March 2018 Disneyland PTR

Exciting!!! Congratulations!
Thanks! We are SUPER DUPER EXCITED!

I just got off the phone with The Void. We've cancelled the VR Star Wars experience in DTD. That's $131 that we can use for our WDW trip instead! I'm bummed that we won't be able to do it (The Void thing, that is) because I was looking forward to surprising DH with it. But there's always a next time!
 
In the midst of planning a DL trip...and also beginning the trip planning for WDW this summer...the rest of our lives have been pretty crazy! About a month ago, we moved to Phoenix from another part of the state. We're now a shorter drive to DL than we were before, which is GREAT! We've also been dealing with fixing up our house in our old neck of the woods to put it on the market. And I'm happy to report that it officially went up for sale this week. That's a relief. We have a very experienced real estate agent and she gave us some very good advice on what to do in our preparations.

On top of all that, the kids have started a new school since we moved to Phoenix. Of course, that is full of stress for both the kids and us parents. 1 kid has made some good friends whereas our other child, who is a bit shy, doesn't have any lunch or recess buddies quite yet. That part has been rough.

And, of course, each school does things slightly differently even if they do follow the same curriculum. One particular teacher of ODD's has been driving me nuts - says 1 thing and then does another. Tells me that it's going to be A, when then later we find out that it's B. ODD had a paper due in this class the day that they return to school from spring break. Well, today this teacher told ODD that instead of it being due in a week, it's now due on Sunday.

SUNDAY?! >:( Apparently, I'm supposed to email the completed assignment to the teacher. Um, how about my DD TURNS IT IN AT SCHOOL?! I know, novel concept!

This is an elective class. At least for the most part, there's hardly any homework in this class. But I am hoping that next school year, she doesn't end up with this teacher. The people who work at the front desk don't care much for this teacher. ODD likes the subject, but the flakiness of the instructor has been frustrating. I'll be glad when the school year is over just so we don't have to deal with this person again for awhile.

The past 2 weeks of school for the kids have been a bit grueling. Lots of tests & quizzes. And then later this month, there's apparently some standardized testing. That's a lot of fun. :teacher::rotfl2:


Needless to say, the 4 of us are really really really looking forward to this little respite away from our crazy lives. Our family really needs a little break! In addition, I'm taking 3 days off next week from work during the kids' spring break just so I can stay home and not have to DO anything or GO anywhere. I am looking forward to that!
 
It looks like the weather forecast is pretty decent for our trip! I'm not sweating a 20% chance of rain yet. Besides, this is still about 2 weeks out so the weather forecast can certainly change. If it does rain a bit, that's ok!

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Two days later and now the chance of rain has gone up to 40% on Friday! Looks like ponchos and umbrellas are in our future! I'm going to have the kids bring their boots with them. If we're lucky, the rain will just be a light shower instead of a downpour! I doubt we'll be doing much swimming in the DLH pool, though!:beach:

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Wait a day and the weather report will change. Haha! Now we're looking at 10-20% chance of rain, which in my opinions means that it has a 10-20% chance of raining SOMEWHERE in the area at SOME point in the day, not necessarily that it will be a steady rain the whole day. And for my kids, this would still be pool weather. I think they're crazy.:fish:

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Exactly 1 week from today, we will be checking into the DLH! We are so excited. The kids are continuing their countdown on the whiteboard in the kitchen. ODD, unfortunately, has homework over spring break right now, so she has a little bit of that to do each day. She's not happy about that. BUT the kids will end up only having 2 days of school next week since Monday is not a school day and we're leaving on Thursday!

I need to stop looking at the weather reports on the Weather.com website. This morning, it said 40% chance of rain on Friday. Now 6 hours later, it says 20% chance of rain! :laughing: It's like the Mr Toad's Wild Ride version of weather.

 


We are now 6 DAYS LEFT AND COUNTING! And the news with today's Weather.com extended 10-day Anaheim forecast says...

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Ok, so we'll have rain in Anaheim on our travel day. No rain on Friday or Saturday and no rain on the drive home. I can live with that! I think it's time to get some suitcases out so we can start packing!
 
So....about a week and a half after we start our Disneyland trip, we close on the sale of our house! Yippee! This is great news! Except this weekend (as in today and yesterday), we spent a good portion of the weekend doing clean up & moving things out of the garage and into storage. Ok, fine. Except when I went to saw a big tree branch into smaller pieces so it would fit easier into the trash bin...and then I dropped the tree branch on my foot!

And as a result, now I am hobbling around like a little old lady. Seriously. :sad:

And I'm out of ibuprofen at home, so I'm going to the store to get a couple of odds and ends to keep us fed until Thursday morning (when we depart for Disneyland). And I'm going to pump myself full of ibuprofen until then.

So say some prayers for me that the swelling will go down and I'll be able to hoof it in the parks for 2 days! If I have to rent a wheelchair, I will. I'm not cancelling the trip for this.

Updated weather forecast:
Weather.com now says 100% chance of rain on Thursday. I'm fine with this since we don't have many plans for Thursday anyway. No rain forecasted for Fri or Sat, though! Yippee!
 
What time of day to leave?

This is what I'm debating and I need some opinions! The kids are going to miss 1.5-2 days of school for this trip. Normally, we NEVER take them out of school for a vacation. But we planned this trip when the kids were in a different school district and we switched schools part way through this school year. So now what WOULD have been their spring break at the old school is actually the week AFTER spring break at the NEW school. Ack! And because of my sister's overseas flight and HER trip planning stuff, we couldn't really move the dates.

So here are the options...
I'm trying to avoid hitting afternoon/evening rush hour traffic once we get to the Rancho Cucamonga area. I've run a couple of different options in Google Maps and here's what it looks like:

OPTION 1:
Leave Phoenix 8:30 am
Arrive @ DLH by 3:40 pm.
  • Google Maps says it'll take 5-7 hr to drive this. I think that 7 hr is definitely on the long side. If it's ~ 5.5 hours like I think it is, if you factor in 30 min for bathroom breaks, we'd get there around 2pm.
  • In this option, the kids skip all of Thursday for school and they do homework in the car on the way to DL.
  • My sister has authorized DH & I on the reservation to be able to check in without her.

OPTION #2:
Kids go to school for the morning. DH & I pick up the rental car when it opens at 8 am. We pack up the car, have a nice leisurely grown-ups only breakfast without children, and then we pick them up at 11:00 am and hit the road.
Leave Phoenix 11:15 am
Arrive DLH by 6:35 pm.
  • Google Maps says this will take 5 hr, 20 min to 7 hr, 20 min. I think that with the traffic in east LA/Orange County, 6:35 arrival time is probably accurate? What do you think?
  • And again, the kids will do any homework in the long car ride to Anaheim.
I'm leaning towards doing Option #1 so the kids will have time to swim the awesome DLH pool during the late afternoon. The last time we stayed at the DLH, the kids were only 4 and 6 years old and not old enough to go on the water slides. Now they're definitely big enough and they can't wait to try out the water slides!

Plus, we have reservations at 7 pm for the 4 of us to do The Void's VR Star Wars experience in DTD! DH doesn't know about this. It's a surprise. He's a huge gamer guy and I know that he'd love it. The kids are both old enough and meet the height/weight requirements in order to do it.

So I want us to have enough time to settle in at the hotel, relax a bit, have dinner, etc. before we do the VR thing!



Option 2 sounds like heaven, but, if it was me, I would go with option 1 and get on the road ASAP. That traffic is a bear out in CA. Whatever you decide, you will have lots of fun. It's great your sister is flying out from London and picking up the tab for the hotel room at the Disneyland Hotel. I hope you will take lots of pics and post them of the room and the view!
 
We've definitely decided to just keep the kids out of school the whole day on Thursday, especially since there's a 100% chance of rain in Anaheim that day. So I'm anticipating that there might be stretches of road where it might take longer based on road conditions.

Since it'll be raining, that pretty much nixes our pool plans for Thursday afternoon. I think that we will kill some time in the Disney stores in DTD. Probably have dinner at Earl of Sandwich instead of Tangaroa Terrace like we'd originally planned. Hopefully we'll be able to find an indoor table at Earl of Sandwich! Otherwise, we'll just get our food to go and bring it back to the hotel room. Hm....or if we're going to eat in the room, maybe we'll just get the Tangaroa Terrace stuff to go! I'm looking forward to checking out the Disney Home store!
 
After today, it's 1 more day until we leave for Disneyland! So excited! Yesterday, I was feeling very sorry for myself and had a good cry over having injured my foot last weekend doing yardwork. It was bad enough that I finally went to urgent care yesterday. X-rays showed that nothing was broken. Hooray! However, my foot is still very painful to walk on and if it's not better by Friday morning, I'm going to rent a wheelchair or a scooter.

So I'm on antibiotics, got a tetanus shot and have been keeping my foot elevated as much as possible, which has meant telecommuting all week. Thankfully, the swelling is starting to go down a little bit as long as I take 600 mg of ibuprofen every 6 hr like clockwork and I keep my foot elevated. I'm hopeful that I won't have to use alternate transportation, but if I do, we'll still have a great time!

The kids had yesterday off of school and since they're missing Thurs & Fri this week of school, tomorrow is their last day of school before our trip! Yippee! Except this evening and tomorrow evening are mega homework days. ODD already took a make up test for math today after school. Tomorrow she's taking a make up test after school for English class. And early next week, she'll need to make up a History test, too. Plus, she'll have 2 math assignments to make up and some science homework as well.

YDD has a small research assignment that is due on Friday, but her teacher is a Disney lover like we are and said it's fine to turn it in next week. She will likely have math homework tomorrow and Thursday and probably some Humanities stuff to make up.

The kids' bags are mostly packed. I have their clothes set aside. I'm going to pack my bag tomorrow evening. DH always packs right before we leave, so he'll be doing it Thursday morning! LOL!

And now it's time for a weather update!
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My sister is going to have a bear of a time getting from LAX to the Disneyland Hotel. Her flight arrives around 4:30 pm, so she'll be headed out from the airport in the midst of rush hour traffic. Add in a day's worth of rain on the freeways and that's sure to be plenty of fun....NOT! So we're not going to wait for her to have dinner. She is not looking forward to the drive. I'm grateful, though, that it looks like there won't be any rain hardly at all on Friday or Saturday.

 
I've switched things around in my Ridemax plans for Fri & Sat. Here's what we have right now:

Fri 3/23 - morning at DCA with EMH:
7 am EMH!
RSR
Toy Story
Mater's
At 8:00 am - get RSR FP using Max Pass
Go on Monsters, Inc
Little Mermaid
Mater's again - but we might skip a 2nd time on this since it shows 26 min wait
Luigi's
9:35 am - get Soarin' FP
Then free time until we use our RSR FP at 10:55 am
Soarin using FP at 11:30


After that, we have lunch at DCA. Well, my sister enjoys the food booths while DH and/or I take the kids to Flo's V-8 Café for ribs & milk shakes for lunch. My kids aren't into trying the unusual foods that the Food & Wine Festival offers.

Then we move over to DL...
12:30 - get a Star Tours FP (I expect a return time ~ 5 pm)
go to Tom Sawyer's Island
then maybe go on the Columbia Sailing Ship
Then free time until ~ 5pm
Depending on how tired we are, we might skip Tom Sawyer's Island or the sailing ship or both. Take the monorail to DTD and then rest in the hotel room.
2:09 pm - get an IJ FP.

~ 5 pm - go on Star Tours using the FP
7:16 pm - Pirates. 19 min wait
8:05 pm - go on IJ using FP
8:20 pm - Jungle Cruise
8:40 pm - Pirates again
9:13 pm - Haunted Mansion
9:29 pm - Pirates again!
then take the train from New Orleans Square station to Tomorrowland station, then monorail to DTD and walk to DLH to bed.

My sister isn't going to make it to 10 pm since her body will still be on London time. So we are going to shoot for going on Haunted Mansion earlier in the evening.


Yep...we are SKIPPING Fantasmic! again on this trip! One of these days, we will see it, but since we added a WDW vacation this summer, all extra funds are getting squirreled away for that. So the Fantasmic! dinner package was sacrificed.
 
And here's our Ride Max plans for Saturday 3/24:

First we start in DL for 7-8 am EMH.
Assuming you're there 30 min before start of EMH, we should be able to do the following during EMH:
Peter Pan
Matterhorn
Alice
Mad Tea Party
Mr Toad
Pinocchio


Oh who am I kidding? We're not going to be in line at 6:30 am! :rotfl2:

Then at 8:05, we grab FP for Space Mtn while getting in line for Star Tours.
Then ride Autopia (22 min wait)
At 9:07 am, get an IJ FP while we go to Toon Town to meet Mickey in his house
then Roger Rabbit w/a 13 min wait
By now it's 10:05 and we use the Space Mtn FP
Right after that, get a BTMRR FP.
We're then supposed to get in a 29 min line for Buzz Lightyear. But my sister isn't going to love that ride enough to be willing to wait 30 min for it. So we are going to skip it and take the monorail back to the DLH. Check out of the hotel, then head back to use our IJ FP.
Then ride BTMRR at 11:20

Then free time! Lunch in DCA @ Food & Wine booths.

Fast forward to 7:05 pm when we go on Pirates and HM 1 last time before we leave.

Between lunch in DCA & ~ 7 pm, we have nothing planned. Some options I'm thinking of are:

  • the Frozen musical - show times are 12, 2, 4:30, and 6:30 pm. I think that the 2:00 pm one would be good because we'll all be ready for an hour's break at that point.
  • go to Tom Sawyer's Island if we skipped it Friday. My sister and I used to play there together when we'd go as kids on family vacations.
  • Black Panther meet & greet - but not if it's an hour wait
  • Olaf meet & greet - that one's open until 1:00 pm
  • Anna & Elsa meet & greet - my kids always enjoy doing this.
  • Jedi Training Academy - 10:30, 11:35, 12:40, 2:25, 3:30, 4:35
 
I wish that the DLH or DTD had some breakfast options other than Starbucks that are open at 6:00 am. I think that we'll probably end up doing room service for breakfast both days. And if I'm lucky, maybe my sister and I can have a cocktail in Trader Sam's on Thursday before she hits the hay!
 
Great plans!
The only thing I noticed you might have to change is Toy Story. Every morning I've checked the app in the last few weeks, tsmm has been closed until an hour or two after normal park opening. I think they're using extra time for construction on that side of the pier.
 
Great plans!
The only thing I noticed you might have to change is Toy Story. Every morning I've checked the app in the last few weeks, tsmm has been closed until an hour or two after normal park opening. I think they're using extra time for construction on that side of the pier.

Oh, that's right! Darn it! In that case, we might end up skipping Toy Story.
 

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