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View Full Version : Spur of the moment 2-day Disneyland trip 4/25-4/26



tlovesdis
04-30-2004, 01:12 PM
Cast members:

Me (Tina, 35)
Lenette (my cousin, 35)
Allonna (my niece, 4)
Haley (Lenette’s daughter, 10)
Christopher (Lenette’s son, 14)

We took this last minute trip to surprise Lenette’s sister, my cousin, Cindy for her 40th birthday. She was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and had a mastectomy only 2 weeks ago. She had been planning to spend her 40th at Disneyland for a long time. Neither Lenette nor I could go for various reasons, but at the last minute we decided to drive down and surprise Cindy! She was there with her mom (Betty), her other sister (Karen) and Karen’s fiancé Brett!

We made this decision on Thursday afternoon. Lenette sent me an email asking me if I thought we could do it at such a last minute! I was all over it. I called the Disneyland Hotel to see if rooms were available and was able to book a 2 bed with day bed lower downtown Disney view room for AAA rate of $225. I called my sister and told her I was taking her daughter to Disneyland! My sister is not into Disney the way my niece and I are so my sister was glad to let me take her. Lenette called her other sister, Karen to tell her we were coming to surprise Cindy and then that was that! We were ready to go. On Saturday I had a baton contest so afterwards Allonna and I went to Lenette’s house to get some sleep before we were going to leave!

We woke up at 2:30am on Sunday and headed out the door at 3:30am. We stopped once for gas and once for McDonald’s and we arrived at the Disneyland Hotel at 9am. I waited in line to check in, but our room wasn’t ready so we went to Karen and Brett’s room to change and freshen up. We were only buying one day passes and were able to do so at the front desk, saving us from waiting in line! We all got ready in Karen’s room and headed over to Cindy’s suite (Lenette had called a few days before to see if the hotel could do something special for Cindy and they ended up upgrading her to the Honeymoon Suite! Man was it nice!!!). We knocked and when she opened the door we yelled surprise! Boy was she surprised. We all started crying and hugging and it was just a magical moment!!! Cindy was not quite ready so we waited and finally headed out at about 10:30am. Brett went to the front desk to rent Cindy a wheelchair and we were at the monorail station at 11am.

Before I get to the actual events of Disneyland, I must tell you that this day was all about Cindy and what she wanted to do. We had to go slowly since she was still recovering from her surgery so we ended up not doing a whole lot in Disneyland, but it was still so much fun to be there!

Cindy’s first pick was Autopia. The line was pretty short, so we were done fairly quickly. Man was it hot!!! Cindy had to eat so we got lunch at the Tomorrowland Terrace (or whatever it is called now!!!). I had a chicken casear salad since I am low carbing and it was actually very good, but $8.50!!! Next we went on the Matterhorn. Again the line for this wasn’t too bad, but because of the wheelchair we were able to get on really fast! After that we went on Small World.

Now it was 2pm and we still needed to check in and the kids wanted to go swimming so we parted ways with the others and went to catch the monorail back to the hotel, but of course it wasn’t working so we had to walk. It was so hot and we were so tired. It seemed to take forever to get to the hotel! We finally got there and waited only about 5 minutes to check in. We were given a room in the Sierra Tower on the 6th floor overlooking Downtown Disney. It was a great room!!! We got our bags from Karen’s room and changed to go swimming! The pool is so neat. I had never stayed here before so it was all-new to me. I loved the theme and even though it was full of people, it didn’t really seemed that packed. We swam for about an two hours then went back up to get ready for dinner. My niece was very sleepy but we didn’t have time to give her a nap.

We made plans to meet everyone at Rainforest Café at 5:30 for Cindy’s birthday dinner. We got there at 5:15 and they sat us right away. The rest of the gang didn’t show up until close to 6! We had a fantastic dinner, except Allonna slept the whole time! Poor baby was exhausted. I was able to wake her up and get her back into Disneyland mode.

We were ready at about 7:30 to go back to the park, but some of our party wanted to go back to the hotel and freshen up. We finally got on the monorail at about 8:15, but then it broke down and we had to evacuate. We had to walk to the front gates and finally got into Disneyland at about 8:30. We went straight to New Orleans Square and went on Pirates. There was no line at all because Fantasmic was about to start. Next we rode Haunted Mansion and Splash Mountain. This was Allonna’s 4th trip to Disneyland and first time on Splash and she loved it! It is now her favorite ride! She told me she liked it better than Soarin and Peter Pan! Wow!! For a 4 year old that is big!!!

After Splash we found a place to watch Fantasmic. I hadn’t seen this in years so I was looking forward to it. We found a great spot and had a blast watching it. We caught the train from NOS to Main Street. We walked through DTD back to our room. Even though we only did 6 rides today, we had a blast spending time all together and celebrating Cindy’s birthday!!!

We got back to our room at about 11:30 and put the kids to bed. Lenette and I opened the sliding glass door and sat at the balcony looking out at Downtown Disney and DCA. It was a beautiful site. We just fell in love with our room and plan on staying in the same type of room when we go back in December for my birthday trip!

We went to bed at about 12:30 and woke at 7am. We ordered coffee and hot chocolate from room service and just sort of chilled out. It was already so hot outside! We met everyone at Goofy’s Kitchen at 9:30 for brunch. Man is the food there good! We loved it. But, I was very disappointed this time with the character interaction. Every time we have gone, we see at least 5 or 6 characters that come to our table. Only Pluto came to our table this time. We did see Goofy, Aladdin, and Baloo, but they never came to the table. OH well, it was still fun and Allonna and Haley had a blast with Pluto!

We went back to our room and changed in to our suits. I took the kids to the pool. We swam for quite a while. It was fun! We went on the waterslide a bunch of time and just had fun playing and relaxing. About noon we went up, changed, packed, and called the bellman for our bags. We went to Downtown Disney for about 2 hours. We shopped and got drinks. It was so freaking hot!!!! We left the hotel at 2pm and made it back to the bay area at about 9:30, with two stops, one for gas and one for dinner.

Overall, it was a very quick trip, but lots of fun. I wish we could have stayed longer, but it just wasn’t in the cards. We loved the Disneyland Hotel and can’t wait to stay there again. Cindy had a great birthday and it was so special for us to be able to be there with her!

I can’t wait to go back for a much longer trip in December!!!

The Mouse Is Back
04-30-2004, 01:59 PM
What a fun trip report! I'm so glad you got the chance to pull together a quick trip like this for Cindy, sounds like just what she needed after everything she's been through.

I absolutely love the DH, for my money I would rather stay there than any place else in the area. There's just something extra magical about it. I haven't stayed at GC yet, and don't plan on it. I guess part of my attachment to the DH is because my daughter, my late mom and I stayed there at least two or three times a year all during my daughter's childhood.

Thanks for posting that, I love reading trip reports!

:)


-Allegra-