The Twist My Arm Trip-Spring Break 2005-COMPLETE 11/9 About This Page:

[Tink and co.]

The cast:
Me—Certified Disney Nut, more than 30 trips to Disneyland
Zoie, 11—Nut in training, 9 previous trips
Hallie, 9---Our little Piglet fan, 8 previous trips
Jack, 6---Serious snacker, and not so serious rider!
Janet, friend of mine, mom of Katie and Leah
Penny, Janet’s sister, aunt of Katie and Leah
Katie, 10---1 previous trip (So little, they don’t remember!)
Leah, 12---1 previous trip
Pre Trip and Planning

I call this the “twist my arm” trip because it wasn’t really my trip to begin with! A friend of mine called and asked for some suggestions about hotels, touring plans, etc. She and her sister were taking her two daughters to Disneyland for Spring Break. We chatted for about an hour, and I gave her some ideas. At the end of the conversation she said, “Sure would be fun if you guys could come to.” Well, ‘nuff said! That evening I began to look over our budget and price the trip. It could be done. We’d drive instead of fly. It’d save money, and we always drive. So I called her and said, “Were you just being nice, or did you really mean you wanted us to come along?” They really wanted us to go!!! Woo Hoo! I’m going to Disneyland.

I should say that this was to be a girl’s only trip, except for my son (poor guy, it’s always like that!). We are leaving the dads at home. My friend’s daughters are the same age as my girls, and they’ve been friends for several years. The youngest sister in their family, Katie, was in my class when she was in second grade. She just happens to be my favorite student that I’ve ever had. If she was a grown up, we’d probably be best friends. We’ve done lots of day trips together over the years, so we knew we’d all have a good time together.

To help create excitement for Katie and Leah, I arranged for a Fairy Godmailer to send them a postcard from Disneyland. They still haven’t figured it out yet…tee hee! Inspired by Dopey Girl’s beautiful handmade autograph books, we made a trip to the craft store and made the girls (and my kids each made their own) an autograph book. I still have to make mine.

I got to thinking about driving the 450 miles; and I wasn’t worried about driving down to Anaheim, but always sleep most of the way home. So, I started looking at airfare, and I booked a whole package! So now we had plane tickets, hotel room, and 3 day park hoppers. I priced everything out and decided a taxi was our best bet for ground transportation. I just couldn’t justify the cost of a rental car when it would be sitting in the parking lot the whole time we were there. Janet, my friend, called and said they’d really like to do Knott’s Berry Farm as well, so I re-checked the ground transportation, and there was a shuttle from the hotel. Super! Then I plugged in some codes from mousesavers just for fun, and found a great deal on a rental car, so I jumped. We now have a rental car reserved as well!

So here’s the plan so far:
Monday, March 28
Arrive at the airport at 5:30 or so, our flight leaves at 7:15.
We arrive at Orange County Airport at 8:30.
Claim our luggage. Get the rental car. I signed up for the fastbreak program through Budget, so I shouldn’t have much of a wait.
Drive to Tropicana Inn and Suites, and park the car. Check in and see if the room is ready.
Go to Guest Services and pick up our park tickets (and possibly upgrade them to a four day park hopper).
Either tour Downtown Disney and have lunch at the Rainforest Café and then head back to the hotel for a swim. Then meet up with our friends for dinner and call it an early night. (Our friends plan to drive to La Brea Tar Pits that day.)
Or plan B-Upgrade the tickets and hit the parks! Probably do TOT first, and then hop over to Disneyland for Indy and whatever else tickles our fancy. Maybe meet our friends for dinner, maybe not. Maybe call it an early night, maybe stay until midnight when the park closes. I was super excited when I realized that I could leave my home, and be in the park by mid-morning! Flying does have its advantages! It will be so crowded; I thought the extra day in the parks might be nice as well.
Decisions, Decisions…
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are all Disney days with our friends. Our only real plan is a PS for the Blue Bayou for dinner Wednesday night. We will see Fantasmic! that night. I also want to be sure to see the Morning Madness at Toontown one of those mornings.
Friday is Knott’s Berry Farm until about 6:00, at which time we’ll head to the airport for the flight home.


***Well, I just discovered I never finished this report! Terribly sorry to anyone who was following it! I figured I couldn't start the next report until I finshed this one! ***

[DebiDebiDebi]

Sounds like you got it all set! Can't wait to read the rest!!!

[GATechGal]

Cool. Spur of the moment trips that all come together are so much fun. I wouldn't worry too much about your DS. In the future he'll be glad he's the only guy.

[Fantasmic! kid]

You are so lucky! I wish that's how it was my friends...

[loobyoxlip]

Yay! I am so excited to read your TR. I can't wait until you get back to hear all about it!! I am so glad you're flying into SNA instead of LAX. We are, too. SNA is such a beautiful airport, it reminds me of a mall.

I can't imagine walking past DL and DCA and only being able to go to DD. I hope you upgrade those tickets Only a few days now. I'm so jealous.

[DrDolphin]

Hope you have a great trip!!! can't wait to read your report when you come back!

[snoozy]

OOOO I'm soooo jealous. I hope you have a great time. Let us know how everything turns out when you get back.

[zacksmom_1993]

Have a great time! I can't wait to hear all about your trip.

Karen

[Tara O'Hara]

How cool!! I hope you guys have a terrific time!!

[Colexis Mom]

Have a great time

[Jillybean]

Isn't it nice how plans have a way of coming together?

Have a fantastic time and report back soon!

Jill

[Tink and co.]

Day 1—Disneyland and where are they?

The night before we left, Janet called and said that they wanted to do Disneyland on Tuesday and Thursday and DCA on Wednesday. Was that okay with us? Sure, the only problem was our PS at Blue Bayou, so I called and got an 8:10 for Tuesday night. That worked out better with the 10:30 showing of Fantasmic! anyway!
So on to the trip—Dad dropped us off at the airport at 5:40, and we were greeted with what would be the second longest line of our trip. The problem was that 2 flights left within 20 minutes of each other, and both were over-sold. So, the folks on the first flight (not ours) all had to check in first. Now, everyone who was waiting for our flight was not too happy about letting people have cuts in line. There were lots of hot tempers, and only 2 clerks waiting to check people in! What a fiasco! I felt sorry for the Aloha Airlines employees. We saw the rest of our group in front of us in line, and waved to them. Plenty of time to visit at the gate.

Once we got checked in, through security and up to the gate, we sat down to visit. We discovered that we were all sitting together! We hadn’t even booked at the same time! So, Zoie and Leah sat with Aunt Penny in one row, and Jack, Katie, and Hallie sat behind them. Janet and I each sat across the row. We had a quick and uneventful flight (It’s only an hour.), and touched down in Orange County a few minutes early.

We claimed our baggage and went our separate ways after exchanging cell phone numbers. We walked directly to the parking garage where there was a kiosk set up for Budget, and I showed them my Fastbreak card and driver’s license. The clerk gave me a local map and my keys, and we found our car. After getting situated and glancing at the map and my directions from home, we hit the highway. We literally drove out of the garage and on to the freeway. I was quite impressed.

It was raining quite steadily all the way to the hotel (about a 15 minute trip), so we formulated a plan that had Disneyland written all over it! When we checked in, our room was ready, so we took everything in and re-packed my backpack for the park with ponchos, water bottles and autograph books.

We walked across the street, through Disney security, and to guest relations to upgrade our tickets only to find that we really needed guest services…I think I knew that, but I saw the word guest and…

There was only one family in line at guest services, and we were seen to quickly. We discovered that you cannot upgrade tickets, vouchers, etc. unless you actually purchased them at the Disneyland ticket counter… but I really had my heart set on going to the park right now!!! Mind you, the kids really were fine with our alternate DTD plan, and in fact that’s what the girls really wanted to do, but Mom wants to go to Disneyland and she’s standing in front of the gates!!! So, the CM suggested single day park hoppers, and told me the price, and I nearly fainted. Then I said,” what about a single park ticket.” Oh, that will save about $20 per ticket. Much more reasonable. I bought them for Disneyland park (while looking wistfully at TOT, my favorite), and decided we’d use them that day, and save our park-hoppers for the rest of the week, in case the rest of the group wanted to hop. Then we got in line to go through the gate! And we were inside before 10:00 AM!

We decided to make a beeline for Indy since it was closed for refurbishment on our last trip. We found a 150 minute wait posted, and a 3:30 fastpass return time. So we opted for the fastpasses, and joined that line. Ahhh, spring break at Disneyland, where there’s even a line for fastpasses! My kids were shocked. We always come off-season. What are all these people doing here!? Now, Jack normally doesn’t ride anything more frightening than Dumbo. The Jungle Cruise is pushing it for him, but I got him a fastpass anyway, and hoped for the best.

All of a sudden, Hallie needs to eat NOW! And I realize that we never ate breakfast. I’m generally not such a neglectful parent, but with the line at the airport, we hadn’t had time to eat like I’d intended. And then we were at Disneyland, and had better things to do then eat! So, we get in line at the Riverbelle Terrace where we’ve had lunch before, and were not impressed, but the breakfast looked good and Walt used to eat breakfast here on Sunday mornings, so we thought we’d give it a try. We were in line about 5 minutes when they announced that they were now serving the lunch menu. We walked over to Rancho Del Zocalo and found no one, no line so we went in to order. Jack had a taco kid’s meal, Hallie a cheez-stuffers kid’s meal, Zoie had fish tacos, and I had chicken taco salad. It was all good, except for the cheez things. Hallie said they tasted like hush puppies. We couldn’t find any cheez in them! We were sad to see that the menu no longer offered BBQ. While eating we called dad to rub it in and make him listen to Thunder Mountain and see if he could guess where we were.

Jack announced that he wanted to go on Thunder Mountain after lunch, so we checked on the line. 20 minutes! Let’s go! We rode it and all enjoyed it! I’m not sure why Jack wanted to go, but he was happy! We then did the following, but I can’t remember the order exactly. Rode the sailing ship Columbia, Canoes, and several trips on Splash Mountain! Jack wouldn’t go on Splash, so we did a kid switch and he and Zoie waited at a bench right at the exit of the ride. It worked out okay. The girls went through the single rider line several times. We shopped at Pooh Corner, for Piglet merchandise, of course. Then we rode Winnie the Pooh. Next, we returned to Adventureland and Indy, we buzzed through the line, and Jack was brave. He rode it (with his eyes closed, and holding my hand), and when we got off, he bought an “eye of Mara” necklace and an Indy treasure map. He tried to talk me into the black bull whip, but I wouldn’t budge on that one! Mean Mama!

Next, we made our way to Fantasyland where the kids rode the teacups, and we got in line for Casey Jr. The line was 60 minutes, so I convinced the kids to ride the Storybook Boats instead. We waited about 30 minutes and when we got on the boat, our guide asked the girls to be whale watchers (sit on the front of the boat) and asked Jack to be her co-pilot. Jack is not shy. In fact, he actually gave part of the spiel! This is one of my favorites, and so we’ve been on it many times. It was just dark too, so all the twinkling lights were so dreamy! It was a really magical ride. When we returned to civilization (sorry, that’s the Jungle Cruise), Jack and I both thanked the CM, and I let her know she made our day!

I decided to check my cell phone and see if we’d missed a call, and we had. It was Janet, Penny, and the girls saying they were in Downtown Disney and had met up with another family from our school with girls our girls’ ages. We decided to head out to DTD. While we were walking past the Matterhorn, we noticed a large group of people staring up. It was Mickey climbing the Matterhorn. I’ve seen the mountain climbers lots of times, but never MICKEY actually climbing. Minnie and Goofy were up there too, and there was a cute little show that ended with Mickey planting a 50th flag at the top. I checked my guide later, and it wasn’t listed anywhere. I love little surprises like that.

We made it to DTD and looked everywhere for our friends, and they were no where to be found. I tried calling and got no response. It was not much fun, and I began to second-guess traveling with another family. About 7:00 we gave up looking and decided to eat at the La Brea Bakery quick service counter. Jack had a hot dog kid’s meal, Hallie and Zoie had fresh mozzarella sandwiches, I had a cheese pannini and we split a plate of fruit. It was a really expensive meal, but quite tasty. While we were eating, my phone rang, and it was the rest of the group. They were back at the hotel swimming. So, we finished up and walked back and found them at the pool. We hustled upstairs and the kids changed, and then had a ball with their friends. We adults visited, and discussed the next day’s plans. We decided to use our early entry the next day which meant meeting at 6:45 AM! The other family decided to meet us as well. We’d be quite a group!

We were back in our room and the kids showered, and I had everything ready for the morning by 9:00. The kids fell asleep almost immediately. I love swimming! I drifted off just in time to be woken by the fireworks. They were LOUD! It took me a while to figure out what it was, and they were over before I realized that I’d have a great view from the window. Oh, well! The kids never even stirred.

We definitely had some magical moments. The storybook canal boat ride and Mickey climbing the Matterhorn were certainly highlights, and we were all impressed with Jack’s new bravery.

Next up…17 hours in Disneyland—Commando or Crazy??!!

[snoozy]

Sounds good so far I definately want to hear more

[Fantasmic! kid]

Great start so far!

I am sorry to hear about the line for Indy... One of my friends Cast Member for the ride (everyone gasps), and he said that recently allot of the Jeeps have been breaking down for some pretty bad reasons... normally they have about 19 out and running, recently they have had no more then 15.

Now, about the fireworks (predictable I would want to talk about them, isn't it? )... was that Remember being tested or was that the temporary Fantasy in the Sky?

[Tink and co.]

It was listed as Fantasy in the Sky. And I' m pretty sure it was, because they were awesome, but nothing new that I could see from last year.