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Yes Virginia, there are other vacation places to visit (my DL, GC, Vegas TR)

Okay so as the title implies, this trip report is not just about Disneyland, but other places I visited on my recent vacation too. Or as my husband would say, "There are other places to go, you know".

First a little background. My husband, Larry, and I got married many years ago, barely out of high school. We have 2 beautiful daughters, one of whom is an attorney now, and the other is a member on this forum and will be receiving her masters degree in education in 2 weeks. I have 4 brothers and sisters, 5 half brothers and sisters and 5 step brothers and sister. Whew!!! One of my brothers, Norman, and I have always been close. He and his wife, Pam started going steady (some of you older members will know what that is) in junior high school, married at 18 and have been together ever since. The four of us have vacationed with our kids to Disney World many times together over the years. Well, finally all but one of the children are grown, through school, married, moved out, etc., so this trip was a first ever for just us. Actually the other one is grown, he just refuses to move out.

If you read my pre-trip report, you know some of the background of how this trip got planned. But I'll repeat it for those of you that don't know. My husband likes to play poker. Alot. So much so, that last year he kept telling me he was going to Vegas to play in the World Series of Poker senior event this year. So for Christmas our daughters and I gave him money toward his entry fee instead of the usual books, shirts, jeans, sneakers. Now I on the other hand don't really gamble so I wanted something to pass the time for me in Vegas while he played cards. I invited Norman and Pam to go with us. They are DVC owners and had never been to DL and wanted to go for a few days while on this trip. Larry on the other hand cares nothing for Disney parks and really didn't want to go. So we decided that he would fly to Vegas, while the rest of us flew to DL. He would rent a car in Vegas, drive to LA and pick us up in a few days and we would continue our trip from there.
 
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Disneybird

Disneybird

Member
Original Poster
All our plans were set and I was to drop Larry off at the airport in Chattanooga at 5:45 am Thursday morning. After work that evening, I would drive with Norman and Pam to Atlanta, spend the night and fly to LA early the next morning. All plans are subject to change, right? At 3:45 am that morning we got a call from Delta that Larrys flight had been cancelled and he had graciously been rescheduled on another flight leaving Friday. :eek: His tournament started Friday, so this just would not do. I mean don't these airlines realize that people have hotels booked, cars rented, etc.? So the next hour was spent getting him rebooked out of Atlanta. By the time he hung up, he had 3 hours to drive 120 miles to Atlanta, park, get on a shuttle and check in before his new flight left. Not a good way to start our trip. Strike 1.
The rest of the day went smoothly on my end until I checked into our hotel in Atlanta that night. Not only did it take 40 minutes to get me checked in, but I later found out that even though I paid cash for my room and extra days parking, it was also charged to the credit card used for the reservation. Strike 2.
Larry then called to tell me that he went to the RIO to get his registration info for the tournament and he was no longer in the system.
After going back to his hotel and printing out copies of his confirmations, he had to take them back to the RIO. Someone with a similar name had actually cancelled and requested a refund and a mistake was made with the wrong person being cancelled. Strike 3.
:lol: We can laugh about it all now.

That night I had a sleepless night sharing a room with Norman and Pam. I never knew that he snored. And snored. And snored. At one point I went to the couch, stuffed cotton in my ears and put a pillow over my ears. It's amazing the things you think of at times like that. Like, if I put the pillow over his head and smother him, can I still get on the plane and be at Disneyland before his body is found? Would Pam go along with me?
 
Disneybird

Disneybird

Member
Original Poster
Early the next morning we took the airport shuttle, which turned out to be the scariest ride of our trip. The five hour flight to LA was very smooth, which was a good thing because I'm a nervous flier. My daughter Rachel had finally downloaded 8 hours of music into my 3 year old IPOD, and between that, a good book and a trivia game on the flight, time passed quickly.
We had reserved a limo, and a stretch one at that, to pick us up at the airport. Yeah, we were going to ride like we had lots of money anyway. After comparing prices for that and the shuttle, there really wasn't a huge difference. As soon as our flight landed, I turned my phone on and the driver called me while we were still on the runway. Within 15 minutes of grabbing our luggage, we were in the limo and on our way. Oh, you should have seen the look on the faces of people when that limo pulled up. Like someone really important was getting picked up. :lol:
 
Disneybird

Disneybird

Member
Original Poster
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Norman from the back seat of the limo. It was stocked with water too. He never meets a stranger and knew more about the driver by the time we got to the hotel, then I know about some of people I've worked with for 6 years.

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Getting excited now.

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Almost there.

At this time, we arrived at Paradise Pier. As we pulled up in our stretch limo, the bell hops were at our door before the car was in park. Imagine their surprise when we stepped out. :lol: We had wanted to take a tour of LA during our visit, but decided all the quotes I got were way too expensive. On the way to the hotel, the limo driver offered to show us around in a few days for a great rate. So we decided to take him up on it. More of that story later.
 
Disneybird

Disneybird

Member
Original Poster
After checking in, finding our room not ready, and leaving our luggage, we walked over to the Grand Californian and ate lunch at Whitewater Snacks. From there we were going to do a quick walk around DCA and then back to the hotel.

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1st stop Soarin.

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It's tough to be a bug.

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And finally, Voyage of the Little Mermaid. The line was about 20 minutes long. Later in the week, it was up to an hour long, so I'm glad we rode when we did because I would have been disappointed if I had waited an hour. I can see my granddaughter riding it in a few years and loving it while my grandson will be saying, "But it's a girls ride".

More to come.
 
Disneybird

Disneybird

Member
Original Poster
After walking around DCA for a while, we decided it was time to head to the grand lady of all parks, Disneyland. After walking through the gate onto Main Street, I commented on the castle being in front of us. My brother stopped in his tracks with his mouth open and said, "You've got to be kidding me. That's the castle?". No offense to DL's castle, but he had only seen WDW's. And it's very tall compared to the one at DL, and to be honest with the trees in front, it appears even smaller from the end of Main St..
We walked around the park not riding anything because with our 3 hour time difference we had already been going for about 14 hours and were getting tired and hungry for dinner. On our way out of the park we stopped on Main Street to listen to these guys.

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I love drumlines.

After watching this group of incredibly talented young people, we headed toward Downtown Disney to eat dinner. I actually like the Downtown Disney at Disneyland more than the one in Florida. I think it's because it's smaller and more manageable.
We decided to eat dinner at that great connoisseur restaurant known as Rainforest Cafe, where Pam and I ate chili and nachos and Norman ate salmon.
 
Disneybird

Disneybird

Member
Original Poster
Finally, we made it to our room.

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Notice how the design on the green strip has Mickey Mouse heads in it. I stayed in that room for 4 days and never noticed it until I looked at these pictures.

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I loved this lamp shade.

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The view of DCA from our room. We were on the 5th floor. Now I've seen lots of reviews from people complaining about the inconvenience of having to cross a street to go into the Grand Californian and access the parks or Downtown Disney. To us it was no big deal. We also enjoyed the walk along the front of a Disneyland hotel tower to our hotel. Hey we were at Disneyland, right.
 
Disneybird

Disneybird

Member
Original Poster
After a peaceful nights sleep (no snoring), I was wide awake at 3:45 California time. We could get into the park at 7:00. Finally about 4:30 I heard my brother stirring and I got up and ready for the day. At 6, we decided to grab a quick breakfast before hitting the parks. No such luck. My only complaint about Paradise Pier was the food services. There was nowhere to get anything to eat that early in the morning. We then walked down to Katella Ave. looking for food and had no such luck there either. So back to our room we went for a few more minutes then to the monorail station at DTD. After standing in line until 7, we were informed there was a problem with the monorail.
 
Disneybird

Disneybird

Member
Original Poster
Okay so I shall continue on a little and add pictures when I can get my computer to co-operate.

After getting into the park early, we headed straight to Space Mountain. The walk up the ramp and around the top seems to go on forever. Norman and Pam were impressed with the side by side cars and effects this version has. But I like the track better at WDW. There's this one particular hill in the MK that makes my stomach drop everytime I ride it.

Then it was on to this classic.

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Okay for some reason I thought the controls in the upper left corner looked like a hidden Mickey.

We then moved on to Fantasyland. The architecture there is beautiful.


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