Trip Report Let’s Hit It Outta The Park!!!

It’s been about 3.5 years since my last Disney trip report and I’m really rusty. While not truly live, I want to try and do sort of a day by day as we go. Of course, I’m already behind as today is day 3!

So, where are we? At a Holiday Inn about .5 miles from here…

This isn’t exactly a Disney trip. In fact, it’s going to be nearly a week and a half until we set foot in a Disney park. Sam…the kid who had just turned 2 in my very first trip report, is now almost 16 and playing travel softball. We’re in town for PGF nationals to cap off our summer season. Between our crazy summer tournament schedule, college stuff for Kendall, and recent hurricane related lodging, I feel like we’ve been living in hotels for nearly 2 months. Most of the team opted for beach adjacent/front rentals when we bought out of the stay to play requirement, but Disneyland was our priority. Imagine that!?!

Speaking of Kendall…she stayed home to organize things for dorm move in next month and give the dog a break from boarding after her storm experience. So, this is how she’s getting to experience much of this trip…

(Yeah, that’s me up there too)
It’s too bad because the fun stuff planned towards the end was supposed to be for her. I was going to head to Yosemite, but she insisted on Disney. She gave me this whole heartfelt speech about it being her childhood. Kids!

So, we decided to drive to California. It’s been drama trying to get my vehicle back for this (damaged in the May derecho that went through Houston) and it’s probably going to have to go back in. We were hoping we’d have it before Sam’s two tournaments in Colorado, but they ordered some incorrect parts. Oh well…I have it now even though it’s still got issues. We set out around 4:45am CT on the 17th with a goal of Tucson by dinner time. I was driving, so not much in the way of photos aside from this Texas Spiny Lizard at a gas station west of San Antonio.

The most surprising drama of the day was just west of El Paso. All traffic was being individually inspected by Border Patrol. So that was fun. We also had to keep an eye out for dust storms and dodge the dust devils in NM and AZ.

We got to Tucson around dinner. We checked into the hotel, but I was so road weary that we just opted for a nearby Denny’s and hoped the severe storm over the mountains didn’t hit us.

Thankfully, the storm lost its steam and we were all able to get some sleep. Well, sort of. I was up around 4:30am, which is probably good because I noticed an alert for one of Kendall’s prime day packages being delivered and saw this on the local Houston radar.

I have some serious PTSD from the derecho and Hurricane Beryl, so I woke Kendall up and had her move to a safer spot downstairs. Oh, and said a few prayers for the power to stay on. Thankfully all was good, but she’s going to Oklahoma, so I need her to be more weather aware.

I used sunrise to try and keep myself from freaking out.

It’s a really boring video, but I got tired of peaking, so I just put my phone in the window.

 

[k8einwdw]

The kids behind us kept kicking and hitting Sam. They also didn’t know how to cover their mouths when they sneezed.

What is it with the terrible parents in the TRs this week?

 

[HouCuseChickie]

What is it with the terrible parents in the TRs this week?

I don’t know. Sam politely asked them to stop and the mom just shrugged and sheepishly smiled. Not even an apology. Not that I’d ever let it get to this point, but I would have been mortified and profusely apologetic if it were my kids.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

I still can’t believe 80 minutes equated to 15-20 for TSMM. Between the overestimates, underestimates and breakdowns…I was having serious trust issues with this park.

We headed over to the Incredicoaster for our LL and hoped for the best.

I wasn’t originally planning to ride, but I had a change of heart. It’s a fun ride and I did enjoy some of the theming elements added since it was changed from California Screamin’.

We had two new debates in the mix…dinner and what to do next. We had talked about doing mainly quick service this trip but nobody could ever agree on places. I ended up grabbing a dinner ADR at Wine Country Trattoria because I knew David and Sam could both potentially be happy with Alfredo. The ride debate was also a problem. Everything we’d want to ride either had crazy standby times, LLs were gone or LLs were later than we’d like. We eventually decided on a later Soarin’ LL along with an attempt to ride standby on Radiator Springs Racers.

In the meantime, we were sitting in a little bit of shade we found and having some water. We did see Frozone while we waited.

We popped into a shop on our way to dinner. I was searching for something for Kendall but came up empty. I liked this shirt for me, but it would be stained on day 1!

And now it’s time to check in for dinner…

We kind of wanted to sit inside, but they gave us a parade view. So, we went along with it.

 

[Swissmiss]

Ok: pet peeve time. There are dozens (if not hundreds!) of French cheeses, yet one on each sleeve is from Switzerland.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Ok: pet peeve time. There are dozens (if not hundreds!) of French cheeses, yet one on each sleeve is from Switzerland.

Yeah, I was thinking that when I saw Emmental on one of the sleeves. It still made me want cheese

 

[Swissmiss]

Yeah, I was thinking that when I saw Emmental on one of the sleeves. It still made me want cheese

Gruyère is the other one.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Time to dive into the menu…

We decided to take a slow approach since we had a later Soarin’ LL and were running out of things to do.

We started with drinks. I think David got some kind of old fashioned. They didn’t have any zero proof mocktails that appealed to Sam, so they made her a virgin frozen pina colada. I had the frozen limoncello.

On one hand, it was refreshing and not overly sweet. On the other hand, it didn’t have much in the way of potency.

As the crowds started to build at the little parade package tables along the route, we opted for an appetizer. Calamari… which was tasty.

Before the parade started, we ordered dinner. All three of us had the Alfredo, but Sam had them swap the shrimp for chicken. I was more focused on the parade and didn’t take a single entree photo.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

In the middle of the parade, we also ordered dessert.

It was cookie butter tiramisu. It sounded great, but nothing amazing. The Alfredo was also good, but nothing wow. Sam was actually turned off by the big pieces of garlic in the mix.

I also took some video of the parade finale…



I’ve realized a few things…
- I haven’t seen many of the newer Pixar movies
- Of the ones I have seen, I haven’t liked some of them enough to go back and rewatch
- I don’t like many of the Pixar characters and content as much as the things directly from Disney

This was critical because it would impact a decision I made later in the evening.

After the parade…during the moments when the sun tried to blind us…we decided to pay the check and move on.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

After dinner, we still had a decent amount of time to burn for that Soarin’ LL. Radiator Springs Racers had gone down several times during the day…including when we were at dinner. Standby was listed at 55 minutes as we were finishing up, so we headed to Carsland.

We got into the line and settled in for the wait. David actually left us for a bit to use the restroom, so he had to go through the fun chore of trying to find us. Lots of others were doing this, so it was no big deal.

Now, I honestly don’t know how long we were in line or how much time passed between each issue, but supposedly the ride had come back up right before we entered the line. It went down again shortly after David went to find the bathroom and twice after he got back.

We got so fed up and had been waiting so long that we were now in our Soarin’ LL window. So, we wove back through the line and officially gave up.

Carsland had shifted into night while we were in line for RSR.

So, we booked it across the park to Soarin’, but something felt off. People were exiting the standby line and the LL line was nearly at the door.

In fact, they closed the doors shortly after we came inside and whatever CMs that had been around were gone. After about 10 minutes of waiting and not moving, a couple of women came walking towards us from the hallway next to the ride loading area. Apparently one of the screens was down and they were having problems with the other screen.

My feet were killing me. I also didn’t bring the Body Glide to reapply to my blisters after Grizzly River. So, I just couldn’t handle standing there. I had even debated about booking a bus pass or Uber, but I wasn’t quite ready to call it quits. So we went out in search of something…anything.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

We walked towards the one thing sort of near us that surely had little to no wait…

Yes, it was Monsters Inc. I even booked a LL just to avoid any kind of wait whatsoever. Ya know what? Even that didn’t work! The CM let us right in anyway, but I was so over things.

It’s really not a bad ride. It’s reminiscent of the dark rides in Fantasyland, but it lacks the Walt era nostalgia.

It was time to go. There was no way I was going to make it to see World of Color…even the early show. Sam had me take pics of this sign on the way out (I don’t get the fascination)…

I decided to skip the bus and Uber and we just headed to the tram. I at least got everybody on the same page about no shortcuts. I managed a decent pace by focusing on sidewalk segments. It also got my mind off the pain.

After examining my blisters, I decided to take a look at the Disneyland fireworks on YouTube. I originally wanted to see the show in the park, but after reexamining my feelings about Pixar, I wanted to see the video to see if it moved me enough to stand there with my blister covered feet. This might sound crazy but the story and soundtrack I made up in my mind while watching them from the hotel was far better than what I saw on YouTube.

Now it was time to plan for our next day in Disneyland.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Sorry for the delay, but there's a lot going on. It's tryout season, so much of yesterday was spent at the fields for annual tryouts. I think it was about 97, crazy humidity, and a few little bits of shade. It's also peak of back to school season for us. Sam walked her schedule Saturday morning and starts school for the year on Wednesday. Of course, we're also late with back to school shopping, so that was in the mix...coupled with a buyback event with SidelineSwap at DSG. Basically, I brought in all of our old equipment to see what they'd give me (since selling and shipping is a royal pain, you don't get nearly as much at garage sales, and person to person locally can get sketchy). I had four composite fastpitch bats in the mix as well as a ton of other random stuff, so I wanted to capitalize on it. Oh yea...and I had to take my vehicle back in today because of all of the things done incorrectly from the collision repair from the tree and K's move in date for OU is early next week. We're not busy or anything.

Before I get into our last Disney day, the chaos of this weekend gave me the idea to give you all a bit of a recap on our summer and what led up to this CA trip. I'm sure other parents of travel athletes can relate, but it's just mind boggling that we're on the back end of this craziness. I already have a little tidbit of info on our fall lineup and I'm bracing myself for chaos. So here goes...

1. After a few weeks of friendlies, scrimmages and organizational work following the school ball season, we jumped into our summer season. The first was a weekend in College Station, TX. It was a showcase round robin sort of set up to kick off the season. A weekend in College Station is usually only 1 hotel night IF we know we have early games. Our first games per day ended up being late enough that we chose to skip the hotel and make the drive each time. It's about 100 miles each way. Our team is about 60% greater Houston area, 35% Austin area, and 5% Louisiana, so everyone has their personal thresholds for what requires a hotel stay...since even some practices can require this level of travel or more. I didn't take any fun pictures for this one.
2. I couldn't go due to work conflicts, but David and Sam turned around about 3 days later for 4-5 days of play in Plano, TX. I wasn't there. So, no pictures.
3. We were supposed to turn around 2 days after that and head to Kansas City, but after some intel on which coaches and teams would be where, they decided to keep us in Houston for a weekend tournament. No fun pics from this either.
4. We turned around a couple of days after that to head to the Oklahoma City area. Sam had a 4-5 day tournament and K had orientation at OU. I do have some pics for that. It was also right after this tournament (like, as we pulled into the driveway) that I opened the gate into my ankle/heel and caused all kinds of issues for our summer. This was also when we found out they ordered the wrong part for my vehicle, so we'd have to make adjustments on what we were taking to Colorado since that wouldn't be ready.
5. A few days after we got back from Oklahoma, we turned around and headed to Colorado for two tournaments, some showcase style organizational workouts, and collegiate camps. We were in CO for nearly 2 weeks, including 4th of July. We started with a stay up in the Loveland area because most of where we were playing was up there. We shifted to Westminster, near Boulder, for the rest. We were actually playing in Brighton, but there's a place we like for our stays when we're doing things closer to Denver. We at least had a little bit of downtime in between the two tournaments, and my parents flew in for some of it. So, I have some more pics and video with this.
6. We got back from Colorado around 9:30 pm on the evening of July 7th. Around 5am on the morning of the 8th, Hurricane Beryl hit our area. As some of you know, we sustained some serious damage from the derecho that hit our area in May and we live in a densely wooded suburb. We were extremely lucky with Beryl (many around us had trees through their homes), only losing a portion of our fence and all of our perishable food, but we have always opted for the hotel route over a generator. When we realized our area could take weeks for power restoration, we got the closest hotel we could find (Lake Charles, LA) and lived there until a few days before the CA trip you're now reading. I actually did take a few pics here since we took the dog out to the lake a couple of times. We at least got power restored more quickly than most of our neighborhood. We got it back late afternoon of the 12th, but many around us had to wait until the 19th.
7. The report you're currently reading, as I think I noted, started somewhere between 4-5am on the morning of the 17th. It wound up being 2 weeks, but originally, we had it closer to 2.5 when Kendall was still planning to come along.

So, these next couple of posts will give you a small taste of the summer of craziness leading up to this CA trip.

Softball sunset in Oklahoma

Stadium send off at OU

Softball sunset and storm near Loveland CO. The lightning was insane!

View from room near Boulder.

One of my favorite views in RMNP.

Bull elk in RMNP.

Moose in RMNP.

The Scheels Ferris wheel

A mule deer I surprised

Sam rafting with some of the team. Team building events are a must at the big tournaments.


*I probably should not have gotten this. I still had 10 stitches in my heel/ankle at this point and certainly not in footwear suited for climbing down a hillside. Still, I saw a shadow in the trees as we were driving and I was certain it was moose shaped.


*Sam's spirit animal...well, one of them.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Sunset view of mountains and Boulder.

Westminster 4th of July Fireworks...seated along the walking/bike trail next to the hotel.

Bison in the Rocky Mountain Wildlife Arsenal.

A prairie dog from the massive prairie dog town next to our Westminster hotel.

Lunch break along Lake Charles

Dog at the lake

Second time playing in a dome, first time playing with her team in a dome.

Morning hot air balloons in Loveland

Colorado's first Buc-ee's. Not quite the same as Texas.

The marmot that surprised me.


If you're ever in the Denver area, the arsenal is free, convenient, and pretty good for seeing wildlife.


If you have a Scheel's near you...color me jealous!


I promise...I'll get back to Disney in my next post.

 

[cgersic]

I had to jump in as I just got home from a 10 day trip home to Colorado. I had 2 wildfires that almost trapped me in Estes Park, but I had to go up anyway to get some alone time after a class reunion (that I planned). I love it when you post Colorado pics as they are generally places I've been. I did go to the Buc-ee's in Johnstown and found out that it's currently the largest one - so it beats anything currently in Texas! With 116 gas pumps, everyone just parks at the gas pump and goes inside to shop. It was INSANE!!! Loving the report as usual

 

[HouCuseChickie]

I had to jump in as I just got home from a 10 day trip home to Colorado. I had 2 wildfires that almost trapped me in Estes Park, but I had to go up anyway to get some alone time after a class reunion (that I planned). I love it when you post Colorado pics as they are generally places I've been. I did go to the Buc-ee's in Johnstown and found out that it's currently the largest one - so it beats anything currently in Texas! With 116 gas pumps, everyone just parks at the gas pump and goes inside to shop. It was INSANE!!! Loving the report as usual

Thanks!!!

Oh wow! Fires were one of our concerns in CA if we went with our original plans. I know those areas around Estes Park are also vulnerable and you don’t have a ton of options in and out. The biggest complaint about the Johnstown location was that they don’t carry Coke products. In fact, that seemed to be an issue in a lot of places during this visits, but there were some other things missing. What? I cannot recall for the life of me. It’s going to sound crazy, but the bathroom design is different and it threw us off. I’m just glad to see them popping up in other places. The clean bathrooms and plentiful pumps are reason enough to love them.

Speaking of that area, after numerous trips, we finally visited Johnson’s Corner for a cinnamon roll. It seems like it’s been there forever.

 

[donaldtoo]

I had to jump in as I just got home from a 10 day trip home to Colorado. I had 2 wildfires that almost trapped me in Estes Park, but I had to go up anyway to get some alone time after a class reunion (that I planned). I love it when you post Colorado pics as they are generally places I've been. I did go to the Buc-ee's in Johnstown and found out that it's currently the largest one - so it beats anything currently in Texas! With 116 gas pumps, everyone just parks at the gas pump and goes inside to shop. It was INSANE!!! Loving the report as usual

Sorry, but that Buc-ee’s info is incorrect.
The one that was built in New Braunfels, Texas in 2012 has 120 gas pumps, and the newest one in Luling, Texas has the same amount of gas pumps, but is also a record-setting 75,000 sq. ft.
Yes, I’m a Buc-ee’s-loving Texan…!!!

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Sorry, but that Buc-ee’s info is incorrect.
The one that was built in New Braunfels, Texas in 2012 has 120 gas pumps, and the newest one in Luling, Texas has the same amount of gas pumps, but is also a record-setting 75,000 sq. ft.
Yes, I’m a Buc-ee’s-loving Texan…!!!

I think the one that opened in Luling may have actually taken the title.

World's largest Buc-ee's opens in Texas, boasting 120 fuel pumps

Early Monday morning, the largest Buc-ee's location in the world opened its doors in Luling, Texas.

www.cbsnews.com

Buc-ee's notes the convenience store portion's record on their site.

World Record Holder - Buc-ees

Proud to have the largest convenstore store in the world in New Braunfels, TX and the longest car wash in the world in Katy, TX.

buc-ees.com

I know we passed it on our way to CA but we didn't need anything at that point and didn't stop. The one in Katy has the world's longest car wash. We stopped there back in May, but I don't think we've ever used the car wash.

A little spoiler, but the last actual pictures of this trip are in a Buc-ee's, but I'll wait until we get to that point

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Before I jump back in, I found a couple of breakfast pics from Plaza Inn I forgot to share. One was tied to our magic bands and the other from Sam.

That Tigger was really persistent! Lol

So, back to Sunday morning. It was another Disneyland day, but I didn’t want to go crazy. While our DCA day had its disappointments, we got in something like 18-19 attractions during our first day at Disneyland. I recently saw a friend bragging that they managed 12, so i didn’t feel like we had to challenge ourselves to do more.

We opted to walk to the trams again. It wasn’t costing us anything and while the hotel was an ART stop, in our 12 days… we saw one bus. This morning, the security line was nothing, but we must have waited through at least six trams to board to ride. We were even right on the end by the Mickey Vans.

No troubles getting into the park.

We needed to make a LL selection, but we were all over the place. I revisited an idea from the previous day and suggested we hash it out while riding the railroad.

On our way up to the platform, we started to notice all of the characters…Pluto, Chip, Dale, Cruella…and Mickey!

This was the one and only time I saw Mickey. I never even saw Donald! Not once.

So, I may have taken a little extra time trying to get that Mickey pic. David and Sam had already boarded the train and were waiting on me.

I also had a bizarre moment just before heading up to meet them. A family walked past me and the dad gave me a big “funny seeing you here!!!” Very friendly and semi-familiar…like I saw them somewhere recently, but I can’t place how I would know them.

Oh well, I made it on the train.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

First stop- NOLA!!!

I’m guessing he’s an engineer.

There’s a ton of work happening in this area. So, the railroad afforded a slightly different angle.

I was really hoping for a Haunted Mansion soft opening… even if it was in holiday mode, but I saw no signs of movement or anything near the attraction and the app showed it under refurb every time I checked. It definitely did open the following day. We missed it by a day! Oh well…moving on…

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Ultimately, the railroad is just a nice and relaxing experience. I think we were nearing the halfway mark at this point.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

As we approached IASW, there may have been some dancing! In my defense, I could hear the clock going off and we were stopped. I wound up missing it (this time), but it's a nice overhead view.

I have no idea why, but in the moment, I was obsessed with getting the monorail passing over/next to us. It wasn't as visually successful as I'd hoped, but you can see the beam and little bits of it.

Soon after, we were passing Autopia. We had contemplated this at various points in the visit, but just never got around to it.

Finally, we hit that most special part of the circle trip around Disneyland's magic kingdom...The Grand Canyon.



This is definitely one of those things where Disneyland easily wins over WDW. I still prefer WDW as a whole, but you can't argue when something has clearly been "plussed" more than the other.