Disneyland October 2010 Trip: Day 1

As usual, my Disneyland Trip Reports are long and detailed with lots of photos, so I'll be updating the blog every couple days with more stuff. Today is the re-cap of Day 1.

Let’s start the day BEFORE the trip on Tuesday Oct 20th. We had to rent a van for the trip, so we could all fit in one vehicle (and have room for luggage, snacks, etc.) So we drove over to the tiny airport in Gilbert. Who even USES that place?—it looks like it’s all Cessna’s over there! On the way out, Amanda turned right instead of left and we ended up taking the long way home—further proof that she needs me as a navigator.

We got the car all packed up that day so we could just head out first thing in the morning.

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE

Wednesday October 20th

We were curious to see how different it would feel driving only 6 hours to Disneyland instead of the 10-11 we usually drove from Utah. In a word: AWESOME. It went by SO FAST, and having no significant mountains to wind through was even better.

[Ignore the past/present tense shifts--I was too lazy to keep them consistent.]

6:10—we leave the house
8:25—while still in AZ (9miles from the CA/AZ border), Abe looks out the window and says, “I think I see the Monorail!!” He kept having trouble with the length of the drive, and kept thinking we were almost there or asking if we WERE there.
8:31—entered California, stopping at Blythe to get gas/take a bathroom break, etc. On the door of the men’s room was a printed sign that read exactly as follows, including the capitalization, punctuation, line breaks:

Please lift
(Handle up) –
Before leaving
To unlock door
Thank you.

Exactly the kind of sign I’d expect from people in Blythe—am I right?!?!

8:55—back on the road
10:30—we passed through the wind farms, which were awesome. Just when we thought we’d seen them all, we’d round a corner and see a whole bunch more:



10:50—we merged from I-10 to the CA-60, and as we passed the “Anaheim: 31 Miles” sign, Abe yells, “Anaheim is OURS!!!”
11:50—we arrive at the Howard Johnson Anaheim and do a pre-check-in so we can park our car and get our Disneyland tickets (though it was too early to go to our room).
12:25—we headed over to Disneyland


12:45—Entered Disneyland


1:00—we check the “wait times board” at the end of Main Street and immediately threw out my planned itinerary. Wait times for pretty much every ride were less than 10 minutes, including Splash Mountain, Indiana Jones, and Space Mountain.
1:05—After grabbing Fastpasses for Indiana Jones (which we ended up not using because the lines stayed short), Amanda and the 3 older kids rode Splash Mountain, which the boys HATED.


12:25—Haunted Mansion Holiday


1:45—Andy, Maddy and Joel ride the Indiana Jones Adventure, then Amanda, Maddy and Joel ride it.
2:30—Pirates of the Caribbean, which Abe USED to love, but hated this time (“I don’t like the drops.”)
3:05—Got Space Mountain Fastpasses for Amanda and Maddy, then we went to see “Captain EO” (which, if you didn’t know, has returned to Disneyland as a “Tribute” to Michael Jackson.)


They’ve “enhanced” it by using the “bouncing floors” effect that had been used in “Honey, I Shrunk the Audience. It was fun during the flying/action scenes at the start, but totally unnecessary and a little obnoxious during the musical numbers, when the floors bounced to the beat for like 8 minutes straight.
3:45—Amanda and Maddy went on Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy—this is a special version of Space Mountain that’s during Halloween Time where they have creepy ghosts and sound effects on the ride—Amanda said it was much scarier.

OH, I haven't been listing all the bathroom breaks for you, sorry. Here's a picture of the Men's room sign near Space Mountain, though:



4:00—Ate dinner at the Plaza Inn. I think we’ve agreed this is our favorite place to eat. Great food and huge portions (they game Amanda 3 big pieces of chicken and gave me 2 huge breasts, which I’m ALWAYS fine with!)





While we were there, we saw Cody, one of the guys I animated the “Chico” video for. He and his twin brother Toby live down there and work at the park (at least Toby does). It was nice to meet them in person during the trip, having only talked to them on the phone or via email. Cody gave us some “Attraction Readmission Passes” which allowed us to skip the lines on a couple rides (by going through the exit or Fastpass line) instead of waiting in the normal queue. More about that later.
4:55—Rode Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters. Here are some on-ride photos (note Joel’s “I will destroy you!” face:




5:15—We rode the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage.


This was our longest line of the day. We were a little confused about how the Attraction Readmission passes worked and we didn’t use them on this, even though we should have.

Then we headed over to Fantasyland:



6:15—Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride
6:25—King Arthur’s Carousel
6:40—After asking a cast member how to use the Readmission Passes, we rode Peter Pan’s Flight using one of the passes (skipping the 20-minute wait)
6:45—Pinnochio’s Daring Journey
6:50—Snow White’s Scary Adventures (which has a fun new effect where the Queen’s room transforms)
7:00—We saw Toby working in Fantasyland and he asked us what ride we wanted to go on. We chose Casey Jr. and he took us in through the exit and we got onto the next train. Yeah, pretty awesome.
7:20—Alice in Wonderland
7:45—left Disneyland and went to the hotel.

When we got into our room, we saw that the hotel staff had left us a huge goody bag for the kids with bananas, trail mix, stuffed animals, travel activity books, and a fun note:




The room and hotel were great, and we definitely will be staying there again. The room was cleaner and the beds were more comfortable than the Castle Inn or even the Disneyland Hotel. The shower had plenty of hot water (in fact, too much—there was like a millimeter difference between hot and cold.) We never had to turn the A/C on, and just check out the view from our balcony:



It didn’t hurt that our hotel stay was free!

OK, so that's Day 1. Day 2 will be coming soon!