May 2017 PTR

I just wanted to say that I've loved reading your PTR. I've been going through a really hard time as of late, and have found comfort in reading PTRs and TRs. It's nice to be able to read about others thought processes, strategies, and tips. Plus, it makes me feel like I'm not alone in my Disney obsessive planning. :teeth:

I've gotten so many tips from you -- I actually just ordered a Hydro Flask! Not sure if I'll use it at the parks, but it sounds amazing!!
 
I just wanted to say that I've loved reading your PTR. I've been going through a really hard time as of late, and have found comfort in reading PTRs and TRs. It's nice to be able to read about others thought processes, strategies, and tips. Plus, it makes me feel like I'm not alone in my Disney obsessive planning. :teeth:

I've gotten so many tips from you -- I actually just ordered a Hydro Flask! Not sure if I'll use it at the parks, but it sounds amazing!!

Thanks for your kind words! :flower1:

Not much new has happened in the trip planning department other than I need to get an oil change on the car this weekend.:drive: And since DH is at work all day today, it looks like the oil change will be happening tomorrow. ODD went to a friend's birthday party today at a park, so YDD and I had a lunch date while ODD was at the party. ODD is in 5th grade.

YDD and I were killing time at Target after lunch (killing time before the party ended) and I saw the battery-powered mister fans that people rave about on the WDW part of the boards. I'm going to stick to the human-powered traditional fans that fold out. The battery-operated mister fans are rather large and bulky! I'm definitely not interested in lugging around 2-3 of those for 5 days in a row.

Oh...almost forgot...at Target, I bought a journal thingy...the kind with a big elastic that wraps around it to keep it closed. This is going to be YDD's sketch book/autograph book. Of course, in the car on the way home, she used the Sharpie pen out of my purse and wrote her name on the front of it. But she wrote it twice...the first time, she made a mistake, so now there are black scribble marks on the front. Told YDD that she's stuck with it! Next time, your name goes on the INSIDE of the cover, kiddo! :mic:
 
Ok, I'm reaaaally reaching here o_O, but today, YDD has spent prepping her immune system by catching the stomach flu that's been going around town. :crazy2: :sick: Starting at 4:20 this morning! Today, I am thankful that my child is now old enough to make it to a basin or toilet before she throws up. Ah, the simple pleasures in life! Sometimes I guess you really do have to stop and smell the roses...and today, those roses were in the form of "YAY! I DON'T HAVE TO CLEAN UP BARF OUT OF THE CARPET!"

:rotfl2: I have a twisted sense of humor. It was only 7 1/2 years ago when I was picking up YDD from the infant room at daycare one day when she projectile vomited all over the front of me and I had no change of clothes for myself in the car! EEK! Oh those were the days.

So here's to a rock solid GI tract for our trip at the end of May! Woot! Woot!party:
 
Well, it's been a busy week here. ODD caught the stomach flu from her little sister and missed 4 days of school this week as a result! Bleh! But we've turned the corner and everyone is all better now in time for Easter.

I ventured over to a Disney outlet today and picked up matching tshirts for the kids. $7.99 on sale!
 


PTR update!

Today I changed our Saturday 6/3 lunch reservation at Cafe Orleans from 12:30 to 12:00 pm. First I was going to move it to 1pm, thinking that we'd check out of Hojos and pack up and move the car to a Disneyland lot before heading to the parks.

But then I remembered that we can keep our car in the Hojos lot until 3pm. So I had a "duh" moment. Haha! So I backed it up by 30 minutes. It will allow us plenty of time to have a leisurely lunch, then either DH or I will move the car while whoever doesn't move the car stays in the park with the kids.

Knowing MY family, what will probably happen is DH will want to have me move the car and the kids will want to go with me, so there will be some whining involved. LOL!

This reminds me...I should go purchase a parking voucher this month to get that out of the way so I don't have to think about it later.
 
5 weeks until we leave for our trip! I ordered a pair of Olukai Ohana flip flops yesterday. I love their flip flops. They last forever, cost less than Birkenstocks, and are a lot more comfortable than Birkenstocks. My feet tend to be pretty flat, so Birks never end up feeling just right for me even after I've broken them in.

I got them in purple! Yippee! :flower:

And I celebrated a birthday this week. My sister got me an R2D2 suitcase! :jumping1:
 
A few things completed today!
  1. bought the rest of our 5-day park hopper tickets!
  2. bought a 1-day parking pass since we will need to park in the DL lot on our last day at the parks.
  3. bought the $78 1-week PhotoPass+ online.
I need to talk to DH about it, but I'm leaning toward booking a World of Color dessert party for the 4 of us for either Tues evening or Fri evening. Definitely leaning toward Tuesday so we can surprise ODD for her birthday that day.
 
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YAY!!! I AM SO EXCITED, I JUST CAN'T STAND IT!!!
:jumping1:party::dance3::woohoo:

I just booked the World of Color dessert party for the 4 of us for Tuesday, 5/30. According to the entertainment schedule, WoC is at 9:45 pm that day, so we check in 1 hr before that. We've never ever seen World of Color, let alone do something extravagant like splurging for the dessert party.

I was about to book it for Friday 6/2, but I changed my mind because:
  • YDD will probably eat hardly any of the food
  • the rest of us will not be able to eat all the food
  • and we check out of Hojo's on Saturday 6/3.
  • so if we went to the dessert party on 6/2, I'd have to throw out fancy leftovers and I don't want to do that.
So we're going on Tuesday 5/30 instead. YAY! Desserts for me, ODD, and DH for breakfast the next day! YDD is a picky eater. :scared: What can I say...every family has one! LOL! I don't like cheese that doesn't come in a melted form on food, so YDD & DH will have a cheese field day between my AND YDD's cheese.

I'm not telling the kids. It's going to be a surprise....IF I can keep my mouth shut for the next month about it. o_O

OMG PEOPLE, THIS TRIP IS REALLY GOING TO HAPPEN NOW!
 
Apparently I am on a posting kick today! :surfweb:

I forgot to mention earlier that I ordered 2 skirts (1 per kid) from the Damsel Duds store on Etsy! Here's their website --> https://www.etsy.com/shop/DamselDesigned ODD picked the Mulan-inspired hot pink skirt & navy sash combo. YDD picked the Little Mermaid-inspired green skirt & purple sash combo. According to their website, each skirt takes about 2 weeks to make and that time line does not include time to ship.

Yesterday, the "Connecting with Walt podcast" t-shirt that I ordered off of Tee Public's website arrived. However, the t-shirt sizing is a lot smaller than I thought! The shirt I ordered doesn't fit. But it's large enough to fit ODD if it shrinks a bit in the wash. It's a little disappointing. Buyer beware! I should have picked a different style on the t-shirt...I picked the women's v-neck.
 
:)Hello!
I'll be there while you are there
Arriving Mon 29/5 and leaning Thurs 1/6
We're staying at Paradise Pier
....and....
We also have lunch reservations at BB 11.30 Wednesday
So... I'll see you in the waiting line
 
:)Hello!
I'll be there while you are there
Arriving Mon 29/5 and leaning Thurs 1/6
We're staying at Paradise Pier
....and....
We also have lunch reservations at BB 11.30 Wednesday
So... I'll see you in the waiting line

How cool is that?! We'll be the party of 6 with 4 adults, 2 kids, and 1 of the adults is likely going to be wearing his very dapper straw Panama hat & his dark glasses...his wife is blond. I'll probably be wearing a large brimmed hat which I'll be afraid to take off for fear of freaking everyone out with my horrible hat head. LOL!
 
How cool is that?! We'll be the party of 6 with 4 adults, 2 kids, and 1 of the adults is likely going to be wearing his very dapper straw Panama hat & his dark glasses...his wife is blond. I'll probably be wearing a large brimmed hat which I'll be afraid to take off for fear of freaking everyone out with my horrible hat head. LOL!
I'm quite hard to miss ... very blonde with tall dark haired husband
..... oh... and we're Australian- so we sound funny
Say hi!
 
Yesterday, the kids & I went to a craft store and we got YDD a sketch book/autograph book for the trip. Then we decided to make each kid a tshirt. YDD picked purple, ODD picked pink. We got some glitter iron on stuff and some glittery iron on lettering. Both shirts turned out pretty good for my first attempt at tshirt decorating. I'd post pics, but the photos I took of the tshirts are too large to attach here.

In about 2 weeks, the kids' Damsel Duds skirts should arrive! I can't wait to see what they look like.

We are also in the home stretch of the school year. ODD has 2 weeks left of regular instruction, then 3 days in a row of field trips, followed by "project week." Project Week is something that each student is required to attend. It's half day each day and the students have to pick which "project" they want to participate in. ODD picked the one that involves swimming every day...the last day of which includes a lesson on scuba diving. YDD's school also does project week, so nobody in our house gets to skip the last couple of days of school for a Disney trip! The school even said in their newsletter that any more than 1 absence during project week means that you get to do a special assignment over the summer.

The up side of all of this is that DH & I only have 2 more weeks of supervising homework!
 
WEEEEEEE!!! <-- that's the sound of me squealing with delight. So 3 cool things happened today:

THING ONE:
DH sent me a text message that "guy he knows through work who's a Club 33 member" (referred to furthermore in this post as Club 33 guy) is working on getting us a CLUB 33 RESERVATION AND IT MIGHT ACTUALLY WORK OUT AFTER ALL! We had mentally & emotionally put that on the back burner & DH didn't want to be a pest, so he hasn't mentioned our trip at all to Club 33 Guy for at least a month, maybe 2.

So now dining reservation plans might be put into a bit of a whirlwind. Based on which day & which time of day Club 33 Guy can get us a reservation (Club 33 Guy will be going with us), I may need to cancel something. But I won't know for....I don't know how long. So we are in "play it by ear" mode. If we DO end up getting a Club 33 reservation, I am going to cancel our World of Color dessert party reservation. We can do that on any other trip in the future.

THING TWO:
A coworker of mine is into Disneyland just as much as I am. So we chat once in awhile about trip plans, stuff we've read online that's going on or coming up new in the parks. It's fun to have someone to nerd out about it all sometimes. Anyway, Coworker was at Disneyland last week for 4 days and she brought back some toffee hand made at Disneyland! She shared a piece with me. OMG, it was so good. I always look for the toffee, but never luck out in finding any.

THING THREE:
Coworker was also at Disneyland IN DL park on the day that Johnny Depp made an appearance in POTC. It was on their last day at the parks. She & her DH like to go on POTC as their last ride of the day. On their last day, they'd been on it earlier in the day once already and she saw a ton of CMs & security people starting to show up near POTC. Then she saw filming going on and she thought, "Oh they must be filming something there. I wonder what it is?" She & her DH thought about getting in line for POTC but POTC had been offline for awhile and it had just reopened, so she said there was a big long line to get on the attraction....and they & their friends were tired...so they all decided to walk back to their hotel to have a cocktail.

20 minutes later, at the hotel, cocktail in hand...she starts to see tons of FB posts from people who are posting videos on social media of Johnny Depp in the ride.

The ride that she JUST walked away from.

She said that she wanted to cry right then and there. And that her DH & their friends didn't quite understand why she was getting so worked up and upset about it. I told her that I probably would have wanted to cry, too.

It's nice to have a Disneyland bosom buddy!
 
This week at work has been insanely busy and I am so grateful that today is the end of my work week. We are at 3 weeks and a day away from leaving for our trip to CA!

And just now, DH & I were in a text messaging 'conversation' w/DH's Club 33 contact. OMG! WE MIGHT ACTUALLY FOR REAL GET TO GO! I'M SO EXCITED, I JUST CAN'T STAND IT!

:jumping1::jumping1::jumping1::jumping1:

DH said that Club 33 guy is a Disney super fan. Well, so are ALL OF US HERE ON DISBOARDS, am I right?!

ODD does her presentation/speech on Wed of next week on Walt Disney. She got the ok from the teacher to dress up as Minnie Mouse instead of Walt Disney (she doesn't want to dress up like a boy). Good thing she has long hair so I can put her hair up in 2 Minnie Mouse buns!
 
So exciting!!! That's one of the top Disney fan bucket lists... lunch or dinner at 33!! With the member going with you, you can even go to the lounge! I'd rearrange just about anything around that.
 
Ridemax finally has our dates listed in their website's app, so my final stages of planning can begin! YAY!

I'm still figuring out Tues 5/30, which is our arrival day. So let's move on to Wed 5/31. This is the day that our So Cal friends will be meeting up w/us and they only have 1-park tickets so they're doing DL on Wed. I'm not sure when our friends will be arriving at DL in the morning, so our family is going to start at rope drop like we usually would and then our friends can catch up with us whenever they arrive.

My plan so far goes like the following. The times for the attractions came from Ridemax. In order to make sure that we don't miss our Peter Pan opportunity, I plugged in the wake up times. DH hates waiting.

  • 6-7 am -- wake up, eat breakfast, fuel up on coffee
  • 7 am -- leave Hojo's, walk to DL
  • 7:15 am -- in line at DL main gate
  • 8:05 am -- Peter Pan
  • 8:11 am -- Snow White
  • 8:16 am -- Pinocchio
  • 8:23 am -- Mr Toad
  • 8:35 am -- get FP for IJ
  • 8:39 am -- POTC
  • 9:11 am -- visit Mickey at his house in Toon Town
  • 9:25 am -- Roger Rabbit
  • 9:53 am -- get Splash Mtn FP
  • 10:02 am - go on IJ using FP
  • 10:21 am -- Haunted Mansion
  • 10:45 am -- go on Splash Mtn using FP
  • 11:16 am -- free time, get Star Tours FP
  • 11:30 am -- lunch at Blue Bayou
  • 12:30 - 4 pm -- go on Star Tours using FP (depends on what time the FP return window is), sign kids up for Jedi Training Academy 4:35 pm show, take break at hotel
  • 4:35 pm -- Jedi Training Academy
  • 5:15 pm -- flag retreat ceremony in Town Square
  • DINNER at Hungry Bear
  • 6:30 - 8:00 pm -- FREE TIME - maybe do Darth Vader & Chewbacca meet & greets in Tomorrowland, get silhouettes made of kids, go on Pirates again
  • 8:00 pm -- find a spot for Main Street Electrical Parade
  • 9:30 pm -- fireworks
  • then do the long march back to Hojo's. Friends drive home for the night & we see them again the next day (Thurs 6/1) at DCA.
 
Thurs 6/1 plans:

There's no Grad Night for this day. Our So Cal friends are going to meet up with us on this day as well. Once again, they'll have 1 park per day tickets and they're going to be at DCA on 6/1. We are going to use our MM entry on 6/1. So here's what I have so far between a couple of different Ridemax plans and our own stuff we've come up with on our own:

  • 6:15 am -- leave Hojo's, walk to DL. My DH is going to have a hard time waking up today I think!
  • 6:30 am -- in line at turnstiles at DL.
  • 7:00 am -- MM starts!
  • 7:00 - 8:00 am -- Peter Pan, Dumbo, Alice, Mad Tea Party, Mr Toad, Pinocchio
  • 8:05 am -- Buzz Lightyear
  • 8:12 am -- Autopia
  • 8:38 am -- Storybook Land Canal Boats
  • 9:11 am -- Snow White
  • 9:16 am -- Casey Jr Circus Train
  • 9:29 am -- King Arthur's Carousel
** That's 12 attractions in 2 hours!!! More than a lot of people do all day! All by 9:30 am! WOOT WOOT!!

then we hop over to DCA. I'm hoping that our friends can make it to DCA by 10 am because it will make the afternoon & evening easier.
  • 10:00 am -- GRR
  • 10:18 am -- send runner to get RSR FP. I'll probably be the runner.
  • 10:22 am -- rest of group goes on Golden Zephyr.
  • 10:27 am -- runner gets RSR FP.
  • 10:41 am -- FREE TIME -- Little Mermaid, Boardwalk games (my kids have always wanted to play those dumb games and we've never had time), character meet & greets in Hollywood Land, take photo pass pics w/our friends, Bugs Land rides. Lunch somewhere in Paradise Pier, I think. Then to hotel to relax.
  • 3:30 pm -- get Soarin' FP
  • then FREE TIME until 5pm. No Frozen musical on the Disneyland entertainment schedule, so we will have to skip that. Probably do Redwood Creek Challenge Trail.
  • ~ 5:30 pm -- send runner to get Toy Story FP. Rest of group goes on another ride.
  • 5:55 pm -- Pixar Play Parade (for 6:15 pm performance).
  • 6:55 pm -- parade is done, go to Cars Land to have dinner at Flo's V-8 Cafe. However, we've NEVER seen them turn the neon lights on in Cars Land at dusk. So if that coincides with the Pixar Play Parade, then we're going to skip the parade and hang out in Cars Land at dusk for dinner instead.
  • FREE TIME
  • ** Go on Soarin' using FP based on whatever the return time is.
  • 8:13 pm -- Monsters, Inc
  • 8:31 pm -- RSR using FP
  • 9:01 pm -- Mater's
  • 9:20 pm -- Luigi's
  • 9:50 pm -- Toy Story (using FP)
We're going to skip World of Color with our friends...for a couple of reasons:
1. 1 of our friends has to go back to work the next day and she has a long commute.
2. The other friend (the commuter's husband) can't stand for long periods of time without being in a lot of pain (because of a car accident some years ago), so World of Color is a no go for them unless it's the dessert party. And the dessert party is out of their budget this time around.

1 thing that I would like to fit in on this day would be to have a cocktail at Trader Sam's. I'm thinking maybe at lunch time? However, my DH and my kids are also going to need a break at our hotel. I don't think that I can fit in both. So it would make better sense to eat somewhere in DCA.

On top of all of this, YDD announced today on the way home from school that she wants to try going on the new Guardians of the Galaxy ride. Oh. My. Goodness. This legitimately freaks me out because I really really hate drop rides like Tower of Terror/GOTG. :crazy2::scared1:

Our family has also NEVER seen World of Color. So right now I'm trying to decide between seeing it on:
- arrival day, Tues 5/30
- or on Friday, 6/2 - YDD's birthday

For our last day at the parks - Saturday, 6/3 - we will likely NOT be staying for evening entertainment. We're going to target leaving the parks by ~ 8pm since we're staying overnight in Fontana with the friends who are meeting up w/us at the parks Wed-Thurs. And it takes ~ 1 hr (w/o rush hour) to get there.
 
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I changed the order of stuff for Thursday morning. Both kids have put the Finding Dory Submarines on their "must do" list for their birthday celebration days. BUT despite multiple iterations with Ridemax, I can't get it to work out where we're waiting any less than 45 minutes for that ride.

And I'm sorry, but there's no way I'm going to stand in line for 45 min for the submarine ride. Sorry kids, no Finding Dory Submarines on your b-day celebration days. BUT we can do ti on Thursday morning instead. Here's what the 7-10 am schedule will look like as a result for that day:

7:00 - 8:00 am --
Peter Pan, Dumbo, Alice, Mad Tea Party, Mr Toad, Pinocchio
8:05 am -- Storybook Land Canal Boats
8:21 am -- Snow White
8:26 am -- Casey Jr Circus Train
8:41 am -- Autopia
9:08 am -- Finding Nemo Submarines
then hop over to DCA and be inside the DCA gates by 10:00 am.
 
Moving on to Friday, 6/2...
This is YDD's birthday celebration day. Both kids are getting 1 birthday celebration day while we're at DL. On their birthday celebration day, they get to wear the special birthday button. They get to pick 1 TS restaurant. And they get to pick the rides that we go on....Ridemax picks the ORDER that we use. Of course, ODD has a list of, like, 17 things she wants to go on for her day (which is going to be Saturday)! Holy cow.

This software is what makes our DL trips so enjoyable. If it was up to DH and I and we were left to our own devices, we would probably only go on 5 or 6 attractions all day and we'd end up waiting in line for an hour for each ride. BLEH! :crazy2:

Anyway, here's what it looks like right now for Friday:

7:15 am -- leave Hojo, walk to DL main gate
7:30 am -- get in line at DL main gate
8:05 am -- runner gets IJ FP. Rest of group goes on Matterhorn. DH hates Matterhorn, so he'll be getting the FP.
8:27 am -- everybody goes on Haunted Mansion
8:48 am -- Pirates of the Caribbean
9:10 am -- 1 of us adults heads to Tomorrowland for Space Mtn FP. Rest of the group goes on Jungle Cruise.
9:40 am -- go on IJ using the FP we got earlier
10:00 am -- character breakfast w/Minnie & friends at the Plaza Inn
11:00 am -- runner heads to Splash Mtn to get FP, rest of crew stays at the hub, takes some pics
11:08 am -- runner gets Splash Mtn FP
11:22 am -- go on Space Mtn using FP we got earlier. DH is going to pass on this ride and he'll probably shop in the Star Trader.
11:41 am -- FREE TIME. Probably hit up Mr Toad's Wild Ride (1 of our favorites). I want to do some shopping in New Orleans Square. a
12:58 pm -- go on Splash Mtn using FP we got earlier.
1:25 pm -- runner heads to Star Tours
1:35 pm -- runner gets FP for Star Tours
1:51 pm -- FREE TIME! Maybe we can have the kids play musical chairs at Coke Corner w/Alice & the Mad Hatter. Then go back to the hotel for naps & pool time. Definitely will have to feed the rug rats a couple of snacks during break time. This will also be a good opportunity for me to do some laundry!
DINNER -- YDD has requested Hungry Bear.
9:38 pm -- go on Star Tours using FP
10:00 pm -- Autopia

I've decided on this trip that I'm going to do a couple of things differently this time...
1. I'm going to leave positive feedback for at least 1 CM at City Hall before I leave for the day.
2. I'm going to take at least 1 picture with a CM each day.
 

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