Willowwind's Disneyland Trip Report 2/11-2/14 **Updated 2/15** - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Dates: Wednesday February 11th - Saturday February 14th
Mode of Travel: American Airlines Chicago O’Hare - John Wayne, Santa Ana & Disney Bus
Lodging: Disneyland Hotel Standard View
Adventurers: Me, Kristen (37) and DH Erik (35)
Celebration: Erik’s Birthday!
Pre-Departure Day One (Wednesday 2/11): It’s 1AM on the 11th and I’m awake. Today we’re leaving for Disneyland and I guess I’m just too excited to sleep. I’m lying in bed in the dark going over all the things that we’ll need in my mind. Suitcases are packed, ticket stuff is printed out, itineraries and a customized “passporter vacation at a glance” sheet that I stuck in my camera bag. Erik (aka Fionn), my traveling partner is at work until 7:30am. As soon as he gets home we’ll be leaving for O’Hare airport. I’m hoping that traffic isn’t to horrible during our rush hour commute to the airport, it should take us about an hour and a half to two hours to get there.
The kids all asked that I wake them up early to say goodbye in the morning. I must admit that I’m nervous leaving the kids. Not for any good reason mind you, I’m just not used to being away from my kids. Next year they’ll get to do Disney with me, but this year it’s the adults turn.
The weather forecast for Anaheim, CA looks pretty great to me. Temps in the mid 60’s with a “few showers” on our second park day. That sounds like heaven considering what the temps have been in the frozen lands of northern Illinois this winter. We’ve packed pretty light so I just hope that we’ll be warn enough, layering is going to be key into the evening hours. Tonight I’m most looking forward to a soak in the hot tub.
I haven’t been to Disneyland since 1996, and for Erik it’s been since the mid-1970’s so I’m really looking forward to seeing all the changes and updates. When I was there last they had just started laying the ground foundations for California Adventure! There’s going to be lots of new experiences on this trip and I can’t wait to get on our way!
The Journey: First off I hate to say that I'm having camera difficulties so until I get that fixed I won't be able to post trip photos. Apologies, I'm way bummed about it.
We arrived at the airport in plenty of time. After a quick breakfast we headed off to our terminal, which as always with me was at the very end of the terminal wheel. We checked in and asked if there was any chance for an upgrade, but to our dismay the plane was packed full. This was an old American Airlines 757 and it was showing it’s age badly. The window shades were broken and there was sticky stuff spilled on them, there was garbage left over from the prior flight in the seat backs, and the cramped seats were hard as rocks. We settled in and tried to make the best of it since we were stuck there for 4 hours. Four hours and fourty-five minutes later (with zero updates on our status from the pilot) we arrived at John Wayne International Airport. This was the worst and hopefully will be left behind because a short half hour later we were checking in to the Disneyland Hotel.
Once at Disney we let everyone know that we were there celebrating!! We have a Birthday and a Disneymoon on this trip. The wonderful girl at the front desk upgraded us to a Park View Room in the Dreams Tower on the 10th floor with a King size bed. I can look off our balcony and see the monorail going by, I can see the matterhorn and space mountain, tower of terror looks so cool at night, it’s so awesome!! This is by far the best room I’ve ever stayed in here.
After settling into our room we headed to Downtown Disney (right below us) for dinner. I had planned on us eating at UVA Tapas Bar, however they’ve changed their menu and no longer do tapas so we ate at Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen. Oh my god!! Yummo!! This was a great choice for dinner and I’m so glad that we ate there instead of Uva. I had the Asian-Cajun Salad, and Erik had the Steak Tchapatulas both of which were to die for. I think they may have the best onion rings on the planet. Since we had our celebration buttons on they finished off our dinner with complementary Beingets (spelled wrong I’m sure). We were pretty tired after dinner, both only getting about 3 hours of sleep in the past 24, so we headed back to the room. When we got there more pixie dust was waiting for us in the form of a room service gift from the hotel. They had delivered us a complementary bottle of sparkling cider and chocolate covered strawberries. This is starting off to be the most magical trip ever.
Right now I’m off to bed so we can hit the parks in the morning!
Sounds like a great start to a wonderful trip!
We will be there tomorrow night. I'm hoping the weather holds out through the weekend to ALL of our benefits!
Day Two (Thursday 2/12): I’m so excited to be in Disneyland that sleep doesn’t come very easily to me and I wake up at 1am. Even Disney doesn’t give you much to do at 1am and I putter around the hotel room for as long as I can. Erik sleeps until about 4am and then we start talking about what the day will hold. We know that the Coffee House here at the hotel opens at 6am so we start getting showered and dressed to head down there. We took a stroll around the hotel in the moonlight, it was beautiful and calming being up before all of the tourists. The coffee at the Coffee House is not Nescafe’! YAY! It’s good to know that I can get a decent cup of joe when I look for it. On our way there we stop at the front desk and let them know that our shower head is in need of repair and ask if they could send engineering to fix it. Then we head over to the lounge at Steakhouse 55 to sit down and drink our java.
Our reservations are for breakfast at Goofy’s Kitchen are for 9am, but we decide to see if they’ll take us in at 7. Great luck, they can get us in early! Erik was so excited I thought that he might burst. At Goofy’s Kitchen you get your picture taken before heading in to eat. We got our mugs with Pluto and then Baloo the Bear helped seat us at the table, our server showed us the buffet. The food here was fabulous and we saw a bunch of characters who came around to the table and posed for pictures or chatted with us. It was a fabulous time and we had a crazy amount of fun.
We still had an hour before the park opened so we stopped back by our room to chill out. To our surprise the shower had already been fixed. I posted pictures from breakfast and then we strolled to Guest Services at the main gate. It’s Erik’s birthday so we get our free ticket for him to celebrate at the happiest place on earth, it was a bit of a hassle but went pretty smoothly. It’s also a magical morning so since we’re staying on property we get into the park and hour early.
Through the turn styles and into Disneyland we go “Happy Birthday!” everyone tells Erik as we stroll down Main Street USA. He’s wearing his birthday button and everyone says hello. I usually like mornings in Adventureland, but it’s closed off and we’re forced to start our day in Tomorrowland. We go on Buzz Lightyear Astroblasters and Star Tours first, then we head over to the lagoon to climb aboard the submarines. While we were standing in line there the Jedi Training Academy started school and we could see it from the line.
By the time we were off of Nemo it’s 11am and I’m starting to get hungry so we headed off to Frontierland to eat lunch at Rancho de Zocalo. I had the cheese enchilada platter and Erik had Carne Asada, both were excellent and the pico de gaio (?) was the tastiest that I’ve ever had. Portions here are HUGE and I barely was able to eat half of my lunch. Next we strolled through some stores and did a little shopping on our way to New Orleans Square.
I LOVE New Orleans Square. Not only is this the most charming and beautiful part of the park IMHO, but it’s home to Pirates of the Caribbean. Yo-ho-yo-ho a pirates life for us!! We climbed into a boat on the bayou and were off for our adventure. This was the first time that I had been on this ride since they added Jack Sparrow and the movie stuff. I was really happy with how they did it, it’s blended in seamlessly and in good taste. The soul of the original is still fully in tact. After the ride we took our time went shopping around the Square. We picked up a bunch bunch of quirky gifts to take back to the folks at home. The Haunted Mansion was closed today but we saw a sign for “The Pirates Lair” so we headed in that direction and took a raft to the island for our adventure. We climbed in caves, through tiny spaces, and up the hill to treasure!
Speaking of treasure, when we headed back across the river to the square I noticed that Haunted Mansion had opened!! Whoo hoo! We stepped lively in to dead center of the room to climb into our doom buggy. Between California and Florida this is by far my favorite Haunted Mansion ride. I think there’s more story here and a lot more character overall. I was so pleased that we were able to get in here.
Next we braved the wilds and headed over to Adventureland. By this time I was pretty exhausted and needed a nap badly, but Indiana Jones is the best Disney ride I’ve ever been on and I wasn’t going to miss it. As with everything else the que was pretty short and we got to the head of the line quickly. I don’t think we waited more than 20 minutes for anything all day. We climbed into the front seat of our Jeep and away we went for a screaming good time. Erik laughed his way through it and there were elements that caught me off guard and made me jump in my seat, when I wasn’t hanging on for dear life! As we were coming off the ride I noticed a familer face which turned out to be the blonde girl who plays Sam on iCarly. She was there for the day hanging out with her friends. I wanted to get a picture with her for Katie, but there were so many folks bugging her and I didn’t want to be a pest. She was just trying to have fun too.
We strolled through some more shops and then headed across the hub to tomorrowland. Overall I was VERY disappointed with the lack of photopass photographers around the park. I had hoped to get a ton of pictures that had both of us in them, but that didn’t turn out to be the case. I don’t think there’s going to be enough to purchase the $60 CD. A quick monorail ride to Downtown Disney and we were back at the hotel for an afternoon nap and boy did we need it.
We woke up around 5pm to head back out for dinner. Erik loves Sushi and we had birthday dinner reservations at Yamabuki. A short stroll to the Paradise Pier hotel and we arrived at our destination once again asking if we could be seated early. There was no problem and we were lead into the beautiful dinning room. The high quality of he food and the fabulous service at Yamabuki make the cost and small menu worth it. It wasn’t the most extensive Japanese Menu we had seen but the service at this place was beyond compare. Erik had Ebi Tempura, Tamago, Spicy Crunchy Rolls and Spicy Tuna Rolls. I had the Yamabuki Salad, Chicken Yakitori and Kappa Maki. All of which was wonderful.
Next we headed to Downtown Disney for some more shopping and then back to the hotel for MUCH NEEDED REST. We had walked 9.2 miles today and I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
Check this out! I just happened to run into our very own Passporter gal Beautiful Mother in the park today!! Erik and I were standing in line behind her waiting for our picture with Minnie Mouse and we were chating. After we both had our pictures taken and we were out back by the wishing well she wished for Dinner at Club 33. I stopped in my tracks and looked at her saying "Are you on Passporter? " She looked kind stunned that I would know that and I said "I'm Willowwind!" We both laughed and talked a little more. It was so nice to run into someone from Passporter.and we had to get a picture of our improptu meet you can see it below.
Beautiful Mother, I hope you have had a magical trip!
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More pictures posted (3 pages) on my website Disneyland 2009
Day Three (Friday 2/13): Another *early* morning for us and we’re out the door by 6am. I love Disney in the morning when everything is quiet, fresh and new for another day. We had reservations for LaBrea cafe’ at 9am but when we checked out their menu last night we weren’t that impressed. Erik had really enjoyed Goofy’s Kitchen, so I suggest that we walk over to the Grand Californian Hotel and see if we can get in for the Character Breakfast at the Storyteller’s Cafe.
Just walking onto this hotel’s property seems to calm me. There are beautiful courtyards of greenery with towering trees. The music piped into the public areas is soft and relaxing, it takes you on a journey through spacetime and somehow in the middle of this bustling urban center removes you to the splendor of Northern California’s Redwoods. The entire hotel is decorated in the early 1900’s Arts & Crafts style and it’s magnificent. I took some pictures so that I could show Geordon when we got home, then we sat down by the pool to wait and see if we could get in for breakfast.
Luck was once again on our side and we got in to breakfast without a reservation. To my delight they were serving mimosa’s so since the kids weren’t with us I indulged myself. This was my favorite buffet of the two, I felt less rushed and more relaxed. The food here was amazing and they had a dense cranberry orange cake that was to die for. As usual the characters made their rounds and at our table. Chip gave me a really long hug and kiss, then tried to run off with me. When he finally let go he gave Erik the raspberries. My favorite part though was watching the characters interact with a service dog a couple of tables down from us. The dog was so well behaved, even when faced with giant costumed animals. One of the Chipmunks even crawled under the table and laid down with him for a minute. Now that was magic.
During breakfast we decided to scrap our plans for the day, chill out and take a second day at Disneyland instead of going over to California Adventure. I think this was the best decision we made all trip. Having seen all our priorities the day before we strolled around without a hurry or a plan and just had fun.
We started out on Main Street and got the rest of our shopping done. After stashing the gifts for home in a locker we headed off to Fantasyland. We walked through the castle, and rode Pinnochio and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride before taking more pictures and heading back to Toontown. While standing in line to talk to Minnie Mouse we ran into a frequent poster of Passporter.com which was unexpected and cool. I knew that there were a couple of other families that post on vacation at the same time but our meet was totally unexpected and by chance. After Minnie’s house we went on to Mickey’s Movie Barn and had our picture taken with the main mouse. I was so thrilled, our second day at Disneyland was really turning out to be a treat for me.
It was lunch time now and weren’t even in the same park that our reservations were at, so we wandered over to New Orleans Square to see if we could get into the Blue Bayou for lunch. The girl at the counter told us that reservations were booked for the next four days, but if we wanted to eat right then that they could seat us. BINGO! In we went to the beautiful Blue Bayou dinning room for lunch under the stars with frogs chirping softly in the background. The service here was the worst that we had all trip, but the food was excellent and Erik adored his Monte Cristo. To my great surprise we didn’t end up using a single one of our ADR’s yet we were able to walk in at all of the places we wanted to eat and enjoy the wonderful Disney dinning on our terms. It was really great.
After lunch the park had gotten crowded and I was feeling like I need a nap. Though I had tried my best to take it easy and go slow, my fibromyalgia was getting the better of me and I spent a great deal of the trip in a good amount of pain. Mid-day naps and a hot bath were a must to keep my muscles working and lessen he pain. We headed back to the hotel, but before hitting our room I wanted to go check out the models at the Disney Vacation Club building. They guides at the Grand Californian Villas were very nice and showed us around the rooms. Beautiful. I don’t know how much more I can say other than when we add on points to our contract, this is where it’s going to be.
We finally headed back to the room it had started to rain and that was the forecast for the rest of the day. In addition, by this time Erik was starting to feel poorly from overdoing it at lunch. Relaxing in the room turned out to be the plan for the rest of the night and we settled in to chill. I fell asleep early and was woken up around 9:30 by a loud “boom”. FIREWORKS! We had been told that they had been canceled, but the sky must have cleared enough for the show to go on. I ran to our balcony window and sure enough, I could see the entire show from where we were. I may not have gotten back to the park, but the Disney magic had once again seemed to come to me. I watched the beautiful display and then crawled back into bed. We had to be up at 3am to pack and head home. It had been a wonderful vacation but reality awaited at home.
Great update! I all of your photos! Glad you were able to get into Storyteller's Cafe. to hear that your pain was getting the best of you, but happy you called it a night and were able to see the fireworks from your balcony! Looking forward to more
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Pixie Dust
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all of your photos! Glad you were able to get into Storyteller's Cafe. 
to hear that your pain was getting the best of you, but happy you called it a night and were able to see the fireworks from your balcony! Looking forward to more
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