Day-trippin' trip report

[StephanieCG]

Thank you to all who have answered my questions on past posts. I am very grateful for the insider knowledge this WDW girl has been able to learn about DLR from these boards. We went to DL yesterday for my daughter's birthday (turning 4) and had a wonderful time. We drove from the San Diego area and it wasn't too bad a drive, no traffic thankfully. We got to the parking structure at around 6:25 and they weren't open yet, so we just waited and they opened at 6:30. On these boards I learned that sometimes nb traffic is rerouted to the toy story lot, so to avoid this take a right on Disneyland dr and then do a u-turn and then take the flyover ramp. Sounds confusing but super, super easy. My older daughter excitedly said to the parking cm that we were here for her sister's birthday, and he gave us a birthday button and "celebrating" buttons. We had reservations at Minnie and Friends at 7:10. We did not have MM tickets, and I didn't know how to enter the park, and a very nice security guard cm helped us find the correct turn style- the one they told me to use on the phone was blocked off for construction. It's the one all the way down on the left, it says "special events." We got our Minnie and friends buttons and headed to the park. We got to the restaurant and as we were heading into our seats, the fire alarm went off and we had to wait outside for a few. We got a peek of the characters, Pooh was covering his ears and shaking his head the alarm was going off it was cute. Anyway, a few minutes later, things were back to normal and we returned inside. A bunch of characters came to our table before we even got a chance to eat. We saw Pooh, Eeyore, chip, dale, (these two were a hoot!) tigger, Max, Hook, Minnie, rafiki, and fairy godmother. They came around to our table several times and the interaction was top notch. My older girl (age 6) was wearing her Elsa dress (and looks just like her with the white blond hair) and both Tigger and Pooh shivered and pretended they were cold when they were near her, it was so cute she loved it. The four year old birthday girl, was dressed as the Pirate Fairy, and was very excited to meet Captain Hook, and he was great, lots of pantomiming and dancing. Chip and dale kept coming over and photo bombing, it was so funny. The food - well, I wasn't expecting much. But I didn't think it was very good. I wish I could have served myself on the hot breakfast things, when I asked for bacon she gave me two slices, and I felt kinda weird always asking for more. The characters were amazing though so in that regard it was worth it. I don't know if I'll try that one again though, probably try goofy's kitchen on the next trip. I called and mentioned that it was my daughters birthday on the reservation, and we didn't get a card...kind of a bummer but she wasn't expecting anything so it's not the end of the world. The park didn't seem that crowded. We met Tink, did a few fantasyland rides (not ppf, that was already 30 min and growing) - Snow White, toad, and Pinocchio - so much fun but scared the girls a bit (the older one more than the younger one). Then we met Merida and then small world. Made our way to tomorrow land for the first Jedi show and I grabbed fp for star tours. My 4 yo really wanted to be picked, but we weren't that prepared - didn't have a sign, and she was just too short and the other kids blocked her. The show was cute though. She was upset about not getting picked but I told her we can try again another time and that seemed to work. Next it was time for our Star Tours FP. Wow that was a crazy ride! I'd done the one in Hollywood studios years ago, and it was tame compared to this! Sadly none of us in the group was the rebel spy. I was pretty nauseous after this one though, yikes! We ran into Snow White at her wishing well, and this is such a cute set up, definitely worth trying to check out. Ran over to Frontierland and got BTMRR Fps. We saw the petting zoo and were going to wait in line for woody, but they said he was leaving soon, and we wanted to go do see the Tangled show, so we left the frontier and went over to Fantasy Faire, saw the Tangled Show, and Flynn and Rapunzel did come out after for a M&G. They were so cute. My 4 yo still had the pirate fairy costume on and Flynn said "hey tell Tink she owes me some pixie dust!" And rapunzel gave him "the look." I was cracking up! Next to the royal hall to meet aurora and the two mystery princesses (Ariel and Cinderella). Ariel told my 6 yo that she looks just like Elsa which totally made her day! Went over to Frontierland again, stopped at Golden Horseshoe for a quick bite and root beer float, not too shabby. Then over to jamboree area to pet some more goats and horses and see more characters (none were there though, and we were there from 1:50-2:30, so that was a bummer). Then it was finally time for BTMRR. What an amazing ride. It had been a long time since I rode on the WDW one, and it was never one of my faves, but this was a great roller coaster and the girls loved it. After BTMRR we ran over got a fp for splash (return time of 7:30 - I was a little worried about getting wet right before the sun goes down for fear of getting cold). Then we rode Pooh (15 min wait) and that was cute, I liked that one better than the wdw version. Then we rode HM and that was MUCH scarier than the wdw version, oops! Unfortunately didn't make it back for the last Jedi show of the day, but the birthday girl forgot about it anyway haha. I'm trying to remember what we did next. I think we went to Toontown and just chilled out there for a bit while the girls ran around the boat and the tree house. Gadgets coaster had a 40 min wait and Roger Rabbit was broken. So we went back to fantasy land and did the storybook land boats which was very cute but the queue almost made me feel claustrophobic. By the time we were done with the boats we had enough time to run over to the Mickey's Magical Map show, and all of enjoyed that, it was a nice break. Then when that got out we were lucky and were able to find a good spot for the parade (near the canal boats). We loved the parade and the girls enjoyed it more than I thought. Usually at wdw we skip the parades because it's such a hassle to stake out a spot. But this worked out perfectly. After the parade it was almost time for our splash mountain pass, so we headed that way and we were able to ride Dumbo, something we hadn't done yet, and the line was only about 20 min, not terrible. Splash mountain was very different than the wdw version....it went very fast (which I didn't like) and we didn't get as wet (I was ok with that). I don't remember what we did next. I think bummed around adventure land for a bit. The 4 yo is too short for Indy, and it would probably scare the 6 yo, and so we passed on doing that one. We we to through the tree house and the girls loved that, they love the one is wdw too even though no one has heard of that movie haha. We were able to get a spot for the fireworks and some corn dogs and enjoyed the show. As badly as we wanted to stick it out for fantastic, we were done. We had a 1 hr 45 min ride to go and we had been up since 4. It's a good thing we have 2 more days to use. I was going to buy the so cal passes later this year after the military ones expired in sept but I can't do that anymore because they don't have that deal. I like the idea of the AP because if the discounts on food/merch/ parking, and you don't have that pressure to do it all because you only have a 3 day pass. So I don't know. Hubby gets deployed later this year, so that might be a present to myself and the girls, but it's a lot of dough. Is it bad that I've thought about homeschooling the kids so we could get the select pass and go whenever? Haha. Anyway, I'm excited to go to DCA soon and cars land. My girls aren't huge cars fans but they like it well enough, and they love Monsters Inc so I think DCA will be a hit.