Our trip to Disneyland! About This Page:

[CindyD]

We set out taking our soon to be 11 yr old son for a surprise trip to Disneyland and Universal Studios Hollywood! We arrived last Tues 8/30. We checked in, were give out keys, but our room was not ready yet. We went walking about Downtown Disney and stumbled upon the Disneyland Hotel. We are staying at the Grand Californian Hotel AWESOME Hotel! We were able to get into our room around 3 pm and found a wonderful view of California Adventure, with California Screamin and the Sun Wheel in the background! We unpacked and wandered back down Downtown Disney to make out way over the Goofy's Kitchen for dinner for 5pm. We ate our fill, saw Goofy, Minnie, Pluto, Mulan, Chip and Max. We then headed over to the park, it was about 6:30. We walked over to head down Main Street for the first time! The park was quite crowded, which is how it stayed for most of the rest of the week. We were able to ride Pirates, Jungle Cruise and saw the Enchanted Tiki Birds and Buzz. My SIL in her family were in the park and we met up with them for a while and finally to pour ourselves into bed about 12:30am (pacific time, please realize we left Philadelphia at 8:30am and were up at 5am to get to the airport). We were back up for 8am reservations for breakfast at Lilo and Stitch Aloha Breakfast at Paradise Pier Hotel. Food again was quite good and plenty. We arrived at Disneyland and were taking the Welcome to Disneyland tour for 10am. Our guide Calvin was wonderful! We were the only 3 on the tour! We went over to California Adventure, saw Turtle Talk with Crush, FP for Soarin, and headed back to DL. We continued walking about, rode, HM which I love along with the facade for HM in DL. It's better than WDW! FP for Autopia, and Indian Jones and Space MT. Calvin showed us many things on this tour! We had a blast!! He left us in Innoventions, which we hoped to have more time to visit, but did not. Had lunch at Pizza Port, pizza was pretty decent. We headed back to CA to ride Soarin and GRR, Soarin is awesome! We then saw the Aladdin show and had dinner over at Wine Country Trattoria, we were able to watch the Block Party Bash, very cute show!! Went over to ride the sun wheel and met back up with the SIL and family. We closed down CA and wandered back over to DL we had balcony desert seating for Fantasmic! Wonderful show! I think I like DL show better than WDW, because it's more intimate. We rode SP Mt, and Indy both on FP from earlier that day. We ere in bed again about midnight. We spent Thursday at Universal on their VIP tour, which hits that major shows and rides along with a 2+ hour back lot tour. Had dinner at the Hard Rock in City Walk and another wonderful day! Friday we dedided to tour around to see the Hollywood sign, Mann's Chinese Theater,Disney's Soda Fountain and parts of the Hollywood walk of fame. We headed back to CA to see the Electric Light Parade with preferred seating. Another great parade, one of my favorites!! Headed back to close down DL again, rode Buzz again and Matterhorn, Casey Jr's train and the boys (my husband and son) rode Astro Orbiter. In bed again for about midnight. We were back up and waiting in line for the gates for Early entry to DL for 7am! Don't even ask me what we are going on at this point, cause I don't even know! We were all energizer bunnies for several days!! Went into Fantasyland, after stopping for autographs and some pictures and walked onto Snow White, Mr. Toad, Peter Pan, Pinocchio, the Carousel, where I was able to ride on the gold horse and Alice in Wonderland. We went over for the right side of the Matterhorn, and back for MIcky's toontown opening. Rode Go gaget coaster and Roger Rabbit's car spin, watched the opening ceremony for toontown and the characters. Waited for more autographs, wandered back for IASW and Sotrybookland Canal Boats, the gold boat was just docing as we were next in line and asked if we could ride the gold boat, which we did! Over for Autopia, one of 2 lines we waited in longer than 5-10 minutes! They opened up another line and my husband got one of the gold cars! Boy was my son jealous!! We chose not to ride Dumbo and the tea cups, but could have! We got FP for SP Mt and headed over to CA to get FP for Soarin and have out picture taken in Ariel's Grotto with Mickey and Goofy out free picture perk for the Disney Visa. Back to the hotel to swim a little and relax just a bit. We were back in CA with FP for Soarin by about 1:30, then headed over for pictures. And back to DL for VIP seating for the parade. We all enjoyed the parade too! We ate dinner at the Plaza Inn, very good food. After dinner we met up for the Imigination to Celebration tour. We were the unusual tour...we watched Walt's stour at the Opera House and toured the preview area. Went over the Buzz again, which was down, and now out guide Sandra was acrambling a little....we headed over the the train to Toontown got off and walked through Fantasyland, to BTMRR to ride it. Then over the Haunted Mansion and Pirates and rode both. Then headed to the train station for our VIP seats for the fireworks. We had a snack of an apple, chips, a cookie and water. We then headed to Sp Mt to ride, that was the other line that was longer than about 5-10 minutes wait. Back for Splash, which the boys rode, it was getting chilly for me and I didn't want to get wet, and sick...We tried to close the park down again and were close, we left about 11:30 to head back to pack and to bed. We were back up for 1 last ride and breakfast, before we left to come back east. The Monorail was the last ride we rode at the very back of the car. WE can now say that if you have ever been to either DL or WDW you should try to visit the other park at least 1 time in your life! I love WDW for all the parks and themes. But I also love DL for the many rides that are the same, but different and the atomsphere of a more intimate park. We loved our visit to CA and Disney!!