Ok, I thought I'd update this thread with some new details. Hope that Ok with everybody (Cyrano, Ware Bears, Bexx).
I'm planning on keeping all my DL talk to this thread. I appreciate that there are other boards that this would be more suitable on, but I'd be grateful if it could stay here (pretty please), as most of the people that I know and who know me well on the DIS are based on the DLRP boards, so I'd like to share my excitement with them. This will be my sole DL thread on here though and I've marked it OT, so hopefully that's good enough - I'll just add my TR etc to here.
We'll my trip is now completely booked, so I guess it's time to write a pre-TR.
The cast:
Me : Rob (23, addicted to Disney films for as long as I can remember and addicted to the parks since I visited WDW back in 1997)
DCroc : Felicity (bought after I became rather attached to the DLRP croc Fern. Unfortunately, there aren't any spare official crocs, so I'm providing my own
)
DBear : Pooh (limited edition winter pooh from the UK disney stores. a little larger than croc and better suited as a night time friend
)
So why am I the only human in my party of 3 travelling to a family place like Disneyland?
Well, about two weeks ago, a meeting was held in work which resulted in the decision to send me on a training course in Seattle, Washington, USA. Torsie24 then suggested that I could maybe visit DL (2 states south of Washington) while I was there, but I turned the suggestion down thinking that my company wouldn't be flexible enough to allow me to do it.
A day later, we had a work social, where I was talking to somebody about how I'd like to extend my trip and it was suggested that they actually might be co-operative and that if I asked nicely, then my return flight could possibly be booked slightly later. And so a seed was planted.
Towards the end of last week, it was confirmed that I would be going on the training course, so I then formally requested the extension. Finally, on thursday, my request for an extension was granted and I was provided with vague flight details, which allowed me to make the booking.
As it's an extension to a work trip, I'm unable to take anybody else from my family, which means I will be touring DL alone - not a real issue to me though.
The trip officially starts at 1pm on the 29th September, which is when I leave for Heathrow airport (straight from work and by taxi). I then fly out to Seattle-Tacoma at 17:35 (london time), landing at 19:10 (seattle time). I will then be making my way to hotel number 1 - the homestead in Redmond, which will be my home for
The 30th is a free day, so hopefully I'll be awake enough to travel back to Seattle and have a good look around the city for the day.
The 1st - 3rd will be spent studying my training course, which will take up almost the entire day on the 1st and 2nd (08:30 - 21:00 ish), then the morning of the 3rd (08:30 - 12:30).
Once finished with my training course, I will then be heading back to Seattle-Tacoma, where I will be boarding the 18:30 flight down south to a far more interesting place - John Wayne airport, landing at 21:11
From John Wayne, I will be heading over to DL via the Disneyland Resort Express shuttle, to the Anaheim Camelot Inn & Suites, which will then be my home for the next 3 nights (3rd - 6th).
Hopefully I'll get to DL in time to pop over the road to the ticket booths and exchange my voucher for my actual ticket before they shut, but it's no disaster if this doesn't happen. If it doesn't happen, then I'll be trying to exchange it in time to attend Magic Mornings on the Saturday morning. If that doesn't happen, then I'll just take my magical morning on the monday one which is replacing Sunday's.
As this is my first trip to Disneyland, I currently have no clue how I'm going to attack the parks. I do know that Sunday night will be spend in California Adventure because the Disneyland park closes at 5pm because of the Miley Cyrus sweet 16 party. I'm hoping to do at least all the rides which are not in Paris or or are majorly different, as well as to generally take in the differences between California and Paris (I imagine there's a few).
I know there's a number of single rider queues which I will be making use of to make my life a little easier, plus I'm aiming to learn the "flaws" in the fastpass system so I can exploit them. I don't really know anything else though.
With this in mind, if anybody has any advice that can help me plan my time in the parks, I'd love to hear it
What I do know about this trip, is that I'm extremely excited to be visiting the original Disneyland, as it's somewhere I didn't expect to be visiting any time soon.
Once my time at Disneyland finally comes to an end, I will be heading to the main Los Angeles airport for my return flight. My company were kind of enough to arrange my flights as a round trip, so I will be flying straight back to Heathrow from LA, leaving on the 21:15 monday (LA time) flight, arriving back at Heathrow at 15:30 on tuesday (London time). I will then most likely be trying to travel back home to the UK South Coast by coach and train.
All in all, I'm away for about 9 days which breaks down to 1 day visiting Seattle, 3 days training course, 3 days disney and 1 day travelling (I'm aware this doesn't add up right, so I don't know where the other day went
)
This works out quite reasonably as I've only had to book 2 days holiday from work and the trip has only cost be about £350 for my tickets and accommodation. I do still need to add on airport travel and food to this though, although I do get an allowance for Seattle through work.
