June 2017 Pre-Trip Report – WDW vets make their first DLR trip

[Khokhonutt]

How is the planning coming along? Have any other questions?

The only thing I've seen that stands out as remotely problematic that I haven't seen mentioned yet is that MM is only available at Disneyland with a 5 day parkhopper ticket. It's also only on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays in the Disneyland park (the other days have EE for resort guests at DCA) so you'll have to decide if you want to use it on Tuesday morning or Thursday morning.

I just want to say I love a family that vacations together with their adult children. As an adult who tries to vacation with her parents at least once a year it's nice to see other families making that effort too. Hubby and I will be heading to the parks in June too for a 5.5 day trip using the APs we bought last August on an 8 day trip to Disneyland. I think 5 days will be awesome, but then I'm of the opinion that you can never have enough park time!

AZ, as far as park planning goes, I feel like we've done about as much of the formal planning as we can for now. At this point I'm reading the boards and other Disneyland related material to see what we might have missed while we wait on official park hours to be released. I've done the calculations on when we need to put in reservations. I realize it's not as big of a deal to get in on day 1 of ADRs at DLR, but the planner in me will want to have the ADRs "in-hand" and know I can always try to change them later.

Alli, we hope to continue our family vacations with our kids as long as we can. We're happy that they want to spend time with us and it's important to us to give them options. When my wife and I were in the military, we felt very limited when it came to vacation. Nothing against the rest of our family, but we felt every vacation had to be a trip home. Some of that had to do with money being tight, some had to do with seeing home. Either way, we wished we did more vacations to see other stuff.

Since our kids have been in, we've done our best to visit them where they're assigned. We didn't make it to Korea, when our son was there. The plane tickets were just ridiculous, but we'd love to go back there someday. We did visit him in Hawaii and we've now visited Arizona and Vegas. We've told the kids that they are always welcome here at home, but we don't want them to feel obligated to kill all of their leave time coming here. With that in mind, we've worked on doing vacations near where they are, so we can do cool different stuff together. We'll do that as long as we can, but realize at some point they're going to start their own families and have those priorities. At that point we'll just hope they continue to allow us to tag along.

I actually have done quite a bit of thinking about MM and I understand we'll only be working with Tuesday and Thursday at DL. That was one of the things that really had me indecisive on where to stay and whether it was worth the significant cost to stay in one of the DLR resorts to get the EMH every day. In the end, we decided to live with the one MM and do what we can to work around that.

Assuming park hours are the same as they were last summer, our plan right now will look something like this:

Day 1 (Sunday): We won't use park tickets this day. We'll hopefully arrive in Anaheim between 9am and 10am and head straight to the hotel. We'll see whether we can check into our room and park. If yes, we'll get moved in, then head over to DTD and the DLR hotels. I'd like to see each of the hotels, just to see what they look like. We'd like to grab a drink and snacks at Trader Sam's and then grab something to eat in DTD. We'll probably find a place to watch the fireworks, then head to hotel to get ready for our first parks day. If we can't park when we arrive, we're going to head down to the Dim Sum restaurant I mentioned earlier in this report. We'll eat lunch, then come back and check in when our room is ready, then continue with the DTD and DLR hotel exploring we planned.

Day 2 (Monday): Park orientation. The primary goal this day would be to get the lay of the land. We'll go into DL at their rope drop, cruise around. Ride where we see a decent wait, grab fast passes that make sense but mainly spend the day orienting ourselves. I think we will do our Blue Bayou ADR this day as an early lunch. I've heard making an 11:30 ADR gives us the best chance at sitting by the ride, so we'll try that. We've got park hoppers, so we'll likely roam over the CA at some point with the goal of getting back to DL in time for fireworks. With this being the first day, I'm not sure how much time we'll spend back at the hotel. We'll play that by ear.

Day 3 (Tuesday): DL with a plan. We'll use our MM this day and hit DL with a planned split shift. I'm leaning towards using one of the planner apps, most likely ridemax, on this trip. I've never used a planning guide at WDW, but we know those parks well enough that we never felt the need. For the relatively low cost I'm curious how a plan using an app would go. Basically, though, we'd hit MM rope drop, ride all we can until around lunch time or so, then head back to the hotel for a break and return later to close the place down. Assuming we got to see the fireworks at DL on Monday, we'll probably try to do WOC on Tuesday night.

Day 4 (Wednesday): CA with a plan. I know the DLR resort guests will have EMH at CA this day, but we'll hit regular rope drop and follow a plan to hit as many rides as we can in CA. Again, we'll break around lunch time and head back into the parks for the evening. We have a list of rides that we want to ride during the day and at night, including RSR, so we'll try to time some fast passes for that. Worst case, we've done the single rider line on Test Track. I've read the system works about the same at RSR, so we'll do that if we don't get the fast passes we want.

Day 5 (Thursday) & Day 6 (Friday): What we plan for these days will largely depend on what we've gotten done on the first 3 days in the parks. Thursday should be our one day when we can hit CA at rope drop and be on an even playing field with the DLR hotel guests. With that in mind we'll likely rope drop CA and hit the morning with a plan. From there we'll float between the parks as warranted. I mentioned the day and night rides. At this point we have the following try to ride day and night rides in mind:

• Jungle Cruise. This has always been one of our favorite do it both during the day and at night rides at WDW.
• Matterhorn
• Radiator Springs Racers
• Monorail
• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

I've intentionally thought in more general terms for our day plans at this point for a few reasons. First, as much as I think we can probably assume what the summer hours will be, I'm not going to assume and make any plans until we see our park hours published. Second, I'm real curious if the new fast pass system will be in place when we get there. I'll be honest, I really hope they wait to implement that until after the summer, but I'm not counting on it going either way. I know it could be a factor, so I'm keeping an eye on that information as much as I can. Third, I'm going to wait to get the shorter ridemax subscription. I know the year deal isn't much more, but I'm not sure having it 6 months out does me much good. If I get it 3 months out, I feel I'll have plenty of time to get comfortable with the app.

Feel free to poke any holes in what we have planned so far. I'm always interested in hearing what others with more experience have to say.

 

[azdisneylover]

Good morning!

You are right about having all your formal planning finished. For me,
the hardest part of planning a trip is the waiting for the trip to start.
Your day 1 sounds great! You will enjoy strolling around the Disney Hotels and
DTD.

Your planning sounds great! I can only suggest to take lots of pictures, pack
sunscreen and enjoy. The parks usually aren't that crowded first thing in the
morning, but they do load up in the late morning and on.

Hopefully the train will be running during your trip. It will help you move
from one part of the park to the otherside in a snap. For some reason, I get a
creepy vibe at the Tomorrowland Train Station, especially at night. I don't
know why.

At the Disneyland site, the daily calendar lists the times for the entertainment
going on in the parks, for example, the times for Alice and the Mad Hatter
musical chair times on Main Street. Knowing what is going in where help you
to either see something you would want to see, or avoid a big crowd.

I like to purchase Disney gift cards at Target using the red card. It saves 5%. I combine the cards on the Disney site (you can load up to $1000) per card. This
makes it easier to pay for things in the parks and Disney shops/hotels.

Here is a link to Anaheim's visitor page: http://visitanaheim.org

I don't know if you have checked it out. Sometimes they have coupons that
save a nice chunk of change.

 

[Khokhonutt]

Good morning!

You are right about having all your formal planning finished. For me, the hardest part of planning a trip is the waiting for the trip to start. Your day 1 sounds great! You will enjoy strolling around the Disney Hotels and DTD.

Thanks! I hear you, the waiting is the hard part!

Your planning sounds great! I can only suggest to take lots of pictures, pack sunscreen and enjoy. The parks usually aren't that crowded first thing in the morning, but they do load up in the late morning and on.

Oh yes. Many pictures will be taken. I'm also planning on bringing our GoPro. I've been watching a ton of Disneyland GoPro videos for ideas.

And there will be sunscreen. We've done WDW in the heat of the summer and understand the importance of good sun protection.

Hopefully the train will be running during your trip. It will help you move from one part of the park to the otherside in a snap. For some reason, I get a creepy vibe at the Tomorrowland Train Station, especially at night. I don't know why.

I'm very hopeful that the train will be working, but I'm not going to be surprised if it's not. I know this is Walt's park and trains were one of his "things". I'd be very happy to see them running, but if they're not, it'll be a definite reason to plan another DLR trip in the future.

At the Disneyland site, the daily calendar lists the times for the entertainment going on in the parks, for example, the times for Alice and the Mad Hatter musical chair times on Main Street. Knowing what is going in where help you to either see something you would want to see, or avoid a big crowd.

Yes, we love the shows and know they're both a great way to escape the heat and fun entertainment. This is another area where I've been looking at the options, but will look at more specifics when schedules start to release.

I like to purchase Disney gift cards at Target using the red card. It saves 5%. I combine the cards on the Disney site (you can load up to $1000) per card. This makes it easier to pay for things in the parks and Disney shops/hotels.

We've been purchasing gift cards and combining them as sort of a savings plan. We also have been giving them as gifts to the kids, as a way of helping them with their budget as well.

Here is a link to Anaheim's visitor page: http://visitanaheim.org

I don't know if you have checked it out. Sometimes they have coupons that save a nice chunk of change.

Thanks, I'll check that out. I don't know how much we'll be doing outside the parks, but I'm always interested in options.

I think I mentioned this somewhere else in the PTR, but maybe not. When we first started talking about this trip, we considered visiting other parts of SoCal as part of this trip, but ended up deciding to leave that for another trip. Our thoughts on that included the following:

• We've always made Disney trips in the past dedicated to Disney. Right or wrong, we spend so much time planning, then so much time getting as much time as we can out of the park experiences that we just never let anything else "get in the way."
• I've seen a few people talk about how they wore themselves out doing other activities and Disney. We didn't want to run into that.
• There's so much else to see in Southern California, we couldn't decide what to do and not do. Rather, we figure that will be a separate trip in the future. We had a similar thought process when visiting our son in Arizona. The state is so big, there was no way we were going to do everything. So we decided to hit the Grand Canyon, then spend most of the week seeing what southern Arizona had to offer. We'll make another trip to see the northern half of the state

Thanks again!

 

[Khokhonutt]

Well, we've had kind of a crappy turn of events over the past few days. I can't be too specific, but one of the kids is not going to be able to make the trip due to a schedule conflict. For a number of reasons, it doesn't make sense for us to cancel or move the trip again, so we're going to go as a group of four and plan another trip down the road to include the one who can't make it. It sucks, but it's one of those things you learn to deal with when you're either in the military or related to a military member.

The show will go on and we will continue the march.

 

[VandVsmama]

Well, we've had kind of a crappy turn of events over the past few days. I can't be too specific, but one of the kids is not going to be able to make the trip due to schedule conflict. For a number of reasons, it doesn't make sense for us to cancel or move the trip again, so we're going to go as a group of four and plan another trip down the road to include the one who can't make it. It sucks, but it's one of those things you learn to deal with when you're either in the military or related to a military member.

The show will go on and we will continue the march.

How disappointing! That stinks!

 

[Khokhonutt]

We're kind of in a holding pattern at this point. We've made the unfortunate, but necessary adjustments to our reservations. Now we're waiting for a few things...

• In April we'll hit a couple of milestones. April is when we can make our ADRs. I've heard being ready for that on day one isn't as necessary at DLR as it is at WDW, but I'm going to be ready anyway.
• In April we also have to start getting the dogs shots up to date. Normally we wouldn't have to do that until May & June (when their annual shots are due), but the vet we're boarding them at in Vegas also requires a canine influenza shot. We've never done that with our dogs and luckily I called our vet early. They informed us that if we wanted to be current on that shot, it requires an initial shot, then a month later requires a booster for the dog to be considered "current". With that in mind, we'll get the pups in for the initial shot in April, giving them time to get their booster in May. We want to do that in plenty of time to make sure they don't have an adverse reaction, well before the trip.
• We're also, like everyone else, waiting for the other shoe to drop with MaxPass. I've got a lot of thoughts regarding the new proposed fastpass system. Part of me just wants it to wait until after we go in June. The biggest reason for that feeling is not wanting something dropped last minute that could seriously impact planning. If it's going to happen before July, then I say let it drop now, so we have as much time as possible to learn about it. As far as price goes, for us it would strictly be a paid fastpass option. We already have photopass purchased, so the photo benefits of MaxPass wouldn't really help us. Even with the photo features, I'm pretty sure I can't see us paying $40 per day for 5 days. If they offer a graduated discount over the course of a 5 day pass, I might change my mind. While I could see some benefits to doing certain fastpass processes on my phone, I'm concerned if they rush to implement without proper infrastructure, it could be a mess. It's one thing to say I want to do it all on my phone. It's another thing if the cellular network is saturated. The same thing could be said for any "free" wifi in the parks, if that's spun up. I know everything is speculation at this point, those are just my thoughts at this point.

 

[Khokhonutt]

We've started tossing around the idea of renting a car versus driving one of our vehicles. We've rented vehicles for long trips before. It's nice to jump into an almost new car that is someone else's problem if there are mechanical issues and put a ton of mileage on it rather than ours. There are really only a couple of downsides to renting a car. Obviously there's the rental cost, but in our case that cost can sometimes be offset by a savings in fuel expenses. The other downside is size, which also can be a plus in some cases.

Our travel vehicle is a Dodge Ram 1500. It's a crew cab, so there's lots of interior room. I've also got a sealed tonneau cover, so we have a ton of "trunk" space. It averages 20 mpg on the highway, which is pretty good for a vehicle that size. I love pretty much everything about my truck, but it can be a pain to park in congested areas and it's starting to get up there in miles at just over 80k miles on it.

If we rent a full size car, we'd still have plenty of room. It would likely get better mileage than the truck. It would be easier to park in Anaheim and Vegas. And we would be putting probably 4,000+ miles on someone else's car. I get a pretty decent discount with a couple of my memberships and we can rent from a local agency that saves a good bit from renting at an airport.

At this point it's pretty much down to finalizing some budget items and confirming our best price and vehicle size option, before we make a final decision.

 

[Khokhonutt]

So I mentioned earlier in this report that I'm an old weather guy, from my time in the military. I don't have access to charts and stuff that I used to, but I can usually make sense enough of the current forecasts to have a decent interpretation on what to expect. With that in mind, one item I've been researching recently is what to expect in regards to weather when we're in DLR. We've done WDW in the spring, the fall and the heat of the summer, so we know how weather can vary in the parks. The weather opinions for DLR are interesting, because they are somewhat influenced by where people come from, which makes sense. What I consider hot many not necessarily equal what you think is hot. Some of that is pure taste in weather, some of it has to do with where you live and what you're used to.

I've looked at pages that give monthly and even daily averages, but even those are subject to some interpretation. Sample size can affect how much extremes can influence the averages. The number of extremes can do the same. So while they're interesting, they don't necessarily tell the whole story.

With that in mind, I did some looking around and found Weather Underground (wunderground.com), which is basically a front end for National Weather service type forecasts and weather info, has a historical data page where you can input dates in history and see the weather for that day at a certain location. You get the standard high and low temperatures, whether there was precipitation and the average dew point for the day (which figures into relative humidity). Armed with this information, I figured out the dates that would be roughly equivalent to the days we'll be in the area (June 25th through July 1st) going back to 2010 and pulled the following information:

2016....Hi/Low
06/26...86/65
06/27...91/68
06/28...90/68
06/29...89/67
06/30...81/69
07/01...80/65
07/02...80/66

2015....Hi/Low
06/28...97/69
06/29...88/68
06/30...89/68
07/01...87/71
07/02...90/72
07/03...86/66
07/04...78/65

2014....Hi/Low
06/22...80/66
06/23...79/65
06/24...80/66
06/25...79/65
06/26...81/67
06/27...82/67
06/28...81/67

2013....Hi/Low
06/23...79/66
06/24...80/66
06/25...82/66
06/26...88/66
06/27...92/69
06/28...94/67
06/29...94/71

2012....Hi/Low
06/24...85/63
06/25...83/61
06/26...84/60
06/27...87/62
06/28...84/62
06/29...89/63
06/30...84/62

2011....Hi/Low
06/26...78/58
06/27...81/60
06/28...76/63
06/29...81/64
06/30...85/60
07/01...93/62
07/02...88/63

2010....Hi/Low
06/27...76/63
06/28...72/61
06/29...75/61
06/30...81/62
07/01...80/62
07/02...78/61
07/03...74/60

While I admit this is nowhere near a complete weather almanac. I think it tells me most of what I was looking for (enough to plan on shorts versus pants, jacket versus log sleeve t-shirts & whether or not to plan on the monsoon gear). The bolded temps are days when they reported rain. I also looked at, but didn’t note down the dew point for each day (which figures into humidity). You’ll see 2 days over the sample days where they reported rain. Both of those only reported a trace (less than a tenth of an inch). Dew points for most years were in the lower 60s, which means relatively dry and comfortable. 2011 and 2012 dew points were down in the 50s. To compare, similar days in WDW the dew points are in the mid to upper 70s. That 10 to 20 degrees in humidity contributes to the air you can chew on in Florida summers. It is interesting that the high temperature was as high as 97 and as low as 72. 80s to 90s appear to be the most common. Lows were between 72 and 58. Mid to upper 60s appear to be the norm.

Either way, I'll be watching forecasts in the area, starting a couple weeks out. Anything farther out is an educated guess at best. Within a week or two we should know the basic pattern for the time we're there. At this point it all looks good to me.

 

[Khokhonutt]

Under 100, baby!

 

[RWathen]

Just a quick upside to single rider for RSR. My daughter and I do this often. Frequently we end up in the same car, but more often than not, we end up racing each other which is a nice perk to single rider!. Your plans sound great. You will love the convenience of the closeness of the two parks and it is fun to compare the similar rides. We leave for Disney World in two days..Disneyland is our home park, as we are Californians, and we look forward to the differences and the similarities. Blue Bayou is one of my favorite restaurants. We've always enjoyed our food and you can't beat the view. We've stay at the BWPPI as well and the rooms are clean and comfortable and you can't get much closer to the entrance of the resort. Great location! I think you will have a great trip. June is crowded and hot, but we love it! The paper fast pass system allows for more flexibility than DW and we have always managed to get on plenty of rides thanks to that. Early morning is still your best bet though. Can't wait to hear about the trip.

 

[Khokhonutt]

Just a quick upside to single rider for RSR. My daughter and I do this often. Frequently we end up in the same car, but more often than not, we end up racing each other which is a nice perk to single rider!. Your plans sound great. You will love the convenience of the closeness of the two parks and it is fun to compare the similar rides. We leave for Disney World in two days..Disneyland is our home park, as we are Californians, and we look forward to the differences and the similarities. Blue Bayou is one of my favorite restaurants. We've always enjoyed our food and you can't beat the view. We've stay at the BWPPI as well and the rooms are clean and comfortable and you can't get much closer to the entrance of the resort. Great location! I think you will have a great trip. June is crowded and hot, but we love it! The paper fast pass system allows for more flexibility than DW and we have always managed to get on plenty of rides thanks to that. Early morning is still your best bet though. Can't wait to hear about the trip.

Very cool. Thanks for the input!

I'm sure we'll do the single rider line at RSR at some point. We've done the same at Test Track many times and I've heard they are similar rides. I am thinking we may fastpass it at least once, so we can get all 4 of us in one car. I've also thought if it works out, that would be a good way to ride RSR at night, which is something we want to do.

I'm glad to hear the input on the hotel as well. I'm very much looking forward to the whole experience of being so close and having both parks so close together.

I'm also glad to hear your opinion on June. Our last trip to WDW was at the end of July, so we've done hot and crowded. The things I think we have going for us are:

• We all like warm weather.
• Unless something very strange happens, I can't imagine we'll deal with the same humidity in DLR that we saw in WDW in July.
• We're pretty good about taking advantage of morning hours, to avoid the worst of the crowds and the heat.

It's starting to feel real now. We're a couple weeks or so before we can start making meal reservations (I know we don't necessarily have to, but I still will). At this point we're down to "last minute" shopping and thinking about getting things together for the trip.

Have fun on your trip. We'll certainly be filling everyone in when we get back.

 

[Khokhonutt]

Woohoo! 90 days!

So, while we've been waiting for reservations and stuff like that, we've been putting together our t-shirts for the 5 days in the parks. We don't necessarily do matching shirts on our trips. Rather we sort of do theme days. The kids (since they're really adults) are mostly on their own to participate, but for my wife and I, here's what we have planned.

We did find some cute Disney related shirts on Amazon. My wife and I got these:

And we got these for my daughter and her boyfriend:

Then one day we'll wear our NFL shirts, Carolina Panthers, the home team:

Then we'll have a college day. I went to University of Arkansas, so that's the major college we root for:

Of course we have to have hockey day. My wife is from New Jersey and she got me into hockey (now my favorite sport), so we're New Jersey Devils fans:

Finally we'll wear a couple of our Harley shirts. I've got a 2012 Street Glide that we ride all over NC & SC on. We joke that we "Ride to eat & eat to ride!" We picked these shirts because they're from the local dealership in our town and because they also reference NASCAR (you can't be from our area and not pay attention to racing). They both have the same logo on the back and the front, the shirt colors (and size Ha Ha!) are the only difference:

We've done some minor tweaks to our packing list. I live and die by lists because my memory for that kind of stuff is questionable. I group things like clothes, bathroom items, food and snacks, stuff like that. It makes sure we don't forget things like sunscreen, tums and silly little things. While you really don't have to obsess about that kind of stuff these days, with a Walmart in every town. I hate to have to make too many stops to pick up things we know we have at the house.

Next big deal is in a few weeks, when we can make our food reservations! It's getting closer!

 

[tink19285]

You must be getting excited! April is just around the corner so you can make more plans.

Looking forward to hearing about the rest of your plans!

 

[my2disneyboys]

Great report! Sorry one of the kiddos is unable to go. :-( We are renting only because we are driving out and flying home - but I wish we were taking our own car. Its a comfort in knowing it is safe and you are familiar where everything is !! Plus the fee for a one way rental is insane!!

I am a little nervous about ridemax - we go in July and like you said- I just want enough time to get a plan together if that will be up and running. I think it will be like when Disney World first went to Magic Bands - we went around that time and they had the fastpass machines still up but they also had the kiosks for the magicbands - which always had the craziest long lines at!

 

[Khokhonutt]

Great report! Sorry one of the kiddos is unable to go. :-( We are renting only because we are driving out and flying home - but I wish we were taking our own car. Its a comfort in knowing it is safe and you are familiar where everything is !! Plus the fee for a one way rental is insane!!

Thanks. It sucks our son won't make it this trip, but the nature of the beast, as the kids get older is that these things will happen. It happens more often in the military. My wife and I were both in the military, so we've stressed with our kids the importance to roll with the changes and not let things get to you. Too many people spend their time grumping about what could have been. As we told our son, there will be other trips, we'll plan for that and focus on that.

I agree, in a way it's a tough decision to rent, but in our experience, it's been great. Our first time renting a car was a few years ago when our son graduated from basic training. We were driving down to San Antonio from NC and my wife's car (which was our trip car at the time) had mechanical issues a week or so before our trip. We ended up renting and really liked it. For the money, it's not a bad value. You get to drive a basically brand new car, drop it off and forget about it after the trip. If it breaks down, it's inconvenient, but it's their problem. Since then we rented a car again to see our daughter graduate basic training and we rented a car to drive out and vacation with the kids in Vegas. On that trip we put over 4,100 miles on the rental, mileage I'm glad didn't go on one of our cars.

We've never dropped a car to fly home, though. I'm sure that's a significant expense, but I think the experience of driving out is well worth it. I absolutely love the drive through New Mexico and Arizona. When you consider the other places you guys are going to hit on the way out, I think you'll be very glad you drove. Enjoy the newish vehicle, be glad you don't have to find a place to change oil while your gone and stuff like that.

I am a little nervous about ridemax (max pass?) - we go in July and like you said- I just want enough time to get a plan together if that will be up and running. I think it will be like when Disney World first went to Magic Bands - we went around that time and they had the fastpass machines still up but they also had the kiosks for the magicbands - which always had the craziest long lines at!

Yeah, my biggest concern with the max pass is it dropping right before we get there. We know the current fast pass system. I know things won't be significantly different, but the unknown is, well, unknown. I'm still in the camp that if it's going to be in place in June, I want it to drop now. That way we can learn the process. If it's going to be later in the summer, then I hope it's way later, so we don't see it.

 

[Khokhonutt]

Around the world in...

Tomorrow we're in our window to order Ridemax and have it through the trip. That will give me something new to do. Although it will be interesting to see how it is or isn't affected by the FastPass changes that are in process. Today the boards are lighting up about TSMM FastPass being added and the parks getting linked for FastPass. I can only assume that means MaxPass can't be that far away. My guess at this point is that it won't be long after the Matterhorn comes out of refurbishment, the end of this month. The best I can say about that is at least we'll have a little time to learn about it before we get there.

We're about 3 weeks away from being able to make dining reservations. Right now we're still thinking Blue Bayou for sure. We're also thinking we'll try Cafe Orleans & the River Belle Terrace. We'll likely do all 3 as early lunches, allowing us to snack as we feel like it the rest of the day (and night). Other places I know we want to try (that are not table service) include; Trader Sam's, Tangaroa Terrace, Cove Bar, Bengal BBQ, Whitewater Snacks, Cozy Cone, Jolly Holiday Bakery & Pacific Wharf Cafe. And those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. I'm seriously feeling like we'll be taking a queue from EPCOT, only here we'll be eating around the world (rather than drinking).

 

[Khokhonutt]

Meet the pups.

As we get closer to our trip, I thought I'd cover some of the specifics of our packing and travel plans. Today I thought I'd introduce our pups. They won't be doing Disney with us, but they will be making the trip from North Carolina to Las Vegas, where they will enjoy the doggie spa for a week, while we're in Anaheim.

First, here's one of the better pictures we have of them.

Marti is on the left and Bear is on the right. This is right after they were groomed. It makes them look pretty fancy, but in real life they're wide open, goofy dogs. They are what are called "Chesties", a mix of Chihuahua and Westie (West Highland Terrier). Marti is our little girl dog. She's got much more of the Westie look, only they're about half the size of a normal Westie. Bear is our little boy. He has a little more of the Chihuahua look (and mouth). He's not insanely yappy, but he is the talker of the two. He's also wide open full of energy. Marti is a little more laid back, but they spend a good bit of time rough housing with each other.

Marti got her name from Martin Brodeur (one time goalie for the NJ Devils). We were going through names, when we got her, and thought about a hockey name. Marty Brodeur was in one of his last years as a Devil and I thought it fit her. Bear sort of got his name from our old dog of 16 years who passed a couple months before we got Bear. Our old dog came from Korea. His name was Maekchu (Meck, like check - chew), it's the Korean word for beer. I used to call him a silly old bear a lot as he got older, a reference to Winnie the Pooh. I took Maekchu's passing pretty hard, so when Bear came into our lives, I wanted to honor them both with a reference to our old boy.

For what it's worth, both of our dogs were rescues. I don't particularly have anything against bread dogs, but rescues are a good thing, in my opinion for a variety of reasons. We have a friend who does rescues and she's the one who got our dogs for us. She shared Bear's picture with my wife. I was still hesitant after losing our old boy, but we got a chance to go meet him in a house setting. He was 8 months old when we got him, so he had a good bit of his personality. He was a good match and we took him home that night. Marti was a funny happenstance. We don't typically plan on having two dogs, but our friend sent us a picture of Marti, she said who does this look like? Those eyes got me. She was 3 months old when we got her.

Here's some proof that they're not always prissy dogs:

This picture was taken shortly after they decided to rough house in some freshly mown grass. For such a pretty little girl, Marti has no time for being fancy. She loves to chase lizards (Bear's more of a bug chaser).

They're both excellent travelers. This will be their 3rd trip out west. The drove with us when we did Vegas as a family a couple years ago. Then last summer we visited our son in Arizona and drove out with the dogs.

For the most part they both sleep a good bit of the time. Here's Bear, on one of our trips out west:

Marti cracks me up because she LOVES to smell the country as we drive. This is her with her nose in the vent:

She will literally stand there for 30 minutes, breathing in as hard as she can, then huffing out a breath, then repeating that process. She loves driving past farms and pastures.

I've already mentioned I make lists for our trips. The dogs have their own section. Here's what's on their list at this point:

• Crate/pad: I'm a firm believer in crating the dogs in the hotel room. We have a big crate that they can both fit in. It has a sheep skin looking pad that goes in the bottom. That part rides in the car on our trips. The dogs like to lay on it. At the hotel we setup their crate and they get put in it whenever we leave the room. You just never know who's going to enter the room when you're gone. While they're well behaved, I'd hate for them to run off or have a bad reaction to someone coming into the room.
• Water containers: I like for the dogs to have water with us at all times. They get thirsty and they're used to having a bowl down when we're home, so we make a point of offering them water whenever we stop for gas, food or restroom breaks. We found these cool bottles on Amazon. They're called H2O4K9, Dog Water Bottle and Travel Bowl. They were $14.99 each when we bought them a few years ago. They're nice aluminum with a heavy plastic top that doubles as a drinking bowl. They're tall, but fit in normal cup holders. The way the cap is made, you can easily pour water into the cap, let the dogs drink their fill, then pour what's left back into the bottle. No mess, no waste and the dogs always have something to drink.

• Food: We always bring their food along. Although they don't eat near as much on a trip, we have it ready and available. This trip we'll bring a gallon Ziploc bag for their vet stay. But then we've got another cool Amazon find that goes on every trip with us. It's called a Vittle Vault Pet Food Travel-Tainer Kit. When we bought ours (we have two), they were closer to $15, but now I think they sell for $7.99. It's a slick way carry their dog food because the handle in the picture unclips and the two blue ends are bowls that we use for water and food at the hotel. If you look closely at the picture, the center part is a screw cap plastic jar that I'd say holds the equivalent of a gallon of food. This might not be as viable for a large dog, but it's great for our little guys. On a short trip, we bring one. On this trip, we'll bring both and should have plenty of food for the whole trip.

• Treats: Our dogs are spoiled and they like their treats. We don't give them a ton, but we like to reward them for a good day.
• Shot documentation: We will need this information to board the dogs. I plan to send the info via fax or email before we leave, just to be sure we have everything up to date that they want, but we'll carry the paperwork with us, just in case.
• Leashes: Of course, a basic need. We always hook them up before leaving the car anytime we leave the house. You may think you 100% know your dog, but you never know what a strange place, strange dog, strange animal, person or whatever will catch their eye. I'd much rather have control of them, so we don't lose them.
• Poopie bags: You can buy these by the roll at places like Petsmart. We're pretty good about picking up after our dogs, even though they produce much less volume than larger dogs. I feel it's important to do our part. Too many people prefer to just let their dogs mess wherever and not clean it up. I'm convinced that's why fewer and fewer places will allow you to bring dogs. I can't control the world, but we can do what we think is right to clean up behind ourselves.
• Doggie blanket: We keep a couple of small throw blankets around the house. The dogs like to lay on them, so we always bring them on trips. It's something familiar for them to lay on in the car and at the hotel or wherever we're staying. We'll also bring one to the kennel, when we board them, so they have something familiar with them there as well.

I think that's about it for the pups. They're always ready for a trip, as long as they get to go with us.

 

[Khokhonutt]

Route 66 & Carsland...

So, a couple of other trip reports I've read have inspired me to try to take some Route 66 pictures to compare to Carsland. A couple of these we've seen, but either didn't make a specific stop or didn't get the right picture. This time I've got them in the GPS so we can be looking for them. Hopefully daylight will cooperate.

Here are the ones I have in mind at this point:

The Cadillac Ranch. We've seen this now several times. It's right off I-40 near Amarillo, TX. Unfortunately each time we've seen it, we've been doing 80 mph, zipped past it and said, "Next time we need to stop." This time I'm punching it in the GPS before we leave Oklahoma and making a point to stop. This along with the Arizona & California mountains were the inspiration for the mountains you see around Radiator Springs.

RoadsideAmerica.com - Cadillac Ranch

Conoco Tower - Route 66, Shamrock, TX. We stopped and ate right down the road from this building. We took a quick picture, but didn't realize until after we left that we caught some power lines in the picture. This is the building that helped inspire Ramone's body-art shop in Radiator Springs. It really has a classic Route 66 look and feel to it.

RoadsideAmerica.com - Conoco Tower - Route 66

Wigwam Village Motel. One of the inspirations for Sally’s Cozy Cone Motel in Radiator Springs, this is another classic Route 66 stop. We've not seen this, but it's not far off our route to Vegas.

RoadsideAmerica.com - Wigwam Village Motel

Of course there are far more inspirations out there, but our plan at this point is to pretty much make a beeline to Vegas, from NC. These are a few stops I think we can make without taking too much time. Assuming we pass by all three in the daylight, we'll stop, get a couple of pictures, then keep going. I think it will be cool to have the real life attraction next to the Carsland version, in a picture. I might even figure out framing them as a set to put on the wall.

One of my bucket list items is a motorcycle trip where I ride the entire length of I-40, starting in Wilmington, NC and ending in Barstow, CA. From there, I'd go down to Santa Monica and start Route 66 back east. There are lots of sights to see along Route 66, but as a Disney geek, I think checking out some of the people and places discussed on this site, A Route 66 guide to the “Cars” movie, would be neat. It'll have to be a bit of a hybrid trip, since my wife's not a fan of riding that far on the bike. I'd probably ride west on my own or with a friend or two, then meet the wife and kids out west and have them follow along the Route 66 part in a car. We'll see. I've got far more places I want to go than I think I'll have time to go, but that's not all bad.

 

[Khokhonutt]

We made our final dining reservation today! It's really starting to feel real now!

Here's a rehash of our general plan at this point:

Sunday: Vegas to DLR. I'm hoping we can park at BWPPI when we arrive between 10am & 11am. If so, we'll spend the rest of the day checking out the DLR resorts and Downtown Disney. We'll do lunch at Trader Sam's and dinner at Tangaroa Terrace. I know they are very similar, but the dishes offered make me thing 2 meals back to back would be doable. If for some reason we can't park until later, we've got a plan B that involves heading to the Dim Sum place at the mall, then back to hotel. If that happens we'll have to choose between Trader Sam's and Tangoroa Terrace for dinner.

Monday: First day in the parks, starting at DL. We don't have an aggressive ride plan for this day, but we do have 4-6 rides we want to try to ride our first day. We're planning this day as more of a get the feel for the parks day. We have a lunch reservation at Blue Bayou and then will take a break sometime after. We'll plan to be in DL for the fireworks, assuming they go on as planned.

Tuesday: We'll use our DL MM and start our first touring plan-ish day with the idea of getting as many rides as we can in the morning, then we have a lunch reservation at Cafe Orleans. We'll take an afternoon break, then play the evening by ear until our WOC dessert party reservation.

Wednesday: We may rope drop DL then head over to CA this day or just rope drop CA, even though this should be an EMH day there. Our plan is to mostly do CA this day, with a plan to hit the Cove bar at opening for lunch. We'll most likely try to see the fireworks in DL today, either for the first time if weather cancels Monday or for the 2nd time if the weather cooperates.

Thursday: We'll definitely rope drop CA this day and spend the majority of the morning in CA. Depending on how Sunday goes, we're thinking Trader Sam's or Tangaroa Terrace for lunch this day (if we miss out on either on Sunday). If we hit both on Sunday then we'll play this lunch by ear. If we've caught fireworks Monday and/or Tuesday and if we really love WOC, we may fastpass WOC this night.

Friday: We'll probably rope drop DL this morning, then spend the day either doubling up things we really liked or trying to do things we've missed up to this point. We've got our lunch reservation at River Belle Terrace. In a perfect world, we'll finish out the week seeing the DL fireworks that night.

Saturday: DLR back to Vegas. Pick up the pups from the vet where they're being boarded and spend most of the rest of the week visiting in Vegas.

We're 55 days out at this point. Between work and everyday life it'll be here before we know it! Woohoo!

 

[azdisneylover]

Your plans sound great! Now the hard part begins.......waiting for the fun to begin.