June 2017 Trip Report - Canadians road trip to Disney!

[jenng1983]

EDIT: I have since removed photos of my kids from this thread at their request.

Hey fellow Disboarders!

This is my first trip report I’ve ever written. I wrote a PTR for this trip, link in my signature, and if you read it, you can see I’m a big planner, and I love lists. If you don’t feel like reading it, I’ll do a quick intro on who we are so you know who I’m talking about.


Who we are

First, me. I’m Jenn, 30-something Disney addict. It all started last year when we took our first ever trip to the Land. It wasn’t my first Disney trip, though. Way back in 1993, as a wee 9 year old, my mom “won” (a long term employee incentive or something) a trip through her work. It was a trip for 2 to the Bahamas, but as my dad was terrified of flying and would NOT go, she sweet talked them into making a trip for 4 to WDW so she could bring me and my brother and sister. Look how cute we were!!

WDW1993 by jennifer.gilkes, on Flickr

But I hardly remember any of it, and I think I was too young to really get into the “holy crap, Disney is amazing” mind frame, and the lack of Disney mania by the others in my family didn’t help.

So, I managed to convince my husband that we needed to bring our kids on a surprise trip to DL in February 2016, what we said would be a trip of a lifetime. But that trip injected the Disney Kool Aid straight into our veins, and before we even left, we were planning this trip.

DH is James, also 30-something. He also loves Disney, not as much as me, but almost. He hides his Disney Side behind me, I think, and I’m convinced he loves it more than he lets on. He’s a truck driver, and drives from Calgary to Edmonton (about a 3 hr drive) and back every day. He loves it, driving is his passion, and there is no one else I trust as much as I do him behind the wheel. So, when he suggested we drive… I agreed.

DS is Mason, 15. He likes Disney. He is in his angsty teen years, so he doesn’t LOVE it, but when we are at Disney… he’s a kid, and really soaks in the magic. When he was younger, because his dad and I are young parents (I was 21 when I moved in with them, and he was 3 at the time), we didn’t exactly make enough extra cash, and had NO idea how to save, he missed out on family vacations. So I’m trying to make up for that by giving him some amazing vacations now that he’s a teen. I hope he appreciates it.

DD is Keileigh, 6. She loves Disney as much as I do. We llisten to Disney Park music in my car together, and Disney movie soundtracks at home together. This trip was her birthday trip; she turned 6 in the happiest place on earth, a gift I never dreamed I would be able to give my kids.

We live in Calgary, Alberta. It’s an unfortunately long way from Disney. We have dreams of one day moving to California, but we love our free health care and gun laws too much to actually go through with it. Also, it’s expensive to live there!! It blew my mind when I researched it.

That’s our little family, but we had a tag along on this trip. My friend from work, Mae, who is equally as Disney obsessed, came with us on this trip. Since we were driving, and we had an extra space in the truck, we thought it would be fun!


The plans


Like I said above, I’m a planner. I’ve been to DL before, but as you must know, it always changes so I am always researching. I follow a blog and FB account with amazing tips. Her and I are like BFF. Maybe one day I’ll even meet her.

I had budget worked out on a day by day basis, with each day’s budget in its own envelope, and details about that day’s spending written on each envelope. Where we were eating, how much approximately it would cost, how much was allotted for souvenirs, snacks, and miscellaneous. I’m a big fan of miscellaneous. You never know what you MUST spend money on that isn’t planned for, so that’s where the miscellaneous comes in.

I’m an Air Miles addict, so we got all of our 3 day hoppers through them, including my friend’s, with the Canadian Resident offer – BONUS!!!

I had a spreadsheet listing what days we were doing what, which parks had MM, each park’s hours and detailing the shows/parades we likely would want to see. Each day is broken down into 3 parts, Morning, Afternoon, Evening. In each part, I wrote in which rides would be best to be ridden at what point in the day, and made sure to pencil in each person’s “top 3 must do” items, so that we didn’t break anyone’s heart by missing something. I also, obviously, included anything we had a reservation for. There was of course wiggle room in there, and NOTHING was planned down to the minute. But there had to be a loose plan at least. I only had 3 days to jam as much fun in as possible, so I had to be ready.

After months making, re-doing, and checking off checklists (things to pack, things to buy, things to print, things to confirm) and colour coding everything on said checklists, as well as Keileigh’s 2 week long fever finally gone, we were ready to go.


Next post will have lots of pictures - promise!!

 

[Eyeheartdisneyyy]

following!! Also a Disney obsessed Canadian here

 

[jenng1983]

following!! Also a Disney obsessed Canadian here

Hi there!! Welcome. Being Disney obsessed and Canadian can suck sometimes, with the way our dollar has been!

 

[jenng1983]

The Drive there

On Friday, my husband took my car to work and I kept the truck to load as much in it as I could alone. When hubby got home, he re-packed it (I don’t know why I bother trying – that’s a blue job) and we waited anxiously for the kids to get home from school. The second they were in the door, we were in the truck, and off to the other end of the city to pick up Mae.

Friday. 3:30. Other end of the city. Traffic. It took way longer to get there than I’d hoped but we got there in one piece. Grabbed Mae and her stuff, gave her parents a copy of our itinerary/emergency info and we were off!

Destination – Champion, AB!

...

Wait, what?


Not Disneyland. Not yet.

You see, my nephew was graduating from junior high that night, and my sister lived in a little village called Champion, about 130km south of Calgary, so we made a stop there and stayed the night. It was interesting, as my sister was in the middle of a move back to the city. There was literally no furniture. But a good time was had by all, we stayed up way too late talking and laughing, and we all finally crashed well after midnight.

Saturday morning, we were awake and getting ready by 8 – disgustingly early for all of us except DH who is usually up and 2am for work – which is about the time I’m going to sleep after work. Had some coffee, and we were in the truck by 9.

Yes, destination – Disneyland.

23 hours, 2485km (1544 mi) until we were there.

I’ll bore you the details of the drive, as it was pretty boring and uneventful, just the way I like it. The kid had movies on their tablets, and the 3 adults took turns driving. Mae and I drove all day, and James drove all night.

There was one point during the night, I think it was 2am or something, where I made James pull over at the next available pull off to sleep. He was fighting to keep his eyes open, he was all over the lane… it was scary. At first, he fought me on it, saying we had to keep on schedule. I told him we were estimated to get to Anaheim at 9am, WAY too early to check in, and we can spare half an hour, and that I’d rather get there alive. He agreed. He pulled over at an exit (a very dark exit, I might add) and just pulled to the shoulder and slept in the driver’s seat. At this point Keileigh was asleep, but Mae and Mason were still awake. The 3 of us stepped outside to get some air and stretch. My anxiety didn’t let me stay out there long, as all I could imagine was some weird bush people coming out of the ditch and killing us. Yeah. I have anxiety and read too many horror novels. But Mae and Mason sat on the tailgate and watched the stars, and I sat in the safety of the truck and browsed Facebook. Mae and I decided that on the way home, we’d stop at a hotel at the halfway mark for a solid sleep.

30 minutes of sleep was all he needed, and then we were off. The rest of the drive seemed to take forever but we finally made it into Anaheim around 10am. I’d called the hotel and asked them if there happened to be a room ready, and they said no. So we have 3 very tired adults, a sullen teen, and an excited soon-to-be-6 year old. Little did we know, we would be the victims of theft in our first hours in Anaheim.

 

[jenng1983]

The theft, Downtown Disney & Fireworks

So... What did we do for 5 hours?? We went shopping!! We went to Outlets at Orange, the same mall we’d gone to last year that we loved. When we got there, we took turns changing out of our “Canada clothes” (yes, it’s spring here too, but it’s still cold at times, especially compared to SoCa) in the truck and put them away for 6 glorious days. We spent some time there shopping, taking in the sights and eating junk. It really was the light at the end of our 25 hours in a truck together hell (it wasn’t that bad. I’m dramatic).

We went back to the truck and, walking through the parking lot, James mutters “what the hell?” and starts walking faster. I’m freaking out. Did someone crash into the truck? Break in? STEAL it? He won’t answer me cause he’s ahead of me and can’t hear me, and I’m holding my hysteria in for Keileigh. He gets to the truck and looks at his antenna, and that’s when I realize… Buzz Lightyear is missing. It made it 15 months in Canada, but we’re in Anaheim for a couple hours, and someone stole his Buzz Lightyear antenna topper. I almost cried from relief that that’s all it was, while he was ANGRY that someone dared take it.

After he got past the victimization, we headed towards our hotel, the Park Vue Inn. We checked in, but our room wasn’t ready (it wasn’t 3 yet), so all we had to do when we came back was pick up our room keys. We parked the truck and headed over to DTD!!

I honestly was feeling so euphoric over actually being here FINALLY that I don’t remember at all what we did. It’s all a big blur, where I tried not to cry (ok, I didn’t try – I cried) out of sheer happiness over being here. It may have also been fatigue. I’m sure we had some lunch… or maybe we were so full from ice cream and chocolate that we didn’t? Who knows. I even looked through my pictures, and there’s a gap between getting there and taking a picture of my kids at the fountain, and then fireworks. Must have been to euphoric/exhausted/happy to take pictures.

We went back to the hotel room just after 3, got our cards and began to get settled in. To our 2nd story room. With a stroller, and a girl on crutches. In a hotel with no elevator. Mae has had issues with her knees her whole life. A couple days before we left, her knee completely gave out and she was back on crutches. I hadn’t asked for a ground floor room, despite knowing I’d have a stroller. Live and learn. We made it work mostly.

At this point, we went swimming, hung out, had dinner (again, I don’t remember where we ate or what we had – I must have been more tired than I realized), and got ready for Disney Day 1. One of my favourite things about the Park Vue Inn (aside from the fact that it’s DIRECTLY across the street from the gate, is affordable & offers a discount for returning guests, 10% off at Cold Stone Creamery) , is that from the outdoor breakfast patio, you have a perfect view of the fireworks, and can ALMOST hear the music. We went over at 9:30 to grab my favourite spot, and we waited.

Side story – last year, when we went during the 60th, we got to see the fireworks ONCE. From the hotel patio area. The 8 days we were there, the fireworks happened twice. Unfortunately, high winds didn’t allow it to happen more than that. I wanted nothing more than to see the 60th fireworks show from Main Street, to see the projections, hear the music and just get wrapped up in the moment. The other time they went off, we were in DCA in line for WOC. I bawled like a baby on our last day, when it was our last chance to see them from the park/at all, and they were cancelled.

Thankfully, we got to see them every night this year, including once from the parks.

After that, it was off to bed for everyone. We were all thankful to sleep in a bed after our long day/night of travel. Tomorrow, we’re off to DCA!!

 

[jenng1983]

Disney Day 1 – DCA


Mae and I were awake before our alarms went off at 7:30. We had to wake everyone else up and be annoyingly excited to get them out of bed in time. We dressed, grabbed our pre-packed bags and headed to the free breakfast. It’s a decent breakfast, with toast, bagels, cereal, make your own waffles, fruit & yogurt being offered daily, and hot selections alternating between scrambled eggs/bacon and biscuits & gravy/sausages/breakfast potatoes daily. It’s filling enough to get you going, plus there’s coffee.

Good morning!



We (I) chose DCA as our first day. We missed a lot of it last year because we kept going back to DL and not realizing all the cool things DCA had. I had made a lunch reservation at Ariel’s Grotto as part of Keileigh’s 6th birthday extravaganza, and I figured this would be the best day to do it, as then we would meet 5 princesses and get them out of the way, and save time standing in lines to see them. It was an EMH, which we didn’t have access to as we were staying offsite, so I was a bit nervous. But I was hoping that the GOTG craze would keep most people there and away from everything else we wanted to do. My hope was right. We arrived a few minutes before rope drop, and the masses were corralled into the GOTG fastpass line, and we went the other way. I won’t go into details but here’s what we managed to do before lunch:

Rode Soarin’ (first for us)
Grabbed WOC FP
Rode TSMM (first for us)
Rode RSR
Grabbed Grizzly River Run FP for later in the afternoon
A bunch of small rides

Keileigh and me in the front, and Mae is the blonde in the back


The boys on TSMM


We still had some time before we had to make our way to Ariel’s Grotto, so we split up. James, Mason and I wanted to ride Screamin, Keileigh is almost an inch too short for it, and Mae doesn’t like coasters, so Mae and Keileigh went their own way to go on some smaller rides, while James, Mason and I went to Screamin. The wait time was 25 minutes when we got in line, but after not moving for 10 minutes, I realized something was wrong with the ride, which spiked my anxiety. I left James and Mason in line for it while I went to have some alone time, get a hold of my impending anxiety attack and find the smoking area. I sat there, had a smoke, listened to the sounds and made my way over to the Pier to get a picture of the boys on Screamin. I met up with Mae and Keileigh and shortly after, the boys were done on Screamin and we made our way over to Ariel’s Grotto.

Ariel’s Grotto was pretty awesome. I had surprised Keileigh with an Ariel dress (actually a nightie from the Disney Store, which I find way easier to pack & wear at the parks than the dresses) for the occasion, and she looked so adorable.

Lunch was delicious. I had the chowder and the angel hair pasta. The portion size was HUGE and I couldn’t finish it. Dessert was ok. I’m not sure if I mentioned when I made the reservation, or if they just noticed her button, but they brought out a Mickey cake with a candle for her, and sang happy birthday. She was kind of impressed.

The princesses we saw were Ariel (duh), Tiana, Cinderella, Rapunzel (I may have cried when I heard her music) and Belle. The atmosphere was great – not stuffy, so the kids felt at ease, but the way they announced the princesses and had entrance music, it felt like we were at a princess ball. I would for sure go again.

n Flickr

_133639 by jennifer.gilkes, on Flickr





You may notice that there's not many pictures up until now. Well, I'm not sure what happened, but we were taking pictures (LOTS of pictures) using my Canon and all of a sudden, just before lunch, I turned it on to take a pic of an unusually empty Paradise Pier, and I got an error about the memory card. My heart sank. The error said I had to format the card to use it again... for those who know nothing about memory cards, that means that everything gets wiped off the card. I fought the urge to cry and put the camera away, vowing to not let this ruin my day. I figured I'd try to save the pictures later. Spoiler alert: I couldn't.

After Ariel’s Grotto, we did some more exploring of DCA, doing smaller rides, Grizzly River Run (using our FP’s from earlier) and I think we got more FPs for RSR. We basically felt the pressure was off because we already did the bigger rides there, and we could just explore anything we felt like. We repeated a couple small rides, and basically killed time until WOC. We had dinner at Flo’s, and it was just after sunset, it was gorgeous. Mae introduced us to a place in Carsland she called the Lookout. It’s a quiet spot just past Flo’s where you can watch the cars going by on RSR and just get some peace and quiet.

Here's Mae and I at the Lookout


After Flo’s we went to our viewing spot for WOC (yellow), and encountered a problem… it was packed. Like, seriously packed and Mae couldn’t maneuver on her crutches. James asked a CM if there was anywhere she could sit down to watch, and the CM brought all of us to the disability area. She got to sit, and we stood behind her. Bonus is that Keileigh got to sit on her lap, which saved us from having to pick her up and hold her the whole time.

I liked WOC, although I’ve gotta say the 60th edition made me cry like a baby. This one was good, but not as emotion-inducing. I’m glad Keileigh got to see it this year; last year she was fast asleep in her stroller for the whole thing.

After WOC was over, we headed for the exit, but Mae and Mason wanted to stay behind. James and I went back to the hotel with Keileigh, while Mason and Mae stayed. I must admit, I was jealous. I wanted to stay and do more. But, as a parent, I give up that privilege. I am happy though that Mason got to do more.

James and I tucked Keileigh into bed, and for once in her life, she fell asleep within minutes. We puttered around the hotel room, tidying up and getting ready for the next day’s adventures in LA.

 

[Canadian Harmony]

I'm from Victoria and we took our girls to DLR in 2015 to celebrate the girl's birthdays (2 days apart), so they each turned a year older in the parks too! How awesome are we?!

The smile on your girls' face with the princesses brought a tear to my eye. She looked so. dang. happy!! But the BEST smile she kept for you when you two posed out front - you can totally tell she's floating on air.

I look forward to the rest of the trip report!

 

[jenng1983]

Los Angeles is a crazy tourist trap aka The Day Jenn's Anxiety won


We slept in a little, and just kind of woke up whenever we woke up. No alarms today, and we all got some much needed sleep. From research, I knew that there would be no point leaving at 9am, so we waited to leave until 11. There was hardly any traffic. When we first got there, we went to La Brea Tar Pits, at James’ insistence. It was cool. It was… pits of tar. We feigned interest, to get the most out of our “donation” admission, and so as not to admit to ourselves that it was a bust.

For those of you wondering what the Tar Pits are... this is it




We left there, and headed for downtown Hollywood. I’d researched ahead of time, and knew that we could park in the underground parking at Hollywood & Highland and walk to where we wanted to go from there. After lots of anxiety about the amount of traffic on Hollywood Blvd, we made it. Anxiety level: 2.

From the parkade, we went into the mall and found the Hard Rock Café, and decided to eat there, as we were all getting hangry. It was good food in a cool atmosphere, and now I can say I’ve eaten at a Hard Rock. At one point, before our meal got there, I went outside for a smoke, and the reality of Hollywood Blvd hit me. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting California’s version of Las Vegas. People out to get money from the tourists, people everywhere, and in the 5 minutes I was out there, I had a hex put on my household for not tipping a magician I wasn’t even watching. Anxiety level: 5. I went back in, had a drink and some good food, and laughed a LOT. A lot more than I have in a while. Anxiety level: 3

We left the Hard Rock and started walking around, checking out the shops and the stars on Hollywood Blvd. We found Walt, Roy and Mickey’s stars, and then stumbled upon a star for Disneyland itself!

_153301 by jennifer.gilkes, on Flickr



At one point, James left us to go check out a store we didn’t want to go to. That was a mistake. I then had my kids, myself and Mae, two small women, on a busy street where I felt I had to watch my back at all times. A man approached Mae and gave her a CD, then demanded a tip. When she said she didn’t have any cash, he grabbed the CD out of her hand started yelling at her. I pushed the stroller over to the side of the street, and panicked. Anxiety level: 6. Thankfully, she walked away and he didn’t pursue her, and shortly after that, James re joined us. We bought tickets for a showing of the new PTOC at the El Capitan Theatre and continued to browse shops and avoid being robbed blind until the time came for the movie.

The El Capitan Theatre is amazing. If you haven’t checked it out, I strongly encourage you to do so. Once inside, we saw Captain Jack doing a meet and greet. While Mae, Mason and James got popcorn and drinks, Keileigh and I stood off to the side to wait for them, and watch Jack. Keileigh really didn’t want t go close to him, so she stayed in the stroller. I was looking over at James and talking to him, and notice out of the corner of my eye, Captain Jack “sneaking” up to her stroller and hand her something. I looked over, and he pretended not to be doing anything. I look at Keileigh and see the biggest smile on her face, as she’s holding a piece of “pirate loot” that Jack handed her. After that, she was chatting with him, but only from afar. The rest of us, however, got pictures with him while Keiligh held our stuff. Anxiety level: 4 After the movie, we went downstairs to check out the exhibit of POTC movie props they had on display. It was cool.



20170606_161744 by jennifer.gilkes, on Flickr
20170606_162202 by jennifer.gilkes, on Flickr
20170606_183844 by jennifer.gilkes, on Flickr


We got our parking validated (a pretty foreign concept here in Calgary), and headed next door to Ghiradelli’s, where we all got something or other. By this time, it was about 7, so we headed back to the truck. James had heard of a shop he wanted to go to, so he drove us somewhere, out of the touristy area, parked the truck on some side street and walked to the store. Now, remember, I am having an up-and-down day in terms of anxiety. This stop was out of our plan, I had no idea where we were, and we were sitting in a brand new truck with no keys. Every single person walking by eyeballed the truck, and every single time, I was SURE this is when we would die. This, folk, is how anxiety works. It was only about 5 minutes that James was gone, but it felt like an hour. By the time he came back, I was t anxiety level 10, and felt an attack coming on. Now, I was sitting in the backseat beside Keileigh so I did my best to contain it, and thankfully I have gotten pretty good at that when I need to be, which actually makes the attacks less intense. After an anxiety attack, I’m exhausted, so I closed my eyes and dozed off a little on the drive back to Anaheim. As soon as we pulled up to the hotel, I felt a sense of relief, like I was home. I felt safe in my little Disney bubble, and I was once again relaxed. We showered, got into pj’s, got some ice cream from Cold Stone, and watched the fireworks before bed.

Would I visit Hollywood again? Yes. But now I know what I’m getting into, and can mentally prepare myself for it. And hopefully, I can do more next time, knowing what to expect..

Up next, how our beach day got cancelled.

 

[jenng1983]

I'm from Victoria and we took our girls to DLR in 2015 to celebrate the girl's birthdays (2 days apart), so they each turned a year older in the parks too! How awesome are we?!

The smile on your girls' face with the princesses brought a tear to my eye. She looked so. dang. happy!! But the BEST smile she kept for you when you two posed out front - you can totally tell she's floating on air.

I look forward to the rest of the trip report!

We're the best parents ever, that's for sure!! I keep getting told that (from Keileigh, not Mason... he's too cool to proclaim how awesome his (step)mom is.

She was so happy. James kept saying he wasn't sure who was happiest between the 3 girls.

 

[jenng1983]

I'm having some computer issues... in that the computer with all my pictures crashed. I think I got everything transferred onto our external hard drive but I haven't had a chance to check.

Next installment should be soon

 

[Frozen2014]

Great report....and sweet family. I remember reading your pre-trip so good to hear of the result. Sounds like overall it was great.

One question as I keep hearing how amazing La Brea Tar Pits is and it's on our list of possible things to do. It's a "maybe" though as a filler so we'll see when we're there if we want to go. So just wondering why it was "a bust"? Is it boring? We do come from a big city with museums (including dinosaurs, etc) so maybe not impressive as to others.

 

[jenng1983]

Great report....and sweet family. I remember reading your pre-trip so good to hear of the result. Sounds like overall it was great.

One question as I keep hearing how amazing La Brea Tar Pits is and it's on our list of possible things to do. It's a "maybe" though as a filler so we'll see when we're there if we want to go. So just wondering why it was "a bust"? Is it boring? We do come from a big city with museums (including dinosaurs, etc) so maybe not impressive as to others.

I thought the idea of it was really cool - the history is impressive. But after looking at pits of tar for 5 minutes... what else is there to do? Mind you, we didn't pay to go into the museum and that may have been what is more interesting.

 

[Frozen2014]

I thought the idea of it was really cool - the history is impressive. But after looking at pits of tar for 5 minutes... what else is there to do? Mind you, we didn't pay to go into the museum and that may have been what is more interesting.

Thanks. Appreciate the feedback.