Lagoongirl
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2005
Disneyland Trip Report
September 9-17, 2005
PLANNING THE TRIP
Trip Characters
- (Mareva) 41, Mom, 4th trip to DL
-(Kylie) 5, daughter, 1st trip to DL
My husband is allergic to amusement parks and spending money so we have opted over the years for me to take each of our kids individually. That way he doesnt have to endure the rides and see how much the bills come to (until after the fact), and I dont have to have a slew of kids to be responsible for by myself.
I have 4 daughters. I took my oldest (now 16) to WDW in 1992 when she was 3. I took my second daughter (now 14) to WDW in 1995 when she was 4. I took them both to WDW in 2000 when they were 11 and 9. I took my third daughter (now 7) to WDW in 2002 when she was 5. My youngest daughter is now five and its time for her turn.
I have always taken my older daughters to WDW in the past, and this is the first time I have opted for DLR. There are a couple of reasons for this. When my two older girls were younger we lived in Nebraska so WDW or DL was about equidistance away. We moved to Salt Lake City in 1998, but the last two trips Ive taken were still WDW. I liked how WDW had more than one park (at the time) and I also liked how close Universal and Sea World were. Everything was right there where I needed it. When I took my third daughter in 2002, I decided a few things that have swayed my decision against WDW and for DL. First off, the opening of DCA. A lot of the same attractions in WDW were now available in DLR. The biggest influence though was how hard it was for my third daughter to get used to the time change. Like I said, we had moved to SLC in 1998 and there was a two hour time difference. When the parks were opening at nine, it was 7AM in SLC and you should arrive at the parks an hour before opening so to her body we were up at 5:30 a.m. and riding rides before she was usually even out of bed!!! We were there for a week and my poor little girl had the hardest time adjusting to the time difference. It made it really hard for her to enjoy herself for the first few hours in the parks. Another influence was the amount of time that it took to fly to Florida (with a stop over) as compared to the couple of hours that it would now take to fly from SLC to California. It would take two whole days vacation time to get to Florida and back while to fly to California would take a couple of hours on a couple of days.
When I took my two older daughters in 2000 they were in year round school and were on break from school in November. That was when I discovered the benefits of going in the off season. Our school schedule has now gone back to traditional, but since my daughter will only be in kindergarten, taking her out for a week is no big deal and the benefits of going in the off season are too great to pass up.
I started planning for the trip in January of 2005. My husband thinks Im anal about planning the trip and it was beyond him why it was taking so much time. Hes one that wants to just go there and do whatever and sleep in and not worry about whether we see everything or not. I am a mother of 6 (two older boys (their mother is deceased so I have raised them) from my husbands first marriage and my four daughters. Having a brood like that doesnt give me the leisure to waste time and I dont like doing it. Im used to planning out my day to get the most done. Im the first to admit that I am very obsessed with doing it right (by my definition) and Im actually very glad that my husband doesnt want to go as I know there would be conflict. Id be disappointed knowing that I didnt have time to do what I wanted to do because he wanted to sleep in or something. Now before you go thinking Im this controlling commando, I do want to emphasize that I am flexible too. Being a mother of six not only requires organization, but flexibility as well. There are just certain things at DLR that you should always do and the most important one is to get to the parks early. My husband would make us get there by about 11 oclock every morning so that is my main reason why I am glad he doesnt come. Dont get me wrong, hes a great guy, but as much as I like to be in control (and I admit it!!) hes even more so. (He gives me plenty of practice not being in control. These trips where I am in control feel REALLY good.) Im also the only one willing to research vacations. Because I do this I am more aware than he is of ways to make the most of time and hes not one to quietly go with someone elses plan. Hes the type that asks me to research something (whether it be a vacation or something else) and then tries to run the show and ignore anything I say Ive discovered through research. But hey, I love the guy, and hes footing the bill and taking care of the other kids so no ones complaining (just counting my blessings that hes not coming!).
To me California is not the place to sit back and relax unless youve got two to three weeks there. Im not one that sees any value in spending a huge amount of money to go somewhere and end up doing things that you can do at home. I dont like to waste a lot of time eating or sleeping and the budget is of the essence so unless a meal has some entertainment value, I choose not to waste time and money on it. So Im not a big food/restaurant person, and Im not a big fan of the suggested idea to take a break in the middle of the day. I know that is stressed to the hilt in most guidebooks, but let me explain my reasoning.
First off, the parks are not open as long during the off season so you lose hours that you would normally have at other peak times.
Second, it is just the two of us. When you have a big group to keep track of and pace with, it is more tiring to do so. I will bring a stroller from home so she wont have much walking to do, so it will be just me doing all the walking.
Third, because it is just the two of us, we wont be doing many late evening activities. I will be taking her back to the hotel most nights for a quick swim and off to bed early.
Also, to me it is a pain to spend so much time with the transportation stuff. When you leave midday, you spend a lot of valuable time standing in line waiting for trams and going to/from your car, parking, etc (if you rent a car). Maneuvering through traffic and trying to find your way around in an unfamiliar place just gives me a big crick in the neck.
The reason I think guidebooks emphasize the breaks is to reduce stress. Well, those above things are the things that are stressful to me and when Im stressed, Kylie will be more likely to be stressed. So there is my reasoning behind not taking the mid day break. There is logic to not doing the break under certain circumstances too, so there!!!
AIRLINES, HOTEL, AND CAR RENTAL
My husband does quite a bit of traveling for his work and so he has frequent flyer miles to trade in for tickets. For this trip we ended up using Delta to San Diego (we wanted to fit in Sea World and the Zoo) and returning from Orange County.
He also has frequent hotel stay points so that did limit us on where we stayed, but having the opportunity to have 7 free nights in a hotel makes up for any wish or desire I might have to be on Disney property. We booked the Hampton Inn by Sea World for 3 nights and the Hampton in by Knotts Berry Farm for the remaining five nights. We will only have to pay for one nights lodging. Renting a car was a must since I was spending some time in San Diego and driving up to Anaheim. Since it was only the two of us and you spend so little time in your car I got the cheapest thing I could find. When Ive made car rental reservations in the past Ive found that in checking the internet frequently I kept finding lower and lower rates so I ended up canceling and rebooking several times. What I found so far is a weekly rate of $159 and an average of $26 a day for eight days. San Diego does not have rental car agencies located at the airport and my only concern was managing all our luggage and a little girl to the shuttle pick up locations. I wasnt real excited to fuss with off site shuttles when I was the only adult to haul our luggage and have a little girl to watch and care for. But San Diego left no choice so Ill just to the best I can.
PLANNING THE ITINERARY
The last time I was at DL was in 1993 and before that it was twice when I was a child. Even though DL is very similar to MK in layout, I bought several guides and familiarized myself with layouts. I found the internet to be a valuable help as there were several web sites that gave great information.
I took into consideration what I thought Kylie would be most interested in doing and seeing. With children that age it is a guessing game on what will scare them. We have an amusement park five minutes from our house that we get season passes to every year so she is used to rides, but most of the big coasters at our park have height restrictions that are higher than Disneys so Im not sure how shell take to rides like Space Mountain. When I took Rachel two years ago she baffled me many times. Things I thought she would be okay with she wasnt and things that I thought would scare her didnt. Ive decided to just go with the flow, but try to encourage her to ride the bigger rides since Im the only adult and wont get to ride them if she doesnt come with me. We sent for a Disneyland Souvenir DVD and watched it together. I talked with her about it and got a feel for what was most important for her to see then used whatever time was left to fill it with things I wanted to see. The biggest bummer of the whole planning part of it was discovering that HM would be closed during our visit. That is my absolutely, positively favorite Disney attraction!!! I almost decided to go in November instead of Septemper, but because I want to spend some time at the beach, I wanted warmer weather. So no HM this trip!!
I put together a daily budget based on our activities each day. The budget totals $1310. That sounds like a deal for 8 days (remember I have no hotel or airline costs). Our hotels had complimentary breakfasts and I carefully chose a few sit down restaurants for dinners throughout the week. The rest of the meals were eaten in the park or fast food fare outside of the park on those nights when the parks closed early. Well see if I actually stick within the budget!! Im going to get a city pass that includes Sea World, the Zoo, 3 day park hoppers to DLR and Knotts Berry Farm about 3 months before the trip at citypass.com. This will end up saving me about $123. This seemed like a pretty good deal to me and averaged out to be about $52 a day (excluding Lego Land) for both of us for park admission.
Here is the plan that I came up with:
Friday, September 9 - Travel day (Budget $39 for one meal and one day rental car)
Saturday, September 10 San Diego Zoo, Swimming at hotel (Budget $151 for admission, upgraded admission (zoo bus pass) meals, souvenir and rental car)
Sunday, September 11 Sea World, La Jolla Cove and Caves and beach (I wonder if 9/11 will have an impact on attendance?) (Budget $146 for admission, meals, rental car, parking, souvenirs)
Monday, September 12 Lego Land, Drive to Anaheim (Budget $177 for admission, meals, souvenir, rental car, and laundry expenses)
Tuesday, September 13 DL, Swim at hotel (Budget $126 for admission, meals, parking, and rental car)
Wednesday, September 14 Knotts Berry Farm, Dinner at Mrs. Knotts Chicken Restaurant (Budget $146 for admission, meals, souvenirs, parking, and rental car)
Thursday, September 15 DCA, DD, Dinner at Rainforest Café (Budget $181 for admission, meals, souvenirs, parking, and rental car)
Friday, September 16 DL, (parks will close late so will spend the evening watching parade and Fantasmic) (Budget $221 for hotel, admission, meals, parking, and rental car)
Saturday, September 17 Character Breakfast at Goofys Kitchen, Movieland Wax Museum and Newport Beach. Travel home in the evening. (Budget $142 for admission, meals, gasoline, parking, and rental car.)
September 9-17, 2005
PLANNING THE TRIP
Trip Characters
- (Mareva) 41, Mom, 4th trip to DL
-(Kylie) 5, daughter, 1st trip to DL
My husband is allergic to amusement parks and spending money so we have opted over the years for me to take each of our kids individually. That way he doesnt have to endure the rides and see how much the bills come to (until after the fact), and I dont have to have a slew of kids to be responsible for by myself.
I have 4 daughters. I took my oldest (now 16) to WDW in 1992 when she was 3. I took my second daughter (now 14) to WDW in 1995 when she was 4. I took them both to WDW in 2000 when they were 11 and 9. I took my third daughter (now 7) to WDW in 2002 when she was 5. My youngest daughter is now five and its time for her turn.
I have always taken my older daughters to WDW in the past, and this is the first time I have opted for DLR. There are a couple of reasons for this. When my two older girls were younger we lived in Nebraska so WDW or DL was about equidistance away. We moved to Salt Lake City in 1998, but the last two trips Ive taken were still WDW. I liked how WDW had more than one park (at the time) and I also liked how close Universal and Sea World were. Everything was right there where I needed it. When I took my third daughter in 2002, I decided a few things that have swayed my decision against WDW and for DL. First off, the opening of DCA. A lot of the same attractions in WDW were now available in DLR. The biggest influence though was how hard it was for my third daughter to get used to the time change. Like I said, we had moved to SLC in 1998 and there was a two hour time difference. When the parks were opening at nine, it was 7AM in SLC and you should arrive at the parks an hour before opening so to her body we were up at 5:30 a.m. and riding rides before she was usually even out of bed!!! We were there for a week and my poor little girl had the hardest time adjusting to the time difference. It made it really hard for her to enjoy herself for the first few hours in the parks. Another influence was the amount of time that it took to fly to Florida (with a stop over) as compared to the couple of hours that it would now take to fly from SLC to California. It would take two whole days vacation time to get to Florida and back while to fly to California would take a couple of hours on a couple of days.
When I took my two older daughters in 2000 they were in year round school and were on break from school in November. That was when I discovered the benefits of going in the off season. Our school schedule has now gone back to traditional, but since my daughter will only be in kindergarten, taking her out for a week is no big deal and the benefits of going in the off season are too great to pass up.
I started planning for the trip in January of 2005. My husband thinks Im anal about planning the trip and it was beyond him why it was taking so much time. Hes one that wants to just go there and do whatever and sleep in and not worry about whether we see everything or not. I am a mother of 6 (two older boys (their mother is deceased so I have raised them) from my husbands first marriage and my four daughters. Having a brood like that doesnt give me the leisure to waste time and I dont like doing it. Im used to planning out my day to get the most done. Im the first to admit that I am very obsessed with doing it right (by my definition) and Im actually very glad that my husband doesnt want to go as I know there would be conflict. Id be disappointed knowing that I didnt have time to do what I wanted to do because he wanted to sleep in or something. Now before you go thinking Im this controlling commando, I do want to emphasize that I am flexible too. Being a mother of six not only requires organization, but flexibility as well. There are just certain things at DLR that you should always do and the most important one is to get to the parks early. My husband would make us get there by about 11 oclock every morning so that is my main reason why I am glad he doesnt come. Dont get me wrong, hes a great guy, but as much as I like to be in control (and I admit it!!) hes even more so. (He gives me plenty of practice not being in control. These trips where I am in control feel REALLY good.) Im also the only one willing to research vacations. Because I do this I am more aware than he is of ways to make the most of time and hes not one to quietly go with someone elses plan. Hes the type that asks me to research something (whether it be a vacation or something else) and then tries to run the show and ignore anything I say Ive discovered through research. But hey, I love the guy, and hes footing the bill and taking care of the other kids so no ones complaining (just counting my blessings that hes not coming!).
To me California is not the place to sit back and relax unless youve got two to three weeks there. Im not one that sees any value in spending a huge amount of money to go somewhere and end up doing things that you can do at home. I dont like to waste a lot of time eating or sleeping and the budget is of the essence so unless a meal has some entertainment value, I choose not to waste time and money on it. So Im not a big food/restaurant person, and Im not a big fan of the suggested idea to take a break in the middle of the day. I know that is stressed to the hilt in most guidebooks, but let me explain my reasoning.
First off, the parks are not open as long during the off season so you lose hours that you would normally have at other peak times.
Second, it is just the two of us. When you have a big group to keep track of and pace with, it is more tiring to do so. I will bring a stroller from home so she wont have much walking to do, so it will be just me doing all the walking.
Third, because it is just the two of us, we wont be doing many late evening activities. I will be taking her back to the hotel most nights for a quick swim and off to bed early.
Also, to me it is a pain to spend so much time with the transportation stuff. When you leave midday, you spend a lot of valuable time standing in line waiting for trams and going to/from your car, parking, etc (if you rent a car). Maneuvering through traffic and trying to find your way around in an unfamiliar place just gives me a big crick in the neck.
The reason I think guidebooks emphasize the breaks is to reduce stress. Well, those above things are the things that are stressful to me and when Im stressed, Kylie will be more likely to be stressed. So there is my reasoning behind not taking the mid day break. There is logic to not doing the break under certain circumstances too, so there!!!
AIRLINES, HOTEL, AND CAR RENTAL
My husband does quite a bit of traveling for his work and so he has frequent flyer miles to trade in for tickets. For this trip we ended up using Delta to San Diego (we wanted to fit in Sea World and the Zoo) and returning from Orange County.
He also has frequent hotel stay points so that did limit us on where we stayed, but having the opportunity to have 7 free nights in a hotel makes up for any wish or desire I might have to be on Disney property. We booked the Hampton Inn by Sea World for 3 nights and the Hampton in by Knotts Berry Farm for the remaining five nights. We will only have to pay for one nights lodging. Renting a car was a must since I was spending some time in San Diego and driving up to Anaheim. Since it was only the two of us and you spend so little time in your car I got the cheapest thing I could find. When Ive made car rental reservations in the past Ive found that in checking the internet frequently I kept finding lower and lower rates so I ended up canceling and rebooking several times. What I found so far is a weekly rate of $159 and an average of $26 a day for eight days. San Diego does not have rental car agencies located at the airport and my only concern was managing all our luggage and a little girl to the shuttle pick up locations. I wasnt real excited to fuss with off site shuttles when I was the only adult to haul our luggage and have a little girl to watch and care for. But San Diego left no choice so Ill just to the best I can.
PLANNING THE ITINERARY
The last time I was at DL was in 1993 and before that it was twice when I was a child. Even though DL is very similar to MK in layout, I bought several guides and familiarized myself with layouts. I found the internet to be a valuable help as there were several web sites that gave great information.
I took into consideration what I thought Kylie would be most interested in doing and seeing. With children that age it is a guessing game on what will scare them. We have an amusement park five minutes from our house that we get season passes to every year so she is used to rides, but most of the big coasters at our park have height restrictions that are higher than Disneys so Im not sure how shell take to rides like Space Mountain. When I took Rachel two years ago she baffled me many times. Things I thought she would be okay with she wasnt and things that I thought would scare her didnt. Ive decided to just go with the flow, but try to encourage her to ride the bigger rides since Im the only adult and wont get to ride them if she doesnt come with me. We sent for a Disneyland Souvenir DVD and watched it together. I talked with her about it and got a feel for what was most important for her to see then used whatever time was left to fill it with things I wanted to see. The biggest bummer of the whole planning part of it was discovering that HM would be closed during our visit. That is my absolutely, positively favorite Disney attraction!!! I almost decided to go in November instead of Septemper, but because I want to spend some time at the beach, I wanted warmer weather. So no HM this trip!!
I put together a daily budget based on our activities each day. The budget totals $1310. That sounds like a deal for 8 days (remember I have no hotel or airline costs). Our hotels had complimentary breakfasts and I carefully chose a few sit down restaurants for dinners throughout the week. The rest of the meals were eaten in the park or fast food fare outside of the park on those nights when the parks closed early. Well see if I actually stick within the budget!! Im going to get a city pass that includes Sea World, the Zoo, 3 day park hoppers to DLR and Knotts Berry Farm about 3 months before the trip at citypass.com. This will end up saving me about $123. This seemed like a pretty good deal to me and averaged out to be about $52 a day (excluding Lego Land) for both of us for park admission.
Here is the plan that I came up with:
Friday, September 9 - Travel day (Budget $39 for one meal and one day rental car)
Saturday, September 10 San Diego Zoo, Swimming at hotel (Budget $151 for admission, upgraded admission (zoo bus pass) meals, souvenir and rental car)
Sunday, September 11 Sea World, La Jolla Cove and Caves and beach (I wonder if 9/11 will have an impact on attendance?) (Budget $146 for admission, meals, rental car, parking, souvenirs)
Monday, September 12 Lego Land, Drive to Anaheim (Budget $177 for admission, meals, souvenir, rental car, and laundry expenses)
Tuesday, September 13 DL, Swim at hotel (Budget $126 for admission, meals, parking, and rental car)
Wednesday, September 14 Knotts Berry Farm, Dinner at Mrs. Knotts Chicken Restaurant (Budget $146 for admission, meals, souvenirs, parking, and rental car)
Thursday, September 15 DCA, DD, Dinner at Rainforest Café (Budget $181 for admission, meals, souvenirs, parking, and rental car)
Friday, September 16 DL, (parks will close late so will spend the evening watching parade and Fantasmic) (Budget $221 for hotel, admission, meals, parking, and rental car)
Saturday, September 17 Character Breakfast at Goofys Kitchen, Movieland Wax Museum and Newport Beach. Travel home in the evening. (Budget $142 for admission, meals, gasoline, parking, and rental car.)
