We spent 5 glorious day in sunny california, 0ctober 9-13, 2007. We left Idaho tuesday evening and flew to LAX arriving about 9pm. [Got a steal on airfare and car rental combined through expedia back in april] We rented a car (and were charged an extra 40 for insurance because or regular allstate policy was "insufficient" check on this before you leave home! we should have taken the shuttle instead- but we wanted to have the car to take the kids to the beach saturday) and drove about 40 minutes to our hotel 2 miles away from DL.

We stayed at the garden grove Holiday Inn Express. I was very impressed with the hotel as a whole. We booked it through Get Away Today and got the 4th night free, total 280 for 4 nights with taxes and fees! Its a brand new hotel, medeteranian style, beautiful lobby, very clean, 3 star establishment. When I booked online in the comments section I added that we would like to be upgraded to the jr suite, on arrival we were complimentary upgraded to the suite, but not just any suite, the balcony suite-there are only two. It was very nice, huge, and slightly odd. The bathroom was in the middle becasue of the wedge shape of the room, which seperated the small kitchen, sitting area from the king bed, balcony area. It was all enclosed instead of the vanity being accesible form the room. It wasn't a big deal, but it felt like a cave in the front portion of the room becasue of the lack of windows. It was nice to have the fridge, micro, and extra sink, and the couch folded out into a bed for the kids, ages 6 and 4. It was also very nice that the kids cave room was so seperate from the bed area.

HOWEVER- sure it looked great upfront, but about 12am, and again at 3am we were woken by sirens and the street noise that I hadn't noticed before kept us awake. Apparently the hospital was just down the street. In the morning we asked to move and the very helpful front desk people- no service complaints whatever- gave us the key to another room to check out. The regular room was very nice, typical, spacious and clean, and away from the street, but the kids could bear leaving the balcony room, so I agreed to give it one more night. Disneyland did the trick- I slept like a log the rest of the trip and never heard a single sound.

The breakfast was great- heavy on the carbs, but hey this is disneyland! There were donoughts, waffles, toast, boiled eggs, bagels and crem cheese, 3 kinds of juice, coffee, cocoa, milk, cereal, a nice selection of fruit and of course the fabulous hot cinnamon rolls that all hi expresses brag about. The breakfast room was nice and spacious and there was also an exterior pool side patio adjacent. The kept things very well stocked and it was open till ten of weekends.

We used the ART shuttle to get to the park and back all 3 days which totaled $18 instead of the 30++ parking would have cost. It was great on the way there, we were the last stop and got to DL in about 12 minutes. It left an hour before opening which kept us on schedule and ahead of the crowds. If we'd driven, we would have been late because I'm always late. HOWEVER on the way back it took 3o minutes becuase we were the 5th or 6th stop. This is my only real complaint about the hotel. When your exhausted and especially with kids half an hour is too long to wait. Also the last shuttle was 30 minutes after closing so you didn't have the option of jumping in line for nemo etc. at the last minute to stretch early closing hours.

OK- Enough exposition heres the meat and potatoes:
:::::::DISNEYLAND RESORT::::::
WED OCT 10- we arrived at 9:15, the kids were so excited they were jumping out of their skin and I felt like I was 6 again too! I think that first moment as you enter and see the train station and the big mickey and then the first glimpse of the castle are the most priceless of the whole trip. It was a rope drop day so we wound through shop on the right and came out as far ahead as we could, but did not push and shove to get right up to the front. Manners people!!!

GREAT TIP #1- USE RIDEMAX

We purchased RIDEMAX before leaving home so we knew exactly what to do. It was only $16 and although there were some glitches with our iteneraries (ie: fast passes not available for the less popular attracrions that are usually up in busier seasons, and Indian Jones was closed the whole time we were there:mad:) on the whole I think it saved us a ton of time. We never had to wait in line for more than 15-20 minutes even on friday except for Nemo. I love how individualized it was, very easy to use, tons of great tips and advice, and it really made me get organized and plan ahead which saved squabbles later on. We were able to just enjoy.

So believe it or not our first ride was Peter Pan, (wow were the lines nightmerish later- thanks ridemax!) then Dumbo, thunder mountain, pooh, jungle cruise, pirates, splash mt, tiki room- I HAD MY FIRST DOLE WHIP!- it was not what I expected from the forum description. It was swirly sherbet in a cup. I was picturing piannaple smoothie with straw. But deffinetly yummy. We split two, boys and girls each one to share. We sat in the balcony of the golden horseshoe for the show and lunch/dinner. We split a chicken peices meal and a fish meal among the four of us with free waters.

GREAT TIP #2 eAT A HUGE FREE BREAKFAST AND LATE LUNCH/DINNER

Did I mention we're really cheap? So, we gobbled down as much free breakfast as we could, snacked from our backpacks, had a dole whip around 11 and didn't eat lunch/dinner till 4-ish We followed this plan each day and avoided the lunch and dinner crowds, only stoped once, and only paid once. And honestly nobody was every hungry. Not even my burly, gorgeous, sweet, adorable, 6'3 husband (whom I ADORE!!!) with the hollow leg and we split almost every entree.

Great Tip #3- everyone has their small backpack of fanny pack for snack and water.

I can't remember were I read the backpack tip but it really worked. I bought the kids each a small backpack on clearance at the disney store, about 4 bucks each, princess and buzz. Then I brought a box of snacks that I sorted into individual baggies before we left home. Mostly junk but we ate lots of brocclli before we left:D. Each morning they filled up their backpacks with whatever goodies they wanted. They also had a mini water bottle each that we refilled along the way. They backpacks were small enough to carry easily and they never had to ask me for food. They just reached in and snacked when they wanted to, in line or whatever. They loved the independance and I loved the peace!

Great tip #4- Train the kids for the big day- exercise, you-tube, scary ride grader- rehearse the rules

We have a scardy cat. He's only 4 but he hates anything even remotely scary. And he's a big whiner. So we worked super hard to prepare him and build his confidence. By the way we left 2 yr old bro home with grandma, under 4 at DL is insanity. We took long walks to break in shoes and strengthen endurance and they both walked the whole way all 3 days!!! Miraculous! (We left the stroller at home- could have rented one for free with disney visa but never needed the fall back) We were careful not to crisscross too much, dad ran for fastpasses, and we planned lots of sit down shows for the afternoons to rest.
We made both kids watch the video of scary rides on you tube with sound and all- yep they're there- and I even shook the chair for effect. HMansion, Splash MT, StAR TOURS, all the scary ones- He was prepared and new what to expect and did great. The only problem ride was space mountain which obviously doesn't tape well. But every time he did a scary ride we told him how brave he was and really built him up, by day 2 there were almost no problems.
Also we had him "grade" each ride afterwards on a 10 star scale. This made his fear impersonal, it was a dumb ride, not he was too big of a baby. He drew a stinky face in his notebook/autograph book for rides he hated and smily faces for his favorite rides.
We also rehearsed the rules till they new them backwards.
rULE #1 Stay right by mom and dad no matter what. Hold hands all the time!!We brought harnesses but didn't need them because they obeyed very well. No missing children! whew! But we practied what to do if you get lost.
Rule #2 No whining- if you see a ride you want to go on write it in your notebook and we'll do it on its turn. (ridemax helped a lot here becasue we rehearsed the days schedule with them)
Rule#3 No saying I want that I want that! We told them that all stores were "Christmas present idea shops" if you see something you like write it down in your notebook and ask santa! We didn't buy a single thing!
Rule #4 i can't remember
Rule #5 Be nice. Everybody is a princess or prince at disneyland. I wish more of the other travelers knew rule #4. I hate seeing other people yell at their kids.

Ok this is getting really lengthy I hope its helpful so far. I'll add more later- my fingers are cramping up!!

GREAT TIP #? DO YOUR HOMEWORK SAVE MONEY- to be continued

We saved about $100 on tickets buying them trough the the "gay days" people- you can still do this- they're good till december! found that one on mouseplantet!

get a disney visa- in only 2 years we racked up over $300 in free disney dollars- bought 1 ticket, all our meals, and we still have 150 leftover for next time!

shop around for a good hotel deal- compare them yourself, those sights like kayak work well sometimes, but I found the best rate on an obscure sight

buy souveneers for the kiddos before you go and produce them as needed. I got them both several adorable disney shirts at a thrift store- some of them including a precious pink sweatshirt are actually form disneyland! They each were dressed in their favorite character shirts for the whole trip. I bought cute woody and aerial toys on clearance at the disney store over the summer for a few dollars, kept them in the mickey bag and produced them on the last day to great applause. I bought tink and nemo autograph/ journals at the dollar store as well as disney coloring books and markers for the plane at the dollar store too, and ordered several disney books from the scholastic thingy for free, yes free- if you cancel before they send you the other stuff!

was hoping that someone would post about "doleing" out the Disney(store) stuff to their children.

We are going to DL this Sunday. We have also purchased dolls from the Disneystore. Our kids are 2 1/2 & 5 1/2. This is their 2nd trip. Something we did this time was purchase matching t-shirts on sale at the Disneystore for all four of us. One for each day of the trip.

We are also planning on taking our own snacks into the park. I like the idea of the kids having their own backpacks for that. Then I won't get stuck lugging everything around by myself. I may be able to get by with buying only 1 backpack because I know we have a small one already.

Something we did was to purchase a $6 scrapbook, size 10 by 10, from Wal-Mart. Then we printed out the HalloweenTime Mickey graphic on card stock. Next I glued it to the front of our $6 autograph/scrapbook. It has 40 pages so we will have plenty of room for signatures & photographs.

We also go to the Disney Character Outlet store right near DL. We let the kids pick out one item of a certian price & purchase one item for each of them for Christmas. The only non-food item we bought last time was at-shirt. My DH had to bribe our then 3 year old to ride the Matterhorn with him by promising her a t-shirt. It worked & now she wants to ride it with both of us again!

Anyway, thanks for posting & confiriming that we are on the right track to save $$$ during our DL trip.

I know a lot of folks love the free carb load breakfasts, but one thing I want to add is for our family, it is very important to get protein in. Protein bars help. We've had one near canceled trip due to "lack of protein" meltdown.

I'M never gonna finnish this!

So, first day afternoon we did tons of rides, and went to the princess faire which was very fun. Unless you have a diehard preincess lover avoid the lines for autographs and pictures I heard of people waiting up to an hour! We saw plenty of princesses come and go in the big auditorium place, stayed for a cute storytime with belle, and the coronation ceremony featuring aurora, mulan and belle. Our princess julie got lots of autographs form the generic prince and princess castmembers helping out in the main room. They both made little crowns remenicent of Burger Kings crowns with lots of stickers. Fun for kids under 8 or 9 I'd say. We had plenty of extra space on in our schedule so we did toon town a day ahead of schedule and accidently ran into the parade just begining as we came out of buzz. We were on that elevated ramp near aerials picture spot and were able to watch the whole show with a pretty good view and 0 waiting. We ended up watching the parade all three days the kids liked it so much. After the parade we got in line for autopia- fast passes were not available and this was our second longest wait at about 15-20 minutes, but we wanted to be able to do it and last thing seemed like a good plan. The wait wasn' bad, and we snacked a lot. In the cars we got some really cute pictures. Then back to the hotel for some seriously deep sleepin.

We got up , ate and headed out on the art. Since it was thursday and early entry which we did not have we thought we'd be sneeky and avoid the dl rush by going to CA first thing. Tof T had no fast pass service too- only 2 rides in ca did!!So we ran there first. A lot of people had the same idea and the line apeared huge, but then they opened up the iner que and it was really only 10 minutes. This was the only ride we had to use the baby swap for, not becasue of height but fear. It was my first time and I was all alone! Terror is an apt name!! It wasn't as bad as I anticipated and much shorter than I expected, the drops wern't that far, but the not knowing what was coming was the worst! I came out and hubby went in and we discovered

GREAT TIP#5-the magic character appearing door. Just as you leace tof t there is a little bench outside the hotel giftshop. I fyou sit on this bench as my kids and i did while waiting for dad to ride there is a door marked cast members only straigh ahead. During the 15 minutes we waited for dad we saw Sully, Goofy, Mr and Mrs incredible, Lewis form the Meet the Robinsons and his "son" with the dark hair. Some of the rushed by, barely waving. Others like Lewis stayed, sat, "chatted" signed books and took pictures. Lewis even told us to stay and went back in get his friend to come meet us. It was really neat. Mr Incredible was awesome too. I told him that Noah or 4 yr old was as fast as dash and he motioned that he wanted to race. Noah took off like lighting and Mr Incredible raced him down the street. Noah won! It would have bee fun just to sit on that bench all day! Check ou the picture of the secret door on our shutterfly page- link at the bottom.
Next we went to the visa character meet and grteet.
GREAT TIP #6 GET A DISNEY VISA!!!
This was so cool. Just us and mickey and goofy. There was no one after us, and just one family before so we took all the time we wanted. My only complaint was the room was much too dark and the pictures didn't turn out well. We forgot to pick up our free 5 by7- whoops. Having too much fun I guess. I love the disney visa. Its totally worth it. After that we did grizzly river run it was about 10:30 and there was no waiting at all. We had to let people cut to have time to put on our ponchos and change into flip flops
GREAT TIP #7 BUY INEXPENSIVE PONCHOS AND BRING THEM IN
I got nice ponchos for 1 dollar at target, they even had child sizes. We stayed dry and were able to do wet rides at off times and avoid lines. We also carried in flip flops for everyone which kept our socks and sneakers dry, not much weight for a lot of comfort. BONUS- It rained (no rain forcasted at all!!) about 10:30-12:00 on our last night and we were prepared! After grizzly we took pictures with Mater and L Mcqueen across from soarin'. There was a tiny line but it moved quick. We even got a tire rub for an autograph. Then we did soarin with a fastpass and gor so lucky to be seated in row b1- ask for it and wait a round if your not so fortunate. It was so worth it. I still had my sandles on from grizzly run and so I slipped them into the underseat bin before take off. I was dead center, no one above me and barefoot to dip my feet into the rivers and snow and kick around as I pleased. It was so cool. Since I was sitting with the kids I was allowed to act goofy and spread out my arms like I was really flying. It was so much more fun this way then all the times I've ridden before. The kids loved it. It was one of their very very favorite rides and I nearly skipped it becasue it was so boring in the past. Same ride- different attitude!
After that hubby ran to DL to collect fastpasses for the afternoonwhile I took the lids into bugs land. They liked it, nothing to write home about but fun and short lines. DO NOT TAKE CHILDREN INTO THE 3D SHOW!!! I remebered the stingers in the chairs and worned them but I'd forget the huge bugs dropping from the sealing, the load explosions and multiple other ways to torture preschoolers. My brave at everything else 6 yr old spent the entire show coweing on the floor with her backpack over her head like she was in a bomb shelter. Noah sat on my lap and screamed. I should have known better, but I just had to do it becasue I love takiong pictures wiht the buggy glasses on, they always turn out so cute! They both recovered quickly thank goodness and we hit Monsters inc- well done, and Muppet 3d a favorite of mine before heading back to DL and riding the train into New Orleans Square for lunch. We tried to get reservations at te blue bayou the first dat but there were already booked solid the whole weekend so we settled for the cafe orleans for our monte cristos, which saved us a little dough and cost us ambience and a salad, *sigh*. Call ahead early even if you don't think it will be busy I will next time. We spent 40-50ish and had 2 monte cristos to split amongst us and an order of really good french fries with parmesian and spices and a fancy french name. The mc came with fresh fruit too and were terrific as usual. Just as good as the blue bayou's. Excelent friendly service too, and the kids got cute ratouille hat menus to keep. We were all very full as we headed over to tarzan, jungle boat,(I made my husband a shirt for his b-day that says "I have seen the back side of water" we got lots of attention!) and lots of other rides. We watched the parade in the same spot again, and while we were in line for small world a friendly cast member explained to us that the park was staying open an extra hour becasue of the high number of guests and that everyhting was runnng full capacity. This explains the crowds, and yet most of the lines were really short. We took advantage of the extra hour and finally made it on the matterhorn immediately after the parade when the caste side line is closed and the feed from only the rear line- abut 15 min wait still, but nothing like earlier. We asked another friendly cm the best way to see Nemo- pretty much ther is no good way. We couldn't jump in line at closing becasue of the art hours and were nearly resigned to not riding at all.
Friday we got up super early, cought the first trolley, got in the shortest line with the tree that makes it look longer than it is 13 I think- and ended up only being about 15 people back when the park opened. We got through the turnstilles and booked it for nemo, carrying the children for extra speed. We were pretty darn quick and I counted 115 people ahead of us in the line. It was still a full half hour wait. W ewere 2 people away from being on the sub ahead of us though. It was alright though and we really like the ride, not worth 2 hours wait- but worth a very early morning and 30 minutes.

We had saved most of the shows and sit down low key activities for friday because of crowds and the length of the day. It worked out really well, we did some rides over again but also took lots of "breaks" at shows. We went to pirate island early to avoid crowds and saw the show up front. We also caught aladdin, the first 50 yrs, spent some time in Woody's Halloween roundup- the decorate your own cookies are 6 bucks each watch out! And ate at the hungry bear in our favorite spot on the upper level back in the corner were the train goes by and there are great views of the island and riverboats. We got too burgers- which were great they've been dresse dup with really big yummy buns and the kids shared a chicken strips kids meal. Later that evening we watched the parade from the train depot uper level on main street, did tomorrow land again and snuck behind the crowd as fantasmic ended and had front row seats for the second show and also enjoyed the fireworks from right there. Got a bread bowl of chowder after the rain started during the 45 minutes in between and when I got back the kids were dead alseep on the blanket we'd borrowed from the hotel to sit on. We had to really coax them to wake up when the show started. It was a little scary being so close. The fire was really big and hot and only 15 feet off in the water. They both were pretty unnerved but by the end they liked it. We did several fantasyland attractions after the show, some that were closed before magically opened for the weekend, and we rode small world as the clock struck midnight and our magical vacation came to an end.
Thanks Disneyland- it was terrific! We'll be back!


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