It's a long way to Paradise...

AusAnnie

Mouseketeer
Joined
Feb 1, 2016
Hi everyone: I’m new to Disboards – well I have been lurking for a little while, anticipating and planning our holiday to Disneyland, Las Vegas & Hawaii in April.

Let me introduce us: I’m Annie and my husband is Tony and we live in Adelaide, Australia so it’s quite an epic trip for us to the States. We had already planned to take 4 weeks off work in April 2016 quite a while ago but didn’t actually start booking anything until November 2015. As the Australian dollar is not fabulous at the moment we were trying to get the best value possible for our money. This brings us to the LONG LONG journey we took to arrive at our first destination – Disneyland!!!
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The 2nd of April finally arrived and a lovely friend dropped us off at the Adelaide airport.

We left Adelaide at 10am on our first flight and arrived in Sydney about 2 hours later. After lining up for our next flight (Jetstar to Honolulu) for about 20 minutes only to be told once we had finally reached the front of the queue that we couldn’t check in for another 2 hours. Arrgh – so suitcases in tow we wandered off to find some food and try to kill some time. Eventually 2 hours had passed so we headed back toward the check in desks to join the queue again! All went well with the check in and we headed through security and towards the gates. We found a comfortable spot, Tone found a beer and we logged onto the wifi to follow our football team’s game on the internet. Finally it was time to board!! The flight left on time and was uneventful – but long!! It was approximately 9 hours to Honolulu and we didn’t really get much sleep. We had pre-booked the entertainment package so both managed to watch a couple of movies, play some games and watch a few tv shows.
 
We arrived in Honolulu at 6am local time and it was really quick getting through customs and immigration. So quick that we had about a 7 hour stopover before our next flight (Hawaiian Air to Los Angeles). We did go to the customer service desk to see if we could get an earlier flight but it was going to cost a ridiculous amount to change the flight and it was also going to affect our return flight to as it was part of a package. Luckily, we were able to check our suitcases and get our boarding passes for our flight right then which was a relief. We found The Bus stop right outside the terminal and caught the next bus to Ala Moana shopping centre. Unfortunately, we were so early that nothing was really open – not even the restrooms. We eventually found a coffee shop that was open and sat down for a little coffee and juice break. At about 8.30 we decided to walk to Walmart as we knew that would be open. We had a good look around but didn’t actually buy anything as we knew that we would be back in a couple of weeks and we didn’t really want to carry anything extra in our hand luggage. After at least an hour in Walmart we headed back over to Ala Moana and wandered around the shops for a while and then stopped for brunch in the food court. We were both really tired so decided to head back on the bus to the airport at about 11.30. It was lucky that we did because when we arrived back at the airport there was a huge line-up to get through security and it probably took us close to an hour to get through. While we were in the line Tone saw someone that he knew from Adelaide so he stopped to chat, and found out that they were heading back to Australia after honeymooning in Hawaii.
 
Our flight was at 2.40pm and as far as I can recall it left on time and there were no complications. We were very surprised (but happy) to be given meal service on the flight – quite a nice pasta dish, salad and a cookie. The flight was about 5 ½ hours and I know that I managed to doze for a little while. We arrived in Los Angeles at 11pm local time, collected our suitcases and headed outside to find our Supershuttle to Anaheim.
 


We had to wait about 10 minutes for our shuttle and then the drive to Anaheim took about 40 minutes I think. There didn’t seem to be a great deal of traffic at that time of the night. We arrived at our hotel a little after midnight. We were staying at the Carousel which is right across the street from Disneyland!! Our room was on the 3rd floor and close to the front of the hotel so very convenient for coming and going. It was quite a nice room with a HUGE bathroom and would do us nicely for the next 10 days. So, by the time we had reached the hotel and had checked in it was 28 hours since we had left our home in Adelaide!! It probably seems crazy to do it as such a long journey but because I had booked Jetstar: Adelaide – Honolulu return as a sale special and then Hawaiian Air: Honolulu – Los Angeles return also as a sale special it had saved me over $1000 AUD which I thought was better in my pocket!
 
Thanks for reading TEAMJACOB! it sure was a LONG travel day. We weren't actually too jet lagged surprisingly. We had a great night's sleep that night so that set us up for the first day.
 


After a good night’s sleep we woke up at about 8.30am and got up and got ready to head to Disneyland for the day. I was excited to start hearing Disney music as soon as we had crossed the street – we were nearly there!!! The walk to bag check was about 7 minutes and of course Tone got picked to go through the metal detector. We worked out that out of the many times that we crossed through bag check over the next 10 days – there were only 2 times that one of us wasn’t sent through the metal detector. At least they were consistent. We took our voucher to the ticket booth to pick up our 10 day Park Hoppers – yes I did say 10 days!! Apparently you can only buy them in Australia or New Zealand. Tone got Pluto and I got Minnie Mouse. We lined up at the entrance to Disneyland, had our photos taken and then we were in!!! 504104_04_2016.JPG
It was so exciting and that feeling of being a little kid again came back to me right then. On previous trips we had always taken a ride on the Railroad first but because it was not operating we had to start somewhere else. We decided on the Disney Gallery and had a good look around and took some photos.
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On our way up Main Street we worked our way through a few shops and decided to press a penny, which we had never done before but it was a small & cheap souvenir. I actually collected quite a few during our trip.
 
We could see Sleeping Beauty Castle as we got further up Main Street - isn't she beautiful!!504504_04_2016.JPG
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Our first ride had to be Indiana Jones which has been our favourite for a long time.


Yes it was still as good as I remembered. (Our last visit was 2009 so it had been a while) 505204_04_2016.JPG



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We worked our way around to ride Pirates and then Haunted Mansion – both had about a 20 minute line which we could easily cope with.



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Selfie time:

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After those rides which were both awesome, we had a look around the shops in New Orleans Square and found the Pandora shop which I had planned to purchase an exclusive charm from. It was too busy in there so we decided to come back another time. It was about time for lunch so we headed toward the Hungry Bear café where I had the turkey wrap and Tone had the Picnic Salad. My wrap was very nice but his salad looked amazing. So much so that we came back to the Hungry Bear for lunch a couple of other times during our visit and both had the salad.

After lunch we rode Winnie the Pooh which was very cute. Splash was down for some reason.
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After we had checked out Critter Country and had taken some photos of Pooh and Tigger,
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we went to the New Orleans station to have a look at the train. I took a couple of photos there but we didn’t stop to talk to the conductor as he already had another party with him.
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Next up was Big Thunder Mountain railroad, which, when I rode it on a previous visit, I absolutely hated.
Well I didn’t hate it this time, it was fun!! After that act of bravery we decided to head over to Tomorrowland. 508604_04_2016.JPG
We lined up for 60 minutes for Star Tours (after grabbing Fast passes for later). I had never been on that before either so had decided that I had to give it a try. Well I LOVED, LOVED it!! Have I found a new favourite ride???

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After Star Tours we went over to Buzz and it was only a 10 minute line. Tone is always so much better than me at this one, but we did manage to ride it about 4 times in a row because there was no wait. One time his laser wasn’t working so it was the only time my score was way better than his!! We emailed all the photos home to compare. 512304_04_2016.JPG
Star Wars Launch bay was next on our list and we had a meet with Kylo-ren and Chewbacca.


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Kylo Ren was a little intimidating so it was a little bit of an awkward meet but Chewie was awesome and he decided that my hair was much like his.509504_04_2016.JPG
 
Our Fast pass time for Star Tours was due so we rode that again and had a different version to the first one – still very awesome. The back row seems to
be much more of a rough ride than the front!!
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We rode Buzz a couple more times as there was hardly any wait, then crossed the hub stopping to take some Partners and castle photos on the way towards IJ.



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I think that the IJ line was 25 minutes which wasn’t too bad so we rode that and then Pirates and HM again. Tone had the red time card at IJ which he was very excited about – he felt very special and important. 513504_04_2016.JPG
 
By the time we had finished those three rides it was almost time for Paint the Night so we headed down Main Street and managed to find a spot opposite Great Moments with Mr Lincoln where the parade could be seen from both sides as it came around. Tone wasn’t really too keen on staying around for PTN but I had seen so many posts about it and some great photos so I was definitely keen to see it. Anyway, by the time it reached us he had come around and was happily snapping photos. 517704_04_2016.JPG 517604_04_2016.JPG 518004_04_2016.JPG 518904_04_2016.JPG 519304_04_2016.JPG 519604_04_2016.JPG 520504_04_2016.JPG 520904_04_2016.JPG
 
The atmosphere was great and the song was so cool and catchy - I kept finding myself singing it at odd times!!20160403_210937.jpg

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After PTN we moved (with everyone else) up into Main Street to watch Disneyland Forever Fireworks Spectacular!! It was amazing, beautiful and definitely spectacular!!!

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We browsed through the Emporium for a little while after while the crowds dispersed and chose a few souvenirs to purchase later in the trip.

It had been quite a few hours since lunch so we stopped at Tony Romas for a late dinner before heading back to the hotel. All in all it had been a great first day and we had actually done quite a bit.
 
Sounds like a great first day! Excited to hear how the rest of your days go. 10 days at a leisurely pace sounds awesome!
 
Following! Great TR so far-- I love the pictures! it's making me so excited for our trip, which starts on Tuesday!
 
Following! Great TR so far-- I love the pictures! it's making me so excited for our trip, which starts on Tuesday!

Thank you. How exciting that you go on Tuesday!! I sure would love to be doing it all again. I'll be reading your trip report!!
 
Sounds like a great first day! Excited to hear how the rest of your days go. 10 days at a leisurely pace sounds awesome!
Thank you for following. There is a lot more to come - that's for sure. It was nice not to have to rush to take it all in, especially as it was pretty busy while we were there. I think that we caught part of Spring Break which definitely made for longer lines.
 

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