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View Full Version : Trip Report 9-15



Lekta
04-16-2005, 06:29 PM
DAY 1, April 8th

The serenity of my day dream is broken with excited knocking at my front door. The couple that we are carpooling to Disneyland with had finally arrived, and the building enthusiasm nearly crept out in a giddy scream. Regaining my composure and assuring myself with a manly strut, I answered the door. I could see that the enthusiasm that I had brewed was mirrored in their faces. They had not seen the magical land in 10 years, give or take. In a sense I guess I envied that. It would nearly be like going for the first time, had I not seen the area in such a long time. At any rate, I thoroughly looked forward to showing them all the secret nuances that I clearly hold dear to heart in this land that I always seem to end up in when vacation time rolls along.

TIME: 10:30pm

PLACE: Portland, Oregon

DESTINATION: Anaheim

It started out innocently enough, but the pounding rain began to take it's toll on the clearly unwashed windshield. The outside world a blurry dark portal, I began to nervously stare at the winding road in front of us. I began to think of it as an obstacle placed in front of me, attempting to halt my mission, and, upon completion, I would be rewarded with 5 great days in the Magic Land.

After about 30 minutes of the wipers running we were finally able to see out of the windshield without pressing our faces up to the windshield (which in turn fogged it up =). Our next obstacle, they forgot to mention that they had no high beams. Now, if anyone has driven south down I-5 at night, they know that high beams are necessary.. period. There are many many instances where it is pitch black outside and the road is exceptionally hard to see. At any rate, the going was slow at such points. Again, obstacle surpassed. Yet another obstacle, a heavy blanket of fog settled in on the Siskiyou Summit, further delaying our already slow procession. On top of the fog, there was fairly heavy snow falling on the summit that we had completely not expected. An already long story short, we battled nature and our own weariness to arrive at the Castle Inn on Saturday evening 6:00pm.

DAY 2, April 9th

The tension that lifted off of the group was nearly visible in the air as we pulled up on Harbor and saw the Matterhorn looming in the distance. Check in was no problem and we quickly settled into our room. Not a horrible room at all. It fit our needs excellently and appeared to be clean. After the ladies got freshened up, we quickly headed out to the park. Deciding that we were best served to eat dinner on the way, we stopped at the IHOP on Harbor. MISTAKE. Perhaps that should be in bold letters. I repeat MISTAKE. The most awful meal/service/experience dining that I have had in a long time. All four dinners were; cold, undercooked, incorrect, overpriced, and served after a tediously long wait. I could perhaps accept a few of those as mistakes made during a busy time, however, there was very few people in the restaurant, so, as far as I'm concerned, unacceptable. Unless you are extremely hard up for food, I would not recommend eating here. Heck, I wouldn't recommend stopping too long in front of the restaurant.

Anyways, back to our walk to the park. Those cones, those magical cones. It is the first sure sign that I'm going to be in Disneyland soon. If you've been there from the Harbor entrance, you know the cones too. We decided to go to DCA first as the couple we came with had never seen it. I believe that our first ride was California Screamin, as that is one of our favorites. I was slightly concerned that they wouldn't like the ride. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they loved it! Our next destination was ToT, as we had already picked up Fastpasses for it, we only waiting a few minutes to board. Again, they loved it! We walked around a bit more in DCA and saw the tail end of the electrical parade (love that tune) before proceeding over to DL.

As is custom with my wife and I, we made a beeline for the Blue Ribbon Bakery for our Disneyland mocha! I would literally pay $10 for one of those (don't let them know that, as they are already quickly approaching that price). Another custom of ours is to enjoy our mocha on Pirates, as it seems to be the only ride that they will let you take your drinks on.

At this point it was getting fairly late and the park was closing down for the night. We wearily headed back to the hotel and collapsed on the beds, eager to start off the next day in the parks..........

If anyone is reading this, firstly, let me apologize for the length. Sometimes my mind wanders :D Secondly, I will post some more later.

Maus
04-16-2005, 06:40 PM
Enjoying your tale so far. Your style of prose is very enjoyable! Keep it coming.

Rhiannon8404
04-16-2005, 07:48 PM
Well, go on then...we're waiting (taps foot impatiently). ;)

SilverStyle
04-16-2005, 11:57 PM
Sounds like you had a good time

Crazy4DL
04-17-2005, 06:16 AM
oh! this is such a fun report :) thanks for sharing!

Lekta
04-17-2005, 08:55 AM
DAY 3, April 10th

The morning began with a wailing song in Spanish that burst from the alarm clock at 7am sharp. Up jumped the ladies and into the restroom they sped. After what seemed like decades, they announced that they were ready. Having been ready and waiting for over an hour myself, I was eager to get going. We packed up all the bags into the car, drove it over to the HoJo and went to Millies for breakfast. Wonderful little restaurant. They have the best freshly made muffins and quite good prices. After filling up at our little piece of heaven, we hurriedly scampered across the heavily populated crosswalk into the park. Now, initially I had thought that the parks were crowded because of the weekend, however, I came to find out that they were just packed period. Lotta good my research and planning did. Half the country must have been on spring break and in the park. No matter, we knew we would still have a great time. Although, admittedly, I hadn't been practicing my crowd surfing technique, so I was a bit rusty. You know, when your wife grabs your hand in a death grip and pulls you through crowds... crowd surfing, right?

We quickly headed toward Buzz Lightyear as none of us had been on this ride and had no idea what to expect. There was barely any wait at all and we were boarding within minutes. The guys got into one pod while the ladies got in another. My first try wasn't the best, however, the ladies seemed to have a tougher time. Immediately following the alien blasting, we headed over to Indy and the ladies decided to wait in line while we ran over to Splash Mountain to grab some fastpasses. Initially, it sounded like a good idea. In retrospect, not the greatest idea I had conjured up. We swerved through the heavy crowd gathered around the New Orleans area and grabbed some fastpasses for Splash. On the way back, my friend wanted to go through Tarzan's Treehouse, as he had really enjoyed it when he was last there. We climbed up to the top and I realized that I wasn't too fond of being up this high on a swaying treehouse made of rubber/plastic. With the amount of people packed onto the treehouse, you could literally feel the ground shaking and swaying back and forth, not pleasant.

We arrived back to the Indy line to find that our ladies were no where to be seen. Not having any idea what to do, as I figured it would be fairly rude to try and skip past everyone in line and I surely didn't want to say to every person we passed "sorry, my wife is up there somewhere". However, with no other option forming in my sun burned brain, that is exactly what we did. We skipped all the way up to the first CM that lets you into the building and he let us proceed without stopping. We quickly navigated the awesome queue. I would like to add that I think the Indy queue is the most well done and detailed of any ride in both parks. The attention to detail is staggering. From the floor to the ceiling is meticulously planned and achieves the intended effect. At any rate, we got all the way up to the room where they make you watch the film. We jumped out of line and into the fastpass area, figuring the CM would understand our situation. I nodded and seemed to know exactly what to do. However, his idea of what to do was utterly useless. He let the entire line go before he let us go. In other words, had we just stayed in the line and watched the film, we would have been further along then we were now. Brilliant! Suffice to say, we got to the front of the line and saw no sign of the ladies. We figured that they had already gotten on and were outside so up we stepped to the gate. Lo and behold, who pulls up in the jeep? The ladies! With a quick exchange of glances and a few giggles, they exited and we boarded. Looking back, we were the only 2 in our row, it would have been a good idea if we asked the CM if they could just stay on. Not sure if the CM would agree, but why not. Anyway, the ride was great and I loved the new snake! The headlights are now correctly formed and are no longer square and awkward. Great ride!

Off we headed to Toon Town as the couple that we came with were excited about seeing it. Crowded is such a delicate word for the sheer number of people I saw there. We explored all the many little details of the land and headed over to Mickeys house. There was actually no wait at all and my friend excitedly rushed into the house, not knowing that the ladies had stopped outside to take pictures. I stayed with the ladies myself because, well frankly, I live with one 24 hours a day and they smell much better =). Roughly 5 minutes had passed and we made our way through the house, stopping many times to take pictures and use the camcorder. There was a slight line to get a photo with Mickey, but no sign of my friend. We incorrectly figured he would be waiting outside. Massively long story short, we searched around Toontown for over an hour looking for him to no avail. I was becoming incredibly irritated. I had not wanted to spend my time looking for someone. We ran out of places to look so I decided we should head to SM as that is where we had planned to go afterwards and fulfill our FP. We arrived there and no sign of him either. My wife and I decided to use our FP. Fantastic ride as usual and the best ride to use FP in my opinion. We literally walked on.

On the way to Main St. and a little under 1.5hrs after we had last seen him, he called on his ladies cell phone from the pay phone at City Hall. We arrived there and they got in a argument so I decided that the guys would head back to the hotel for a quick rest and the ladies wanted to do some shopping (which I hate to do).

A Couple hours later we all hooked up and did a little shopping and ate dinner (cannot for the life of me recall where). At this point it was getting dark so we headed over to DCA got on Screamin and picked up FP for ToT again. The wait for Soarin was astronomical, so we decided to pass on that. We got a great seat for the Electrical Parade and filmed it. At the conclusion of the Parade, we wandered over to ToT and used our FP. The ride is great and night and I had never experienced it before. We had decided ahead of time to try to keep our hands in the air the whole ride, to have a new experience. However, no matter how badly my mind tried to get me to keep my hands in the air, I could not get them to agree. I did manage to not hold on, but, I still could not keep my hands up =). My wife was a champ at it and we all agreed that not holding on made the ride twice as exciting.

We rushed over to DL to catch Fantasmic. We got poor seating behind some massive heads! At any rate, great show everyone loved it. Wearily, we shambled back to our awaiting room at HoJo where we all collapsed into a heap of sore limbs and blisters.

More to come.....