DAY 1 DISNEYLAND THANKSGIVING DAY
HI all!
This is pretty late by my usual trip reporting standards but I decided if I wanted to share this trip before my next one in 2 weeks I had better get reporting!
I decided to take a short plane ride south to the original park for another overnighter, so three trips to some Disney park in 2025!
Who-just me.
When-Thanksgiving and the following day.
Resort-Pixar Place club level. (Club level not by choice just minimal availablity on short notice again.)
And before I go any further I would like to offer a Disney travel hack that you may or may not be aware of. It was only a few weeks ahead of my trip that I tried booking for Thanksgiving day. Zip, nada was available at any of the 3 onsite resorts. But I got to thinking, I have to buy tickets anyway let me call the Disney travel agency. And low and behold they did have rooms and tickets as a package. So I had 2 choices, the Pixar club room or a regular room at the Grand for the same price. I thought club would be fun.
For several reasons it was a dumb idea. I was there such a short period of time I only got breakfast the morning of check out (oh and a free mini bottle of water from the gym, don't ask.)
And I ended up with a LOT more walking than I would have if I had just taken the regular room at the Grand Californian. 21,000 steps on the first day not starting till 11 am.
Ok, back to the report.
Even though I have my million or so photos I am going to try to make this a short trip report since I will be headed east soon, but since I do like to gab both in person and with a key board I may not stick to that.
I arranged for a direct flight to get to Anaheim with southwest via the John Wayne airport again. It is pretty painless to fly in and out of.
I was at the Sacramento Airport before 7am and landing a little after 10am and walking into the doors of the hotel at 10:50 am.
I assume, not sure, that the red yellow and blue ball tree things are only out for Christmas but I'm not sure.
I checked in at the front and they took me upstairs to the club level check in area. Because I was in a hurry to get to the parks with such a short stay I didn't use the club amenities this day. Also as expected the room wasn't ready and despite taking you up there, they won't hold your luggage there and I had to go back down to bell services and give them my luggage (which was only a backpack.)
Shoutout to all of the staff there, front desk. club staff and bell services, all very nice and helpful.
The hotel is directly opposite the entrance to the Grand Californian but they have a riffraff entrance for people walking across from Pixar or the Disneyland hotel. You literally can't walk up the drive and go through the main entrance and walk through to Downtown Disney and enter Disneyland. There is a back entrance to California adventure but my park reservation was for Disneyland not Calif. Adventure and while they were nice wouldn't let me in. So I had to go back around and basically sneak in the gate when some man walking ahead of me knew the drill and just snuck in when someone came out and I zipped in with him!
Once in I pretended to not be riffraff and strolled through the main lobby and got to see the gingerbread house.
This cute display was in Downtown Disney walking to the park entrance.
These were the crowds at the entrance at 11:40 am!!!
Prior to coming here I hemmed and hawed about whether to just use LLMP that came with my tickets or splurge since it was just me on PP and a very short stay.
I was glad I did buy it when I saw this sea of humanity, but I was in for a few annoying shockers because I did not do my research well enough prior to purchasing. (Story to follow.)
I swam like a fish going the wrong way but am finally here!
And I will say if I am going to continue these solo trips I really need to up my selfie game!
I saw this on the way in, loved it, but it was in an interesting area with heavy foot traffic under the train station.
HI all!
This is pretty late by my usual trip reporting standards but I decided if I wanted to share this trip before my next one in 2 weeks I had better get reporting!
I decided to take a short plane ride south to the original park for another overnighter, so three trips to some Disney park in 2025!
Who-just me.
When-Thanksgiving and the following day.
Resort-Pixar Place club level. (Club level not by choice just minimal availablity on short notice again.)
And before I go any further I would like to offer a Disney travel hack that you may or may not be aware of. It was only a few weeks ahead of my trip that I tried booking for Thanksgiving day. Zip, nada was available at any of the 3 onsite resorts. But I got to thinking, I have to buy tickets anyway let me call the Disney travel agency. And low and behold they did have rooms and tickets as a package. So I had 2 choices, the Pixar club room or a regular room at the Grand for the same price. I thought club would be fun.
For several reasons it was a dumb idea. I was there such a short period of time I only got breakfast the morning of check out (oh and a free mini bottle of water from the gym, don't ask.)
And I ended up with a LOT more walking than I would have if I had just taken the regular room at the Grand Californian. 21,000 steps on the first day not starting till 11 am.
Ok, back to the report.
Even though I have my million or so photos I am going to try to make this a short trip report since I will be headed east soon, but since I do like to gab both in person and with a key board I may not stick to that.
I arranged for a direct flight to get to Anaheim with southwest via the John Wayne airport again. It is pretty painless to fly in and out of.
I was at the Sacramento Airport before 7am and landing a little after 10am and walking into the doors of the hotel at 10:50 am.
I assume, not sure, that the red yellow and blue ball tree things are only out for Christmas but I'm not sure.
I checked in at the front and they took me upstairs to the club level check in area. Because I was in a hurry to get to the parks with such a short stay I didn't use the club amenities this day. Also as expected the room wasn't ready and despite taking you up there, they won't hold your luggage there and I had to go back down to bell services and give them my luggage (which was only a backpack.)
Shoutout to all of the staff there, front desk. club staff and bell services, all very nice and helpful.
The hotel is directly opposite the entrance to the Grand Californian but they have a riffraff entrance for people walking across from Pixar or the Disneyland hotel. You literally can't walk up the drive and go through the main entrance and walk through to Downtown Disney and enter Disneyland. There is a back entrance to California adventure but my park reservation was for Disneyland not Calif. Adventure and while they were nice wouldn't let me in. So I had to go back around and basically sneak in the gate when some man walking ahead of me knew the drill and just snuck in when someone came out and I zipped in with him!
Once in I pretended to not be riffraff and strolled through the main lobby and got to see the gingerbread house.
This cute display was in Downtown Disney walking to the park entrance.
These were the crowds at the entrance at 11:40 am!!!
Prior to coming here I hemmed and hawed about whether to just use LLMP that came with my tickets or splurge since it was just me on PP and a very short stay.
I was glad I did buy it when I saw this sea of humanity, but I was in for a few annoying shockers because I did not do my research well enough prior to purchasing. (Story to follow.)
I swam like a fish going the wrong way but am finally here!
And I will say if I am going to continue these solo trips I really need to up my selfie game!
I saw this on the way in, loved it, but it was in an interesting area with heavy foot traffic under the train station.
about route 66.
