P-Sha's Big Adventure About This Page:

[PrincessSharon]

P-Sha’s Big Adventure
Adventures By Disney Spirit of the Bay, Disneyland and Hollywood
September 2-12, 2015

Hello PassPorter friends! In case you don’t know me, I’m Sharon.


I’m on the left

I travel a lot, often to Walt Disney World. I get six weeks of vacation time from work, and I use it all to travel. Sitting home and relaxing? Psssh! That’s what weekends are for! Sometimes it’s just a long weekend getaway, other times it’s a longer trip.

All this means I’ve written a lot of trip reports over the years, and I honestly got burnt out. It didn’t help that I was also extremely busy in real life and had little time to spend on the boards. So, I made the sad decision to retire from TR writing. That would allow me more time to at least read trip reports. In theory – it didn’t exactly work out like that. Thankfully, life has slowed down to a normal pace, and I have more free time for reading and a little writing. So like all great musicians and Brett Favre, I’m coming out of retirement!

I still feel like writing complete TRs for all my trips will quickly burn me out again, so I’ve decided to only write trip reports about my trips to destinations other than Walt Disney World. That also created a neat little loophole: Disneyland and Adventures By Disney trips don’t count! To be honest, I sort of felt like with my WDW TRs, I was writing the same stuff over and over, and it was hard to make it fresh - forget coming up with clever TR titles like this one, which is an homage to one of my favorite films of my youth. This is also somewhat new source material, so voilà, a trip report. And, a pre trip report, which I haven’t done in ages!

I do enjoy sharing my WDW adventures with my PassPorter pals, so I will probably continue to do semi-TRs in the style of my previous effort, This Is Not a Trip Report. So, I’m not fully retired from trip report writing – just consider me PassPorter’s Official Consultant Trip Reporter.

Enough of the setup, let’s talk about my trip! I’m a Disney parks fan. You know this. I also happen to be a huge fan of the Adventures By Disney trips. I’ve done three so far, and though I’d like to do pretty much all of them, it’s gotta be one at a time. When deciding which one I’d take this year, I studied the itineraries carefully. In the end, I chose the weekend Adventure to San Francisco for two reasons: I loved San Francisco and wanted to return, and my BFF Karen (zacksmom_1993) lives there and I could visit her. Of course there's also the awesome itinerary, which includes some exclusive-to-ABD stuff.

And while I was all the way over there, on the west coast, well, I just had to visit Disneyland as well, didn’t I? Of course I did! I know y’all agree with me, or you wouldn’t be on PassPorter! And the icing on the cake is that Disneyland is celebrating its 60th birthday this year. How could I miss that?

Next I had to decide when to go, so when Karen and I were together in Washington D.C. this past February, I let her know what I was considering. My first choice was the week leading up to Labor Day, which I’ve found is a great time to travel. I normally travel with my family to WDW at that time, but the extended family trip isn’t happening this year. Oh! Unless you’re following me on Instagram, you probably don’t know why the family trip isn’t happening this year. It’s because of this little cutie…



That’s my brand new niece, Hannah! She was born August 11th and is the sweetest little baby girl ever! It’s true! Naturally, I plan to spoil her mercilessly. And don’t worry, for the big trip next year with the birthday princess, there will be a full TR! Uh, maybe I’m more like Brett Favre than I thought.

Anyway, back to the TR. Early September was going to work out well for Karen, so it was a go! Coincidentally, the September 3rd ABD trip is an adults only trip, but that didn’t factor into my decision at all. However, I do enjoy the adults only trips, and have only been on ABDs with all adults before, so it was a happy coincidence. After the ABD portion of my trip, I figured Karen and I will head down to Disneyland and spend four or five days there. I threw out the option of a road trip, and Karen was game, so we’ll be driving down from Karen’s home. I’m super excited about that too, because it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.

My timing was better than I thought, because a short time later, I learned that my good friends and fellow PassPorters, Cheryl (Chez needs no introduction to anyone who visits PassPorter or listens to the podcast) and her DH, Mark would be visiting Disneyland the exact days I was going to be there. Awesome! It’s actually kind of scary how Cheryl and I will plan trips independently and the dates just overlap. Great minds think alike. Of course, there are times when we plan to travel together on purpose as well.

Once it was officially official, I emailed my fabulous travel agent, fellow PassPorter Meg (mcc0313) and asked her to book the trip for me. She quickly did so and also handled all the little details that have come up since then in her typical, rock-star fashion. Meg!

Then it was time to search for flights. I love to fly Southwest, so I checked them first. There were flights for very good prices, but I’d have a layover both ways. I used to like layovers because I enjoyed getting a break in the middle of a long flight, but I’ve come to avoid them because I’ve found it’s just another opportunity for flight delays. So I decided to try Delta.

To my surprise, the flights on Delta were actually a bit cheaper, which is good, but they were direct, which is great! I will have to fly out of/into JFK instead of my nice little local airport (and also deal with LAX), but I think in the long run, this is a much better choice. So I booked the flights and chose my seats. I even ponied up for the extra legroom. I booked the earliest flight out, which will get me to SFO before noon. Coming home, I will be on the redeye from LAX, landing Sunday morning, which gives me that day to recover and readjust to my own time zone (though I usually have no issues in that department).

Now I needed somewhere to stay at Disneyland. I can never remember to book a villa at the Grand Californian before they’re all booked up. Not that it matters, because I adore the Disneyland Hotel, and that’s where I wanted to stay, though I would love to try the GC villas at least once. I decided to splurge and book a club level, premium view room.

A while later, I began to think it would be nice to visit Hollywood, and more specifically, Universal Studios. I decided to add a night at a hotel in Hollywood and do some sights there, including US.

Where to stay in Hollywood was easy. I’ve stayed at the Loews Hollywood Hotel before during the Backstage Magic ABD (when it was a Renaissance), and I loved the property and the location, and now I could even get an employee discount, so that was a no-brainer.

The only downside of booking at a Loews is that I have to wait until 60 days out to get the employee rate. It’s kind of nerve-racking, but I can usually judge if there’s going to be a discount rate available by the current rate that shows up on the website. I was confident the hotel wasn’t getting too full, and finally, the rate popped up (annoyingly, it was at about 45 days out ). But it’s booked and I’m excited to stay there again.

I’ll need a car to get from Disneyland to Hollywood (Karen will sadly be heading back to work), so I went online and booked at Alamo. I can pick the car up right at Downtown Disney and I’ll return it to LAX before my flight. This will also allow me freedom to explore more of Los Angeles.

I needed to get park admission. This is something I don’t usually have to worry about for my WDW trips, as I’ve been an AP holder for longer than I can remember. It’s really not much of an issue, except I’m fairly sure I’m going to Disneyland next year for their 24-hour-event. And another trip west in the summer is also a strong possibility.

There was another thing to consider as well. My WDW AP would be expiring in August and my next WDW trip isn’t until November, so I was probably going to let it expire (in fact, it expires today ) and then buy a new one in November rather than renewing and losing 2 months. That made the Premier Passport, covering both parks, a much more attractive option. And I’d only be without an AP for less than 2 weeks, so I wouldn’t have to worry about imploding or anything.

So what did I decide? Well, I’m not telling! But I’m sure y’all can guess.

Disneyland doesn’t use Magic Bands or FP+, so I didn’t need to worry about booking that (though rumor has it that it’s coming). Karen was in charge of the BAS for our park plans and dining. With everything booked, there was one last thing to order: the Photopass+. I almost forgot to order it – they send you a voucher, so you need to order at least 14 days in advance to get a $30 discount. I ordered it 20 days out. You see why I never get into the Grand Californian villas. I’ve received the voucher and a CD with a bunch of great photos, so I’m all set! I’ve seen some of the special Photopass and 60th anniversary poses online and I’m excited to get them. I also love that I'll be getting all the ride photos, too.

Up Next: Itinerary details