Shadowcat
05-15-2006, 06:01 PM
Family members: Me, Hubby, our 5 year old autistic son, and our 2.5 year old daughter (her first trip). We drove down from Oregon Sunday night and arrived at our Hotel (Best Western park Place Inn) around 3pm Monday afternoon. Check-in was quick and after a room change to make sure we had one with Wi-Fi, we decided to relax. BWPPI's wi-fi seems to be centered around the rooms closest to Harbor. We all took a few hour nap to recover from the trip, then headed to DTD to get some fresh air and have a nice walk.
May 9th (Disneyland Day 1)
We woke up early, headed to the free continential breakfast upstairs at Captain Kidd's. The breakfast was pretty standard, but good,and consisted of a variety of danishes, muffins (chocolate, blueberry, walnut topped, etc), bananas, oranges, bagels, juices, coffee and milk. After a quick breakfast we headed to the entry gates. The walk was very quick. We left our stroller at the hotel and planned on bringing it later if we needed to. We saw moderate lines on the walk there, but they pretty much disappeared by the time we got to the gate. Also, there are bag-search checkpoints into the area between the two parks, one coming from Harbor and the other coming from Downtown Disney. These checkpoints make the lines going into the parks much quicker. At the gate, we handed our 3-day plastic cards to the cast member, who scanned them, and we were good to go. Our son and daughter were very excited and we debated heading to city hall for a guest card for our son. We decided against it at the moment, and wanted to see how he would handle things first. At rope drop we headed to the autotopia first, which was what our son had been asking to go on. He handled the 5-7 minute wait very well, with the exception of the dark area in the line where they were showing movie shorts of the cars. He was scared going through there, but we didn't have to wait in that area and were soon out of it. After the cars, it was over to Buzz Lightyear. Our son was suddenly into flashback mode of not wanting to go into buildings (He had this issue when we took him last time when he was 2 years old). We decided I would take our daughter while hubby took son into the nearby store (apparently building that contain toys are exempt from his phobia, lol!). Daughter was a bit scared during the ride, but cheered after it was over. when we came out of the ride we couldn't find hubby and son, so we waited where we last saw them. It turned out that in the store, hubby bought son a cool buzz lightyear lightup gun and convinced him to go on the
ride. Son had a good time too.
Next it was off to Fantasyland with rides on the Tea Cups and Alice in Wonderland. We left the ride choices up to the kids for the most part, especially with our son's autism. Our next stop was BTMR, which our son enjoyed tremendously. He shouted and laughed and giggled through the whole ride. We got some churros afterwards, and hubby watched the kids while I made a quick trip to the Haunted Mansion. The new effects are fantastic! I was a bit worried, but was pleased after I saw how the attic is now themed. After I exited HM, I couldn't find the rest of the family. Turned out hubby had taken them to Tom Sawyer's Island to play. After the reunion, we went on Pooh and then had lunch at Hungry Bear. The food was very good.
After lunch we went back to the hotel for a swim break, then headed to DCA to catch Monster's Inc. They did a great job with that ride. I LOVED the Harryhausen themed area. It was a blast! We then headed back to DL and to Fantasyland for Dumbo, Tea Cups and the Carousel before leaving the parks for the night.
May 9th (Disneyland Day 1)
We woke up early, headed to the free continential breakfast upstairs at Captain Kidd's. The breakfast was pretty standard, but good,and consisted of a variety of danishes, muffins (chocolate, blueberry, walnut topped, etc), bananas, oranges, bagels, juices, coffee and milk. After a quick breakfast we headed to the entry gates. The walk was very quick. We left our stroller at the hotel and planned on bringing it later if we needed to. We saw moderate lines on the walk there, but they pretty much disappeared by the time we got to the gate. Also, there are bag-search checkpoints into the area between the two parks, one coming from Harbor and the other coming from Downtown Disney. These checkpoints make the lines going into the parks much quicker. At the gate, we handed our 3-day plastic cards to the cast member, who scanned them, and we were good to go. Our son and daughter were very excited and we debated heading to city hall for a guest card for our son. We decided against it at the moment, and wanted to see how he would handle things first. At rope drop we headed to the autotopia first, which was what our son had been asking to go on. He handled the 5-7 minute wait very well, with the exception of the dark area in the line where they were showing movie shorts of the cars. He was scared going through there, but we didn't have to wait in that area and were soon out of it. After the cars, it was over to Buzz Lightyear. Our son was suddenly into flashback mode of not wanting to go into buildings (He had this issue when we took him last time when he was 2 years old). We decided I would take our daughter while hubby took son into the nearby store (apparently building that contain toys are exempt from his phobia, lol!). Daughter was a bit scared during the ride, but cheered after it was over. when we came out of the ride we couldn't find hubby and son, so we waited where we last saw them. It turned out that in the store, hubby bought son a cool buzz lightyear lightup gun and convinced him to go on the
ride. Son had a good time too.
Next it was off to Fantasyland with rides on the Tea Cups and Alice in Wonderland. We left the ride choices up to the kids for the most part, especially with our son's autism. Our next stop was BTMR, which our son enjoyed tremendously. He shouted and laughed and giggled through the whole ride. We got some churros afterwards, and hubby watched the kids while I made a quick trip to the Haunted Mansion. The new effects are fantastic! I was a bit worried, but was pleased after I saw how the attic is now themed. After I exited HM, I couldn't find the rest of the family. Turned out hubby had taken them to Tom Sawyer's Island to play. After the reunion, we went on Pooh and then had lunch at Hungry Bear. The food was very good.
After lunch we went back to the hotel for a swim break, then headed to DCA to catch Monster's Inc. They did a great job with that ride. I LOVED the Harryhausen themed area. It was a blast! We then headed back to DL and to Fantasyland for Dumbo, Tea Cups and the Carousel before leaving the parks for the night.