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View Full Version : Disneyland trip report 6/22-6/26 with a few pics!



tlovesdis
07-02-2006, 07:56 PM
Disneyland June 22-26, 2006

Cast of characters:

Main cast:

Me, Tina, 37 year old obsessed Disneyland fan
Allonna, my niece, 7, this is her 7th trip to Disneyland
Mary, my mom, 55, loves Disneyland
Gerilyn, friend and mother of one of my baton students
Mariah, 8, one of my baton students
Lauren, 16, Mariah’s cousin

Other cast:

My 8 other baton students and their families and my aunt, cousin, and his girlfriend!

REASON FOR THE TRIP:

Every year in June Disneyland sponsors the Baton Twirling Spectacular parade and this year my students and their parents voted to attend this event! It ended up being the same weekend as the Pirates 2 premier so Disneyland was a zoo, but we still had a blast.

We began preparing for this parade about two months in advance. I had to teach the kids the parade routine and we had to get costumes and things together. I made a group reservation at the Candy Cane Inn a few months ahead of time as well. We also planned on attending Medieval Times one evening. Other than the clinic and parade, my students and their families were on their own!

Thursday June 22, 2006:

I picked Allonna up at school and we drove from Elk Grove (Sacramento area) to my mom’s house in San Leandro as we were flying out of Oakland. We had dinner then headed to the airport at about 7pm for our 8:50pm flight into Ontario. When we got there they informed us that the flight was delayed until about 9:30, but they could get us on an earlier flight. So we were booked onto the 8:05 flight and headed to our gate. The air conditioning at the Oakland airport was broken and it was super hot in there! We were dying! Boarding was uneventful and we were off at about 8:15.

We got to Ontario at about 9:30, waited for our bags, and then got our rental car from Budget. I got a great deal of $80 for all 4 days through Costco. I had never flown into Ontario so I got directions from the counter guy to Disneyland and off we went! What should have taken about a half an hour ended up taking us 1-½ hours due to some major construction on the 91 freeway. It went from 6 lanes down to 1 and took forever to get through it all! Once we did, it was a quick drive to the Candy Cane Inn.

We arrived at the hotel at about 11:30 or so. We got a room right at the front on the property, which was convenient to the breakfast area and pool, but a bit noisy at night since it was right up against Harbor Blvd and we could hear people each night as they were walking back to their hotels!

As soon as we got settled, we hit the sheets. We were heading into Disneyland at 7:30 the next morning!

Friday June 23, 2006:

We got up about 6:30 and all got ready. We went and had breakfast. The Candy Cane serves a nice breakfast. There was juice, coffee, toast, muffins, bagels, pastries, fruit, and cereal. They had all the fixings as well, like, butter, jelly, peanut butter, and cream cheese.

We waited to hop on the 7:30 and shuttle and it left right on time! I love the fact that the Candy Cane has it’s own shuttle and it is always on time!

We met Gerilyn, Mariah, and Lauren at the gates at about 7:45. The lines to get in were long, but we didn’t care. We were at Disneyland!!!

We got in very quickly and immediately headed to Space Mountain. We walked right on! It was great! We then went on Buzz Lightyear and the rockets. We made a quick trip to the Buzz Lightyear Café (or whatever that place is called) so Mariah could get some breakfast, then we rode Autopia with only about a 20-minute wait. We took the train to New Orleans Square. We could see the bleachers and giant movie screen set up for the Pirates 2 premier! We rode Haunted Mansion, Splash, and Pooh. The longest wait was on Splash. We waited a bit over a ½ hour. It was getting really hot and crowded! The girls waited to see Pooh and his friends to get autographs and pictures then we got back on the train and headed over to Tomorrowland for some lunch.

We ate at Pizza Port. It was super crowded! The food was good though! The kids had pizza and we adults had pasta and salads.

After lunch me, Allonna, and my mom headed for Main Street for some shopping and the others went on a few more rides. We went to catch our shuttle at about 2pm. When we got back to the hotel we swam for quite a while, then rested.

About 6pm we headed back to Disneyland. My mom has a really bad leg and can’t walk a lot, but is stubborn and won’t let me get her a wheelchair! We had reservations at Rainforest Café at 7 so to save her some walking; we took the train from Main Street to Tomorrowland and then took the Monorail into Downtown Disney. We got there right at 7 and our table was ready for us! It’s a good thing we made reservations because they wait time for dinner was 1½ hours!

Dinner was great! Our server wasn’t all that great, but the food was really good and we enjoyed it a lot!

After diner we decided to take our time and walk through Downtown Disney. The girls ended up getting cartoon pictures done of themselves and we shopped in the World of Disney for a while. We made it back into Disneyland at about 10:30. We headed for Peter Pan, but the wait at 10:30pm was over an hour! We skipped it! We rode Snow White, the carousel, the teacups, and Small World. It was 11:30 by then and we were exhausted, so we took the train from Toontown to Main Street and headed back to our hotel!

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Saturday June 24, 2006:

No parks for us today! As part of the parade the girls were doing on Sunday, they had to attend a twirling clinic at a local high school on Saturday! We were supposed to be there at 9:15, but got lost and didn’t get there until 10! The girls spent the day practicing the parade routine and taking classes to learn new tricks and such. At the beginning of the clinic they had each group perform the parade routine and they were judged. There were 17 groups. They pick the top 5 groups to lead the parade and my little 10-member group ended up taking 5th! The girls got a trophy and everything!

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After the clinic was over, we went back to the hotel to swim and relax. We had reservations for the 8:15 Medieval Times dinner!

We got to the show about an hour ahead of time. Our party of 24 ended up in the yellow section. We had a blast! The kids (and most of the adults) were really getting into the whole thing. The food was delicious! We had chicken, ribs, potatoes, soup, and garlic bread. It is well worth the price for the 2 ½ meal and show!

We got back to our hotel at about 11pm!

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Sunday June 25, 2006:

Today was the day of the big parade that we had been waiting all year for! All 10 girls met up at 7am to get make-up and hair done. We had to drop them off in Disneyland by 8am. Once they were all ready, we headed out. We had to drop them off in the employee parking lot off of Ball. It was all run like a military operation! The cast members had walkie-talkies and everything was so official!

After we dropped the girls off, we decided to park in Mickey and Friends instead of going back to our hotel and catching the shuttle. I had never parked in the garage before and wow was it huge! We made our way into Disneyland to stake out spots for the parade.

While we saved seats, we took turns riding rides and shopping. The parade wasn’t until 10:30am.
Once it started, it was just too cool! All these baton twirlers marching down Main Street! I could tell my kids were having a blast! They had huge smiles on their faces! It was just such a cool moment for me! Two of my favorite things, Disney and my baton kids, together!

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After the parade we picked up Allonna and Mariah and crossed over to California Adventure. Our first stop was some lunch at Taste Pilots Grill. We’d never eaten there before and we were very pleasantly surprised with how good the food was. I had a yummy burger with steak sauce and blue cheese crumbles on it! Allonna had the mini cheeseburgers and loved them! Overall it was very good.

Next we rode Soarin and only waited about 30 minutes. Then we headed over to Hollywood and went on Tower of Terror! We all just love this ride so much! Next we went into the Animation Building and saw Chicken Little and the Ugly Duckling. We did Turtle Talk with Crush, which always trips me out! Then we went into Beast’s Library to see which characters we were. I was Belle! My favorite princess!!!

We really wanted to go on Grizzly rapids, so we headed over there but the wait was over an hour and we had a ressie for the Princess dinner so we got fastpasses. We stopped to watch the Block Party Bash, which was very fun for the girls, then headed to Ariel’s Grotto for dinner.

We did Ariel’s back in October and I was very disappointed with the service and the food. The character interaction is great though so I guess it is worth the $21! I was hoping this time would be better, but it was not. I think we got the world’s slowest waiter! The food was mediocre at best, but we did see Belle, Ariel, Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty and the girls had an absolute awesome time! So again, it was worth the price!!!

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After dinner we went to Screamin. Allonna was finally tall enough to ride this and we had been talking about it for months! She was a little unsure if she really wanted to go on it or not. We stopped and watched it take off and she seemed ready! We got in line with a 20-minute wait and she kept saying she wasn’t sure. I told her if she didn’t want to ride it she didn’t have too. I told her to decide when we got up there and she could wait for us at the exit if she changed her mind. As we got closer to the ride, I could tell she was freaking out a bit. We were waiting to get on and she started crying and said she couldn’t do it. So, she waited at the exit with one of the employees and we rode. I’m not sure what the lady said to her, but the minute we got off, she told me she wanted to ride it. So we got back in line for another 20-minute wait! This time she was all hyped and fired up! She was high fiving us and she was ready to go. We got on the ride and she was fine! She LOVED it! She kept screaming “THIS IS AWESOME” the whole time! When we got off, she was so happy that she had decided to go on it! It’s now her favorite ride!

Next we went to use our fastpasses for Grizzly then staked out spots to watch the Electric Parade. As we were walking past Soarin, I slipped and fell right on my butt! That area is really slick due to the mister thing they have going off and my feet just slipped from under me. I wasn’t hurt, just embarrassed! I’m sure everyone got a good laugh seeing the fat lady fall!!!

We watched the parade and then planned to go watch the fireworks at Disneyland, but the parade started late and we couldn’t get over there. We ended up watching them from the front of DCA along with a billion other people! We then shopped a bit at Greetings then headed back to the parking garage to get our car. We got back to our hotel at about 11:30!

Monday June 26, 2006:

This was a our last day and a short one at that! We had to leave by 1pm to fly home. Since Allonna had been doing everything I asked her to do for the past 3 days, I decided to let her be the boss today and pick what we would do. I really wanted to go on Pirates, but she decided she wanted to go back to California Adventure so that’s what we did. We ate breakfast and got on the 9am shuttle.

First up was Monster’s Inc followed by another trip to the Tower of Terror. Allonna just loves that ride! Of course next we had to go on Screamin! We ended up going on it twice! Then she got her face painted, we got slushies, and then she rode Mullholland Madness. It was about time to head out so we said goodbye to Disneyland and DCA and got the shuttle back to the hotel. We checked out and headed to the airport!

OVERALLL:

This was such a fun trip! I never go to Disneyland in the summer, so this was different for me. I always go off-season and never wait in lines or have crowds and massive heat, but it was still fun. Seeing my girls march down Main Street is something that I will never, ever forget! It was so thrilling! I am bummed that we didn’t get to do Pirates, but I will be back before the end of the year and I can ride it then!

If you have any questions or comments about my report, please feel free to email me at tlovesdis@yahoo.com (tlovesdis@yahoo.com)!

Thanks for reading!