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View Full Version : Trip Report 07.01.2006 - 07.07.2006



NetworkDad
07-09-2006, 03:54 PM
The cast:
• Jason (me), 29 - Dad of 3 kids who’s never been to Disneyland. Needs a vacation!
• Inez (wife), 29 – Used to live in So Cal, and visited DR several times growing up.
• Megan (daughter), 9 - A Disney princess fan
• Hannah (daughter), 3 – Cinderella’s biggest fan
• Matthew (son), 9 moths – Our easy going son who’s tickled just to go to the grocery store

Pre-trip

This started all back at the end of December 2005, with talk of what to do over the summer. Began to investigate hotel rates in the DR area. Scored a great deal using Priceline’s “Name your own Price” for $50 a night at the Doubletree for 6 nights. Researched ticket prices into the park, and ran across mousesavers.com. Against advice of a few, I purchased 4-day park hopper tickets off eBay at a fantastic rate from a reputable seller - $124/ticket for the kids, $129/ticket for my wife and myself.

Wished that I had purchased airfare at this time also when rates were much lower. Initially we thought we were going to drive from southwest Washington (state), but with the price of gas and an additional nights stay down and back, Airfare works out to be a better buy for only a little bit more than driving – without all the headache of keeping kids entertained for 2 days of traveling down and back.

For the past 6 months, Hannah has been asking if we are going to Disneyland on a daily basis. Within this next week, I can finally answer her, “Yes Honey!”.

Day 1 – 07.01.2006

I reserved a shuttle van to pick us up from our home. It worked out only to be a few dollars more than parking in the economy airport lot, and we get dropped right off at the departure for United, rather than having to carry all our stuff onto a separate shuttle bus. The driver was 15 minutes late, but I had accounted that they might be late into my requested pickup time.

Airport security check was pretty quick out of PDX, although I had to have my 3 year old go thru a few times without touching any of the equipment. Once she removed her switchblade, she got thru ok (joking!)

This was my wife’s first flight on a plane ever, so she had a small case of jitterbugs. Once we got up in the air though, she was good to go. Our 9month old son is so good natured – he slept the whole flight! It’s about 2.5 hours from PDX to LAX

Upon coming into LAX, I’m amazed at the lack of lush tall evergreen trees and clean air that we’re used to. Glad this is just a visit, I’d miss the Pacific Northwest.

We had to take a shuttle from LAX to the Alamo facility. I had used priceline to get a full-size car rental for $20/day. The Alamo shuttle driver was real nice – helped load our bags quickly, assist our kids with the big steps in the bus – he was tipped accordingly. The rest of Alamo was a joke though. After getting my papers signed, they indicated I could pick out any full size vehicle I wanted. Coming out to the full size lot, there were none to be found. After a 20 minute wait, they finally brought a few of them out, and we were on our way to the Doubletree in Orange.

I decided for the amount of luggage, I would park valet up front, and have someone take it all up for us to our room. Again, sometimes paying a premium for these services is worth it to take a big load off your back (literally!).

We got into our room quickly, snacked on the cookies that the hotel gave us, and cleaned up a little. We had skipped lunch, so went out to dinner pretty hungry. There is a close Mexican restaurant, El Torito. It has pretty good prices, and the food was good. It makes for a good family restaurant, as the ambient noise level from other guests is pretty high – meaning, it will drone out my kids wining or chatting. That’s my idea of a good family restaurant, where I don’t have to keep them quiet.

Day 2 – 07.02.2006

We’ve decided not to hit the park up until Monday (tomorrow). Today will be a family day to relax.

We went over to Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside. My wife grew up in the area, and used to go see Greg Laurie all the time. I loved the outdoor pit to sit and listen – we don’t have that up in Washington State with all the rain we get..

Had to go to in and Out Burger also. Wouldn’t be a trip to California without getting one of those delicious double burgers with cheese.

Other than that, back to the hotel to swim a bit. Might go for a drive again later. Need to get some rest here tonight – have an early start to our day in the park!

Day 3 – 07.03.2006

Good morning! Got an early start and picked up breakfast before the family got up. We ate, and ran out the door. I would have preferred getting their earlier, but I think by the tram got us to the gates it was around 830~ish..

This is my first experience at any DL resort. It’s like a completely different world. Lush thick green trees, bushes, and grass, and finely detailed decorated buildings. The landscaping reminds me a lot about our own home, the Pacific Northwest.

Getting thru the gates to scan our passes took forever. I’ve scoped out a few lines that appeared to be moving quicker. So, combine that with getting to the park earlier, we should be able to make a little better morning start.

Ok, so the first thing on my mind once in the park is utilizing the fastpass system to our advantage. No way in heck am I going to wait more than 20 – 30 minutes or so for a ride the whole time we’re here. We hit up Space Mountain right away for FP’s. Then we were able to run up the standby line and have a brief 10 minute wait or so before we were on the ride. What a fantastic ride! I don’t know if I can talk my 9 year old daughter into going again or not though.

I don’t know how I’d live without FP. It’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. I stayed on top of getting our FP’s as quickly as possible. My 9yr old and I ended up being the “runner” to go to the various lands each time and pick up new ones.

Because our 3yr old isn’t quite 40”, we end up with 4 FP’s total to use. What I’ve found out today, is that it only takes 2 of them to get my wife, my 9yr old, and myself on a ride. What we do is either myself or my wife go with my daughter with (2) FP’s and ask for a baby switch pass. Then a pair ride, and when done the baby switch pass is good for another pair of riders. This worked fantastic, because I had a ton of FP’s all day, and when it got really hot we were able to go cool down several times on Splash Mountain during the day.

I kind of felt bad for the people in standby line. I saw several at the back of the line, and we were able to go cool off and eat lunch, and still come back an hour or so and bypass the people still waiting in line. I was never questioned about missing my stated FP recommended time the whole day. Again, I would never be able to do any of these items without utilizing the FP system.

Because my wife still nurses our 9month old son, we headed over to the baby care center a couple of times during the day. What a fantastic place for mom to take a break out of the heat. Not to mention, if you are looking for a nice quit(er) place to take a rest, its actually fairly nice back in the corner of the yard over by the baby center. There is a small grassy area, plenty of trees for shade, and it’s generally very quiet from all the hustle and bustle. It’s our favorite place to take a break from the crowds of people. In the corner, there is a CM only entrance. We got to meet Mary Poppins and Bert as they came right out. My 3yr old was the happiest kid on earth to be able to hug Mary.

One of our favorite things also, was to be able to hand out our extra FP’s. When we knew we wouldn’t use them, its was great to randomly go to someone in the SM line with a 60+ minute wait ahead of them, and bump them up to the front of the line! It occasionally took some explaining that with FP it doesn’t matter what the expiration time says – you still can use the FP. Each family that we met and handed some out to was stoked to be able to get out of the steerage line, and run up to the front!

Day 4 (4th of July) – 07.04.2006

Another late start today – Everyone was just too tired to get going right away. After picking up some breakfast at mcd’s, we ended up at the park a little after 10.

It’s too bad POTC doesn’t have FP. There were some long lines on the way to get some FP’s for SM. On the way back though I met up with my wife who indicated that the line had cleared, and there was a lull. We all ran over, and sure enough got right in with a 10 minute wait or so. I thought it was a pretty cool ride. Very well themed and detailed, and offered a nice break inside to cool off.

Our girls wanted to tour Minnie’s house in toontown. On the way up, they got a chance to meet Wendy and Peter Pan, Captain Hook, and some of the characters out of Alice in Wonderland.

We took advantage of some prior FP’s that I had acquired and went onto Roger Rabbit. I don’t think my daughter or I enjoyed it very much We ended up giving our 2nd set of FP’s to another Mom/son who were excited to not have to wait in line another 25 minutes to board. Definitely not a ride to go on with a full stomach.

The girls were stoked to watch Parade of Dreams. I recommend to anyone going to check it out. The floats are well done, with plenty of interaction from the CM’s on the floats. Its not a real long parade, so won’t eat up too much time in your schedule.

By around 7-8 pm, we were pretty drained. Our 3yr old was in a pretty fussy mood. Although we planned to stay and watch the fireworks, it wasn’t going to work out. Rather than have everyone in an unhappy mood, we opted to clear out and head back to the hotel for some much needed rest. Being that tomorrow is our DCA day; we knew we could sleep in a little later as DCA opened up at 10am.

Day 5 – 07.05.2006

DCA Day! Finally! I’m so excited about today. A completely new park to visit, and looking forward to the change of scenery.

We’ve not eaten well this week for breakfast, so when we stumbled upon Jamba Juice in Downtown Disney, it gave us a boost of good energy with some decent food. Jamba Juice is located near the Mickey and Friends tram section.

Maybe I was expecting the same crowds at Disneyland, but there was definitely a lack of people in DCA. What a welcome surprise to be able to move freely about the park.

The “districts” in DCA are so well done, and unique to each area. As you move about from each district to the next, it’s clear that there is a change in theme, atmosphere, music, etc.

Megan and I immediately headed out on our FP collection, and ran down to Tower of Terror, and snagged 2 FP’s. Rather than ride, we headed over to California Screaming (A bit of a walk from TOT) and grabbed 2 more FP’s. The wait time was around 5 minutes, so we quickly ran onto the ride in the standby line. My goodness, I haven’t been on a roller coaster of this caliber in some time, but it was a very cool ride. Its plenty fast, with lots of turns and a nice center loop. It didn’t jerk us around very hard where it might be painful on our neck or back either.

We met up with my wife who had the baby and Hannah down for a nap in the stroller. After some talking, I convinced my daughter to go on TOT with me. Her exact words were “Ok, let’s get this over with”. Upon arrival, the standby line was a 10 minute wait. We opted to run thru that and save FP for later.

I’m amazed at the detail and that goes into these attractions. The hotel is so real looking inside, down to the detail that you’d expect to see.

Once inside the elevator shaft, my daughter began to laugh hysterically with each drop. She absolutely loved it – so much, that when we came out, it was “Dad lets go again – puleeezeee!!!!!” Ha-ha, I kept joking with her about her original comment. We ran thru TOT once more, and then headed over to meet up with my wife.

We decided to take a pit stop thru Bugs land. Oh my – this by far is the coolest place ever to take those young kids. Kids of any age can go on any ride without any height restrictions. They have 3 fantastic water play areas, where your young ones can chase shooting water jets around. Disney really did a fantastic job on creating this district for those little ones. It was a nice change to not have any height restrictions for the little ones. Again, the detail into the creation of this district is amazing. The buildings all look like used food or paper boxes, like you’d see in the movie. I highly recommend anyone with kids, around age 10 or younger to stop by this area. Plan on a good hour or two at least. Take some extra dry clothes if your kids plan on playing in the water features. We didn’t, but luckily it was in the low 90’s so our kids dried off rather quickly.

Our next planned stop was the Redwoods area, with the big fort. Again, our 9yr old was suspicious of wanting to stop here like she was with TOT. We practically had to drag her out of it as she was having so much fun running thru the forts, and onto the smoke jumper tire swings. There are lots of shaded areas to sit and cool off here.

I have somewhat guilty feelings as we continue to run by everyone in the standby line for Grizzly River Run. With wait times of up to 60 minutes at one point, we had no trouble being on a boat within 10 minutes or less each time. It just blows my mind away that people will wait in those standby lines for up to an hour (or more!). This was one ride where we accumulated several FP’s to be able to cool off during the hot afternoon. Be prepared to get soaked on this ride no matter what.

I think my wife and I both agree that the coolest ride in the park was Soarin. The IMAX screens and seats completely left the feeling that we were flying right over each of the scenes. It is an extremely well done ride, and we rated this as the one ride anyone must do when visiting DCA above all others. The scenery is stunning and beautiful. For whatever reason, we didn’t get a chance to do this one more than the one time.

Mid afternoon, we scoped out a good spot at the Wharf to watch the block party. There are fantastic acrobats, music, and characters in this parade. If you’ve got young kids, plan to stop and watch with them – They’ll have a great time. I believe each parade stop runs around 11 minutes long or so.

We had a 7pm dinner at Ariel’s Grotto with the Disney Princesses. With 2 girls that love them, they just couldn’t sit still waiting to see them. The whole character dining was fabulous. They are very well organized in getting 5 princesses to stop by your table. The food is top notch compared to most other vendors or restaurants, and includes a small appetizer, main course, and dessert with each meal. The prices are fixed, so you know what you’re getting into up front as far as cost. The only downside is that we expected to meet all princesses. Our girls were expecting to meet Cinderella, and unfortunately she wasn’t available during our dining session. Either way, I highly recommend this dining experience to anyone of any age. We enjoyed great food, and had a great time.

Our day in DCA ended with a total of 7 rides on Screamin for the day. This by far was Megan’s favorite ride. We could only convince my wife to go the one time though (chicken!) 

We ended out the day watching the electric parade – another absolutely must see event for everyone!

I hate to admit this, but we honestly all had a much better day and time in DCA than the prior 2 days of Disneyland. We loved the themed districts better, the park was less crowded, and our kids had a much better time. Because of this, on our 4th day tomorrow, our intent was to go back to Disneyland, but we’ve opted to stay another day in DCA.

One note – again, if you’re looking for an off-the-beaten path to chill out and enjoy some quiet time – the DCA baby center area is another great place to take a break. There are some water fountains close by, and plenty of shade.

Day 6 – 07.06.2006

Our intent today was to spend a partial day, head back to the hotel to relax and do some packing up – but again we were having too good of a time in the park. We stopped by on the Mission tortilla and Sourdough bread tours to enjoy some freshly baked goods.

We had the 2 younger kids take a good hour long nap in the stroller. This gave them the energy they would need to push thru our long day.

Megan and I ran down to the wharf again to ride on Screamin a few more times, and to catch a few others. We ran to the Orange Peel swings, Mulhollands Madness mini-coaster, Maliboomer, and the Zephyr’s. I honestly thought I was going to fly off the MM mini-coaster. Some might enjoy this kind of coaster, but I will never get back on it again. Maliboomer was a cool ride, but load’s way too slow for our taste to bother spending more time in the line.

Around 5pm, we headed over to the DL Park again to watch Parade of Dreams once more, and get good seats for the Tinkerbell Fireworks display.

We snagged some good seats on a bench for the fireworks display with a great view of the Matterhorn and the castle. My wife held the fort down, as Megan and I headed over to the Matterhorn one last time to see if we could ride it at least once. Up to this time, lines had been too long to wait. We ran into a 15 minute wait. Not too bad, and we managed to get on within 10. The ride was pretty fun, but was quite jerky and bumpy. I was a little sore after riding.

I’m so glad we had the kids take a nap earlier in the afternoon – They were both in good spirits to stay up a little later, and watch the fireworks display. Another fantastic event that I’m glad we hung around a little longer to enjoy.

This ended our trip into the parks on a high note. We loaded everyone up on the tram, and ran back to the hotel to pack up to leave the next morning.

Day 7 – 07.07.2006

Packing up and flying out day! Yeah! We’ve had fun, but are looking forward to heading home. No more nasty haze (smog!) to breathe or look at. We love our clean air, with lush green all around us at home. Looking forward to that bowl of hot cereal in the morning, and getting back to our better eating habits.

=====================================


Things learned after our first trip to the park
• Food and beverages are expensive. Try the Mickey ice cream bars though!
• Document where all the water fountains are. Keep a few extra empty water bottles (empty soda bottles worked) and fill up when you run upon one, and get rehydrated as often as possible
• Roll with the punches and unscheduled stops in your schedule. Character encounters are going to happen, but only take a few minutes to go through.
• Waiting in guest standby lines is for suckers. We went during one of the busiest days of the year, and never waited more than 15 minutes for any ride, thanks to Fastpass. Even getting to the park late, we were able to quickly accumulate FP’s.

=====================================

Things we’ll do different on our next trip
• Book a hotel suite with a fridge/freezer. We would have loved to buy our own food locally from Stater Bros and made our own breakfast and some other items to bring into the park. We’re used to eating a nice hot bowl of oatmeal everyday for breakfast, and had to skip on that this week. A freezer would have been nice to freeze some water bottles for later in the day
• Try hotel transportation. We ended up parking in the park each day. It seemed more convenient with the kids, stroller, etc.
• Purchase our airfare earlier.
• Dine at The Blue Bayou.
• Watch a Fantasmic show.
• Plan a trip during the lower-crowd season. Although our wait lines to get on rides were short, the crowds to get to each ride were draining.
• Leave the kids at home. I know my wife and I would love a trip here by ourselves :)

Smeecanada
07-09-2006, 04:18 PM
• Leave the kids at home. I know my wife and I would love a trip here by ourselves :)[/QUOTE]

Sounds like you had a fantastic time and made lots of memories. A nice hotel to stay in with a fridge is the BW Park Place right across from the entrance. Our family has stayed there a few times. I loved your last quote. DH and I are doing just that next Saturday. Cann't wait.

NetworkDad
07-09-2006, 04:27 PM
This trip was a success, and money well spent on a good time!
Thanks for the tip about the hotel - i'll check it out on our next planned trip!

ESS Heckler
07-11-2006, 01:00 PM
What a great thread.

I'm so happy you figured out Fast Pass and that your whole family had such a great time.

You certainly did everything 'right'! (it's hard to go wrong at the Happiest Place on Earth).

It's been a long time since I tried to go to DL with an infant. It sounds like you did a great job of keeping everyone happy.

(Hotels with a fridge make all the difference in the world!)

MickeyMommy
07-11-2006, 01:26 PM
What a great trip report!
You are a good writer. Sounds like you all had a wonderful time.

Frogberto
07-11-2006, 02:16 PM
Thank you for an informative, well written, interesting, and VERY HELPFUL trip report!

NetworkDad
07-11-2006, 04:55 PM
It's been a long time since I tried to go to DL with an infant. It sounds like you did a great job of keeping everyone happy.

(Hotels with a fridge make all the difference in the world!)

We knew if we kept the little guy happy...we'd all be happy. By far and away, he has always been so laid back and content. Plenty of shade, water, food, and naps, and he was good to go :)

Thank you ***ALL*** for your assistance. There were many good posts and threads that i searched on here before our trip, that made it a good success for a first time trip.

NetworkDad
07-15-2006, 01:32 PM
Oh!

I wanted to share the tool that i used to shop for flights. This is the software company that makes the flight search tools for many airlines and travel agents.

Airfare search (http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch/)

It offers great options like searching within a radius of other airports, infants, returning from a separate airport (Example, fly into LAX and leave LGB because its cheaper), month long searches, etc

It is *not* a way to go buy the flights, but it gives you all the booking codes needed to go to the airline and buy direct. Ive never had an issue, and its saved me lots of $$$.

HTH

kiwifuz
07-15-2006, 07:56 PM
Oh!

I wanted to share the tool that i used to shop for flights. This is the software company that makes the flight search tools for many airlines and travel agents.

Airfare search (http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch/)

It offers great options like searching within a radius of other airports, infants, returning from a separate airport (Example, fly into LAX and leave LGB because its cheaper), month long searches, etc

It is *not* a way to go buy the flights, but it gives you all the booking codes needed to go to the airline and buy direct. Ive never had an issue, and its saved me lots of $$$.

HTH
www.sidestep.com & www.kayak.com are useful for this too. pretty cool sites.