Travel dates: 4/26/14 - 5/3/14
Travel method: Car (my daughter's, because I do not drive in cities)
Resort: Grand Californian
Accommodations: Standard Room with 2 queens and a daybed
Ages Represented in Group: 33 - 65
Disney Resort Experience Represented in Group: All of us have been to Disneyland several times in the last 30 years. Some of us have been to Disney World. We had stayed at Disneyland Hotel once and Paradise Pier a couple of times before it was a Disney property
Comments: This trip was to celebrate my 65th birthday with my kids.
Cast of characters: Karen (me), 65
Tammy (my daughter), 44
Patrick (my son), 41
Carolyn (my daughter-in-law and Patrick's wife), 39
Richie (my son), 33
We have been planning this trip for 5 years. We did it 5 years ago for my 60th birthday but for only 3 days. That time my daughter-in-law didn't go with us. It was so much fun being with my 3 grown kids. I am so blessed that they all love to be together. After that I decided that we needed to do this every 5 years for my birthday.
Friday, April 25th
Tammy arrived at our house near Kingman, AZ, from St. George, UT. She had left after work and had stopped at Nellis AFB to get two military 3-day Park Hopper passes to use back to back. After she got to our house, we went into town to eat and do a little last minute shopping for snacks and breakfast items to take. We bought 2 cases of water, and she already had about half a case. We wondered if we'd use all of it, but we ended up using it and a little more. After we got back home I did my packing. I did it so hurriedly that I'm surprised that I didn't forget anything. I packed way more clothes than I wore, but I wanted to be prepared with jeans in case evenings were cool.
Saturday, April 26th
We loaded up the car (pretty much threw stuff in) and left at about 5:30 AM. We drove to Needles where we stopped for breakfast. We ate at a local restaurant, The Wagon Wheel Restaurant. The food was good, and they served large portions. Neither of us finished our breakfast. Tammy and I had been on a 10 week weight loss challenge before the trip. We each made up our separate plans for each of the 10 weeks. If we went off the plan even once during the week, we had to buy the other a meal at Disneyland. We both went off a few times during the 10 weeks, but after we balanced those out, Tammy still owed me one meal. I had lost 18 pounds, and Tammy had lost a few. We both needed to buy some new clothes, because I was down to a size 8, and Tammy to a size 2. We left with both of us weighing less than we had in 19 years. So the challenge had worked.
After breakfast we drove to the factory outlets outside of Barstow but found that they didn't have near as many stores as they had previously had. We did do some shopping and bought a couple of things. We ate lunch at a Jack in the Box somewhere around Lancaster I think. We split a sandwich for lunch. We wanted to do more shopping and went to a factory outlet in Lake Elsinore. We bought a few more things. We really didn't find as much to buy as we'd hoped. After that we drove to Stanton to a Howard Johnson hotel for that night. It was adequate, but we had wanted to save money that night. We then drove to Downtown Disney for some shopping. I also bought my first ever annual pass at Disneyland. Just so that I could say I'd been in Disneyland 7 days in a row, I got a voucher (since it was a block out day) just for that day. I went into Disneyland and was going to just ride the train, but it wasn't working right then. I got my picture taken by a photo pass photographer and also turned in my voucher for the Photo Pass Plus so that we'd be all set for the next morning. We stopped in at the Grand Californian to make sure that if we checked in early on Sunday, we'd be able to go in for early entry at CA. We ate dinner at La Brea in Downtown Disney. We split the Grilled Turkey Club Panini. It was really good. We left after dinner for our hotel. We went to bed early so that we'd be ready for fun the next day.
More to follow.
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