Getting there:
Our trip to Disneyland this time actually began on December 13th 2007. Because of weather in Denver, and the fact that we had a 7:00 in the morning flight, we decided to spend the night at an airport hotel.
This worked out very well for us since our normal drive to the airport is almost 2 hours with a stop at the in-laws to drop off two of our girls, Amber and Rustie. The original plan for this trip was to spend the night at the in-laws to shorten our drive to just 1 hour. With the snow that was coming though we thought an airport location would be better and made that decision. The next morning, when I had to get up at 4:30 I was very happy. If we had stayed where we planned, I would have been getting up at 3:30! We were quickly ready to leave our room, and the 5-minute drive to the airport went very smoothly. Turns out the snow had not yet started.
This would be our first time flying Southwest Airlines and I had printed our boarding passes the day before to make dropping off our luggage easier. Alex and I waited for Andy to park and return to us, and when he arrived we quickly got through security. The nice thing about this time of year is all of the TSA lines that were open. I think we might have waited 5 minutes to go through, but definitely no more than that.
When we got to the boarding gate, the numbers confused us since we had never seen them before. It all worked out though, and we did get 3 seats together toward the front of the plane. This flight was full, so we were happy for that. We did see several cowboys get on the plane, but didn’t make the connection until we landed in Vegas.
Another first for us watching the plane be de-iced before leaving. That went quickly and it turned out that we only left Denver 10 minutes late. Not bad at all since the de-icing took about 15 minutes!
We got into Las Vegas pretty much on time, and headed down to get the luggage. It was then that I realized we were in Vegas during the NFR (National Finals Rodeo) and I was kicking myself. If we had known that we would have planned on attending a rodeo while there. Oh well, we were headed to Disneyland so didn’t worry about missing the NFR too much.
Las Vegas certainly knows how to handle crowds. When renting a car you get on a shuttle and go to a central car rental location. The shuttles were there (about 5 of them) so there was absolutely no waiting involved. While Andy rented the car, I got drinks. I don’t recommend this since they bottles of soft drinks were $3.20 each! Next time we will stop after getting the car for our drinks. We were quickly at the rental car place and within a few minutes we were on our way to the car. We rented through Hertz because of AAA and were surprised to find a CD player in the car. Too bad we didn’t bring our CD’s. lol We left the rental location at about 9:30. Things were looking good for an early arrival at Disneyland.
Unlike other cities though, we did have one complaint about Las Vegas. They did not have good signs directing us to the freeway. We actually ended up going the wrong way before we realized we needed to turn around. What a mess that was at first.
Finally, we were on the road, and going the right way. Traffic was not bad at all leaving Vegas and we made great time. By 10:00 we reached Primm and were hungry so we stopped at McDonalds to eat. We were early, so it was still breakfast much to Alex’s dismay. We did get him a pancake happy meal and he did eat some of that. After wasting about 30 minutes there, we were back on the road.
This long expanse of freeway does have 2 radio stations, one is country and the other is rock. Billboards will give you the call letters for the stations. This was nice because the desert radio stations had traffic information, road work information and good things like that. Because of this we knew about the construction before we got to it, and were quickly through and back up to 70 MPH.
Aside from our stop in Primm to eat we only made 4 other stops. One was at a rest area, where we saw a man giving his cat time out of the travel kennel. It was a beautiful kitty. In Baker we made another McDonalds stop to get Alex a happy meal since he didn’t eat a good breakfast. Here I took the wheel and began to drive. I don’t like to drive anything but our truck, so this was a different experience for me. We did stop in Victorville because traffic was picking up so I turned the wheel over to Andy and we made bathroom stops.
The weirdest thing we noticed as we got closer to Disneyland was that there were NO signs for the park. It was kind of surreal. We knew it was there, but were also expecting billboards. Once we got close we did make a stop for beer and then made our way to the Paradise Pier Hotel.
It was 2:30 when we got to the hotel, and Andy dropped me off so he could park. We could not get our room yet but could go to the concierge lounge so we did that for a few minutes as our room was finished (it only takes a few minutes to put the balloons in the room). The Cast Member at check-in had forgotten to give me our tickets for Fantasmic! so she brought them up to the lounge.
We enjoyed cookies and soft drinks and took plenty of water with us when we were able to go to our room. Since we were concierge we had a room on the 14th floor. The view of California Adventure was beautiful as always, but from this room we could not see Disneyland at all. Our room was 1406 and had a DVD player under the television (a concierge benefit).
Going to the Parks!
Well I have to say that this trip we absolutely threw tradition out the window. Alex wanted to ride Mulholland Madness so we started our trip in California Adventure. To me that felt criminal! And to make it worse, the line for Mulholland Madness was way too long to wait in so we skipped that ride! Andy and Alex did do the Zephyr while I watched, and then – get this – I, yes I wanted to ride the Sun Wheel in a *gasp* Swinging Gondola. We waited about 10 minutes to get on and let me just say that this was a totally horrible experience. Both Alex and I were completely terrified! Alex screamed during the whole ride as I prayed that it would not break and drop us down to the water or cement below.
After that horrible ride we headed toward Soarin’ but our fastpasses were not yet ready so we left to go to Disneyland. The lines to get in this time of day were almost non-existent to our surprise.
We entered through the Left Tunnel (one tradition kept anyway. Lol) Alex wanted to ride Star Tours, Buzz, and ‘it’s a small world’ in that order. Once again the three of us ended up on the back row for Star Tours. We rode Buzz, and even had fast passes that we never used. Finally we headed toward Small World and were shocked by the line.
The parade was due to start in just over an hour, and people waiting for that were all in the Small World line. While in line we saw ‘colors’ (the projections run every 15 minutes after dark to the tune of Nutcracker and Babes in Toyland music). We only saw it once though because they did not do it again since there were guest marching bands coming through before the parade. While in line, Small World shut down for about 15 minutes. Once it reopened we were quickly dispatched through the magical world of children singing.
When we finally got off Small World we decided to check out Toontown. Much to our surprise the restaurants here were actually opened. Other than mid summer we have never seen them open and serving. This worked out perfectly for us since Alex was on a hot dog only diet this trip J and there was pizza next door for us adults. Andy and I each had a pepperoni pizza with a tangy vegetable salad. The salad was different types of peppers in a tangy sauce and was very good. Alex loved his hot dog, and ate the whole thing. Why does Disney not give ranch dressing or some other dipping sauce with carrots thought? We have never been able to figure that out.
After our dinner it was time to cross the park for laceName w:st="on">HauntedlaceName> laceType w:st="on">MansionlaceType>. There were two reasons for the timing on this. One was so we can see when the Cast Members actually show up for Fantasmic! check-in. The other was that since Fantasmic! crowds were already scoping out seats we thought we could hop on laceName w:st="on">HauntedlaceName> laceType w:st="on">MansionlaceType>. We thought wrong and the line was more than 50 minutes long with no fastpasses available. After making the decision to skip that line and wait a bit we headed to Adventureland. We measured Alex for Indy and found out that he was still too short. Next trip he should be tall enough. Leaving Indy Alex spied the open Tarzan’s Tree House. Wow there are a lot of stairs in that attraction! We then decided to ride Pirates (now that it was back in favor with Alex) and were in a short 20 minute queue. Once we exited into New Orleans Square we decided to check out laceName w:st="on">HauntedlaceName> laceType w:st="on">MansionlaceType> again since Alex really wanted to see Jack. The line was only 40 minutes by then so we joined.
Funny story:
Now, when you are in a long line you have a few choices. You can discuss the ride, or your plans for later or even talk about something totally unrelated to Disneyland. You can also overhear others talking about various things. This is what I enjoyed doing, and even joined in the conversation behind me a few times. I bring this up because I was dying listening to this couple speak. To me it sounded like a first or second date. The couple was close to our age or older – definitely not kids. But what struck me as hilarious was that he was telling her that he used to work at Disneyland so he was telling her that he knew how things worked and could tell her anything about the park. Well, that all by itself is not what had me cracking up. It was this: we were in the outside queue for laceName w:st="on">HauntedlaceName> laceType w:st="on">MansionlaceType>. Fantasmic! had started and we could catch glimpses of the show and hear the music. When the lady asked her date what this was he DID NOT KNOW. I had to join the conversation at that point to help him out. She was quite impressed with my knowledge. But tell me, if you are really trying to impress someone, why would you say you know everything about a place and then not be able to answer a very simple question? Poor girl, I actually felt sorry for her.
Back to trip report:
Finally we entered the stretching room and everyone thought we were horrible because to them he looked terrified of the ride. We assured them that he loved the ride but simply hated the screams in the stretching room. After we left to enter the hallway those that had made comments now saw him happily heading toward the Doom Buggies. He does enjoy this ride, leaning forward so that he misses nothing. This was the first ride of many this trip.
We had already decided that it was time to head back to the hotel after this ride, and as we exited we heard the early strains of the fireworks. We figured that would work out real well, and we would be out of the park before they ended. No such luck. As we were going over the bridge above Pirates and heading past Tarzan’s Tree House we heard the dreaded words telling us that due to high winds fireworks were cancelled. This was a bad thing. A total madhouse ensued as everyone is heading for the exits. Andy and I got separated because I had the stroller, and in that mob it was VERY dangerous to have a stroller with a sleeping child (and yes, Alex had fallen asleep). It amazed me how few people actually look down while walking in a crowd. Alex was crashed into, stepped on, and totally disregarded. It was unreal! I had my cell phone with me, but as Andy commented later, it would be real nice if I would actually turn it on!
Somehow we found each other near Coke Corner. And yes, I was about to be the happiest person on earth for at that moment they opened back stage! We actually got to walk backstage to exit the park. What amazed me was that backstage at Disneyland is as clean as the ‘show’. It was amazing and fun for me to see. We then joined the mob just past City Hall as we all had to go through the turnstiles. Such a small thing, but that walk through back stage Disneyland absolutely made my night!
Once we got to our room (by 10:00pm) we quickly noticed a turndown with chocolates had been done, and rice crispy treats were left for us. Oh, and did I neglect to mention the beautiful rose in the bathroom? This was so cool!
Since we planned on doing early entry the next morning we shut out the lights early and I was asleep by 11pm. It had been a long day for all of us.
Up next, our very full morning and a heck of a trip to Goofy’s Kitchen
For Part II click here: http://www.disneymouselinks.com/Forums/Topic77061-4-1.aspx