Another Family Trip, Another Birthday to Celebrate! October 2017 Trip Report! **FINALLY completed 7/5/19**

[momtohms]

I just found your trip report and really enjoyed reading it. We were there about the same time as you. You take much better pictures than I do! Your family is so cute and it's fun to see the joy in little ones eyes. Mine are all grown up now. I hope to read about the rest of your trip.

I am so sorry this is probably the longest wait on a reply ever Thank you so much! I got sidetracked with life, but I do plan on finishing soon!

 

[momtohms]

Woohoo! Finally getting this updated after over a year...yikes! I'm glad I kept notes on my phone of everything we did as it has now been a year and a half since we were there and I doubt I could remember all of the details now.

When I last left off, we had just finished meeting a few Princesses after a character breakfast at Plaza Inn, and were about to head to Haunted Mansion to use our fast passes. Since it was MDD's birthday, riding her favorite attraction was a MUST!

Ride pics





















(crossing fingers that these aren't too massive when I publish! They always seem huge when I'm adding from my desktop and then look fine in the actual post, but I still hesistate! Haha!)

After we finished on the Haunted Mansion, DH took all three girls to ride the train while I went off to do a quick last minute shopping trip for MDD and we agreed to meet back at the hotel for an afternoon of swimming later on. I hit a few shops on Main Street and in Downtown Disney and bought a few more small gifts I had in mind for her (or had seen her looking at), and then stopped at Jamba Juice for a smoothie before returning to our room at the DLH. I was able to get everything wrapped up, and have a nice little quiet lie down before DH and the girls returned from their train riding adventure too.

Next up: an afternoon swim! Stay tuned! I'm pretty sure the rest of my pics are already edited and ready to go, so I will be able to update this much more frequently from here on out. I'm making myself finish this one before I even think of starting a PTR for the next trip this summer...lol!

Thanks for reading along!

 

[Jaina]

Those are great pictures! It's not easy to get pictures in there sometimes!

 

[momtohms]

Those are great pictures! It's not easy to get pictures in there sometimes!

Thanks! Dark ride pics are so hit and miss for me, so I was happy to get so many good shots this time around I love that the nightmare overlay is brighter too!

 

[momtohms]

DH and the girls returned from their train riding adventure around the park, and were all ready for some time down at the pool. But first, PRESENTS! MDD was thrilled to open several dolls and accessories she had been wanting and quickly got to work taking everything out of the packaging. One of the presents she had received was a little Ariel doll set that came with a 3-4" sized Ariel doll and an extra outfit and a couple other little accessories. If I am remembering correctly, it was from that animators collection line? I'll have to look it up and see if they still sell them. Anyway, both ODD and YDD were quick to decide that they wanted their own sets as souvenirs, so I took ODD down to the DLH gift shop to get her a Rapunzel and a Belle for YDD too.

Once we returned to the room and the girls had a little more time to play with their new dolls, we put on our swimsuits and headed down to the pool! After enjoying the water for a bit, I ran back up to the room for my camera so I could have a few pictures of the girls enjoying the pool area.

Water flowing down from the monorail tower slides


ODD enjoying the hot tub, they spent more time in the hot tub than anywhere else I think - which I found hilarious when it was over 90 out.


MDD and some really bright sun. Ha!


MDD and the Ariel doll she had just gotten, I wasn't thrilled at the idea of her taking it straight into the pool - but it inevitably happens with nearly every plastic doll we own in our bathtub, so ehhh...


YDD


Loved these flowers around the area!


YDD playing around the base of the monorail slides. They used these a little bit, but they didn't seem to be as excited about them as the slide at the PPH that we stayed at two years ago.


The birthday girl and her favorite new toy I wish my hair looked as awesome as Ariel's after being repeatedly dunked in a hot tub. Ha!


Stay tuned for the rest of our evening, including a fun birthday dinner and a night in the parks!

 

[momtohms]

Our evening plans started with a birthday dinner for MDD at the Tangaroa Terrace! The girls changed back into their princess dresses, and grabbed their new dolls, and we were off in search of yummy eats (and some blended beverages for Mom & Dad from Trader Sam's too!)

Heading to dinner!


Rapunzel and her Rapunzel ;-)


We beat the evening crowds apparently, because the seating area wasn't too busy and we got an awesome table over on the side overlooking the pool area! Going off of pictures, since I believe they have changed the menu since our visit, it looks like DH ordered a pizza or flatbread, and I ordered a pulled pork sandwich with fries. ODD picked a kids salmon meal, MDD got the power pack, and YDD chose chicken tenders. DH and I also got drinks from Trader Sam's to enjoy! We all really loved our food (and drinks) and it was a great atmosphere too.

MDD trying to get the paper umbrella from one of our drinks into Ariel's hair.


Love this face <3


Mid meal, enjoying all the good eats!


After dinner, we had an impromptu photoshoot on the bridge that goes over part of the pool right outside the restaurant!

YDD is always down for a cute pose


Sisters and their dolls!




Those faces make these trips SO worth it!


The backside of dresses!


Heading through DTD to the parks next! I'll update soon

 

[momtohms]

We headed into DTD and had to make a stop by the stage area to listen to the band that was performing that night, and have a little dance session too! I'm pretty sure this was the night that they were in the middle of playing "September" (by Earth, Wind, & Fire - though my kiddos know it from the Trolls movie) as we entered the area, so the girls were excited about that. Both YDD and MDD went and danced with some of the other kids in the area, which is always extra fun when wearing twirly dresses!

Check out that spin!


Awkward mid dance move shot!


MDD gearing up for a pirouette ;-)


After the impromptu dance party, we split up for a bit and I took YDD to World of Disney to look around while DH stayed with MDD & ODD. I believe they were going to use the bathroom and then come meet up with YDD & I at WOD, but ended up walking past a magic show and stopped to watch. YDD was content to browse at WOD for awhile, so I hung out with her until I heard from DH that the show was over and they were heading our way! Once we were all back together, it was time to head into the parks!

Our plan was to go into DL and look for pins for the girls on main street. During our 2015 trip, my mom bought each of the girls a starter set with a few pins and the lanyards, and they did some pin trading with cast members. I had packed their pins & lanyards for this trip too, however we never ended up wearing them or doing more trading. I still wanted to buy them each a pin to remember this specific trip by though. We bounced around between a few shops, and after lots of indecision later, the girls settled on their pins of choice (spoiler alert: they each picked a pin based on their favorite princess). I also finally bought my Beauty and the Beast rose cup, and decided on a pair of ears for myself (black sequin ears with a big gold bow). Yay for fun souvenirs!

Main street was pretty packed at this time of night, so this was definitely a moment of pure luck & timing to get these shots! We were standing in the street after we had finished shopping, probably deciding what we needed to do next, and I noticed that the area immediately around us was pretty empty. Knowing I would only have a few moments to take advantage of that, I had the girls stand together and quickly snapped some pictures from behind them with the castle in the background.





Not pictured: the near meltdown that went on between the two of these pictures

YDD wanted a turn to stand in the middle of the picture, and MDD didn't want to give her one since she's the middle child so her SPOT is in the middle of pictures (I actually think YDD ends up in the middle most, but ) Anyway, we finally settled that and let YDD have her turn to be in the middle, but you can definitely still see the pout on MDD's face here. We had a similar experience with princess dress castle pics and meltdowns on our 2015 trip too, but I actually got a picture mid meltdown then that I will treasure forever and ever. Lol! It's in my 2015 trip report if you wanted to check it out!

We had fastpasses for RSR that evening, and it wasn't super close to our return window at the time, but MDD had requested a ride on Ariel for her birthday so we decided to just go ahead and walk over there to do that and see what else we could fit in beforehand.

A couple of pics I got during that ride through





We did a little looking around in the stores after that, before making our way over to Carsland. The lines at Mater & Luigis were too long to wait in before our RSR return window opened (and we wanted to ride as soon as it did so we could catch WOC right after), so we found a bench and the girls watched part of another Ducktales with DH.

Some night shots I got in the area before we went on RSR






Side note: when I was writing the trip report for the earlier part of today, I had completely forgotten that when I split off from DH & the girls that morning to finish MDD's birthday shopping, I had taken everyone's tickets to get RSR FPs. Not really an important detail, haha, but I confused myself when I was looking at my note on my phone that has the list of all the rides we did and I couldn't remember ever waiting standby for RSR, so I knew we had to have gotten FPs at some point - and I had no note of us being in DCA earlier in the day. Luckily for me, I hoard Disney momentos and still have one of those FPs IN MY WALLET, and apparently I pulled it at about 12:39pm. It pays to be a hoarder, people!

We got in the FP line as soon as our window opened, and got on pretty quickly! I absolutely LOVE RSR at night. It's fun anytime of day, but I especially enjoy it in the dark. It was the first time the girls got to ride it at night and they were all big fans. They wanted to go again, but the standby line was huge and FPs were long gone for the day. Besides, it was time to head over to the Pier!

Up next: Ghiradelli's hot chocolate, a different perspective of WOC, and an unexpected development for ODD!

 

[momtohms]

Our plan for after RSR was to go find a treat to share, and maybe catch a bit of that evening's WOC showing. Since it wasn't something that was on a must do list for us, we hadn't pulled viewing area FPs earlier, so we decided we would walk the pier and catch glimpses of it as we went. The girls had been asking for hot chocolate, so we made our way over to Ghiradelli's to grab a couple to share, along with some free samples too! Once we had our drinks, we walked up to the pier area and started looking for any empty spots along the railings. We quickly found out that we weren't alone in our idea to catch the backside of WOC, ha! After walking a little ways down, we finally found an area sort of across from TSMM by a food cart that had just enough space for us to fit. I think by this point the show was more than halfway through so we didn't get to watch for long, but it was nice to have the music & colorful lights & water to enjoy while we shared our hot chocolate.

A few shots of the girls watching the show!








And a few more of the show itself






I love the different light pattern combinations they do for the wheel!





Once WOC had finished, we continued on our way around the pier until YDD saw the Silly Symphony Swings and HAD to ride them. ODD and MDD hadn't gotten to ride them yet this trip, so they were all for that plan. When we got to the bottom of the stairs there, I realized one little hiccup in the plan - there are five of us, and the height requirement to ride in a single swing is 48" - so we'd have to take turns riding with each of the girls. Not a big deal, we'd had to do rider swap on our 2015 trip too, but we hadn't needed it yet on this trip with ODD & MDD being old enough to sit together on rides.

A bit of backstory to set the rest of this up: ODD had been measuring just under 48" before our trip (measured at home in the shoes she wears at the parks), and on our first day she'd insisted to go check her height at CA Screamin', so we did. Well, she was just under the line - definitely close (maybe 1/4" shy) but obviously not there yet. It was bummer for sure - but she knew before we left that she likely would be just short, so she wasn't too sad. We'd also checked her height at Universal, just in case, because she was hoping to be tall enough to ride a couple of things with the 48" requirement there too - and again, just a smidge too short. So we were pretty confident she wasn't 48" yet, haha.

We approached the CM working to request rider swap passes, and he takes a look at ODD and goes "are you sure she's not tall enough to sit in a single?" and then motioned for her to come over to the measuring stick. Much to our surprise, she was right at the line! Immediately she wanted to go check CA Screamin' again, of course! I agreed we could after we rode the swings, but also told her there might be a little difference between the two measuring sticks, and to not get too excited.

Phone pic from the ride, DH is in the red shirt with YDD, and ODD in the swing beside them. I rode with MDD and she loved it!


As soon as we got off of the swings, ODD practically dragged me around the pier to get back to CA Screamin'. We get to the measuring stick, and she backs up to it and sure enough - she's right at the line. A nearby CM comes over to double check, and waves us on through! We were both SO excited, and since it had just opened again from after WOC, we practically walked right on. She LOVED it, and wanted to go again, but by that point the line was starting to build up and DH and the other two girls were waiting for us. So that's our fun story from that trip about how ODD had a growth spurt at Disneyland practically overnight! Haha!

That was our last ride of the evening, and then it was back to the hotel for our last night at the DLH. The next day would be our last in the parks

Stay tuned for another EMH at DCA, and a lesson learned ;-)

 

[momtohms]

The morning of our last day was another EMH at DCA! DH wanted to sleep in a bit so he wasn't planning to wake up early, but I just love early mornings in the parks so I set my alarm and asked the girls if any of them wanted to join me. MDD is not a morning person at all, so I wasn't too surprised when she declined. I was a little surprised that YDD also opted to sleep in too - but she had already had her early morning with me, so I understood. When I'm anywhere else in the world, I choose sleeping in as well. Only for Disneyland do I happily set 6am alarms! I should find a shirt that says that for my next trip, haha! ODD, on the other hand, was anxious to ride CA Screamin' again, so she asked to be woken up early and go with me. Yay!

I had stayed up a little bit later than I had planned to get most of our stuff packed up for check out, so I was dragging when that early alarm went off - but it was the last day, and I didn't want to miss a second! ODD and I dressed, and headed out to DTD for our morning Starbucks stop! I got my usual iced coffee, and she chose a butter croissant and chocolate milk.

Once we were in DCA, it was straight to CA Screamin'! But first, a couple of pictures of the Pier area I am looking forward to seeing the Pixar Pier changes this summer on my next trip, but I am glad I took these pics of Paradise Pier to remember too.



At that time of the morning, the ride was completely a walk on and we ended up going THREE times in a row! We did have a small wait on the third trip because we both wanted to sit in the very front row, and had to wait a couple of turns to do so. Totally worth it!

I am way too chicken to try and use my DSLR on this ride, so have a phone pic of ODD having the time of her life!


After our 3rd ride, we decided it was time to move on, and continued our way around the pier. There wasn't much of a line for Mickey's Fun Wheel, so we hopped in a non-swinging gondola (thank goodness for that, especially considering what was to come...*insert ominous music*) It was a nice break from the intense roller coaster, and I always enjoy seeing the views from the top!

ODD watching the scenery




Next up, ODD wanted to ride the Silly Symphony Swings again, since it was another ride she could do with her newly grown height of 48" (single swing at least) ;-) There was no wait for this one, either, so we walked right on! This is such a fun ride to take photographs on!







During the ride, ODD seemed like she was having a great time, laughing and smiling. When it started to slow down and lower us back to the ground, I asked her if she wanted to go again and at first she was nodding her head in agreement. Then she makes this face and just goes pale, and starts shaking her head no really fast. As soon as I could help her out of the seat, I knew we would need to find a bathroom or trash can FAST. I managed to get her to a trash can before her breakfast made a reappearance Poor thing. That was not a fun way to find out what happens from too many spinny rides right after eating. It came out of nowhere for her too! There was a sweet lady and her daughter who saw the whole thing go down and came to our assistance with wipes and napkins and made sure ODD was okay, which I really appreciated.

Once she was feeling a bit better and we got her wiped down a bit, it was pretty clear we'd need to go back to the hotel room to change her shirt so we had to cut our morning a bit short. It ended up working out though because by this time DH and the other two were up. We decided to meet back at the hotel room and check out and get our bags in the rental car before returning to the parks for the rest of the day as a family. ODD was feeling completely fine, so I was happy that this little bout of motion sickness wasn't going to linger and ruin the rest of her day. I get horribly sick on rides like Star Tours and it just hangs around for hours, it's so miserable so I completely get how awful she must have felt before she got sick!

Next up: A second breakfast, and a fun morning and afternoon in DCA finding ways to beat the heat!

 

[deejdigsdis]

I'm just getting started with this one. Please do finish!! I am loving your pictures! You have a beautiful family.

Looks like I was there the week after you in Oct 2017. I have never seen the SCAREolers. They look awesome. My last 3 trips have been at Halloween Time and I have never even heard of them.

Do people often think your older 2 are twins? My sister and I are 16 months apart and people often thought we were twins when we were little, despite the fact that I was blonde and she was a redhead -- as you can see in my profile pic.

 

[momtohms]

I'm just getting started with this one. Please do finish!! I am loving your pictures! You have a beautiful family.

Looks like I was there the week after you in Oct 2017. I have never seen the SCAREolers. They look awesome. My last 3 trips have been at Halloween Time and I have never even heard of them.

Do people often think your older 2 are twins? My sister and I are 16 months apart and people often thought we were twins when we were little, despite the fact that I was blonde and she was a redhead -- as you can see in my profile pic.

Yay! Welcome! I am hoping to get this one finished soon Thank you so much, I love taking pics - especially of my girls and Disney!

I wasn’t familiar with the Scareolers before this trip either, and that was our first Halloween time visit so I have no idea if they were a new addition or not? I love that they have those performing groups in Downtown Disney though! It adds a bit more magic even when you aren’t in the parks yet. How fun that you were there right after that! It’s such a fun time of year to go!

Yep! I get asked if those two are twins a lot! I actually just got asked if my three were TRIPLETS! Lol! They are all pretty close in size now since my youngest is catching up in height and my older two haven’t had any big growth spurts lately. It’s fun that they are so close in age though My sister and I are 23 months apart and my mom got asked “are they twins?” about us too!

 

[momtohms]

Back at the hotel room, DH started making trips down to the rental car with the luggage that was already packed and ready to go, while I helped MDD and YDD finish getting ready and ODD changed her shirt. By the time DH returned from making the first trip, we were all ready to go, so we said goodbye to our room and took the rest of our stuff to the car. Its always sad leaving on that last day, but at least we had a late flight out of LAX so there was plenty more time to be had at the parks! Once our luggage was stored away in the trunk of our rental car, we walked back through the DLH grounds and over to DTD.

One last picture of YDD playing on the blue stars!


Since DH and the younger two hadn't really eaten breakfast yet, and ODD was feeling much better and anxious to eat again, we decided to grab something on our way through DTD. Changing it up from the usual Starbucks run, we went to Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen for a bag of beignets and also grabbed smoothies at Jamba Juice too! Eating (and drinking) our food on the go, we headed for DCA since most of our plans for the day involved rides & attractions at that park.

We headed straight for Grizzly River Run, since we hadn't done that yet. Since I had my camera and DH wanted to change into flip flops to avoid wet Converse, we rented a locker and then went to get in line. I don't recall anyone getting TOO soaked on the ride, and all of the girls thought it was great and wanted to ride again. We had planned to get a Guardians FP next, but I checked the app and the return time was already later then we would be at the parks that day. So we decided to just go standby at Guardians, and I told the girls that by the time we finished that it would be about the same time as the current return window for GRR. They all agreed to do Guardians and then come back to GRR, so we grabbed GRR FPs and headed over to Guardians.

On our way, we caught a glimpse of one of the famous Disneyland cats!


YDD was bound and determined to get it to come over to her, I'm pretty sure this is from when I was asking her for the 4875th time to please come on and we'd try and see the kitty again later, haha!


Standby for Guardians was about 45 minutes, and I think we ended up waiting closer to an hour. DH had more Ducktales on the phone to keep the girls occupied. It was REALLY hot that day, the high was 98 and it was pretty close to it by this point, and my Alaskan children are just not used to that heat. It had been 95 the day before, but we spent most of the hottest parts of the day at the pool, and it definitely feels way hotter when you are in the parks. Most of the Guardians queue is outside, and its partially shaded but not completely, so it was a toasty wait. You can see how flushed they are in this pic, I was making sure they were all drinking water that's for sure!



We were all relieved when we made it to the indoor portion of the queue! It was so much fun to see all the of the details from the movies, and I'm glad the line didn't move too fast so we had time to look at it all.





I wouldn't want to be the person who cleans this display case, I'd be so annoyed that I couldn't get the dog prints off since they're from the other side. Lol!








During our 2015 trip, this was still the Tower of Terror, and only ODD was tall enough to ride. She and I had gone on it together during one of our EMHs at DCA and it terrified her. I'm pretty sure she was dead set on never riding a ride like that again after we finished. Then after we got back home, she started changing her mind and said she would ride again our next trip. Of course, that wasn't meant to be since it's no longer TOT. However, she was pretty excited about Guardians! I was nervous about how my other two would do, as they'd never done a drop ride before, and I hadn't ridden Guardians myself yet to see how intense it was compared to TOT. We got seated in our elevator car, and off we went! Out of the six songs that they play, I was hoping we'd get the Jackson 5 song as that's one of my faves - and we did! The ride was a BLAST! My girls all had mixed feelings about it to start, I had a couple of little hands grabbing around my arms at first and then they got into it more and by the time it finished they were all glad we rode it. Not enough to want to ride again, but no one came off in tears so I considered that a success ;-)

When we exited the ride, our GRR FP window was open, so we rushed over there to get in line. DH went to do the lockers again, but they were all taken. He decided to just hang back with our bags and stay dry, so I took the girls by myself for round two! We got nice and soaked this time, which was perfect because it felt amazing in that heat. We spent a little bit more time trying to find the cat again, but it was nowhere to be found. By this point, we were all hungry again, so we decided to head over to the Pacific Wharf area for lunch!

Up next: a yummy lunch, and reaching our limits in this heat!

 

[FeistyDisneyMom]

Love the TR Great pictures and sounds like a fantastic trip! Can't wait to see how it ends up!

 

[deejdigsdis]

I just got to the part where you said your oldest 2 are 16 months apart and you get asked all the time if they are twins.

I loved seeing the Universal pictures. I haven't been to Universal Studios since 1996! My 13 year old would love to see everything Harry Potter.

Such great shots of an early morning in DCA with you and YDD! It looked so quiet. Love that time of day.

 

[momtohms]

Love the TR Great pictures and sounds like a fantastic trip! Can't wait to see how it ends up!

Thank you so much! It really was a great trip, I wish I was still on it! Haha I have a few more posts to go, I think. Thanks for reading!

I just got to the part where you said your oldest 2 are 16 months apart and you get asked all the time if they are twins.

I loved seeing the Universal pictures. I haven't been to Universal Studios since 1996! My 13 year old would love to see everything Harry Potter.

Such great shots of an early morning in DCA with you and YDD! It looked so quiet. Love that time of day.

Ha! I had completely forgotten that I wrote that earlier in my report. I guess that is bound to happen when you take a break from updating for over a year! Lol

Universal was a lot of fun, it would be nice to have a couple days there next time to see more - but we got to see our main favorites so that was nice. The HP stuff especially is so well done!

Thanks! That is my favorite time of day too, early mornings in the parks are just so magical for me. Especially the DCA early mornings.

 

[momtohms]

We made it over to the Pacific Wharf area and split up to get food at the Pacific Wharf Cafe and Cocina Cucamonga to eat. Lines at both places were pretty long, and it took a little bit to find a table, so it was awhile before we actually got to sit and eat. At this point, we were all hot and exhausted, so we decided to focus on what we could do indoors for the rest of the afternoon and made plans to try and see Frozen Live and then do Turtle Talk after. There was a little bit of a wait before the next Frozen show, so we decided to make our way over in that general direction and see how lines looked on some of the rides around that area were.

I had to take my own picture of this popular view


Finding shaded areas in Bugs Land, and MDD getting a lift from DH.


Heimlich was a short wait, so we decided to go on a little train ride! So glad we did this one last time, I'll miss that guy ;-)


Waiting...waiting...waiting...




I sat with YDD, and DH sat with MDD, so ODD claimed her own seat at the back of the train and proceeded to stretch out and relax. Haha! I can't blame her, we were all ready for a nap by then!


DH & MDD


This is the picture that I showed our friends and family when I was trying to describe just how hot it got that day for my kids. You can practically feel how hot YDD was in this pic, yikes! Don't worry, we kept them plenty hydrated and lathered in sunscreen.


Mmm Watermelon...


Once we were done with Heimlich's Chew Chew train, it was getting close to the next Frozen show time, so we decided to go over and get in line. On our way, the girls met Molly the Messenger and she gave them all Mickey stickers! How fun That definitely cheered them all up!



Next up: Frozen show pics!

 

[Jaina]

Aw, Heimlich! I already miss his sweet-smelling ride! And it definitely looks warm!

 

[momtohms]

Aw, Heimlich! I already miss his sweet-smelling ride! And it definitely looks warm!

Me too! I will definitely miss that attraction in Bugs Land most of all. It always gave me a giggle. That, and the button shaped ride wait sign outside of Flik's Flyers that we took a pic of the girls by for both our 2015 and 2017 trips.

 

[deejdigsdis]

All caught up!

It was so sad to see your girls watching out the window while the characters interacted with everyone else outside for Minnie and Friends. So glad Eeyore finally got the ball rolling with some interaction!

Also sad that your ODD got sick after the swings. Poor thing! That moment when you know it's coming can be scary at that age.

The heat looks miserable. I am not a hot weather gal at all! Give me 60° all summer long.

 

[deejdigsdis]

Forgot to mention that your DD's birthday looked like such a special day!