (83 degrees)]
Plan: Disneyland/DCA (Ryan & Jessica to join us)
Actual: The alarm went off at 7:15am, and we got ready for our first full day at the Disneyland Resort! Jessica called to say that she & Ryan would probably arrive around 2pm, so I told her to call again when they got close so we could meet them at the motel.
We ate breakfast at the motel and were off to Disneyland (DL) at 9am. There was no lines to speak of at the turnstiles, and we were soon on to our usual first attraction here = Peter Pan’s Flight! We only had a 10-minute wait (yay!), and next rode Mr. Toad (Winky, which is the pub guy) and Alice in Wonderland in quick succession. I wanted to get FPs for Space Mountain, but it was down so we went over to ride Buzz. James earned 453,100, which ranked him as #13, and I received a respectable (for me) 127,500, which ranked me as #80 at that time…whoo-hoo!
When we exited, I noticed that Space was back up, so I went over to get FPs for Jessica & I to use later in the day. The machine spit out two FPs the first time I used it (10:25am), and then I was able to get another one with James’ pass…3 all together! At first I thought that it was James’ pass that had received the first two passes (like it knew today was his birthday or something), but then the machine wouldn’t give my pass one. I only got the third FP when I used his ticket. What a nice surprise, though!
James had headed over to the Monorail Station while I was getting the Space FPs (Monorail Red was in the station then), and as I headed over I noticed that Monorail Blue was now in the station. I hurried up the ramp and joined James in the nose for our first trip in the new Mark VII train…what a nice ‘birthday’ ride! I asked Captain Ron if they had any pilot’s licenses, and he said they don’t do them anymore (darn). He was very nice during the ride over to Downtown Disney, and then we had Captain Melissa for our return trip to the park.
When we disembarked the Monorail just after 10am (look how much we had accomplished in that first hour after park opening!), we headed over to DCA. James went over to pick up Soarin’ FPs (10:55am) while I headed into the Hollywood Pictures Backlot. My pass wouldn’t work on the FP machine for some reason (must have been due to the extra Space FP!), so the Cast Member (CM) wrote ‘x2’ and her name on James’ FP.
We met back up and rode Monsters, Inc. (walk-on) since the Disney Visa Card Meet & Greet hadn’t opened yet. When we got off of Monsters, we went to get our picture taken with Chip & Dale, and then rode ToT. James wanted to try to ride TSMM (it was just before 11am), but we had reservations for 11:30am at the Blue Bayou Restaurant (BBR) so I agreed to go back to DL and ride Buzz one more time instead (hey, it WAS his birthday). We did stop briefly at Guest Services in DCA to pick up James’ Birthday Fun Card along the way, and went back to DL.
Buzz now had a 10-minute wait and I was stressing about getting over to BBR early enough to request a water-side table. James said he didn’t care about that because everyone just stares at you from the boats (whhhaaaattt???? I think he was just trying to push my buttons at this point). Fortunately, we were off of Buzz by 11:25am (James got 427,800, which ranked him as #44, and I got 100,700), and we grabbed more Buzz FPs (12pm) and power-walked over to the BBR.
We checked in and the CM was very friendly and wished James a ‘Happy Birthday’ (he had been receiving greetings all morning long, which is part of the magic when visiting DL on your birthday!). We waited a few minutes among the growing crowd, and soon were escorted to the last water-side table! I was very pleased (I think it was due to his birthday), and so was James (I think!).
The main problem with the BBR is the lack of lighting, although it does add to the ambiance. James fished out his mini-flashlight from his fanny-pack and we began perusing the menu (although I had already familiarized myself with the various menus that had been posted to Allears.net). We ordered Diet Cokes at first, and then James discovered the Pirates’ Punch on the menu. He was interested in getting one with the light-up Captain Hook, so he ordered one with his lunch. Our server thought they were out of them, so I ordered one with a light-up Tink instead. I also ordered the Shrimp appetizer for my entrée and James ordered the salmon (which I planned to snack on also!). We snacked on the tasty rolls they brought us (and we also asked for seconds!), and soon our server brought me my drink with the Tink as well as a Captain Hook for James! We were very pleased, and proudly displayed our new toys while we ate (they showed up very well in the dark restaurant)!
James had the wedge salad accompaniment and then we shared the rest of the food when it came. We also shared the free birthday chocolate mousse (which was one of the reasons I had booked this meal here today!), and thoroughly enjoyed our meal together. The total came to $53 after the 10% AP discount, which I paid for with the DVRC. I also left a $10 cash tip, and we left the restaurant shortly after 12:30pm.
I picked up BTMRR FPs (1:15pm), and we went back to ride Buzz with our earlier FPs. This time James got 123,600 & I got 186,400…I BEAT HIM!!! What a shocker that was, but I won’t gloat…too much!
We stopped at the Main Street Photo Supply Co. for help with my camera (I had unknowingly changed a setting and couldn’t take any more pictures until it got fixed), and then we stopped at Disneyana. I bought the 2009 $1 Disney Dollar and 2 $5 Gift Cards (this is how I get cheap souvenirs from DL…buy Disney Gift Cards, use them, and keep the empty card for later!), and then we headed back over to DCA around 1:20pm.
James went to pick up more Soarin’ FPs (3:15pm), while I stopped in Greetings from California to pick up our free Disney Visa photo. Unfortunately, they had used a camera with a known problem and the character photos were all under-exposed and blurry! It was disappointing, but they offered us 2 free photos of any other pose instead, so I picked one of us in front of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle looking surprised while ‘holding’ Tink (it was very cute, and we were in matching ‘Grumpy Rage’ football jerseys!). We then met back up and headed back over to the motel for a break around 1:45pm.
I started updating our trip notes, while James took a short nap. I was just about to fall asleep myself when Jessica called to let us know how much longer they would be. James woke up and I gave him his birthday cards & gift from me. When J&R arrived around 3:45pm, we gave them their Christmas presents and then headed over to DCA shortly thereafter.
We went straight over to Soarin’ to ride, but it was down so we walked over to check out the queue for TSMM. It was 45 minutes, so we decided to skip it for now and headed over to ride Jumpin’ Jellyfish (10-minute wait). Afterwards, we headed back around Grizzly River Rapids and stopped to watch the Miner 49ers perform ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky’ (great song!). We noticed that the banjo and bass players were the same ones from the Gold Team Billy Hill & the Hillbillies show that we love over at DL, and also that the bass player makes the same goofy expressions here as he does as ‘Billy’ (he always cracks me up)!
Soarin’ was back up, so we rode it with the 2 sets of FPs we had gotten earlier today (wonderful as always). It was time for our free tortilla (flour again!), and James also got a free ½ dozen tortillas for his birthday (I remember when they used to give a full dozen…another cost-cutting measure?). Either way, it’s always a nice treat.
We next got in line at the Pacific Wharf Café for some dinner - Vallejo Vegetarian Chili for James, a turkey sandwich for me, plus we shared a large Diet Coke and a chocolate chip cookie; I also bought Jessica a large Sprite and chocolate chip cookie (total for everything after the 10% AP discount = $28, some of which was paid for by the balance on the DVRC).
It was almost time for DCA to close, so James had us all quickly eat the tortillas so he could use the baggie to store his sourdough bread bowl! We then rushed back over to TSMM and got into the queue about 5:50pm, which was still listed as 45 minutes. It looked a lot longer, and it was getting pretty chilly so we bailed after about 15 minutes and headed back to the motel for our jackets and night-lights.
We returned to DL around 6:40pm and went straight to…you guessed it, Buzz! We picked up more FPs (7:40pm), and Jessica & James got in the queue to ride while Ryan & I headed over to ride Space with the FPs I had gotten this morning. I had originally thought that Jessica would also ride with us, but her back was bothering her and she thought it would be best to skip it for now (Space bothers James’ motion sickness, so he doesn’t ride it at all anymore). The standby wait was 65 minutes, so I was glad for the FPs! We had a terrific time…I just love the music during the ride; it really enhances my experience!
We laughed at our ride photo (Ryan tried to capture the image with his camera phone), and then we headed over to the Snow White Grotto to wait for James & Jess. James emailed their Buzz photo back to our nephew (Jessica’s brother) instead of to us, so I don’t know what their scores ended up being (I do believe that James probably beat Jessica though).
When we met back up again, we got in line to see the recently re-opened Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough since none of us had seen it yet. It was a slow-moving line, but we enjoyed seeing the changes…so glad this has been ‘reawakened’! We also checked out the wheelchair accessible room to see what it offered, and then Ryan & I headed over to ride BTMRR with my earlier FPs while James & Jessica stayed behind in Fantasyland.
After BTMRR (where standby = 30 minutes), we headed over to the entrance to Pirates as that was where we had planned to meet back up. The 8pm Fantasmic! performance was underway, and Ryan & I watched it while we waited. We later found out that James & Jess had ridden the King Arthur Carrousel in the interim.
We rode Pirates together, and then went over to ride the Jungle Cruise aboard the Yangtze Lotus with Skipper Austin. After another fun trip, I stopped to pick up a bottle of Coke Zero ($2.75) and we headed back to Tomorrowland. We posed for PhotoPass pictures together in front of the Castle along the way, and then rode Buzz with our earlier FPs (James = 561,500, Jessica = 139,900, Ryan = 160,400, & I had 257,500…a high for me, I think!).
DL was about to close at 10pm, so we headed back down Main Street. We perused the Disneyana shop again, and stopped for more PhotoPass pictures together (with the Castle still in our background).
We left the park and headed back to the motel. As we walked in front of the Park Vue Motel where the timeshare folks hang out, I heard them offering $150 Disney Dollars to the family they were talking to. Now they had been telling us every time (and I do mean EVERY time so far) we walked by that they were giving away $100 in Disney Dollars. We had planned to sign up on Saturday (our free day), but not yet…I want to be at the parks, not at a timeshare presentation! Well, I told James they were trying to sweeten the deal with this other family, so we decided to ask for the $150 the next time they asked us. :)
We said goodbye to the kids, and went back to our room. I took a shower and updated my trip notes while James watched TV. He was asleep by midnight, and I stayed up a little longer watching TV before falling asleep around 1am.
Saturday, January 31, 2009 (78 degrees)
Plan: Disney’s Character Warehouse Outlet; World of Disney
Actual: I hadn’t set the alarm, but we both woke up around 8:15am to the noises of the city. We were out the door around 10am and headed over to the Orange County Transit Authority (OCTA) bus stop to catch a bus to Fullerton ($8 for two Day passes). We only had to wait a couple of minutes before the next bus arrived, and we got off at the Orangefair Mall about 20 minutes later.
We looked around Circuit City, Factory-2-U, and Dollar Tree before arriving at the Disney Character Warehouse Outlet. They had a lot of women’s clothes (at great discounts too!), and I got a lot of stuff…too bad James only got a hat! Altogether we got clothes, cookies, jewelry, gifts, and other miscellaneous items for about $109 after my 10% Gold Card discount. This purchase also entitled me to another Gold Card, which guaranteed me 10% off for another two years…whoo-hoo!
We stopped back at Dollar Tree again so I could buy some Coke Zero, water, and a lint roller ($7), and then we hauled our purchases across the street to have lunch at the In-N-Out Burger (YUM!). We ate two burgers, two orders of fries, and shared a Diet Coke ($8, paid for by a gift card I had received for Christmas from our nephew and his family), before heading across Harbor to the WaMu (bank) as I had a rebate check I wanted to cash. Unfortunately, they had closed 5 minutes earlier and we JUST missed the OCTA bus, so we sat down to wait for the next one to arrive.
It was another gorgeous day, and we only had to wait about 15 minutes before we were on our way. We went back to our motel room to drop off our purchases, and then went back to catch another bus down to Katella (why walk all the way down there when we had perfectly good bus passes?). We went into the 7-11 so I could purchase my Super Lotto as my regular ticket had expired on Wednesday, and I discovered that it held $4 in winnings too! I also bought 3 Quick-Picks since the jackpot was fairly high (total spent = $19), and then we walked across the street.
We stopped at Subway for dinner (veggie foot-long plus a turkey foot-long = $10), and walked to the OCTA bus stop. A timeshare rep came over to solicit us and James asked for $150, to which he said he couldn’t do that. So we boarded the next bus and headed back to our motel room to store our sandwiches.
It was time to check out Downtown Disney (DD), so we left around 3pm. We walked through World of Disney (WoD), and then stopped at Wetzel Pretzels for some Bitz ($4.45 after 10% AP discount). We kept walking through DD on our way over to the Disneyland Hotel and just enjoyed our time together. We bought a few postcards and stamps ($5), and also checked out their lovely waterfalls before heading back through DD.
We stopped to admire the Grand Californian Hotel’s lobby and I sat in one of their comfy chairs while James looked around in one of the shops. We then headed back to the WoD so I could use the 20% AP Renewal Certificate that was expiring today! I bought a T-shirt, CD, jewelry, and gifts for $68, and then we made one more stop at the La Brea Bakery. I love their cheese Panini & James really likes their tuna sandwich, so I bought those for our dinner ($16 after the 10% AP discount)…I guess the Subway sandwiches will now become breakfast tomorrow instead of dinner tonight now!
We arrived back at the motel around 6pm, and ate our sandwiches while we watched TV. Since our local channels were still poor, we ended up watching several movies on HBO (Juno, Mr. Woodcock, & Meet the Spartans). We also heard from Carol (she & Bruce were now coming to have breakfast with us tomorrow)…she thought they would arrive around 9am. Guess the Subway sandwiches will now be eaten…sometime else! ;)
James got ready for bed & I went outside around 9:25pm to watch the Fireworks from outside Denny’s. I waited about 10 minutes and nothing happened so I figured they must have been cancelled, although there wasn’t a huge crowd exiting the parks yet that I could see. I finally gave up, went back to the room, and was about to get into the shower when BOOM…they started up (15 minutes late!). Since I was already undressed, I decided to just skip it for this trip (I’ve seen them many times before, and they’re always wonderful!). I took my shower and started watching Die Hard 3 before falling asleep around 11pm.
Interestingly enough…here we had decided to sign up for the timeshare presentation today and they never asked us (except for the guy down by Subway)! We walked past them 6 times and all they did was smile at us, where they had made a point to speak to us EVERY TIME we passed by on Thursday and Friday…I guess business was much better on Saturdays!
Sunday, February 1, 2009 (71 degrees)
Plan: Disneyland/DCA
Actual: The alarm went off again at 7:15am, and we began getting ready for the day. Carol called us and said that they would meet us at IHOP around 9:30am, but since they are usually late James wanted to head over to DL until they arrived. We left just before 9am and this time as we passed the timeshare people, one of them offered us the $100 in Disney Dollars and James replied that we would do it for $150 and she said OK! So we went inside the Park Vue to get our ‘invitation’ and pay our $20 deposit (for our lunch…this is to discourage people from signing up and then being no-shows), and then we were again on our way to DL.
We were through the turnstiles at 9:10am, and since we were pretty sure that Peter Pan would have a long line by now (today was also Early Entry) we headed over to…wait for it…Buzz! Yeah, it’s still James’ birthday trip…sigh. There was hardly anyone in the queue and the ride kept stopping which helped me earn a high score (for me!) of 418,300 (#12) and James earn 696,400 (#5)…whoo-hoo! That was so cool!
After emailing our photo home, we picked up more FPs (10:05am) and discovered that we had two missed calls from Carol. James called her back and they were already at IHOP so we headed back to join them. We enjoyed a nice brunch together: I had a plain Belgian waffle, hash browns, and a Diet Coke and James had a veggie omelet, pancakes, and a Diet Coke. I don’t remember what Carol & Bruce ate (except for Carol’s crepes), and they picked up the check (thank you!). We left IHOP and visited in our motel room until they had to leave (Bruce had to be at work by 2pm).
James and I headed back to DCA around 11:40am, and he went to pick up Soarin’ FPs (1:15pm) before we met Chip & Dale again at the Disney Visa Meet & Greet. We rode Monsters, Inc. afterwards, and then ran over to catch the 12:10pm presentation of Aladdin in the mezzanine section. Today’s Genie was better than Thursday’s, and they had the same Jafar both days. The show was great as always, and we went to check out the wait for ToT afterwards (30 minutes). We decided to skip it for now, so I picked up FPs (2:15pm) and we headed over to ride Soarin’ with our earlier FPs.
We had a few minutes before our ToT FPs were valid, so we went to get a free tortilla (flour again!), and then experienced The Twilight Zone together. We picked up more FPs for Soarin’ (5:25pm), and we left DCA to go to the timeshare presentation.
We checked in with the Shell Vacation Club people, and they dispatched a limo to take us down Harbor to the Crowne Plaza Hotel. We endured a 2-hour presentation while they served us a meal from Quizno’s (we each had a small turkey sub, Baked Lay’s BBQ chips, Diet Coke, and chocolate chip cookies, although I ended up eating James’ cookie later!)…I got a kick out of how hard the salesman was trying different angles to trick James into thinking this would be a good thing for us! He did crack up at how we ordered the exact same thing to eat (24 years of marriage…what can we say?).
They finally gave up and we collected our $150 in Disney Dollars (thank you very much!). They dispatched the limo to return us to the Park Vue and we were back in our room just after 5pm. We picked up the souvenir from Poland that Carol had left with Jamil at the front desk (she went there last year on business), and we checked on the Super Bowl score while we geared up for the evening.
We left for DCA around 5:25pm and I stopped to pick up our free photo. They must have used the same camera again, because the photos were again out of focus and under-exposed. I asked for a 2nd free photo since that is what they offered us the day before, and they agreed. I picked out one of us with Jessica & Ryan in front of the Castle from Friday night and we headed over to ride Soarin’ with our earlier FPs.
We asked at the Information Booth what the TSMM wait was and decided to skip it since it was 45 minutes again. I suggested we watch Muppet*Vision 3D since we hadn’t seen it at all this trip, and we got to see the entire pre-show (which is our favorite part…'up, Chuck'…very funny stuff)…whoo-hoo! We also rode Monsters one more time (walk-on), and then went back to the motel so we could check-in for our flight the next day. The desk clerk printed off our boarding passes (22 & 23 on Southwest) for us and we were heading back to DL around 7:45pm.
James picked up Buzz FPs (8:40pm), which were printed upside-down, and we rode it with our earlier FPs (James got 312,100 and I got 131,300). We checked out Fantasyland, which was pretty crowded still, and headed over to Adventureland. We rode Jungle Cruise one last time (Skipper Daniel on Kissimmee Kate), and picked up FPs for Indy (9:20pm). We walked on to Pirates, and then watched the 9pm presentation of Fantasmic! (although we just missed the opening, which is one of the best parts with my hero Mickey). After Fantasmic!, we went to ride Indy with our FPs. They weren’t needed after all, since there was no queue outside by now.
After Indy, we stopped at Bengal BBQ so I could have my Banyan Beef skewers ($8 after 10% AP discount, paid for by the timeshare Disney Dollars)…boy, are those things spicy! We then walked over to ride BTMRR, which was a walk-on…the park was really starting to empty out by this time!
We walked over to Fantasyland and rode Pinocchio, Snow White (Bashful), and Mr. Toad (Toady). Unfortunately, Peter Pan still had quite a queue so we headed back to…BUZZ! DL was about to close in 30 minutes, so I agreed to ride Buzz as long as James didn’t ask to ride it again the next day! :D We ended up riding it 3 times in a row, as the queue was absolutely empty. James’ scores were 273,700, 443,700, and 336,400, whereas my scores were 108,300, 94,900, & 214,600. The last time we even rode in separate vehicles (maybe that helped my score somewhat)!
DL was now officially closed, so I stopped at City Hall to swap our remaining Disney Dollars into cash, and we walked back to the motel. I took a shower and updated my trip notes, and we were both in bed by midnight.
Monday, February 2, 2009 (84 degrees)
Plan: Disneyland/DCA (Jessica & Patty to join us); fly home
Actual: Boy, I wish we had an extra day…I don’t wanna go home yet! :crying:
We were up around 8am, and I packed our stuff and finished the postcards. We called Jessica & Patty around 9:30am to find out their location (Laguna Hills about 20 minutes away), and then James stored our smaller luggage over at the Desert Inn’s lockers ($1). We left our big bag (which doesn’t fit in the lockers) with Jamil at the front desk when we checked out shortly before 10am ($330 for 4 nights), and waited for the girls to arrive. Jamil had agreed to let them park there at the motel for a few hours, and soon they arrived and we were off!
Since both parks opened at 10am today, we decided to go straight to DCA and get in line for TSMM. James detoured to get Soarin’ FPs along the way (10:50am), and caught up to us just as we reached TSMM. The queue was very short and we rode it two times in a row! Our scores for the first ride were 168,800 (James, cat), 137,400 (me, beaver), 120,600 (Jessica, beaver), and 135,500 (Patty, beaver). I still suck at these things (compared to everyone else) because I was still at the ‘beaver’ level after the second ride whereas everyone else was now a ‘cat’: 161,300 (James), 136,000 (Pam), 166,700 (Jessica), and 156,900 (Patty). Oh well…it was still so much fun!
We stopped for a PhotoPass picture on the bridge over the empty lagoon, and stopped for a free tortilla at Mission Tortilla (flour again…there would be no corn tortillas sampled this trip!). We stopped in at the Blue Sky Cellar, as it was new to Jessica (and maybe Patty, too…I forget). We tried the quizzes again and each got 4 out of 5 right (different questions), plus we watched the film. Not a surprise to see Ed Grier in the film, since it IS a PR appearance and that’s about the only time anyone sees him in the parks as I understand it!
We headed over to have our picture taken with Pluto during the Disney Visa Meet & Greet in the Hollywood Pictures Backlot. Jessica & Patty started dancing with Pluto while the photographer was snapping away…they all seemed to be having a lot of fun (see…you don’t need to have kids with you on these trips, you can BE the kid yourself!).
We went next door to ride Monsters, Inc. (walk-on again; I remember when we would have to wait 40 minutes for this attraction just a couple of years ago!) and then over to ride Soarin’ with our FPs. James picked up additional FPs just-in-case (12:40pm) while we ladies checked out the tortoise-shell kitty by the Zephyr. We then met up and stopped to pick up our free photos (still no character ones for us, as James had his eyes closed in 2 of the 3 they took of us and he was scowling in the third one). It was time to go visit Disneyland (12:20pm)!
Patty wanted to see the Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough (this may have been new to her as well), so we all went through it together (hardly anyone in the queue this time, compared to Friday evening). James saw a postal box, so he dropped off our postcards on our way over to the 1pm Billy Hill & the Hillbillies show. It was pretty packed, but James & Jessica were able to find a table with 4 chairs near the back while Patty & I stood in the loooong lines for our lunch (well, it WAS lunch-time!). Too bad the lines were pretty well non-existent by the end of the show!
The girls shared the chicken nuggets (I remember when these used to be strips!), James had the chili, I had the mozzarella sticks, plus we shared a large Diet Coke & a water ($32 after the 10% AP discount). Patty had a class at 3pm, so they both left around 1:20pm to drive back to Escondido after wolfing down their food!
The show was terrific as usual (Gold Team, which is the best IMHO), and as we left the Golden Horseshoe Saloon, we noticed that the Mark Twain has just docked so we moseyed over to ride it. Another lovely day today…it was so nice to just relax and enjoy the scenery during our journey around the Rivers of America.
We hadn’t made it over to Critter Country yet, so we walked over to ride Winnie-the-Pooh. Splash Mountain was doing a pretty good business due to the warm weather, but we didn’t want to get wet since we were flying home later and didn’t have our ponchos with us at the time. Next time, hopefully!
We walked back to New Orleans Square and boarded the next train over to Tomorrowland. We had wanted to ride the Monorail one more time, but it wasn’t running due to the temps being over 80 degrees (will you fix those windows already?!). So apparently I’m a nice wife, because I agreed to ride Buzz with James one last time; James got 394,900 (#89) and I got 67,000.
Space only had a 10 minute wait (wow…park attendance was definitely lighter today), so I went over to ride it while James rode Buzz again. It kept stopping so James claims he had a score of over 800,000 but the scores didn’t print out on the photo to prove it! ;)
We watched the Jedi Training Academy at 3:30pm, which we always get a kick out of even without having kids participating. They were the same Jedi Masters we had seen on previous trips, and everyone did a great job. Darth Maul really loves to taunt the audience, and had us cracking up with his antics.
We were walking over towards Fantasyland when we saw Monorail Blue arrive at the station, so we walked back over to see if they were ready to start carrying passengers again. Unfortunately, they didn’t plan to resume service for another 30 minutes, and we knew we would be leaving the park about that time so oh, well…
We went back to the Disneyland Railroad station and just missed the train, so we sat down to wait for the next one. We had originally planned to take 'a round-trip circle tour around Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom', but then decided we didn’t have enough time so we just rode it to Main Street and disembarked there instead.
We went in to the temporary setting of the Disney Gallery to see what the latest exhibits were, and then looked through the Emporium a little bit as well but we didn’t buy anything. I guess James will just have to hold onto his Birthday Fun Card a little bit longer! He was interested in buying a limited edition E-Ticket piece, but they were out of stock everywhere.
It was now 4:30pm and we needed to return to the motel to catch our shuttle to the airport, so we headed for the exit. The Disneyland Band was just arriving for Flag Retreat as we left, and it would have been nice to watch the performance but we just didn’t have the time (or so we thought). We said good-bye to Disneyland for this trip and left the park. :crying:
We retrieved our luggage and waited for SuperShuttle to pick us up. When the 15-minute window had passed, I called them and found out they were still 5 minutes away. We were the first ones onboard, and arrived at SNA by 5:40pm ($3 tip). We checked in our big bag and finished off the bottle of water we had with us before heading through security. I was surprised to be patted down (I was wearing a very loose jersey with my back brace…unsure if that was the reason or whether it was just random?). It took just a couple of minutes, and we were soon putting our shoes back on and looking for something to eat.
We settled on McDonald’s (hamburger & Big Mac combo = $10), and then found seats at our gate to hang out for the next hour. I returned a phone call to my nephew’s girlfriend, and then we boarded our plane once it arrived. There were less than 50 passengers and we departed on-time. We received full cans of Diet Coke and ginger ale this time (due to the emptiness of the plane?) plus 2 packages of peanuts apiece. I updated my trip notes during the flight, and we arrived at the gate 10 minutes early – yay!
Our bag was waiting for us once we got downstairs, but we had to wait about 10 minutes for a bus to the Economy lot. It was a very full bus by that time, as you can imagine! We were the last ones to get off the bus (parking = $45), and we were home by 10pm to heap lots of love onto our kitty!
I am already planning our return trip to Disneyland for Jessica’s birthday weekend the end of April…hopefully, the economy won’t affect it!
Summary
Another fun trip…I wish we could have stayed longer since the crowds were great and the weather fabulous!
Highlights include:
Celebrating James’ birthday at Disneyland!
Spending time with the family
The warm & dry days
Staying just ahead of the crowds
Wonderful lunch at The Blue Bayou
Billy Hill & the Hillbillies (Gold Team)
Lowlights include:
Missing Splash Mountain, Sailing Ship Columbia, Finding Nemo Subs, Matterhorn, Star Tours, Mulholland Madness, Storybookland Canal Boats, Casey Jr., and all of Toontown
Do we HAVE to ride Buzz so much? (James rode it 13 times, but it WAS his birthday trip)
Travel method: Plane
Resort: Anaheim Del Sol Inn (Off-site)
Accommodations: Standard
Ages Represented in Group: Adult
Disney Resort Experience Represented in Group: Veteran
Comments: James’ Birthday Trip
Cast of characters:
Pam, 48: trip planner/writer and self-proclaimed Disney Queen
James, 48/49: Pam’s husband & the birthday boy
Carol, 51: James’ sister
Bruce, 62: Carol’s husband
Jessica, 21: Carol & Bruce’s daughter and a Disney princess
Ryan, 23: Jessica’s husband and fellow Disney geek
Patty, 28: Ryan’s sister and another fellow Disney fanatic
The Reservations
The main reason for the trip (as if we need one!) was to celebrate James’ birthday on January 30th and collect his free Birthday Fun Card!
Lodging: As usual, I made reservations at the Anaheim Del Sol Inn on Harbor Blvd. (a 5-minute walk from the parks, total for 4 nights = $330). Everyone else lives near San Diego, and we would see them at some point during our stay.
Transportation: I booked our airfare on Southwest Airlines from Sacramento to Orange County ($316 round-trip), plus made reservations with SuperShuttle for travel to/from the motel ($22 round-trip after applying the Entertainment Card group discount).
Tickets: Carol & Bruce were not going to the parks, and everyone else has Annual Passes.
Priority Seating: We usually just use counter-service, but I did make reservations at 11:30am on 1/30 for James’ birthday lunch.
The Itinerary
The pre-planning was done, and we were ready to go! Here was our planned schedule:
January 29: Arrive at the Resort; Disneyland/DCA
January 30: Disneyland/DCA (Ryan & Jessica to join us)
January 31: Disney’s Character Warehouse Outlet; World of Disney
February 1: Disneyland/DCA
February 2: Disneyland/DCA (Jessica & Patty to join us); fly home
One more thing: right before we left, I loaded my Disney Visa Rewards Card (DVRC) with the $65 balance I had previously accumulated…yippee!
Thursday, January 29, 2009 (81 degrees)
Plan: Arrive at the Resort; Disneyland/DCA
Actual: We said goodbye to Cyrus (our kitty) and left the house at 8:15am to drive to the Sacramento airport for our 10:20am flight to Orange County. We parked the car in the Economy lot and were quickly picked up by the shuttle bus. Check-in and security went smoothly and we stopped at the food court so we could have some breakfast. James opted for Chinese food (chicken rice bowl = $10) and I chose a Jr. Whopper combo from Burger King ($5). We both enjoyed our meals and then I bought a bottle of water ($2.39) before walking over to Gate A16 to wait for our plane to arrive. We boarded and departed on time, and had a slightly bumpy flight to Orange County because of the winds. The plane was freezing (it was still only the low 40s outside by now), so we grabbed a few blankets & pillows for our seats in the exit row. We enjoyed the complimentary snacks that Southwest Airlines offered en route (I had a Diet Coke and peanuts and James had a ginger ale with pretzels), and we were soon arriving at our destination!
After our on-time arrival at the John Wayne Airport, we retrieved our checked bag and went outside to catch our SuperShuttle van. We were the 1st ones onboard, but it didn’t leave until it was full. We were the 2nd ones dropped off ($3 tip), and we greeted our friend Jamil at the Anaheim Del Sol front desk when we checked in. We have stayed here many times, and Jamil always recognizes us and treats us wonderfully each time. The Del Sol is a small, clean non-smoking motel that includes a refrigerator, microwave, and Continental breakfast…just what we want since we spend a majority of our time at the parks.
I love visiting during the slow season…we pretty much had our choice of rooms, although we did have to play ‘musical rooms’ at first! We prefer to stay over the carport, so I asked for room #237. Jamil said that it didn’t appear to be ready yet so he gave us room #235. We had trouble getting the door to open at first (finally figured out that the handle needed to be turned upwards on this room because it was a little bit loose). When we opened the door, we found that the comforters were missing (still being cleaned). This surprised Jamil, who checked #237 and found that it was ready after all!
I went back to the office to have the keys re-keyed to room #237, but they accidentally got re-keyed to #235 when Jamil was distracted with a phone call during the process! We stopped at the office on our way out to have them re-keyed one more time to the correct room number, and headed over to the Quizno’s down the street.
We picked up a large veggie sub and a large turkey sub ($17), and headed back to the room. We stopped at the Desert Inn mini-mart to pick up 4 liters of water along the way ($13), and then ate ½ of our sandwiches in the room. We put the remainder into the fridge along with the water, and headed out to Disney’s California Adventure (DCA) around 1:45pm.
We stopped just inside the entrance to have some pictures taken with the PhotoPass photographer, and then picked up fastpasses (FPs) for Soarin’ over California (2:25pm). We next headed over to ride DCA’s newest attraction: Toy Story Midway Mania (TSMM)! The wait was listed as 20 minutes (it was closer to 25), and James beat me 167,900 to 107,300. James won a ‘cat’ every time we played this, whereas I always won a ‘beaver’ (I suck at video games!)
We walked around Paradise Pier and hopped onto the Jumpin’ Jellyfish for a quick ride. Unfortunately, the construction of the DVC villas at the Grand Californian Hotel blocked our view of everything over at Disneyland when we were elevated, so we apparently picked the wrong ‘jellyfish’ for this ride!
We kept walking over to the Pacific Wharf, enjoying the wonderfully warm & sunny day. I have listed the temperature highs with each day’s heading, so you can see how lucky we were the whole weekend with the weather!
We took The Bakery Tour and the Mission Tortilla Factory tour, where we enjoyed a slice of sourdough bread and flour tortilla respectively. They used to always give you two slices of bread in the past…is this a victim of cost-cutting? I was also disappointed to never time it right to enjoy a corn tortilla…we always caught the flour side each day. Oh well…still delicious as always!
We stopped in to check out the exhibits in the new Walt Disney Imagineering Blue Sky Cellar, which had models of the revamped Paradise Pier area among other things. I took a few photos of the models, and then took the quiz and got 4 out of 5 questions correct!
We next went back to ride Soarin’ with our earlier FPs, and then James picked up more FPs (4:10pm) while I purchased a Coke Zero ($2.75) at the refreshment stand nearby. I discovered Coke Zero on my trip to Walt Disney World last fall, and both of us are big fans now!
We shared the soda as we walked over to check out the line for The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (ToT), but it was 40 minutes so we decided to skip it. There were several school groups in the park today, which may account for the long line here. We decided to ride Monsters, Inc. instead, since it was a walk-on and we always enjoy it!
We walked through Off the Page for a few minutes, and then caught the Aladdin show at 4:15pm. We managed to squeeze into two empty seats in the front section, and had a lot of fun as always. The cast is very talented, and the Genie is always entertaining!
The sun was starting to go down as we exited Aladdin, so we decided to go back to the motel for our jackets. We stopped at Guest Services along the way to pick up James’ birthday button for tomorrow, as I knew the lines would be longer tomorrow morning when they opened.
We ate our Quizno’s leftovers while we were at the motel, and then geared up for our night-time touring with jackets and our nightlights (we like to ‘light up’ at night, and have various items that we wear…our main ones include a light-up Tinkerbelle for me & a light-up Little Green Man for James).
We arrived back at the parks around 6pm, and since DCA was closed we headed into Walt’s original park = Disneyland (DL)! As Goofy would say, “Gawrsh, I love this place!”
We went first to James’ favorite attraction here: Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters (Buzz). He would ride this thing 13 times this trip! Insane… Anyway, Buzz had a 10-minute wait, and James spanked me as usual with 416,000 points vs. my 95,300. Our photo ranked James’ score as #100, and I emailed it back to our home (love this freebie!).
We walked through Fantasyland to check out Peter Pan’s Flight, but the line was long as usual and we kept walking. We next headed over to ride Jungle Cruise, as James prefers to ride it at night now ever since we had a very funny trip at night several years ago. We enjoyed the antics of Skipper Chris on the Congo Queen, and then walked next door to check out the queue for the Indiana Jones Adventure (Indy). The queue was listed as 55 minutes with no FPs available, so we skipped it for tonight and rode Pirates of the Caribbean (Pirates) since it was a walk-on.
We were looking for things to do since it was still another 25 minutes until Fantasmic! started at 7:30pm, so we checked out the queue for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (BTMRR). It was listed as 25 minutes, so we headed on over to Fantasyland. Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride (Mr. Toad) had a long line as well, so we decided to ride Pinocchio’s Daring Journey (Pinocchio) as it was a walk-on.
After we exited Pinocchio, we headed back towards Frontierland along Big Thunder Trail and I called Jessica to firm up plans for the next day. I had trouble hearing her as they were making these loud announcements on BTMRR to stay seated until someone came along to evacuate them! So it was a good thing we didn’t try to ride it tonight after all.
We stood on the bridge above Pirates and enjoyed Fantasmic! as always. I just love Disney music, and this soundtrack is no exception. I also get such a kick watching Mickey triumph over the villains…my hero!
The park was practically closed now at 8pm, so we headed down Main Street. We stopped in at City Hall to pick up personalized ‘Celebrate’ buttons, and then exited the park. We walked back to the motel and watched the last hour of American Idol. For some reason, our local channels were blurry the whole weekend (the cable channels were fine), so it was a bit of a challenge to watch the local shows like we usually do. I took a shower and updated my trip notes, and we both were in bed shortly after 10pm.
Friday, January 30, 2009 [James’ Birthday (83 degrees)]
Plan: Disneyland/DCA (Ryan & Jessica to join us)
Actual: The alarm went off at 7:15am, and we got ready for our first full day at the Disneyland Resort! Jessica called to say that she & Ryan would probably arrive around 2pm, so I told her to call again when they got close so we could meet them at the motel.
We ate breakfast at the motel and were off to Disneyland (DL) at 9am. There was no lines to speak of at the turnstiles, and we were soon on to our usual first attraction here = Peter Pan’s Flight! We only had a 10-minute wait (yay!), and next rode Mr. Toad (Winky, which is the pub guy) and Alice in Wonderland in quick succession. I wanted to get FPs for Space Mountain, but it was down so we went over to ride Buzz. James earned 453,100, which ranked him as #13, and I received a respectable (for me) 127,500, which ranked me as #80 at that time…whoo-hoo!
When we exited, I noticed that Space was back up, so I went over to get FPs for Jessica & I to use later in the day. The machine spit out two FPs the first time I used it (10:25am), and then I was able to get another one with James’ pass…3 all together! At first I thought that it was James’ pass that had received the first two passes (like it knew today was his birthday or something), but then the machine wouldn’t give my pass one. I only got the third FP when I used his ticket. What a nice surprise, though!
James had headed over to the Monorail Station while I was getting the Space FPs (Monorail Red was in the station then), and as I headed over I noticed that Monorail Blue was now in the station. I hurried up the ramp and joined James in the nose for our first trip in the new Mark VII train…what a nice ‘birthday’ ride! I asked Captain Ron if they had any pilot’s licenses, and he said they don’t do them anymore (darn). He was very nice during the ride over to Downtown Disney, and then we had Captain Melissa for our return trip to the park.
When we disembarked the Monorail just after 10am (look how much we had accomplished in that first hour after park opening!), we headed over to DCA. James went over to pick up Soarin’ FPs (10:55am) while I headed into the Hollywood Pictures Backlot. My pass wouldn’t work on the FP machine for some reason (must have been due to the extra Space FP!), so the Cast Member (CM) wrote ‘x2’ and her name on James’ FP.
We met back up and rode Monsters, Inc. (walk-on) since the Disney Visa Card Meet & Greet hadn’t opened yet. When we got off of Monsters, we went to get our picture taken with Chip & Dale, and then rode ToT. James wanted to try to ride TSMM (it was just before 11am), but we had reservations for 11:30am at the Blue Bayou Restaurant (BBR) so I agreed to go back to DL and ride Buzz one more time instead (hey, it WAS his birthday). We did stop briefly at Guest Services in DCA to pick up James’ Birthday Fun Card along the way, and went back to DL.
Buzz now had a 10-minute wait and I was stressing about getting over to BBR early enough to request a water-side table. James said he didn’t care about that because everyone just stares at you from the boats (whhhaaaattt???? I think he was just trying to push my buttons at this point). Fortunately, we were off of Buzz by 11:25am (James got 427,800, which ranked him as #44, and I got 100,700), and we grabbed more Buzz FPs (12pm) and power-walked over to the BBR.
We checked in and the CM was very friendly and wished James a ‘Happy Birthday’ (he had been receiving greetings all morning long, which is part of the magic when visiting DL on your birthday!). We waited a few minutes among the growing crowd, and soon were escorted to the last water-side table! I was very pleased (I think it was due to his birthday), and so was James (I think!).
The main problem with the BBR is the lack of lighting, although it does add to the ambiance. James fished out his mini-flashlight from his fanny-pack and we began perusing the menu (although I had already familiarized myself with the various menus that had been posted to Allears.net). We ordered Diet Cokes at first, and then James discovered the Pirates’ Punch on the menu. He was interested in getting one with the light-up Captain Hook, so he ordered one with his lunch. Our server thought they were out of them, so I ordered one with a light-up Tink instead. I also ordered the Shrimp appetizer for my entrée and James ordered the salmon (which I planned to snack on also!). We snacked on the tasty rolls they brought us (and we also asked for seconds!), and soon our server brought me my drink with the Tink as well as a Captain Hook for James! We were very pleased, and proudly displayed our new toys while we ate (they showed up very well in the dark restaurant)!
James had the wedge salad accompaniment and then we shared the rest of the food when it came. We also shared the free birthday chocolate mousse (which was one of the reasons I had booked this meal here today!), and thoroughly enjoyed our meal together. The total came to $53 after the 10% AP discount, which I paid for with the DVRC. I also left a $10 cash tip, and we left the restaurant shortly after 12:30pm.
I picked up BTMRR FPs (1:15pm), and we went back to ride Buzz with our earlier FPs. This time James got 123,600 & I got 186,400…I BEAT HIM!!! What a shocker that was, but I won’t gloat…too much!
We stopped at the Main Street Photo Supply Co. for help with my camera (I had unknowingly changed a setting and couldn’t take any more pictures until it got fixed), and then we stopped at Disneyana. I bought the 2009 $1 Disney Dollar and 2 $5 Gift Cards (this is how I get cheap souvenirs from DL…buy Disney Gift Cards, use them, and keep the empty card for later!), and then we headed back over to DCA around 1:20pm.
James went to pick up more Soarin’ FPs (3:15pm), while I stopped in Greetings from California to pick up our free Disney Visa photo. Unfortunately, they had used a camera with a known problem and the character photos were all under-exposed and blurry! It was disappointing, but they offered us 2 free photos of any other pose instead, so I picked one of us in front of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle looking surprised while ‘holding’ Tink (it was very cute, and we were in matching ‘Grumpy Rage’ football jerseys!). We then met back up and headed back over to the motel for a break around 1:45pm.
I started updating our trip notes, while James took a short nap. I was just about to fall asleep myself when Jessica called to let us know how much longer they would be. James woke up and I gave him his birthday cards & gift from me. When J&R arrived around 3:45pm, we gave them their Christmas presents and then headed over to DCA shortly thereafter.
We went straight over to Soarin’ to ride, but it was down so we walked over to check out the queue for TSMM. It was 45 minutes, so we decided to skip it for now and headed over to ride Jumpin’ Jellyfish (10-minute wait). Afterwards, we headed back around Grizzly River Rapids and stopped to watch the Miner 49ers perform ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky’ (great song!). We noticed that the banjo and bass players were the same ones from the Gold Team Billy Hill & the Hillbillies show that we love over at DL, and also that the bass player makes the same goofy expressions here as he does as ‘Billy’ (he always cracks me up)!
Soarin’ was back up, so we rode it with the 2 sets of FPs we had gotten earlier today (wonderful as always). It was time for our free tortilla (flour again!), and James also got a free ½ dozen tortillas for his birthday (I remember when they used to give a full dozen…another cost-cutting measure?). Either way, it’s always a nice treat.
We next got in line at the Pacific Wharf Café for some dinner - Vallejo Vegetarian Chili for James, a turkey sandwich for me, plus we shared a large Diet Coke and a chocolate chip cookie; I also bought Jessica a large Sprite and chocolate chip cookie (total for everything after the 10% AP discount = $28, some of which was paid for by the balance on the DVRC).
It was almost time for DCA to close, so James had us all quickly eat the tortillas so he could use the baggie to store his sourdough bread bowl! We then rushed back over to TSMM and got into the queue about 5:50pm, which was still listed as 45 minutes. It looked a lot longer, and it was getting pretty chilly so we bailed after about 15 minutes and headed back to the motel for our jackets and night-lights.
We returned to DL around 6:40pm and went straight to…you guessed it, Buzz! We picked up more FPs (7:40pm), and Jessica & James got in the queue to ride while Ryan & I headed over to ride Space with the FPs I had gotten this morning. I had originally thought that Jessica would also ride with us, but her back was bothering her and she thought it would be best to skip it for now (Space bothers James’ motion sickness, so he doesn’t ride it at all anymore). The standby wait was 65 minutes, so I was glad for the FPs! We had a terrific time…I just love the music during the ride; it really enhances my experience!
We laughed at our ride photo (Ryan tried to capture the image with his camera phone), and then we headed over to the Snow White Grotto to wait for James & Jess. James emailed their Buzz photo back to our nephew (Jessica’s brother) instead of to us, so I don’t know what their scores ended up being (I do believe that James probably beat Jessica though).
When we met back up again, we got in line to see the recently re-opened Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough since none of us had seen it yet. It was a slow-moving line, but we enjoyed seeing the changes…so glad this has been ‘reawakened’! We also checked out the wheelchair accessible room to see what it offered, and then Ryan & I headed over to ride BTMRR with my earlier FPs while James & Jessica stayed behind in Fantasyland.
After BTMRR (where standby = 30 minutes), we headed over to the entrance to Pirates as that was where we had planned to meet back up. The 8pm Fantasmic! performance was underway, and Ryan & I watched it while we waited. We later found out that James & Jess had ridden the King Arthur Carrousel in the interim.
We rode Pirates together, and then went over to ride the Jungle Cruise aboard the Yangtze Lotus with Skipper Austin. After another fun trip, I stopped to pick up a bottle of Coke Zero ($2.75) and we headed back to Tomorrowland. We posed for PhotoPass pictures together in front of the Castle along the way, and then rode Buzz with our earlier FPs (James = 561,500, Jessica = 139,900, Ryan = 160,400, & I had 257,500…a high for me, I think!).
DL was about to close at 10pm, so we headed back down Main Street. We perused the Disneyana shop again, and stopped for more PhotoPass pictures together (with the Castle still in our background).
We left the park and headed back to the motel. As we walked in front of the Park Vue Motel where the timeshare folks hang out, I heard them offering $150 Disney Dollars to the family they were talking to. Now they had been telling us every time (and I do mean EVERY time so far) we walked by that they were giving away $100 in Disney Dollars. We had planned to sign up on Saturday (our free day), but not yet…I want to be at the parks, not at a timeshare presentation! Well, I told James they were trying to sweeten the deal with this other family, so we decided to ask for the $150 the next time they asked us. :)
We said goodbye to the kids, and went back to our room. I took a shower and updated my trip notes while James watched TV. He was asleep by midnight, and I stayed up a little longer watching TV before falling asleep around 1am.
Saturday, January 31, 2009 (78 degrees)
Plan: Disney’s Character Warehouse Outlet; World of Disney
Actual: I hadn’t set the alarm, but we both woke up around 8:15am to the noises of the city. We were out the door around 10am and headed over to the Orange County Transit Authority (OCTA) bus stop to catch a bus to Fullerton ($8 for two Day passes). We only had to wait a couple of minutes before the next bus arrived, and we got off at the Orangefair Mall about 20 minutes later.
We looked around Circuit City, Factory-2-U, and Dollar Tree before arriving at the Disney Character Warehouse Outlet. They had a lot of women’s clothes (at great discounts too!), and I got a lot of stuff…too bad James only got a hat! Altogether we got clothes, cookies, jewelry, gifts, and other miscellaneous items for about $109 after my 10% Gold Card discount. This purchase also entitled me to another Gold Card, which guaranteed me 10% off for another two years…whoo-hoo!
We stopped back at Dollar Tree again so I could buy some Coke Zero, water, and a lint roller ($7), and then we hauled our purchases across the street to have lunch at the In-N-Out Burger (YUM!). We ate two burgers, two orders of fries, and shared a Diet Coke ($8, paid for by a gift card I had received for Christmas from our nephew and his family), before heading across Harbor to the WaMu (bank) as I had a rebate check I wanted to cash. Unfortunately, they had closed 5 minutes earlier and we JUST missed the OCTA bus, so we sat down to wait for the next one to arrive.
It was another gorgeous day, and we only had to wait about 15 minutes before we were on our way. We went back to our motel room to drop off our purchases, and then went back to catch another bus down to Katella (why walk all the way down there when we had perfectly good bus passes?). We went into the 7-11 so I could purchase my Super Lotto as my regular ticket had expired on Wednesday, and I discovered that it held $4 in winnings too! I also bought 3 Quick-Picks since the jackpot was fairly high (total spent = $19), and then we walked across the street.
We stopped at Subway for dinner (veggie foot-long plus a turkey foot-long = $10), and walked to the OCTA bus stop. A timeshare rep came over to solicit us and James asked for $150, to which he said he couldn’t do that. So we boarded the next bus and headed back to our motel room to store our sandwiches.
It was time to check out Downtown Disney (DD), so we left around 3pm. We walked through World of Disney (WoD), and then stopped at Wetzel Pretzels for some Bitz ($4.45 after 10% AP discount). We kept walking through DD on our way over to the Disneyland Hotel and just enjoyed our time together. We bought a few postcards and stamps ($5), and also checked out their lovely waterfalls before heading back through DD.
We stopped to admire the Grand Californian Hotel’s lobby and I sat in one of their comfy chairs while James looked around in one of the shops. We then headed back to the WoD so I could use the 20% AP Renewal Certificate that was expiring today! I bought a T-shirt, CD, jewelry, and gifts for $68, and then we made one more stop at the La Brea Bakery. I love their cheese Panini & James really likes their tuna sandwich, so I bought those for our dinner ($16 after the 10% AP discount)…I guess the Subway sandwiches will now become breakfast tomorrow instead of dinner tonight now!
We arrived back at the motel around 6pm, and ate our sandwiches while we watched TV. Since our local channels were still poor, we ended up watching several movies on HBO (Juno, Mr. Woodcock, & Meet the Spartans). We also heard from Carol (she & Bruce were now coming to have breakfast with us tomorrow)…she thought they would arrive around 9am. Guess the Subway sandwiches will now be eaten…sometime else! ;)
James got ready for bed & I went outside around 9:25pm to watch the Fireworks from outside Denny’s. I waited about 10 minutes and nothing happened so I figured they must have been cancelled, although there wasn’t a huge crowd exiting the parks yet that I could see. I finally gave up, went back to the room, and was about to get into the shower when BOOM…they started up (15 minutes late!). Since I was already undressed, I decided to just skip it for this trip (I’ve seen them many times before, and they’re always wonderful!). I took my shower and started watching Die Hard 3 before falling asleep around 11pm.
Interestingly enough…here we had decided to sign up for the timeshare presentation today and they never asked us (except for the guy down by Subway)! We walked past them 6 times and all they did was smile at us, where they had made a point to speak to us EVERY TIME we passed by on Thursday and Friday…I guess business was much better on Saturdays!
Sunday, February 1, 2009 (71 degrees)
Plan: Disneyland/DCA
Actual: The alarm went off again at 7:15am, and we began getting ready for the day. Carol called us and said that they would meet us at IHOP around 9:30am, but since they are usually late James wanted to head over to DL until they arrived. We left just before 9am and this time as we passed the timeshare people, one of them offered us the $100 in Disney Dollars and James replied that we would do it for $150 and she said OK! So we went inside the Park Vue to get our ‘invitation’ and pay our $20 deposit (for our lunch…this is to discourage people from signing up and then being no-shows), and then we were again on our way to DL.
We were through the turnstiles at 9:10am, and since we were pretty sure that Peter Pan would have a long line by now (today was also Early Entry) we headed over to…wait for it…Buzz! Yeah, it’s still James’ birthday trip…sigh. There was hardly anyone in the queue and the ride kept stopping which helped me earn a high score (for me!) of 418,300 (#12) and James earn 696,400 (#5)…whoo-hoo! That was so cool!
After emailing our photo home, we picked up more FPs (10:05am) and discovered that we had two missed calls from Carol. James called her back and they were already at IHOP so we headed back to join them. We enjoyed a nice brunch together: I had a plain Belgian waffle, hash browns, and a Diet Coke and James had a veggie omelet, pancakes, and a Diet Coke. I don’t remember what Carol & Bruce ate (except for Carol’s crepes), and they picked up the check (thank you!). We left IHOP and visited in our motel room until they had to leave (Bruce had to be at work by 2pm).
James and I headed back to DCA around 11:40am, and he went to pick up Soarin’ FPs (1:15pm) before we met Chip & Dale again at the Disney Visa Meet & Greet. We rode Monsters, Inc. afterwards, and then ran over to catch the 12:10pm presentation of Aladdin in the mezzanine section. Today’s Genie was better than Thursday’s, and they had the same Jafar both days. The show was great as always, and we went to check out the wait for ToT afterwards (30 minutes). We decided to skip it for now, so I picked up FPs (2:15pm) and we headed over to ride Soarin’ with our earlier FPs.
We had a few minutes before our ToT FPs were valid, so we went to get a free tortilla (flour again!), and then experienced The Twilight Zone together. We picked up more FPs for Soarin’ (5:25pm), and we left DCA to go to the timeshare presentation.
We checked in with the Shell Vacation Club people, and they dispatched a limo to take us down Harbor to the Crowne Plaza Hotel. We endured a 2-hour presentation while they served us a meal from Quizno’s (we each had a small turkey sub, Baked Lay’s BBQ chips, Diet Coke, and chocolate chip cookies, although I ended up eating James’ cookie later!)…I got a kick out of how hard the salesman was trying different angles to trick James into thinking this would be a good thing for us! He did crack up at how we ordered the exact same thing to eat (24 years of marriage…what can we say?).
They finally gave up and we collected our $150 in Disney Dollars (thank you very much!). They dispatched the limo to return us to the Park Vue and we were back in our room just after 5pm. We picked up the souvenir from Poland that Carol had left with Jamil at the front desk (she went there last year on business), and we checked on the Super Bowl score while we geared up for the evening.
We left for DCA around 5:25pm and I stopped to pick up our free photo. They must have used the same camera again, because the photos were again out of focus and under-exposed. I asked for a 2nd free photo since that is what they offered us the day before, and they agreed. I picked out one of us with Jessica & Ryan in front of the Castle from Friday night and we headed over to ride Soarin’ with our earlier FPs.
We asked at the Information Booth what the TSMM wait was and decided to skip it since it was 45 minutes again. I suggested we watch Muppet*Vision 3D since we hadn’t seen it at all this trip, and we got to see the entire pre-show (which is our favorite part…'up, Chuck'…very funny stuff)…whoo-hoo! We also rode Monsters one more time (walk-on), and then went back to the motel so we could check-in for our flight the next day. The desk clerk printed off our boarding passes (22 & 23 on Southwest) for us and we were heading back to DL around 7:45pm.
James picked up Buzz FPs (8:40pm), which were printed upside-down, and we rode it with our earlier FPs (James got 312,100 and I got 131,300). We checked out Fantasyland, which was pretty crowded still, and headed over to Adventureland. We rode Jungle Cruise one last time (Skipper Daniel on Kissimmee Kate), and picked up FPs for Indy (9:20pm). We walked on to Pirates, and then watched the 9pm presentation of Fantasmic! (although we just missed the opening, which is one of the best parts with my hero Mickey). After Fantasmic!, we went to ride Indy with our FPs. They weren’t needed after all, since there was no queue outside by now.
After Indy, we stopped at Bengal BBQ so I could have my Banyan Beef skewers ($8 after 10% AP discount, paid for by the timeshare Disney Dollars)…boy, are those things spicy! We then walked over to ride BTMRR, which was a walk-on…the park was really starting to empty out by this time!
We walked over to Fantasyland and rode Pinocchio, Snow White (Bashful), and Mr. Toad (Toady). Unfortunately, Peter Pan still had quite a queue so we headed back to…BUZZ! DL was about to close in 30 minutes, so I agreed to ride Buzz as long as James didn’t ask to ride it again the next day! :D We ended up riding it 3 times in a row, as the queue was absolutely empty. James’ scores were 273,700, 443,700, and 336,400, whereas my scores were 108,300, 94,900, & 214,600. The last time we even rode in separate vehicles (maybe that helped my score somewhat)!
DL was now officially closed, so I stopped at City Hall to swap our remaining Disney Dollars into cash, and we walked back to the motel. I took a shower and updated my trip notes, and we were both in bed by midnight.
Monday, February 2, 2009 (84 degrees)
Plan: Disneyland/DCA (Jessica & Patty to join us); fly home
Actual: Boy, I wish we had an extra day…I don’t wanna go home yet! :crying:
We were up around 8am, and I packed our stuff and finished the postcards. We called Jessica & Patty around 9:30am to find out their location (Laguna Hills about 20 minutes away), and then James stored our smaller luggage over at the Desert Inn’s lockers ($1). We left our big bag (which doesn’t fit in the lockers) with Jamil at the front desk when we checked out shortly before 10am ($330 for 4 nights), and waited for the girls to arrive. Jamil had agreed to let them park there at the motel for a few hours, and soon they arrived and we were off!
Since both parks opened at 10am today, we decided to go straight to DCA and get in line for TSMM. James detoured to get Soarin’ FPs along the way (10:50am), and caught up to us just as we reached TSMM. The queue was very short and we rode it two times in a row! Our scores for the first ride were 168,800 (James, cat), 137,400 (me, beaver), 120,600 (Jessica, beaver), and 135,500 (Patty, beaver). I still suck at these things (compared to everyone else) because I was still at the ‘beaver’ level after the second ride whereas everyone else was now a ‘cat’: 161,300 (James), 136,000 (Pam), 166,700 (Jessica), and 156,900 (Patty). Oh well…it was still so much fun!
We stopped for a PhotoPass picture on the bridge over the empty lagoon, and stopped for a free tortilla at Mission Tortilla (flour again…there would be no corn tortillas sampled this trip!). We stopped in at the Blue Sky Cellar, as it was new to Jessica (and maybe Patty, too…I forget). We tried the quizzes again and each got 4 out of 5 right (different questions), plus we watched the film. Not a surprise to see Ed Grier in the film, since it IS a PR appearance and that’s about the only time anyone sees him in the parks as I understand it!
We headed over to have our picture taken with Pluto during the Disney Visa Meet & Greet in the Hollywood Pictures Backlot. Jessica & Patty started dancing with Pluto while the photographer was snapping away…they all seemed to be having a lot of fun (see…you don’t need to have kids with you on these trips, you can BE the kid yourself!).
We went next door to ride Monsters, Inc. (walk-on again; I remember when we would have to wait 40 minutes for this attraction just a couple of years ago!) and then over to ride Soarin’ with our FPs. James picked up additional FPs just-in-case (12:40pm) while we ladies checked out the tortoise-shell kitty by the Zephyr. We then met up and stopped to pick up our free photos (still no character ones for us, as James had his eyes closed in 2 of the 3 they took of us and he was scowling in the third one). It was time to go visit Disneyland (12:20pm)!
Patty wanted to see the Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough (this may have been new to her as well), so we all went through it together (hardly anyone in the queue this time, compared to Friday evening). James saw a postal box, so he dropped off our postcards on our way over to the 1pm Billy Hill & the Hillbillies show. It was pretty packed, but James & Jessica were able to find a table with 4 chairs near the back while Patty & I stood in the loooong lines for our lunch (well, it WAS lunch-time!). Too bad the lines were pretty well non-existent by the end of the show!
The girls shared the chicken nuggets (I remember when these used to be strips!), James had the chili, I had the mozzarella sticks, plus we shared a large Diet Coke & a water ($32 after the 10% AP discount). Patty had a class at 3pm, so they both left around 1:20pm to drive back to Escondido after wolfing down their food!
The show was terrific as usual (Gold Team, which is the best IMHO), and as we left the Golden Horseshoe Saloon, we noticed that the Mark Twain has just docked so we moseyed over to ride it. Another lovely day today…it was so nice to just relax and enjoy the scenery during our journey around the Rivers of America.
We hadn’t made it over to Critter Country yet, so we walked over to ride Winnie-the-Pooh. Splash Mountain was doing a pretty good business due to the warm weather, but we didn’t want to get wet since we were flying home later and didn’t have our ponchos with us at the time. Next time, hopefully!
We walked back to New Orleans Square and boarded the next train over to Tomorrowland. We had wanted to ride the Monorail one more time, but it wasn’t running due to the temps being over 80 degrees (will you fix those windows already?!). So apparently I’m a nice wife, because I agreed to ride Buzz with James one last time; James got 394,900 (#89) and I got 67,000.
Space only had a 10 minute wait (wow…park attendance was definitely lighter today), so I went over to ride it while James rode Buzz again. It kept stopping so James claims he had a score of over 800,000 but the scores didn’t print out on the photo to prove it! ;)
We watched the Jedi Training Academy at 3:30pm, which we always get a kick out of even without having kids participating. They were the same Jedi Masters we had seen on previous trips, and everyone did a great job. Darth Maul really loves to taunt the audience, and had us cracking up with his antics.
We were walking over towards Fantasyland when we saw Monorail Blue arrive at the station, so we walked back over to see if they were ready to start carrying passengers again. Unfortunately, they didn’t plan to resume service for another 30 minutes, and we knew we would be leaving the park about that time so oh, well…
We went back to the Disneyland Railroad station and just missed the train, so we sat down to wait for the next one. We had originally planned to take 'a round-trip circle tour around Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom', but then decided we didn’t have enough time so we just rode it to Main Street and disembarked there instead.
We went in to the temporary setting of the Disney Gallery to see what the latest exhibits were, and then looked through the Emporium a little bit as well but we didn’t buy anything. I guess James will just have to hold onto his Birthday Fun Card a little bit longer! He was interested in buying a limited edition E-Ticket piece, but they were out of stock everywhere.
It was now 4:30pm and we needed to return to the motel to catch our shuttle to the airport, so we headed for the exit. The Disneyland Band was just arriving for Flag Retreat as we left, and it would have been nice to watch the performance but we just didn’t have the time (or so we thought). We said good-bye to Disneyland for this trip and left the park. :crying:
We retrieved our luggage and waited for SuperShuttle to pick us up. When the 15-minute window had passed, I called them and found out they were still 5 minutes away. We were the first ones onboard, and arrived at SNA by 5:40pm ($3 tip). We checked in our big bag and finished off the bottle of water we had with us before heading through security. I was surprised to be patted down (I was wearing a very loose jersey with my back brace…unsure if that was the reason or whether it was just random?). It took just a couple of minutes, and we were soon putting our shoes back on and looking for something to eat.
We settled on McDonald’s (hamburger & Big Mac combo = $10), and then found seats at our gate to hang out for the next hour. I returned a phone call to my nephew’s girlfriend, and then we boarded our plane once it arrived. There were less than 50 passengers and we departed on-time. We received full cans of Diet Coke and ginger ale this time (due to the emptiness of the plane?) plus 2 packages of peanuts apiece. I updated my trip notes during the flight, and we arrived at the gate 10 minutes early – yay!
Our bag was waiting for us once we got downstairs, but we had to wait about 10 minutes for a bus to the Economy lot. It was a very full bus by that time, as you can imagine! We were the last ones to get off the bus (parking = $45), and we were home by 10pm to heap lots of love onto our kitty!
I am already planning our return trip to Disneyland for Jessica’s birthday weekend the end of April…hopefully, the economy won’t affect it!
Summary
Another fun trip…I wish we could have stayed longer since the crowds were great and the weather fabulous!
Highlights include:
Celebrating James’ birthday at Disneyland!
Spending time with the family
The warm & dry days
Staying just ahead of the crowds
Wonderful lunch at The Blue Bayou
Billy Hill & the Hillbillies (Gold Team)
Lowlights include:
Missing Splash Mountain, Sailing Ship Columbia, Finding Nemo Subs, Matterhorn, Star Tours, Mulholland Madness, Storybookland Canal Boats, Casey Jr., and all of Toontown
Do we HAVE to ride Buzz so much? (James rode it 13 times, but it WAS his birthday trip)