"Are you sure you don't mind going to Disney while I'm at a conference?" July 2016 PTR

[ChrisParker]

Salutations

As planning this trip is one of my chief and low-cost diversions lately, I thought I would have a go at a trip report. I have LOVED some of the ones I've been reading lately and have been inspired.

So. Here is the deal. DH has got a conference at the conference centre in July. Imagine the following:

DH. AACRAO is in Anaheim next year.
ME. Anaheim California?
DH. Yes.
ME. As in where Disneyland is.
DH. Yeah. Do you want to go?
ME. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Of course!
DH. Will we take the kids?
ME. Negative.
DH. Will you mind going to Disney by yourself while I'm working?
ME. Have we even MET?!

So this is a "cheap" vacation b/c work is paying for DH's flight and the Anaheim Marriott. As if there is such a thing as a "cheap" Disney vacation. But let's use that as a working definition.

I never went to Disney as a kid but have been about 8 times in the past twelve years to WDW. One Disney Cruise with all 4 kids and this is my first time to DL.

Role Call -

Here we are on our cruise in 2014 -

DFN-140810-Minnie_Statue-11796787 by Chris Parker74, on Flickr

I have now spent an hour trying to find our honeymoon pictures. Can I find them? Can I heck. More later on that hopefully. Blasted cloud.

Details of the trip - Toronto to LAX - July 8. DH in conference July 9 - 12. Which means days at DLR for me and evenings at DLR for us!

I have been scouring the disboards and reading the Unofficial guide back to front to back... Lots to plan.

Hopefully that pigging picture will work and I will do some proper introductions on the next post!

 

[ChrisParker]

Righteho.

So a proper Roll Call -

Here is me. I'm 41 and massively addicted to Disney. As I said, I didn't go as a child #deprived. But I've made up for it since in spades and I can't wait to go this summer to where it all began.

This is not a Disney picture but is a picture from last summer's conference holiday in Austin. I LOVE Austin. By day two I wanted to move there. But I digress.

DSC02216 by Chris Parker74, on Flickr

DH, also 41 didn't know he was a Disney fan until I converted his lovely self. We went to WDW for our honeymoon in 2012, then came home and took our kids on a Familymoon there as well. That was a WILD summer. We went back for our first anniversary (naturally) and then took the kids on a Disney cruise two years ago. A new house with a pool this summer means no trip although I do have a PIN code on the fridge just in case... Here he is driving a Nascar on his Richard Petty Driving Experience which was his wedding present.

nascar by

Together we have 4 children...here is a picture of them from the cruise. But they're not relevant to this trip. Sorry guys. Maybe next year...

[url=https://flic.kr/p/ovhQ5K]DFN-140810-Formal_Moon_Portrait-11793943 by https://www.flickr.com/photos/76216340@N04/[/url]

 

[disneyguy4life]

I am looking forward to the rest of your PTR. LET THE PLANNING BEGIN!!!

 

[ChrisParker]

I am looking forward to the rest of your PTR. LET THE PLANNING BEGIN!!!

Wahoo! The first comment. Full steam ahead.

 

[klacey1]

Joining in! So funny, I was at the spring AACRAO show in Phoenix (I cover higher education for a publishing company). Love when you can combine work and fun!! (I'm attending another conference this October that's in Anaheim and also planning a DL side trip!)
Excited to hear all of your plans!

 

[ChrisParker]

Well here we are. I suppose a list of things I should do is in order, mostly because I'm hoping some of you who have done this before will boss me around and tell me what I'm doing wrong. I'm very directable. Put me in coach. Etc. Also I have what some might call a "problem" with detail. In Italian the word is "precisa" which roughly translated means "precise" (duh) but I prefer to call it "doing things the right way." It means I have grammar rage also. But I digress.

Please find below some gratuitous pictures of our Honeymoon (I LOVE THAT GUY) and more from our familymoon. I think I made that word up. It was SO. AWESOME.

Me: So after the wedding let's go to Disneyworld.
DH: Ok sounds good.
Me: And then let's come back home and get the kids and take THEM to Disneyworld. Like a familymoon.
DH: Come again?
Me: We'll go with the kids too. So they feel included. We're a whole new family!
DH: Two times in the same summer?
Me: Yeah. Of course. Once by ourselves and once with the kids.
DH: Twice in one summer.
Me: HURRY! WE HAVE TO BOOK OHANA RIGHT NOW!!!

Bless him. He got dumped in the Disney deep end with me. So the pictures are a) because of our awesome familymoon but also so you can say - Wow! Look at those T Shirts! I made them my own self so I did. Each child had a large ziploc bag with their name and a number so they would all have the same outfit on the same day. PRECISA.

Honeymoon -
Photo0168FourBySix by

Familymoon -

[url=https://flic.kr/p/GgDGTz]Photo0232FourBySix by

THAT's the face we love!!

[url=https://flic.kr/p/GemKJG]Photo0260FourBySix by

Just for fun -

[url=https://flic.kr/p/Fmo8HH]Photo0341FourBySix by

So here is the to do list. In no particular order. And will someone please tell me why I can't book things until 60 days before? And the tour 30 days before? Are they trying to kill me over here?

1. book tours
2. choose what tour to do (insert before 1)
3. Book restaurants
4. Choose restaurants (insert before 3)
5. Decide if Touring Plans are the way to go
6. Play with Touring Plans app ad nauseum (dependant on 5)
7. Learn more about Anaheim Marriott.
8. Figure out how to get some groceries into the room. Current ideas - have Uber driver stop at Target or whatever on the way to the hotel, sign onto free trial of Amazon Prime 30 days before trip, Figure out how to get Canadian visa to work on whatever the normal grocery ordering thing is (Where is Garden Grocer when you need them?)
9. Figure out how to get from LAX to DLR. Current plan - Uber.
10. Decide whether to make matching T shirts. How many to make?
11. Decide what rides to do with and without DH. He doesn't do roller coasters so that makes part of it quite easy.
12. To Blue Bayou PTN or not? I'm hoping by the time we go they have changed this contentious end of Main Street viewing debacle.

I'm sure there is more but did I mention - What is UP with this 60 day booking thing? [/url][/url][/url]

 

[ChrisParker]

Joining in! So funny, I was at the spring AACRAO show in Phoenix (I cover higher education for a publishing company). Love when you can combine work and fun!! (I'm attending another conference this October that's in Anaheim and also planning a DL side trip!)
Excited to hear all of your plans!

I LOVE AACRAO. Those lovely people have been keeping me in micro vacations for four years now. God Bless the Techies!

 

[disneyguy4life]

My wife and I tried out a touring plan service. I can't remember what it was called...but it didn't work for us. Having said that, we didn't have any kids at the time and it happened to not be as busy when we went Nov. 2013. So that might have made a difference. I can certainly see the attractiveness of having a touring plan, especially with kids. It would make planning a lot easier and time more enjoyable. But Disneyland allows for a more easy and go with the flow planning style. At least it did 3 years ago. Its been a while. That is my experience. I don't know if that will help.

 

[ChrisParker]

My wife and I tried out a touring plan service. I can't remember what it was called...but it didn't work for us. Having said that, we didn't have any kids at the time and it happened to not be as busy when we went Nov. 2013. So that might have made a difference. I can certainly see the attractiveness of having a touring plan, especially with kids. It would make planning a lot easier and time more enjoyable. But Disneyland allows for a more easy and go with the flow planning style. At least it did 3 years ago. Its been a while. That is my experience. I don't know if that will help.

Thanks for that! I've heard very mixed things about TP at DL - mostly good at WDW and I have found the crowd calculators there to be bang on. We have had a lot of good family evenings especially by going to the 'right' park after dinner. But...we shall see...I'm currently playing with the app as I gave in and subscribed for 6 months.

 

[ChrisParker]

Well... a lot of reading the disboards and this book -

IMG_1744

I am getting closer to having a clue about this DLR business. I read the 2015 one first and then started on this one...the 2015 was tricky to read after a while because I spilled a big glass of water on it and then it was all wrinkly...

DH will be in his conference from 8 until 5 give or take from July 9 until July 11 and then until 11:30 on the morning of the 12th. We are flying in on the 8th...

flights

I was tempted to take the flights back that took us overnight but for some reason DH did not want to drive from the airport directly to work on the 13th. Some people can be so selfish.

But for reals, what time am I going to be to the Marriott when we land at 12:18? Am I going to be ok to plan dinner at Blue Bayou for 5?

I could tell I was in planning mode today when I was walking through Hobby Lobby (trip to Michigan for some Kohl's love) and I saw a rack of T shirts and I thought... "I wonder if those are cotton-rich enough for me to make DisneyLand t shirts for us?"

Something I haven't yet planned time for is Downtown Disney but then I think of World of Disney and then I read about the YouAreHere mugs and I'm thinking, should I plan to spend some time there?

The naked schedule so far is thus:

July 8 - land 12:18 - hopefully BB for dinner and then PTN and a few rides.
July 9 - Rope drop for me. Welcome to Disney tour for me. Maybe rest back in the afternoon for me. Spectacular Evening for us. Or possibly DH is exhausted and we go buy the children a million souvenirs at Downtown. Possible Carthay Circle dinner for us and Soarin'...
July 10 - Cove Bar nachos for dinner. Or maybe that goes yesterday so we can have WOC seating tonight and eat at Carthay Circle.
July 11 ...
July 12 - No idea how early we need to leave for airport.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Joining in - good luck with all the planning!

Just did our first trip to Disneyland last October and I found planning for it was quite a bit different than for Disney World. For a few of our meals I wasn't able to book until about 5 weeks out because they hadn't finalized park hours until that point. As someone used to having everything set 180 days out, that was a bit nerve racking!

 

[ChrisParker]

Joining in - good luck with all the planning!

Just did our first trip to Disneyland last October and I found planning for it was quite a bit different than for Disney World. For a few of our meals I wasn't able to book until about 5 weeks out because they hadn't finalized park hours until that point. As someone used to having everything set 180 days out, that was a bit nerve racking!

WORD.

However, there's this thing called "moderation" that they keep telling me about so maybe the West Coast peeps are better at that and don't need to know six months from when they'll be eating skewered shrimp and riding Soarin'?

I am hoping we will be able to go back to WDW (with the children - I'm not a total monster) next summer but because we share custody of our children in the summer we won't know our summer schedules until May 1 next year and next year is not our year to choose first. Which means I will be torn between making tentative plans I might have to change and waiting until May 1st to plan a WDW vacation. That paragraph was a grammatical nightmare. #EnglishTeacher #Bygones. (The Dis is the only place I use hashtags because I do not want my business all public. Please tell me these hashtags don't go anywhere in cyberspace...

Believe me, I know these are GOOD PROBLEMS TO HAVE.

 

[ChrisParker]

My wife and I tried out a touring plan service. I can't remember what it was called...but it didn't work for us. Having said that, we didn't have any kids at the time and it happened to not be as busy when we went Nov. 2013. So that might have made a difference. I can certainly see the attractiveness of having a touring plan, especially with kids. It would make planning a lot easier and time more enjoyable. But Disneyland allows for a more easy and go with the flow planning style. At least it did 3 years ago. Its been a while. That is my experience. I don't know if that will help.

I've heard not great things about Touring Plans for DLR - but there is another one I think that people like better. I'll have to look it up. When I'm on my own I imagine things will be faster because I'll be doing single rider whenever I can... and then there's something to be said I think for getting an overall understanding of the traffic in the parks and what to do first and the fact that I should be there early...only recently did we start doing rope drop at WDW with the kids because I couldn't be doing with it when they were tiny. And when DH and I went on our own (did I mention we did that two times #terribleparents) we took sleeping in as part of the vacation. But it seems extra important at DLR to be there super early and DH gets up at the butt crack of dawn anyway so up I will get up with him and head my butt over to the parks.

Thanks for following along!

 

[ChrisParker]

Questions for y'all who are veterans -

1. What is the walk like from the Anaheim Marriott?
2. Have you used a touring plans type service?
3. Are there places in the parks to fill up a water bottle? I have a habit of getting heat stroke.
4. Has anyone used Uber from LAX?
5. Did anyone see SNL last night? Oh. My. LANTA. Long live Elaine Benes.

 

[ChrisParker]

Well here I am again....some time later and now only two weeks and a bit away from our trip! The time has snuck up on me because I have been waiting for the 30 day mark to book things and kind of putting off thinking it's about to happen until that point...then I have been only thinking about the time up until June 30 because I am a teacher and the summer always seems "far away" until the last exam is written.

BUT NOW...it is almost two weeks until we go. Blimey.

Updated planning...

I have joined a 30 day free trial of Amazon Prime Fresh and have ordered a few snack items to our room for the four days. I only want to take carryon so we can't take any liquids with us. I'll see if I can take a screen shot of my order...

So as you can see, some drinks and snacks. Hopefully the snacks are such (except for that corner yoghurt that we can't get in Canada so I had to order some and hopefully it will fit in the fridge) that we can take home what we don't eat. I don't like to be hungry and looking for a vending machine in a hotel. It annoys me when I have to spend money on things that I don't want to spend money on. There are PLENTY of things that I want to spend money on to go around.

As well I ordered a one dollar handsoap, a starter kit of someone kind of decent shampoo and conditioner and some mouthwash for DH. Those were things I could have picked up here and taken if we were checking baggage but as it is I've spent the money to have them. In the same vein as resenting spending money in a vending machine when I could have had things i wanted more if I had planned, I resent being on vacation and having to use lousier shampoo than when I am at home. Go figure. Being this persnickety requires a lot of planning. Good thing I am a good planner!