We're California Dreamin' About This Page:

[pamcarey]

Originally Posted by SuperDave

Sorry to hear about the cell phone woes, flight problems and rental car ordeal. At least you got to DL, even though day one was pretty much gone!

We were happy to make it there!

Originally Posted by lauriep

Travel days can be so frustrating, but yours also sounds incredibly exhausting. The rental car delays just sound dreadful. I'm glad at least when you finally got to the condo it was comfortable.

We slept really well that night!

Originally Posted by cubfancolleen

What an awful experience with the rental car! At least the fireworks were a nice treat.
I'd be someone not happy with all the cats.

Seeing the fireworks was fun!

Originally Posted by SuperDave

That's quite bizarre with the stray cats and they didn't necessarily "Rock This Condo!"

Originally Posted by chezp

What an absolute nightmare with the rental car - that was the last thing you needed. At least you made it... eventually.

We were very glad when we eventually arrived.

Originally Posted by MayraLR

Ugh, sorry for the rough travel day.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by Cam22

Signing on so I can learn from you before we head out on our trip.

Hopefully I'll make some good headway before your trip.

Originally Posted by HollyH

Signing on! Can't wait to hear about your trip. The condo rental seems really nice. I just made my first trip to the DLR and I know I'll be back - I loved it! We stayed at the VGC but I know that might not be possible the next time so I'm making note of good options on VRBO. Sorry about the frustration with the rental car. We had a similarly bad experience when we flew into SFO, a huge wait, then they had to get a car "ready". Luckily we scored an upgrade and a free tank of gas for our trouble, I guess because we were nice and polite. Let's say that others were less than polite.

I thought we were pretty polite, but we didn't score anything. Oh well, lesson learned for next time.

Originally Posted by KimmyAnn1147

Yay that you liked the condo and everything was as expected. Weird about so many cats. I've wondered...since there are supposed to be so many cats at Disneyland at night, how to they keep them invisible to guests...and now I have another questions. How do they keep the park from smelling like a litter box?

I have no probs with too many cats as long as they are outside, so not a downside for me. Hopefully there isn't a sandbox at the playground, though. Ewwww!!!

I didn't know that about cats in Disneyland at night, but I can believe it, with all the cats we saw at the condos. The park definitely doesn't smell like a litterbox!

Originally Posted by SharonK0527

So sorry about the car rental troubles - what a nightmare. We had a bad experience once with Avis when they messed up our reservation - they had different dates for our rental in their computer than what I had on my confirmation. The lady behind the counter was trying to tell me they had no cars available and I showed her my confirmation. She took my drivers license and told me to hold on and disappeared into a back room. After 20 minutes of waiting and no sign of the agent who had my license, I told my husband to go to the next counter (National) and see if we could get a car from them. Within 5 minutes we were set with a car from National. When the lady from Avis finally emerged from the back room I asked for my license back and told her we no longer needed a car - we had gotten one from National. She was very huffy with me and I told her "You took my drivers license and have been gone for over 30 minutes! What did you expect me to do??"

The condo looked beautiful in the pictures - so glad you enjoyed it! Can't wait to hear all about your trip

Oh wow, your rental car experience sounds horrible!

Originally Posted by PrincessSharon

I'm late as usual, but I snuck in the back way, so maybe nobody noticed. probably shouldn't have pointed it out myself, though Sorry about the travel delays - been there, done that. It's one of the reasons I've changed my mind about cross-country flights. I used to like a stop somewhere, to stretch my legs and break up the flight a little. Now I feel like it's just another opportunity for a delay.

But glad you made it! The car rental process was ridiculous! I'm renting a car, but picking it up at Downtown Disney and only returning it at LAX, so I don't think I'll have problems.

Can't wait to hear about the Disneyland fun!

I wish we had rented the car at Downtown Disney like you're doing, but we wanted to have it the first night to go buy groceries. Next time I'll know better.

[pamcarey]

Weather

I'm still working on organizing our pictures and Photopass+ pictures, so I can't get too far into the TR. But I can do a post about weather in general, since I have no pictures for that . I'll leave my travel days out, since we didn't really experience much weather on those days. Of my remaining 7 trip days, 4 were gorgeous weather, and 3 days were hot/unbearably hot. Our first 3 days were park days with highs of 81/81/82. The mornings were comfortably cool, starting to get warm around 11:00. Midday through late afternoon was warm, but never uncomfortable. A huge factor in the comfort level is that the humidity wasn't high. (I can't stand humidity, which makes Florida in the summer very uncomfortable, and even here in Massachusetts we have many high humidity days.) The evenings were slightly cool, with some of us even putting on jackets or sweatshirts. This would never happen in Florida in August! Our 4th day was a beach day. The high this day in Anaheim was 91, but at the beach it was either cooler, or we never noticed the heat because of the low humidity and lovely breezes along the water. Our last 3 days were HOT, with highs of 95/99/100!! Early morning was okay, but late morning thru late afternoon became very uncomfortable to walk around or do much more than be in shade or air conditioning. One difference from DLR to WDW is that DLR has much less indoor seating at their CS and even TS restaurants. They have a lot of outdoor seating, which is fine most of the time, because it's shaded by umbrellas, but when it's 100 degrees you really want to be in air conditioning. On the really hot days, we also found a lot of people sitting at the shaded tables even when they weren't eating, which made it hard to find a place to sit when you were eating. Anyhow, even on these really hot days, the evenings were comfortable once the sun started to go down. Also, it never rained a drop during our whole stay. So even with the heat wave, DLR beats WDW for summer weather hands down.

[lauriep]

That's a great thing about going to DLR in the summer. You can pretty much count on NO rain! This is a big deal to someone like me who can't go out in the rain due to my electric scooter. You're right about the heat, though, on a very hot day in Southern California, even without humidity, the sun can be unbearably hot.

[chezp]

that is hot! Currently, we're looking at temperatures in the high 80s or low 90s and I'm hoping that will be Ok for us. It's warmer than we're used to, but fingers crossed we'll manage.

[Cam22]

for the weather review! Luke and I are so curious about how it will be in early October. Sounds like you all had some lovely weather most days. The three hot ones would be hot anywhere with those highs. Even though I'm accustomed to humidity in Kentucky, I'm not a fan.

[SuperDave]

Thanks for the weather details. I think for the most part you did rather well. The humidity in Florida this time of year is ridiculous and basically unbearable at times. I visited Florida a few years ago in mid September and at 9 am it was already in the 90's with humidity to match!

[cubfancolleen]

I definitely miss California weather. It is pretty normal to need a light sweater or jacket in the evening. Sounds like you may have had a few days of Santa Ana's. That's when it gets hot. We didn't even have AC in our apartment when we lived in LA - didn't really need it 95% of the time.

[HollyH]

I'm sure you were very polite at the rental car place. What probably helped us is that there were literally 100 or more people in the line when we hopped in (and it never got any shorter!) and several groups ahead if us were particularly nasty, from frustration I'm sure. The groups behind us were grumbling pretty loudly too. Our normal polite must have seemed REALLY polite at the time.

A note about the DL cats, I did actually see one ( an orange tabby), but it was a brief glimpse. I did know about them, but other than that kitty spotting, I didn't see (or smell) any signs that so many were around.

A weather funny story. It was fairly warm most of our days, but we didn't mind as it lacked the humidity so common here at home in the summer. While in line at the Bengal BBQ, the man ahead of us remarked to his son, "It just feels so hot because it's SO humid." I had to ask where he was from as we didn't find it humid at all. His answer, "We're from here (SoCal)." It's all about perspective, I guess Hope he never travels to WDW in the summer!

[lindawdw]

Wow - what a rough travel day you had between the two delays and that nightmare of a wait for your rental car! Glad you were happy with the condo. We've been to DL twice in the summer and the temps were in the high 90's the whole week we were there each time. It does cool off a little at night which is nice but it can be exhausting walking around in that heat during the day. Looking forward to hearing more about your trip!

[KimmyAnn1147]

Being a W coast girl, I am very familiar with the scorching DRY heat we can get. I find it more painful to be in direct sun when it is dry, the humidity seems to take the edge off the sunburn factor for me. But humidity makes me SLOW. DH becomes an ****** in high humidity, if anyone slightly touches him, their liable to get a finger bit off. So Oregon is a good spot for us.

I always think it is going to be so hot in SoCal, but yes, we usually need an extra layer in the AM and PM. This is something to think about when designing my cute December outfits. How does one layer while wearing awesome sundresses?