It’s Always Sunny in California!..Eh?...L’il Bit! About This Page:

[jenseib]

Originally Posted by rhinohunter

Great new plans. Wish I could be doing the same things. Can't do it. Can hardly wait to read your reports.

I wish you could too! I have not told Claire any of it though, well just the conference part and that's it. I don't want to hear whining at all.

Originally Posted by chezp

Congrats on the changes to your upcoming trip!

Thanks, it will be quick but fun!

[jenseib]

Friday, Feb. 28, 2014

This was our last full day. We were going to have breakfast together this morning as a group at Goofy’s kitchen and then some meetings and an official graduation. This was going to be held at the DLH today.

One thing I did not tell you was that we had been watching the weather forecast all week long. Sunny California had actual rain predicted for today. Now Cass loves rain, and was hoping it would. She also hoped it would make the parks less busy. I prefer it to not rain on the other hand. I just hate being wet, and I really hate wet shoes. Knowing that rain was in the forecast, I did bring a WDW rain poncho along with me though.

We woke up bright and early and it looked like rain.
I went outside and it was doing the on and off rain at that point in time. I called Skip and he wondered if I would be stuck in CA as they were expecting more snow at home on Sat. as well. I would not have been disappointed if I was stuck another day in CA, but the thing was, I had a connecting flight in Nashville and that is most likely where I would end up getting stuck if it came down to it. Stacy also texted me and told me that if my flight was canceled due to the rain storms, I could stay with them till I could get home. I must say, I really liked this idea. I did ask her if flights would cancel because of rain and she said in CA they sometimes due as they can’t handle the rain and it floods. Ok, here’s hoping!

Cass and I both did a little extra primping today since it was our last day and in the hopes of getting our picture taken with Mickey later on.
Cass said there was no way she was walking to DLH in a dress and strappy shoes in this rain, so we were getting a taxi, which sounded fine by me as well!
Once we were ready we headed down to the lobby to catch a cab and we saw another girl who was at our conference and we told her to join us and she did. The 3 of us got in a cab (van I believe) and stated where we wanted to go and laughed. It was probably the shortest drive this guy has ever made, but oh well, we didn’t want to get soaked.

Within a few minutes we were at the Disneyland Hotel.



We gathered around Goofy’s and waited for everyone. Pluto was out taking pictures.





He wasn’t there very long and then Baloo took his place.







Before we were seated we decided we would take a group picture. I don’t know what happened for sure, but people went up and then I think some girls wanted their own because they had bought photopass. It ended up that only 4 of us were in our picture. I blurred out their faces though.





And then we headed to our seats.



The had a few tables for us by the windows, but they had it set up poorly and wanted so many of us to sit at one table and there was just no way. Some people grabbed another table and there was a little bit of fussing, but finally they let them sit there. This place is a buffet, you have to be able to get in and out and it was really stupid on their part to stuff us at just a few tables.





Characters came around pretty fast!



Evidently Cass must’ve said something pretty darn funny.



I made a trip up to the buffet and got a few things.



My buddy Pluto was next.



Again!!! Cass must be cracking jokes or something.



And while Cass was at the buffet, Chip came around and another girl was nice enough to take my picture.



She obviously wasn’t cracking jokes!



I made a couple of trips up to the buffet. At one point it just started pouring rain outside. UGH. The really hard stuff too!



We never had all the characters come back to our room, though I have heard this is typical at Goofy’s. I know the Mad Hatter and Goofy himself were in other areas, but we never did see them in our area.

We left and luckily it wasn’t raining much as we went outside to the next building we were heading to, The Frontier Tower I believe!



I didn’t know it before, but there is a conference room in this tower as well. But that wasn’t where we were going first.

[pamcarey]

You look very nice all dressed up for your graduation.


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[chezp]

You look like you were having a ball with the characters! I love your dress.

[rhinohunter]

You look cute in your graduation dress. Hope the rain goes away so you girls can have a lot of fun on your last day in the park.

[Big Baloo]

Yay, Baloo! Nice dress for graduation, too!

[lfredsbo]

Looks like a fun breakfast!

[jenseib]

Originally Posted by pamcarey

You look very nice all dressed up for your graduation.

2

Thanks!

Originally Posted by chezp

You look like you were having a ball with the characters! I love your dress.

WE did have agood time...and thanks!

Originally Posted by rhinohunter

You look cute in your graduation dress. Hope the rain goes away so you girls can have a lot of fun on your last day in the park.

Thanks.....well ...no it did not.

Originally Posted by Big Baloo

Yay, Baloo! Nice dress for graduation, too!

Woohoo!
Thanks

Originally Posted by lfredsbo

Looks like a fun breakfast!

It was, I wish we had more time there to see all the characters though.

[jenseib]

Out the back door was the DVC building and a model room for Aulani and we were going to tour that next. Since we had a big group, half went over first and as they came out the rest of us trickled over.















I sure wish I had that view right now!

























Awwww!







These rooms didn’t totally wow me, but I am sure I would have no complaints if I got to stay there either.

As we came out of the model room……you guessed it, it was POURING!!!!



Ugh. Really hard once again.



Cass took a video of it too.
I pulled out my rain poncho and put it on. There was no way I was walking through this crap without it. And I wanted to protect my camera as well.

We ran when the rain slightly let up, but even with a poncho, I was still very wet and looked like a drowned rat…and I HATE wet shoes!

We settled into the conference room in the Frontier Tower and the last meeting began.



I was really hoping this would be a fun meeting, but I was dead wrong. It was really long and boring. I think the lack of sleep was now catching up to me and I was doing all I could to stay awake.
They then had a drawing and were pulling business cards out of a bowl to win a few things. Cass goes…that looks like your card…and sure enough it was me. I never win anything. I won a 2 night stay at a Best Western in San Diego. The sad thing is ..it is only good for a year and I won’t be back in time, so I have offered this to Stacy so her and Mark can have a weekend getaway sometime.



We were then given our certificates for attending the conference. I was disappointed as traditionally Mickey gives those out.



Finally we had a break and I stood up and stretched. I went outside and was talking to the one guy and then we came back in and I was going to use the restroom, but they flagged us in the conference room and told us to hurry back for the surprise.

OK, it HAS to be Mickey! And it was. Woohoo!!!







Many people were leaving today and in fact some had left already to catch the Disneyland Express while the meeting was still going on….this made me really happy that we chose to stay an extra night….and then one came back and told everyone who had flights in the next few hours that they better go wait for the shuttle as it was an hour behind already. OMG! This should NEVER happen. I don’t know if anyone missed their flights or not, but this would’ve put me in a panic!

Some still had time though and we let those who needed to hurry to go and get their pictures with Mickey first. Cass and I waited till the line died down a bit and then got our pictures taken.











After we all visited Mickey it was time for him to go.







We finally wrapped up everything and were allowed to leave. The majority of the people at the conference were flying home today. Cass and I were so happy that we had decided to stay one more night.

We walked back to the GC and got changed and headed off to Disneyland. I decided to just take my point and shoot so I wouldn’t get my nice camera ruined in the rain today.

Yep, it was still raining off and on and I had my poncho on, which wasn’t perfect, but did help.

















This is definitely duck weather.

[rhinohunter]

Sorry about all of the rain, sorry about winning a gift you could not use. Happy you were able to get your certificate from the Big Cheese himself. I have enjoyed your tour through all of the local hotels and the DVC sample. Makes me think (you notice I only said think) about going to CA. I am happy going to WDW. Hope tomorrow goes well.

[chezp]

What a shame about the rain. I love your graduation photos with Mickey, but what a shame people missed that.

Ah, now those photos of the model rooms at Aulani brought back some great memories.

[pamcarey]

Great photos with Mickey! What a bummer it rained on this last day.

[lfredsbo]

Great photos with Mickey!!! Sorry about all that rain

[jenseib]

Originally Posted by rhinohunter

Sorry about all of the rain, sorry about winning a gift you could not use. Happy you were able to get your certificate from the Big Cheese himself. I have enjoyed your tour through all of the local hotels and the DVC sample. Makes me think (you notice I only said think) about going to CA. I am happy going to WDW. Hope tomorrow goes well.

Well I guess CA needs rain, so I couldn't complain too much, but I'm sure I did a bit!
It really is a lot of fun, but I never got the same feeling as WDW...but I think if I go back, I would. It's just that WDW is my "home" parks, while DL was so new to me.

Originally Posted by chezp

What a shame about the rain. I love your graduation photos with Mickey, but what a shame people missed that.

Ah, now those photos of the model rooms at Aulani brought back some great memories.

It was a shame that they missed it. And they gave a tim to make flights, and really it should've been later or we should've done the grad first then the classes, so others could enjoy that.

Originally Posted by pamcarey

Great photos with Mickey! What a bummer it rained on this last day.

Thanks. We made due, but I wish it wouldn't have. of course.

Originally Posted by lfredsbo

Great photos with Mickey!!! Sorry about all that rain

thanks.
You could tell CA wasn't used to rain as it pooled in a lot of places on the ground instead of soaking right in.

[jenseib]

I think Cass went off to find a corn dog, so I took pictures while I waited.

























At some point I realized I should be getting a dole Whip Float! The line wasn’t too bad and this was my last day!















It was just as tasty as one at WDW, but it was smaller and I am pretty sure it was the same price.

After our tasty treats we headed off again. Actually I think I was still eating mine as we walked, which made it a little harder to take pictures, but I still tried.

This is part of an old attraction.



It was formally the Rainbow Caverns Mine Train, then changed over to the Mine Train Through Nature’s Wonderland. Which then was mostly torn down to build Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Now at the time I took the picture, I didn’t know what it was from, I just knew it was an old attraction and then came home and looked it up.

What was funny was as we stood there we heard people come by and say “Oh that’s the old Bear Cave”, or some other really off the wall stuff and it was pretty funny to hear.



We had not gone through this area at all yet since BTMR was down for refurbishment while we were there.







We heard cars running and were really hoping they would come grab us and ask us to test it. I never got a shot of one going by, but I think we saw one go by at one point…..empty!







I think we came to a dead end, or to an area we didn’t mean to go to so we turned around and back by the cave once again.









We saw the strangest looking ducks ever. I don’t think either of us have ever seen ones like this before.





And we walked by Splash Mountain, which was also being refurbished while we were there.



I think it was scheduled to reopen today or tomorrow…but look! It’s running empty boats!



We then saw some people who said the line was just opened and they were letting people on, so we rushed and got in line. We made it before the big crowds, so our wait was not long at all.







I am not a fan of the way these boats seat people.



I got the very front, with Cass right behind me.