The Yoopers at Disneyland Resort w/pix and now FINISHED!!
About This Page:

loobyoxlip · 05-21-2003, 01:01 PM

Hi everyone. I hope some more people hop down to this board and read this. We had such a blast and I have been waiting days to start this TR!! I hope everyone enjoys it!

First off, the title. Let's explain what a Yooper is. You all know Michigan is made of two seperate peninsulas. Well, we live in the Upper Peninsula. We shorten this the U.P. and affectionately call ourselves Yoopers (U.P.'ers) Although the only true Yooper is my son Jalen (my son, Kylor, and I were born downstate), we are all Yoopers at heart. We are about an 8 hour drive north of Detroit. We call all those people who live downstate (or the lower peninsula) trolls, since they live under the bridge (the Mackinac Bridge that connects the two peninsulas). Anyway....on to the TR!!

Me, Tina, 28, 3rd trip to DL
Kylor, turned 7 on May 12, 3rd trip to DL
Jalen, 4, 2nd trip to DL

Sat. morning May 10. Actually got a good night's sleep. The alarm goes off at 5:25 am. I get myself ready and then rattle the boys awake. Not an easy task, let me tell you. Now the joys of going out of a small airport (and working there) are quite great. I'm sure most of you know I work for the airline. We get to the airport about 6:10 and our flight leaves at 6:40 am. Of course we are already checked in. I faxed a 25-page report, got my bags screened, took the boys and myself to the restroom and went through security to have a seat in the boarding area by 6:35. I always get a little nervous when we travel, since we always go standby. If there are no open seats, we get bumped. If the flight is delayed, cancelled, etc. we are on our own. So I start getting a sick stomach when the captain says the ceiling and the visibility are too low. [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] He calls our central dispatch and they give him the OK to go. Whoopee!! We are on our way about 10 min. late! We get to Milwaukee on time and have 1 hr. 45 min. until our flight to LAX. I love coming here because I see some of our pilots that never fly up to our station anymore. One of our pilots was telling Jalen to hold on tight to Mom at the park so he doesn't get lost and then told him to get Mom's attention, just pull on her shirt. When she responds, just keep pulling on her. It's really fun [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img] Glad Jalen didn't take this to heart. LOL. We played at the little kids area for a while, then at 8 went down to check in for our LAX flight. Looks wide open, so she gives us seats right away! Yay!! We leave about 10 min. late from Milwaukee, too, but we are on our way. What a loooooooong flight. The kids are always really good on the planes, thank goodness. They had some sticker books and Cd players and Kylor played his GameBoy almost the whole time. We went over the Grand Canyon, that was neat to see. 4 hours later we land at LAX. Our bags all arrived (thank goodness). We had vouchers for the SuperShuttle, so we walked outside to where they board passengers and only had to wait about 10 min. for a van to come. She only had to make one other stop and we were on our way to Disneyland!! Got to the Ramada Maingate Saga about 12:15. I hadn't even taken into consideration that our rooms wouldn't be ready. She said they had a full night the night before so it would be at least 3 before our room was ready. Ack. We have to dress up when we fly, so we all had really nice clothes on. I didn't want to go rifling through our bags and then have to change in a restroom, so we kept on our nice clothes and walked across the street to Disneyland.

I decide to go to California Adventure first, since it looks like an absolute mob scene, and I thought CA would be less crowded. HA!! I was petrified of losing one of the kids. It was awful. Usually we go the last week of April and it is deserted. Although we have never gone on a weekend before, either. And NEVER AGAIN! All I wanted to do was leave, I can't stand all those people. Especially the ones that stop in the middle of the walkway and completely clog the traffic. We head to Grizzly River Rapids and see if Jalen is tall enough. I had bought him shoes with larger soles before we left, because I knew he was either gonna be hit or miss at the 42" height requirement rides. He barely grazes the bottom of their measurer, but they say he is good to go. Oh, we're not going on now. The standby entrance is 200 minutes!!!!! Who in their right mind would wait 3 hours and 20 min. to go on a ride?? Nuts. We get Fast Passes and go to Redwood Creek Challenge Trail. There's even a line to get in here!! I guess there is a max. number of people they can have in there and they are waiting for people to exit before they let more in. We finally get in just in time to see the Indian storytelling. The gentleman that did this show was very good. It was very uncrowded, which was a welcome relief. I am really clausterphobic, and even though we were in an open space the whole time, I just get all weirded out by huge mobs of people when I am in the middle of it!! The story was nice, the kids enjoyed it. I love when they have audience participation and to see the kids doing the hand gestures, etc. it is just so great!!

Kylor is dying to go on the rope nets, so we climb up to the third story and Kylor goes on the net while Jalen and I go down the steps and meet him at every level. When he gets to the bottom, he wants to go again. This is fine with me. This has the be the least crowded place in all of DLR right now. They played around here for about an hour. There is tire swing the kids can sit on and go down clothesline like thing. Not sure how to describe it, but Jalen met the 42" and he wanted to go. Of course, once he got to the top and was about to be let go, he didn't want to. The CM came over and offered to bring him down a little farther so he wouldn't go so fast. He seemed OK with this and she let him go. Ack. I can't believe he did it. I was so proud, because I knew he was a little frightened. They run around a little more and Jalen is fascinated by the waterfall/creek, so we just hang around watching that for a while. There are also animal footprints in the trails, and they had a great time trying to figure out what animal they were from. Its about 2:45 now, so we decide to head back over to the hotel to see if our room is ready. The desk clerk says they are just putting the sheets on, so to walk slowly and they should be done when we get there. We collect our luggage and when we get up to the room, the door is still open. Apparantly the maid didn't have any more pillowcases, so she had to call another guy to bring her some. It's a good thing I know Spanish and could understand her conversation, because I would have been in the dark otherwise. It took him over 10 min. to bring her some. The kids are getting antsy and want to get in the room and change. Me, too!! She's finally done and we quick change, throw a few things from the suitcases into drawers and head back to DCA. We have priority seating at Ariels Grotto at 4:15.

We walk back to DCA and go directly to the stand to tell her we have PS. And it's a good thing. The line for this restaurant is huge and I heard he tell someone the wait time was an hour! Ack. Jalen is tired, hot and crabby and just wants to be held. At 40 lbs, it's a little much for me, but I grin and bear it and hold him the 15 min. until they call our name to go in. In the meantime, they had taken NO standby people into the restaurant. Yikes. We head down the staircase into the restaurant. We get seated immedately in a nice cushy booth right next to the kitchen. Our waitress was little indifferent. She was very young, and while she definitely wasn't rude, she just didn't seem to care whether she was there or not. It didn't ruin our experience at all, though. This restaurant is great and I think the price for what you get is fantastic. Just go very, very hungry, because you get a LOT!! The fixed price for adults is $17.99 and for kids only $8.99! My dinner included choice of soup or salad (I got the salad), main course (I got the hamburger. VERY good), dessert (I got the rocky road brownie. It was only OK) and drink. The boys got an appetizer of carrots and celery with ranch dressing, main course (Jalen got grilled cheese and Kylor got the macaroni and cheese, which comes with a hot dog octopus on top. Very charming), drink, dessert (Kylor got a root beer float, Jalen got vanilla pudding with crushed graham crackers on top), and they both also got a pail and shovel. AND at the end they bring out cotton candy. Oh, ya, and when you first sit down they bring out crusty rolls and butter.

So while we were waiting, the boys hear Ariel is around the corner. They are too embarassed to go meet her, so I go with them and a CM takes a picture of all of us together.

Pluto comes to the table,

then Chip, then Dale. And Minnie! A nice plethora of characters and they were all very interactive and friendly. Jalen gave Minnie a big hug and kiss. [img]graemlins/love.gif[/img]

So adorable. We finished our main course and are waiting for dessert when they start the conga music. All the kids rush up to get instruments and then conga around the restaurant. The boys had just left when the waitress came out with his root beer float with a candle in it. Ya, so we're having a birthday dinner 2 days early. Who cares....hehe.

She seemed a little miffed that Kylor wasn't at the table. Hmmm. Anyway, the boys couldn't get the tambourine like the wanted so they sat it out and came back to the table anyway. LOL. The waitress then decides to wait until the conga music is done so they can sing Happy Birthday. She grabs 2 other waiters and the guy makes a VERY LOUD announcement to the restaurant about how today is a very special day because Kylor is 7. The whole restaurant sings him Happy Birthday and he blows out his candle. Very special. I give this restaurant a big 9 out of 10! The pastel colors just give it a great ambiance and the staff is great.

We leave the restaurant about 5:30. The boys of course want to ride something. Our FP for Grizzly River Rapids isn't until 6:15-7:15. We head over to the new Bug's Land, as this wasn't here last year when we were. Ugh, 4 rides here and they are all VERY lame. The atmosphere is neat, but don't wait in line to ride anything here if you don't have to. You will just be disappointed. Well, I was anyway. We waited in line 1 long hour to ride Frances' Ladybug Boogie. The boys waiting in line:

It's supposed to be like the Mad Tea Party, but there are only 6 (!) cars. It goes on this track and there are bumps in one part of the track that shake the whole buggy. It's really bad. The kids were just excited to go on a ride, though. It's time to use our FP, so we head over to GRR. Oh, my gosh. The FP line is about a mile long. I'm not kidding, it rounds all the back near the airplane in Condor Flats. The CM assures it will go fast, and it does. Not FAST, but it only takes us about 20 min. to board the boat. Jalen is not sure about this ride. It's Kylor's favorite and he is raring to go. Once the sun goes down in CA, it gets awfully chilly awfully quickly, so it's pretty brisk right about now. And let me tell you we got absolutely soaked. The last big hill got Jalen just drenched. His teeth were chattering and his whole little body was shaking. I felt so bad. My pants were just drenched, too. It is an awful feeling. We were going to watch the Electrical Parade tonight, but no way. I needed to back to the hotel to change out of the cold, wet clothes. We get back about 8:30. Jalen falls asleep right away, poor guy was just bushed. Kylor and I stay awake as the lady at the front desk said we would be able to see the fireworks from the balcony outside our room (we were on the 3rd floor) and sure enough at 9:30, there they were. It was pretty cool. A building blocked the really low ones, but for the most part we saw the whole thing. It was nice. We went to bed right afterwards, no alarm. We are going to the parks whenever we wake up tomorrow.

We had a very full first day!!

Day 2 following...

[ 06-02-2003, 12:21 PM: Message edited by: loobyoxlip ]

tikibird · 05-21-2003, 01:19 PM

Oh, I have so been looking forward to this report! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

We're going to do Ariel's Grotto, too on the first day - but sounds like we'll be in for the same crowds (arriving on a Saturday).

I hope the lines got smaller for you later in your trip - can't wait to hear more! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

loobyoxlip · 05-21-2003, 01:33 PM

Hmm, it wouldn't let me edit my post and add anymore pictures. Said the I surpassed the max amount and the current max amount is 8. I've only posted 3! [img]images/icons/mad.gif[/img] Anyway, here's another pic of the boys are Ariels Grotto. Yes, I know they are blurry. I don't have a scanner and rather than have NO pictures, I used my digital camera to take pictures of the pictures. LOL. It's better than nothing.

dsnytina · 05-21-2003, 03:34 PM

Tina:
They only let you post 8 total pictures and emoticons...I know, that messed me up, too! So glad that you had a safe trip and are writing it up so soon!
Tina
God Bless America [img]graemlins/usa.gif[/img]

pinkerbell · 05-21-2003, 04:22 PM

Thanks for all of the info. I am going to Disneyland this weekend for the first time and was wondering just how cool it will be in the evenings. I'm leaving from New Orleans Friday night for Phoenix, and then it's off to Disneyland on Saturday morning. I'm trying to pack light, and have been trying to decide whether or not to bring a jacket for nighttime. We are staying at the Hawthorn Suites which is 3 blocks away, so I guess we could go back to the hotel in the evening to change clothes and then back to the parks. How are the temperatures during the day? Would you recommend wearing shorts or capri pants?

loobyoxlip · 05-21-2003, 07:30 PM

Hi Pinkerbell

It's kind of hit or miss in Anaheim during the day. The first day I wore a tank top and shorts, the next two days shorts and the last days we wore jeans/pants and t-shirts with jackets. The wind was really brisk those last 2 days. You definitely need a jacket for evening. It dropped from 70's to the upper 50's at night. You're going to have such a great time [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

pinkerbell · 05-21-2003, 08:30 PM

Thanks so much! I'll be sure to pack my jacket!

dsnytina · 05-22-2003, 01:54 PM

Tina:
Thank you for staying with it, even though hardly anyone visits over here. You make my day, helping me relive our trip!
Tina

DVC_Don · 05-22-2003, 04:59 PM

Looks good. I'm just starting to read the TR's over here as we may be going to DL next April. Kind of gives you a feel for what to do. Never been to DL. Thanks. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

tikibird · 05-22-2003, 10:19 PM

Keep writing, we're reading! [img]graemlins/read.gif[/img]

Jalen looks SO cute with Belle, and I'll bet I can talk my guys into staying for the Belle show if I show them her picture! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Sorry you were disappointed with your hotel. [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img] Sounds like you had a great day otherwise, though!

More, please... [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

kimdisneynut · 05-22-2003, 10:52 PM

Great REport

loobyoxlip · 05-23-2003, 12:07 AM

The DL boards are so quiet [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

Day 2, Sunday, May 11...

The boys are up around 7:15. Take a shower and take our time. We go down to the Ramada's complimentary breakfast, which is in a little room by the pool. Not much, muffins, pastries and English muffins, plus coffee and juice. But enought to hold us over until lunch. We walk to the park and get there around 9, which is when they opened today. We started our day at Disneyland. Had to wait in a huge long line to get a stroller, which upset Kylor because he just wanted to go explore, not wait in line for a stroller!! I guess they were giving out carnations for Mother's Day, because I saw a lot of moms wearing them. I don't know where I missed them, but I never did get one. Oh, well. We headed over to Fantasyland first. The line to Dumbo looked manageable, so we go there first. Jalen really wanted to ride this and I knew I would never wait in the lines that form later in the day! It only took about 10 minutes, actually. Kylor got his own Dumbo, so he was pretty excited about that. This ride is cute. The look on Jalen's face was enough. Next we headed over to the carousel and again they just loved it.

Decide to go over and see how long the line for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is. Pretty long already. We get a FastPass and walk around. We ran into Cowboy Goofy and got a picture with him.

The Sword in the Stone Ceremony is starting at 10:30, so we go back over to Fantasyland. This show is pretty funny. We had never seen it before as they only present it on weekends and during peak seasons. It ends just on time for us to head over to Once Upon a Time...Princess Store to hear the 11:00 reading of Beauty and the Beast by Belle. OK, my kids are the only boys there (which turns out to be a GREAT thing...more on that later). A CM named Tim comes out first and is just hilarious. He introduces Belle and then comes back as different characters from B&TB throughout Belle's story. OMG, I was laughing SO hard. He was just so so funny. I would say even if you are an adult w/o kids, go and stand in the back to watch this and do not miss it because you only have boys!!! It was by far the funniest thing at DL! They have different pricesses throughout the day telling their story. At the end, they let all the kids get in line to meet Belle. Kylor, of course, was NOT meeting her. Jalen went up and she said "Oh, a little prince" and had him put his hand on his hip so she could wrap her arms in them.

Too precious. She kept telling him how handsome he was and wanted to give him a kiss, but he wasn't having any part of that. Over to BTM. Jalen hates it and hates me for taking him on it. Claims he doesn't like rides with hills and asks me on every ride after this if there are hills. LOL.

The boys want to go to McDonald's for lunch, so we head back across the street and hang out at McD's for about an hour. The boys are having the best time playing with the toys they got with their Happy Meals. We finally walk back down the street to our hotel. The pool is set up the wrong way, IMO. LOL. The hot tub is by the deep end of the pool and you can't see the kids on the shallow end from the hot tub. Grrr. I didn't want to sit in the sun because I burn, so I dragged a chair over into the shade and the boys played for over an hour in the pool (with their new Happy Meal toys). We went back to the room and I took a little nap while they watched cartoons.

Mickey's Detective School was playing at 6:45 at the Fantasyland Theatre, so we left about 6 to walk back to DL. We got there about 6:25 and they were just letting people in. We found good seats, up in the bleachers center stage.

This is another only weekends/peak time show, and the last one during our stay, so I'm glad we caught it. It was very well done, and when Jalen's showing the pictures to people here back home, he goes into the premise of the whole show. It's very entertaining. We went over to Star Tours and the line is very short, so we went on that. I was amazed Jalen was not scared again. I kept high 5'ing him for being so brave!

We walk over to DCA as the Electrical Parade starts at 8:45. I got in line at Award Wieners at 8:05 and the line took FOREVER! I am not kidding, by the time we got our food the parade was almost beginning. We found a spot way in the back and sat on the sidewalk to eat our food. I had gotten the Italian Sausage (blech) and the boys had each gotten a hot dog. I held Jalen up so he could see some of the floats. We didn't get to see the short, small ones because there were too many people in front of us. I can tell you one thing, the show was OK, but I would never brave those crowds again just to see it. It was crazy. We leave the park right after as we have PS at Goofy's Kitchen tomorrow AM at 7:45 and it's about 10 before we are all in bed. I think I finally fell asleep after midnight. If you treasure a good night's sleep, NEVER stay in this hotel. The walls are very thin and the people walking above you sound like giants. It was awful! And nothing blocked it out. I put a pillow over my head, put on headphones. It didn't matter, I could still hear all the banging/thumping....

Coming up...Day 3 Kylor's Birthday!!

[ 05-27-2003, 08:06 PM: Message edited by: loobyoxlip ]

figment52 · 05-24-2003, 12:16 AM

Thanks for writing. I visited DCA last June and found out I missed some things (or else they weren't there yet). Keep it coming.

ilovedisney0_0 · 05-24-2003, 07:33 PM

Hi Tina! [img]graemlins/wavin.gif[/img] How funny, we were there the same time as you! Saturday, May 10th at CA Adventure and Sunday, May 11th at Disneyland. It was SOOOO crowded!!

We were also stuck in that big long line for FP at at Grizzly Run. And we were soaked and wanted to leave the park, but got stuck in the throngs of people watching Electric Light Parade. I usually go off-season, and there were just too many people there this time. [img]images/icons/mad.gif[/img] We were there to celebrate my daughter's 11th birthday.

We were at Disneyland on Sunday, and we got there when the park first opened. (the carnations were on a big table in the front, right past the entry gates, but before you went under the bridge for Main Street) We rode 6 rides in Fantasyland in an hour! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] Matterhorn, Dumbo, Storybook Ride, Snow White, Mad Hatter and the Carousel. It was so wonderful. Then, the best thing happened!! We happened to see Mary Poppins standing alone, talking to one little girl. We waited patiently [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img] , then it was my daughter and 3 year old niece's turn. Mary Poppins spent a good 5 minutes talking to the girls, with nobody else around. She even taught them how to dance! It was just fabulous!! [img]graemlins/love.gif[/img] A true Disney *magic* moment!!

I can't wait to try the Belle's Storytime next time, that sounds great! [img]graemlins/puter.gif[/img] Amy

**Colexis Mom** · 05-25-2003, 11:00 PM

Great trip report Tina!! I love the picture of Jalen and Belle!! What a treasure. Looking forward to more, and glad to see so far that your back has held up!!