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View Full Version : My Very, Very LONG trip report! June 10-17



Chadsgal
06-19-2005, 09:40 PM
Well I am back from 6 days of Disney and 1 at Knotts. O’ the drama of this trip! We stayed at the Sheraton for the first time scince 1988 and we are NEVER going back :crying: . We had quite the group my Mom, Dad, Brother, his new Fiancé, her daughter, my friend Sandy, My best friend Kim and her husband Justin, my DH Chad and ME! :)

Day one June 10th

We flew out of Seattle to OC and after getting our bags and rental car we headed to our hotel. We had called that morning to make sure everything was in order because we had allot of different reservations, four rooms three of which were from the 10th-17th and one that was from the 11th – 14th. The lady on the phone promised us that she would connect all our reservations and get our rooms close and two of them connected. Well it took us an hour to check in! Nothing was done our rooms weren’t close at all and they had added other rooms to my Moms name that she had never reserved. Anyway we thought we got it all figured out and so we went to bed at 2AM.

Day two June 11th

I was up bright and early so that we could be there at rope drop of 8AM but the rest of my party couldn’t bear getting out of those comfy beds!! So we didn’t leave until the 9AM Shuttle. As we are going down to catch the shuttle my brothers future step daughter, Madison age 3, saw the gift shop full of Disney toys and exclaimed: “Disneyland is right here!!” It was so cute we all laughed. :D
DL was perfect as always my family had no idea what to expect for the 50th cause none of them had been talking with you wonderful people and enjoying you pics and trip reports. Even the new floral arrangement of the 50 and Mickey at the front was enough to make my Mom all giddy. We entered though the stroller side as always! And I was sure to point out to my friend Sandy the plaque that sates: Here you leave the world of today…” I We had never used the fast pass system and my ridemax was way behind due to the late start so we went straight to IJA to get fastpasses and then went on the new and improved JC! We all loved it the gorillas and the piranhas was all great! Then onto POTC Madison loves pirates so as soon as it was done the questions was: “Can we go back down there?” Madison is a fearless child that at only 3 years old is 42 ½ inches tall with shoes so she could go on almost everything! My BF and her husband joined us around noon while we were all having corn dogs at the end of Main Street then we heard an announcement that in just 5min Mickey would be climbing the Matter horn!! I was so excited we had a perfect spot and all the corny jokes just cracked me up! My BF then exclaimed that she has never been on the Matterhorn because every time she comes it is broken or closed for referb. So I promised her it was open and off we ran. As we had just gotten in line the cars stop that Matterhorn in broken!!!! My BF laughed so hard and said I told you I am not meant to ride this!! But soon enough the ride was up and running and we got on! She loved it and while we stood in line my Mom had collected “THE” Splash Mountain fastpasses! Theses were the passes that we would use for my Brother to Propose to his girlfriend! We dashed over to DCA for my BF and her DH so that they could go on TOT one of there favorite rides, they had rode it in WDW and I am terrified of it but taking the suggestion of so many MP’s I got in line only a 13min wait. We go up there and am can stand still I am so scared but I kept telling my self I never have to go on it again if I don’t like it. We were given the front row so my Mom could see the terror in my face and so she made sure I sat in between my DH and Dad for comfort purposes. Our bell hop was GREAT!! He came in a said “I can’t help but notice a few of you look a little scared” and the stared and me! Everyone was laughing he then asked me if I was afraid of falling? I said yes, afraid of heights? A little I said, afraid of being out of your seat? No I don’t think so then he said to me I am simply terrified for you. He made me laugh but the laughter was brought to a quick end as soon as the drop sequence started. I HATE drop rides like the mailboomer I have problems breathing and that causes me to panic but I was told by my BF and aunt (would rode it last year) that is much smoother and nothing like it. Well as soon as we dropped I started to SOB! :crying: I couldn’t catch my breath and I buried my face into my Dads shoulder who was trying to remind me to breathe during our little pit stops before each drop I believe we dropped all 8 possible times. I didn’t even look at my picture I wanted nothing to do with it! I did however buy an I survived magnate. The 3 year old how ever: this is now one of her favorite rides! HAHAHA Oh the humility I was shown up by a 3 year old! :D She referred to it as the “scary alligator” for the rest of the trip. We had Fantazmic perfered seating on the river front which they had moved over a little scents the last time I was there two years ago. But it was a buffet not just a box of treats this time! Tons of fun but I have had better views but it worked just fine I think due to the price being the same I am going to try for balcony next time. Several hours and rides latter: HM, POTC again, IJA it was time we were off to Splash. My DH had the signs in his back pack and I made a big deal about what order we should sit in for pictures so I insisted that Madison be in the front so that we could see her face and so on. The log looked like this from back to front:
DH | Me| Sandy| Brother| Girlfriend| and her daughter Madison. I was so worried that we were going to mess it up some how my brother was nervous and kept on looking back to make sure we were ready. So sure enough we pulled it off we had Sandy duck and DH and I held the signs. My brother was able to get her right by the screaming room by pretending that he didn’t want to see the pick and that he wanted food and because she had the money he needed her to come right now! So off I ran to buy the pic. Then over to a quite corner by the Pooh store and said: “This is a great pic of Madison check it out” During this time by bro is getting on one knee next to her and she looks and misses the signs!! She just looked at Madison and the she looked down at my Bro and asked: “What are you doing?” He responded with: “You obviously didn’t look at the picture very well.” She them open it back up and said OH you’ve got to be kidding me (in a good way, my brother had promised that he wouldn’t propose in front of anyone to throw her off) by then my brother had the ring and she of course said YES!!! Shortly after we headed back to the hotel to find that our keys have been deactivated so at 12:30AM we are walking back down to the front desk to find out what was wrong. No apologies were made just a: what rooms OK here are new keys!!! I don’t know if the June Gloom was getting to these people but they were all pretty rude. But we figured hey give them the benefit of the doubt that it was a system glitch.

Day three June 12th

We had VW show to attend on this day and my parents went to DL for the first time ever just the two of them, awwwww! They didn’t go on any rides just soaked up the atmosphere, did some shopping and went out to dinner. We went into DL that night and did IJA again, Peter Pan, the Matterhorn at night and we got the TL side which I though was must more fun more jerks and drops. We returned to our hotel late again for my Parents to find a message on there phone that they need another Credit Card that they can’t get an approval on the one they gave them. My Mom then calls the Credit Card Co. to find out that they had put a request for the hotel to call to verify the info due to the large amount and it was coming out of sate so it was a security feature of the card and I have worked with Visa’s before and know this to be true anyway he then explains how my Moms card and been frozen and possible fraud flag put on it due to the hotel has been running random amounts ever two min!!!!! They tried to run 11 charges never the same amount though in a ½ hour!!! :mad: And the amounts were completely random and not even for totals of one or two nights stay! This is a problem that didn’t get fixed until check out and we had to work with two different managers and five different people from the Credit Card Co. Due to the fraud flag on her account because of all the charges that they didn’t stop doing after they were informed it got harder and harder for even my Mother to get info on her own card! Then ended up comping our parking and giving us $100 to there restaurant but my Mom is writing a letter to there Corporate head quarters explaining that not only did it put a damper on our trip having to come back to messages on our phone EVERY night but also that her credit card is now messed up thanks to them. They have a beautiful hotel, rooms and comfortable beds but not one of us will ever stay with them again. I know that we are only one customer and they don’t care if they lose one but it was just sad. We haven’t stayed off of Disney Property in five years now and it was all due to the poor customer service at the Sheraton that will we never stray from Disney again! Not until we spoke with managers was one I apologies for this inconvenience given. My Mom was a customer service manager over 14 states and so she was very unimpressed. Anyways enough on that topic back to the happiness of DL! :D

Day 3 June 13th

This was our Knotts day and boy did I miss my DL. We only were able to get on four rides due the lengthy lines and the food lines were worse then the rides. We heard that two different places while we were in line for some hot dogs that they had run out of food completely! The stand we were waiting at we finally left after 25min of not moving. There were three registers and only one person working all three of them and gathering the food. Needless to say that the moral was so bad and that they employees were yelling at people in front of guest about needing there breaks and how somebody better get there quick. We did have the chicken dinner and that was good service and good food. :)

Day 4 June 14th

We all went on BLAB today and we all loved it!! Sandy and I emailed them to people we work with it was great fun. :D We also ran back over to DCA to ride GRR and Screaming. Now our group was down to 8 people my BF and her husband left this morning so all of us fit on one GRR raft. I just love that ride it makes me laugh very hard. We used the free lockers every time we road it too I didn’t know that they were free for the first hour last trip so this was a wonderful benefit! This was also the day of our 50th tour!! No goodies yet but we were informed that they got the pins the day before and that we would be getting the next week or so. Our tour guide was very funny and we the three rides we got to go on were: POTC, Splash, and BTMR! Those were the three I was hoping for! When we walked onto Splash there was a 105min wait it was great!!! We had preferred seating for the fireworks back at the train station. It was the perfect view of all the fireworks although we missed allot of the projections on the castle we saw every single firework! We decided to leave right after the fireworks because of the mob of people coming towards us the line for the train was very long and we didn’t want to fight against the crowd.

Day 5 June 15th

The big event for today was that we were going to have lunch at the BB. The last time I ate here I was 8 and my Brother was 4 so we barley remembered it. We were all very excited! We had 2:40 reservations and we showed up early to ask for water side seating but the said that would take another 1hr to 1hr and ½ but that they had second row in 15min so we took that. The only thing in front of us was the stand where they kept water and stuff so we had a pretty unobstructed view. Great food and LOVED the atmosphere and we’ll will defiantly go every time now. 6 of the eight of us had Montecristo Sandwich and everyone really enjoyed them.

Day 6 June 16th

This was a grad night and we decided to watch the fireworks from the hub so we staked out a spot 3 hrs before the show. My Dad took a nap while my Mom occupied Madison so all the “kids” ages 20-25 could go on rides. The fastpass line for IJA took 40 min someone had dropped something on the track and they needed to get it off. But we had a very pleasant and funny conversation with the people behind us in line because we kept on forcing my Brother to go ask the CM questions about time and what not it was very funny. We then ran over to splash only to find that it was closed due to that morning’s earthquake. I have a personal phobia of earthquakes and there were a total of 4 while we were down there. Fortunately I didn’t feel a single one! I was very please to see that DL and DCA was closing every ride at different times during the day to run all the maintenance checks due to the quake while people were very upset and complaining I found comfort in it somehow. We joined back up with my parents to find the hub much more crowded than we left so we all stayed for the last 1hr and ½ just to have people come and sit in front of us and crowd us to the point that Sandy ended up sitting next to all strangers! She didn’t know any of them! That is one of my Dad’s pet peeves that people think they have a right to come in 15 min before show time and block your view. I was back on one of the benches and had a perfect view of the castle and I loved all the projections and lights but I was very glad I had experienced it from both the train station and the hub cause there were so many fireworks that we would have missed if we only watched from the hub and the fireworks are more lined up when you watch from the train station. Due to the grad night nothing was open after 9PM all of Main Street was closed and we decided to go to the Rainforest Café for dinner. So we maneuvered our way through the crowds, zinging and zaging all holding all to another like a big train. We love the atmosphere of the Rainforest Café and we were the FIRST people to be seating there when it officially opened so it has a place in our hearts. The food is always just OK but we had fun and then went to walk back to our hotel, which was becoming the trend due to the last shuttle was always 15min after the park closed and we could never make it. All of a sudden we realized that we were not alone and we see a sea of seniors ahead of us with a mile of school buses making there way in. I couldn’t believe it they were all very loud and crazy and hey I got flashed by some girl in a passing school bus. I was just very glad that I wasn’t going to be there with all of them. Man I am sounding old!

Last Day June 17th

Well we didn’t need to be to the airport until 5:00 so we went to the park that morning to shop and to try to get all my magic milestone pennies. We stopped by DCA for one last ride on TOT (no I didn’t go on it again) but on our way to there we saw Sully and Madison had to say Hi and get her pic taken and she asked me where his friend with one eye was and I told her she would have to go ask him so she waited until her turn and she couldn’t remember his name so she opened her arms wide and yelled “Kitty” and gave him a big hug! The entire CM said she was just like Boo. We then headed to City Hall to get a list of the Pennies and that was a blast it was like a scavenger hunt almost we had so much fun running from place to place getting them the machine at WOD was out of order so I am missing three and I have my DH convinced that we should come down in Oct for his Birthday, money willing. He used to just not get what the big deal is but I think he is starting to.

I have three cameras worth of pics. So I am going to be trying to gather all of them and get them posted ASAP but it may take me some time the cameras are my Mom’s, mine and my futures Sister in law’s. I hope you all enjoyed and I am sorry it was so long there were just so many days. If we go back in Oct. it will be shorted because we will only be there for about four days.

Skunker
06-20-2005, 09:16 AM
Great trip report - I can almost see all the places you were! I am anxious to see the pictures. Was the park very crowded?

Thanks!

Crazy4DL
06-20-2005, 09:36 AM
I enjoyed your report!! thanks! :)

sorry about the cc and motel stuff - what a bummer to have to have that happening when you are on vacation. :(

PDDsufferer
06-20-2005, 09:46 AM
My Mom then calls the Credit Card Co. to find out that they had put a request for the hotel to call to verify the info due to the large amount and it was coming out of sate so it was a security feature of the card and I have worked with Visa’s before and know this to be true anyway he then explains how my Moms card and been frozen and possible fraud flag put on it due to the hotel has been running random amounts ever two min!!!!! They tried to run 11 charges never the same amount though in a ½ hour!!! :mad: And the amounts were completely random and not even for totals of one or two nights stay!

This is an old trick - it was done intentionally, not to steal money, but to lock up the credit card. It's used by waiters/clerks who feel that you have been rude to them.

Chadsgal
06-20-2005, 09:52 AM
Great trip report - I can almost see all the places you were! I am anxious to see the pictures. Was the park very crowded?

Thanks!

It was busy but with grad nights and what not but with the help of fastpasses it wasn't that bad the logest wait for a ride was about 40min. :)

Chadsgal
06-20-2005, 09:57 AM
This is an old trick - it was done intentionally, not to steal money, but to lock up the credit card. It's used by waiters/clerks who feel that you have been rude to them.

Well we were told that it was an atomated thing that the computer does. I didn't believe them but unfortuantly we gave them the bennfit of the doubt and we told them how our reservations must have been very confusing and thanked her for her help so I hope it wasn't because she thought we were rude. :confused: We didn't get into until later and that was onlly with the managers.

nursemelis374
06-20-2005, 09:58 AM
;)
This is an old trick - it was done intentionally, not to steal money, but to lock up the credit card. It's used by waiters/clerks who feel that you have been rude to them.

I disagree about the waiters/waitresses thing. They as individuals do not have this power. I used to be one and boy would this have been nice. I had this happen to me in Hawaii. I called my credit card company to tell them I was out of state and they unlocked it immediately. They told me that it was a security feature that they did when the card was used a certain amount of miles from home. I was actually glad they did it!

PDDsufferer
06-20-2005, 10:02 AM
;)

I disagree about the waiters/waitresses thing. They as individuals do not have this power. I used to be one and boy would this have been nice. I had this happen to me in Hawaii. I called my credit card company to tell them I was out of state and they unlocked it immediately. They told me that it was a security feature that they did when the card was used a certain amount of miles from home. I was actually glad they did it!


Then why the random $ amounts, 2 minutes apart? I used to wait tables too ;) ...

Shortiemetoo
06-20-2005, 10:33 AM
Wow...great trip report and I can't wait to see the pictures! So sorry about the motel problems but I am glad that you said the beds were comfortable!! At least that helps!!

disneychelle
06-20-2005, 01:03 PM
Wonderul trip report my friend and thank you so very much for shopping for me while you were down there too! ;) ;)

Crazy4DL
06-20-2005, 02:29 PM
;)

. I called my credit card company to tell them I was out of state and they unlocked it immediately. They told me that it was a security feature that they did when the card was used a certain amount of miles from home. I was actually glad they did it!

We had a credit card company do this exact same thing either right at the end of one of our last DL trip or when we got home. I didn't notice it until we were home and I called to see what was happening and they told me that they do that when there are lots of charges all of a sudden and not in your home area. My cc company also immediately unlocked it.

I thought it a good idea except I thought to myself - umm. . . that would have been embrassing to be standing in DL trying to use my credit card and having it denied. I wish there was some way for them to contact you before just locking it. I had never heard of such a thing until all of a sudden it happened to me. The same thing then happened to my dd on another DL trip - but at least that time we had a clue.

Umm . . . don't think maybe we are spending to much at DL, do you?;)

SANDYMARIE
06-20-2005, 03:00 PM
Hey Crystal Honey................

I wish I had been there, to help you thru all that mess!!!! :mad:
We always pay our room with a cc, and leave a cash deposit for any extra charges......that way no one is authorized to do any charge holds.

Anyways, Congrats to Kevin and Tara!!! :)
Wow, 2 more for Christmas....our family is getting HUGE!!!! :eek:

I hope that you get to go again in October, we were considering going then, but POTC will be closed, so we are going in December. :D

Hurry up and come by with the pictures, I can't wait to see them........ :)

Your Loving Aunt Sandy :)

CrazyTrain
06-20-2005, 07:26 PM
I would defintely submit a hotel review to the MousePlanet review section!

Earkid
06-20-2005, 07:48 PM
I didn't notice it until we were home and I called to see what was happening and they told me that they do that when there are lots of charges all of a sudden and not in your home area. My CC company now considers Disneyland to be part of our home area. :D

CoasterChickie
06-20-2005, 09:02 PM
I really enjoyed reading your trip report. It's always fun to experience DL through someone else's eyes. :)

What a bummer about all the hassles at the Sheraton. I've only stayed there once and had a great experience. Sorry you can't say the same.