I Don't Know Where Any of the Bathrooms Are Here!~April 2016~Update 7/12, pg 4!

[Nermel9]

Hi guys!!!

It's been a LONG time since I've done a trip report, and I've certainly never done one over here, on the Disneyland section of the DIS! But I finally went to Disneyland, after many, many trips to Walt Disney World and figured what better time to get back on the DIS and do a trip report! I have no idea if anyone will even read this, so there's a good chance I will just be talking to myself for most of this, but you never know!

Anyway, just to introduce myself, I'm Jen, hi!



(Before I go any farther, I should just warn you, that might be the only picture you see of me in this TR, I hated almost every single picture we took in Disneyland so I deleted a lot of them)

I love Disney World, and I try to go to Disney World in Florida any chance I get, but the last few times I've gone, my husband kept telling me how boring it's getting. I've been wanting to go to Disneyland for a while, but every time I would get close to booking a trip, I'd freak out and book Disney World instead! But I thought, with the 60th anniversary, and the boredom my husband was feeling, why not give Disneyland a try finally? Our wedding anniversary is in May, so that seemed like a good time to try to plan a trip!

My husband is Brandon, who for some reason, has to take pictures with every single one of these statues he sees, and for some reason, was thrilled to see they are in Disneyland as well as Disney World~



He likes Disney World, but like I said, he was getting bored with it, and he's been wanting to go to California for a while, so Disneyland seemed like the best option for our next trip.

So I started doing research back in December, asking questions on this foreign section of the DIS (you know, because I'm mostly up in the WDW section ) and finally settled on the last week of April for our trip! Booked the hotels (we stayed in 2 places), bought the Disneyland park hoppers, got the plane tickets, made some dining reservations, and settled in for the long countdown to the end of April.

There were many times I wanted to cancel this trip and go to Disney World instead. Especially since 2 of my coworkers were planning WDW trips for the week after I got back! So I had to listen to them talk and plan and die inside, knowing I wasn't going to WDW! I thought I was going to miss Epcot too much, since Epcot is my favorite park. I thought I would walk into Disneyland and immediately hate it. I just had so much anxiety about this trip that it was hard to get excited about it. (I mean, of course I was excited to see Walt's park that he actually walked in, but you know what I mean, right?) Brandon was more excited than me, but he actually confessed that on the plane ride, he was nervous he wouldn't like it either.

Well, I made it to April, and before I knew it, I was on the plane and ready for the LONG plane ride to California, not having any idea what I would see when I got there! Of course, I've seen pictures of Disneyland, I read a few guide books, I've watched some YouTube videos of it, but I wanted to keep a lot of it a surprise. I didn't watch any ride throughs of rides or the Disneyland Forever fireworks, or World of Color or anything! So basically this was all going to be a whole new world to me and I was excited, but terrified!

So I hope a few of you will join me as we make our way through the unfamiliar territory that is Disneyland!

​

 

[Nermel9]

Chapter Links

1. So close, yet so far!

4/24
2. Disneyland! I'm Going to Disneyland!
3. Disney World is my Home!
4. When Can We Do This Again
5. When Can We Do This Again, Part 2!

4/25
6. The Disneyland Hotel​

 

[Victoriasmom98]

Hi Jen!!! Looking forward to the wonderful trip!!!!! And welcome back to the boards

 

[sunnysideup3]

Can't wait to read along again! I've loved your WDW TR's and this will be a fun read for us. We are doing DL for the first time next summer (2017)!

 

[AnnO]

Have read all of your reports and love your style of writing. Looking forward to hearing all about your take on Disneyland.

 

[chunkymonkey]

I'm here! I'm going to Disneyland in September, most likely, so I'll be looking for any tips! I haven't been to Disneyland in 8 years so I'm not sure how to start planning!

 

[missjackiemcg]

Hi, Jen! It sounds like you were feeling exactly how I always feel when I think about planning a trip to DL. I think I will probably love it, but I would hate to fly ALL THE WAY to California from the midwest and find out it's just "eh". Looking forward to reading your TR to hopefully ease my mind!!

 

[Dugette]

Excited to see you are doing a DLR TR! I know those feelings, but ended up loving our Disneyland trip (and will eventually get to starting the TR). Hope you had a great time too and can't wait to hear all about it!

 

[khertz]

Hey, Jen, I'm here!! I hope you ended up loving DL as much as we do. I can't wait to plan our next trip!!

 

[1983DisneyFanatic]

I'm headed to California next week for my first Disneyland trip and I feel the same way you did, so I'm curious to see how you feel now. I'm actually also worried about the possibility that I'll love it. I can't head across the country to visit again like I do Disney World.

 

[heaven2dc]

Joining in! I was nervous too about my feelings for Disneyland after several trips to WDW. But I had to keep an open mind - remembering as you said that this is the original Disney park. I knew it would be smaller than the Magic Kingdom and that it would be a new experience. Hope you loved the Parks!

 

[407-W-DISNEY]

OMG! you did start a TR!!!!!!!!! YIPPEEE!!!!

 

[Mrs T 2009]

Hey Jen!!
I'm here!!!!!!!
Can't wait to hear all about your trip!!

 

[tanyaegangibson]

Following along! We just booked our first WDW trip for spring 2017, and I just ventured to "the other side" of the boards for the first time this week. Excited to hear how you felt about your trip to DLR.

 

[Nermel9]

Hi everyone! Wow I'm so happy people are here to read this, haha, I get so nervous starting TR's! I'm hoping to do my first actual update this weekend, but if for some reason I don't, I definitely will on Tuesday, since that's my day off! I just didn't want anyone to think I abandoned this TR before it even got started! ​

Hi Jen!!! Looking forward to the wonderful trip!!!!! And welcome back to the boards

Thanks for joining, and thank you!

Can't wait to read along again! I've loved your WDW TR's and this will be a fun read for us. We are doing DL for the first time next summer (2017)!

Yay, glad to have you here, thanks!

Have read all of your reports and love your style of writing. Looking forward to hearing all about your take on Disneyland.

Thank you so much! Thanks for joining!

I'm here! I'm going to Disneyland in September, most likely, so I'll be looking for any tips! I haven't been to Disneyland in 8 years so I'm not sure how to start planning!

Haha, I'm not sure if I have any tips, I felt so lost there, I even messed up magic hours one day! I would NEVER do that at WDW! I did learn that the people on the Disneyland section of the DIS are really awesome for answering any questions you have though, so don't hesitate to ask them anything!

 

[Nermel9]

Hi, Jen! It sounds like you were feeling exactly how I always feel when I think about planning a trip to DL. I think I will probably love it, but I would hate to fly ALL THE WAY to California from the midwest and find out it's just "eh". Looking forward to reading your TR to hopefully ease my mind!!

Thanks for joining! You should definitely go to DL, it took me years to actually plan it and do it but now I'm so happy I did!

Excited to see you are doing a DLR TR! I know those feelings, but ended up loving our Disneyland trip (and will eventually get to starting the TR). Hope you had a great time too and can't wait to hear all about it!

Yay, hi! I ended up loving it too, I'm so surprised!

Hey, Jen, I'm here!! I hope you ended up loving DL as much as we do. I can't wait to plan our next trip!!

Yay, so glad you're here! I did end up loving it!

I'm headed to California next week for my first Disneyland trip and I feel the same way you did, so I'm curious to see how you feel now. I'm actually also worried about the possibility that I'll love it. I can't head across the country to visit again like I do Disney World.

Ahh I'm so jealous, so that should give you some indication of how I feel about Disneyland now! I would LOVE to go back! Tell me how you liked it when you're back!

 

[Nermel9]

Joining in! I was nervous too about my feelings for Disneyland after several trips to WDW. But I had to keep an open mind - remembering as you said that this is the original Disney park. I knew it would be smaller than the Magic Kingdom and that it would be a new experience. Hope you loved the Parks!

Thanks for joining! That's what I had to keep telling myself when I found myself thinking anything negative, haha, it's the first park and there wasn't much room when they first built it! I did end up loving it, though, it's so similar to WDW yet so different!

OMG! you did start a TR!!!!!!!!! YIPPEEE!!!!

Haha, yay, so glad you're here!

Hey Jen!!
I'm here!!!!!!!
Can't wait to hear all about your trip!!

Hey, so glad you're here, I didn't even know you were still on the DIS, woo hoo!

Following along! We just booked our first WDW trip for spring 2017, and I just ventured to "the other side" of the boards for the first time this week. Excited to hear how you felt about your trip to DLR.

Thanks for joining! OMG you are going to love WDW! Any questions you have, feel free to ask! I ended up loving Disneyland!

 

[Nermel9]

So Close, Yet So Far!

Hi guys! Before I start, I suppose I should give you a little background of the planning that went into this trip, right? (If you don't want to read it, just feel free to skip ahead!)

Like I said in my intro, Brandon was getting bored with Disney World, so on our last trip in December, I started thinking of Disneyland again. I started looking for flights and hotels, trying to figure out where to stay and where to fly out of...did I want a direct flight ALLL the way to California, or did I want to stop somewhere so we'd be able to get out and walk around a little, it was all so confusing. With Disney World it's easy, I know I want to stay onsite, and fly direct, since it's only a 2 hour flight. But the Disneyland hotels are super expensive, and the flight across the country is super long!

Somehow, someone on these boards mentioned to me that since I was going near Dapper Day, maybe I could take advantage of the Dapper Day convention rate, which I didn't even know existed! I looked into it, and amazingly, the Disneyland Hotel was available with an amazing rate for most of our trip. So I booked it for the last 5 nights, which left me hotel-less for our first 2 nights. But that was fine, because I knew I wanted to check out the good neighbor hotels across the street anyway, just for future trips, because honestly, without that Dapper Day rate, the Disneyland Hotel probably won't happen again for a LOOOONG time!

I narrowed my choices down to 3 hotels and finally settled on Howard Johnson's after asking people here what they thought of it and watching a few YouTube videos to see how long the actual walk was to Disneyland. It looked nice and clean and it was a decent price, and the walk wasn't far so that's all I really cared about for the first 2 nights before we moved to the DLH.

As far as flights went, I decided to go with my trusty Southwest and fly out of CT, where we would have to fly to Chicago, change planes, and then fly to LA. I looked into nonstop flights, but there aren't many from CT, a lot of them make you stop somewhere, and I didn't really want to deal with flying out of New York, just to get a nonstop flight.

Once all of those things were in place, we just waited for April to get here. I bought my Disneyland tickets online and had them mailed to me, I made a few dining reservations, but that was it. There's not much planning that has to be done before you get there, unlike WDW.

Another thing that was different about this trip was we weren't spending the entire week at Disneyland. Normally when we go to WDW, it's all Disney, all the time, even when we do our 10 day trips, I keep us immersed in the Disney bubble. But since this was Brandon's first time to California, and my first time to Southern California, we thought 4 days for Disneyland was good, and 2 and a half days (well, the half day was our arrival day, which was almost a full day with the time change!) we would do other California things. It was weird to think we would be going other places, I was so used to cramming in as much Disney as I could, it made looking forward to this trip really hard! I mean, I'd get excited about it, and then I'd freak out.

Finally though, the week before the trip was here, and I was finally 100% excited! I just had to get through 3 and a half days of work and then I was free! I worked a half day on Friday and went home to pack. I wanted to make sure I packed somewhat early, if you have ever read any of my other TR's, you know I always wait until the last minuteand I thought maybe I could avoid that this time! I really wanted to try to get some sleep because I knew we'd have to get up at 2 am to leave for the airport by 3, since our flight was at 6:15. I tried to pack, but once again, I didn't finish up until maybe 10 or 11 that night. Then I tried to sleep and I don't think I actually fell asleep until about midnight, so 2 hours of sleep before a very long travel day was all I got. Oh well.

Luckily we left on time for the airport, parked and took the shuttle over (our airport is somewhat small, so the shuttle over from the long term parking takes maybe 5 minutes, if that!) and got dropped off at the Southwest area to check our luggage...only to find the longest line at Southwest I had ever seen, and the counters not even open. Here's what I don't understand...you're told to get to the airport early to not miss your flights BECAUSE the lines are long, but some airlines, like Southwest, don't open that early. It's annoying. Again, luckily, because our airport isn't huge, our TSA lines aren't ever really that horrible, but I was freaking out that morning, thinking they would be. It took forever just to check our luggage, and once we did, we ran over to TSA, where there wasn't too much of a line, so that was good! We went right through with no problems and I went to our gate while Brandon got our breakfast, something from McDonald's, which is always the only thing open that early.

We sat and waited to board, and I was freaking out at the seating arrangements, because I really didn't want to have to share a row with anyone, I hate being smushed into a row with 3 people. I was hoping to get that emergency row with only 2 seats, but we hardly are ever able to snag that row. I got early bird check in, and I think we were maybe A27 and 28? Once we boarded, I saw the emergency row, so we grabbed it, and then there was an announcement that the flight was only 60% full, so we decided to take the row behind it to have more room. That NEVER happens on a Southwest flight anymore!

The flight to Chicago Midway was SO short! I think it said almost 2 hours on the website, but really it was maybe and hour and half. I don't even really remember what I did, I think I tried to sleep, but mostly I just tracked our flight on the flight tracker, I'm obsessed with that thing. I like looking outside and trying to figure out what I'm looking at based on where the plane is on the map. (I know, I'm a loser )

Finally, we were landing in Chicago, and it looked...just like Hartford, where we left from, haha!



Like really, if my phone didn't tell me where that picture was taken, I would have assumed by looking at it, we were in Hartford, but the location says it's Chicago so it must be!

We only had less than an hour before our next flight so we got off the plane as quickly as possible and found our gate. We used the bathroom and bought some snacks for the flight, I think I bought a huge Snickers bar and Brandon bought Cheez It's or something and found that there was nowhere to sit by our gate. I was fine with it, because we were going to be sitting for almost 4 hours on the next flight, but Brandon was annoyed. I just wanted to charge my phone a little, so we found a charging station and stood there with other people with our phones plugged in. It's so weird to me, to be crowded around outlets, to charge your devices. We noticed people were lining up before they even announced that it was time to line up, which I can't stand, because I think it makes it more stressful, but I made us go over to the gate and find our places in line because again, I really wanted that 2 seat emergency row.

When we got on, the row was free, so again, we grabbed it! This flight was full though, so we kept it. It was so nice to know that I wouldn't have to share the row with a stranger for almost 4 hours!

We took off right on time and the pilot said we would land in about 3 and a half hours. That seemed like eternity to me, since I'm not a big fan of flying and sometimes 2 and a half hours to Florida seems like too much! But I paid for the wifi so I could watch some things on my phone and slept a little, but mostly, again, I watched the flight tracker. I remember dozing off at some point and Brandon waking me up to make me look out the window at this:



and then a little later, this:



According to my phone, the first one is over Arizona, and the second is over California. This was really strange to us, because we're not used to seeing things like this on the east coast! I've been to California before, but it was a long time ago, and it was to Sacramento and San Francisco, so I don't remember flying over anything like this!

Finally, we were landing at LAX! Now, I was REALLY excited, now it felt real, we were in California!!!



We went to baggage claim and got our bags and then we went outside to find the shuttle to get the rental car. It's strange to me that an airport as big as LAX has all of their rental cars offsite, but whatever! We saw a shuttle for every single rental car company come by, sometimes twice, before one for Alamo got there. Finally an Alamo shuttle came, and everyone who was waiting got on, which I thought would never happen, because it seemed like everyone who was at LAX that day was waiting for the Alamo shuttle! We drove out of the airport and over to some road that had all of the rental car places, and we grabbed our stuff to go inside and get our car.

I hate getting a rental car, I always think it's so annoying, but this process wasn't too bad, until the girl told me my credit card wouldn't go through. I told her that was impossible, and she tried a few more times but said it wouldn't go through and I had to use another car. The only other card I had was a debit card, so she said I could use that with proof of a roundtrip ticket, basically to prove we were going home when we said we were. I didn't have that, all I had was my itinerary that I printed from Southwest, but she said that was ok. I was annoyed because I really didn't want to use my debit card, but we didn't really have a choice.

We went out to choose our car, which I always let Brandon do, since he does the driving. We got a full size car, but there were little SUV's parked in it, some little Jeeps, which he wanted, but I was afraid maybe they were parked in the wrong place...so he asked someone who worked there and they said as long as they're parked in your category, you can take them! So we got a cute little gray Jeep.

We drove out of there and got on a highway, which was SO weird because they have traffic lights on the on ramps telling you when to go and immediately saw the craziness of California drivers! Being from CT, we're used to crazy drivers, but wow, California highways are scary! And the traffic is ridiculous. I knew there would be traffic, but I didn't know it would be every second of the day! We have horrible traffic in CT too, but at least there are certain times of the day where you can drive normally. It didn't seem like there were any times, or any highways you could take in California and not get stuck in traffic.

After driving for about an hour we arrived in Anaheim! We got off the exit and you can just see Disneyland, right there! You can see Space Mountain and the Tower of Terror and the Matterhorn! It's so weird, the park is just right there, in the middle of the city! And our hotel, Howard Johnson's was right off the highway, so it was super easy to find and get to!

We went to check in and I assumed our room wouldn't be ready, but it was, which was awesome! So we parked and put all of our stuff in the room, and I remembered to take one horrible picture of it for you guys:



Sorry it's so horrible, haha, I just couldn't focus at that point! I was so overwhelmed with actually being there and knowing Disneyland was across the street and being over tired and starving...we basically just put all of our stuff in the room, changed, and then headed out the door. We had to find somewhere to eat, and I knew Downtown Disney was in walking distance, and that they had an Earl of Sandwich there, which is one of my favorite places in Disney World, so that's where we were going!



We went outside and walked through the hotel grounds to find the street, and basically just followed other people, since we didn't really know where we were going. I looked at a map of the area in the hotel and knew we had to walk through the entrance area of Disneyland to get to Downtown Disney, so we just followed the crowd. (The walk over took less than 10 minutes, and it was such a nice walk, the weather was perfect-high 70's, sunny, breezy and NO humidity-and I loved checking out the other hotels on the street!) We crossed the street and there it was, Disneyland!



Do you know how hard it was to be SO closed to Disneyland and know you couldn't go in until tomorrow? What was I thinking when I planned this??? As soon as you walk under that sign, you hear Disney music and you're just in a Disney state of mind! And the you have to go through bag check, even though you're not going in a park, just to get into the area between the 2 parks to go to Downtown Disney, you go through bag check! We went though and on one side was California Adventure, and the other side was Disneyland! And I couldn't go in! I was almost in tears, watching people go in, but we didn't really have time, and anyway, we only had 4 day park hoppers anyway. I reluctantly kept walking until we were in Downtown Disney.

Downtown Disney in California is SO different from the one in WDW (which isn't even Downtown Disney anymore, it's Disney Springs, which I'm not calling it!) it's so small! I mean, it's not small, it has a lot, but the layout is weird, you just walk straight through. There are no lakes to walk around, it doesn't take you an hour to walk from one side to another, there aren't a million people in your way like in Florida, it is much more relaxed. They had a World of Disney store, which I wanted to go in, but we were starving so we really wanted to find that Earl of Sandwich first!

And I had no idea the Grand Californian was right there either! Like you could basically stay in the Grand Californian and have a room practically in Downtown Disney! I knew it was close to California Adventure, but I didn't know it was so close to Downtown Disney! (I later figured out that California Adventure was right on the other side!)



I apologize for not taking many pictures of Downtown Disney, I was just so amazed by how different everything was, but I didn't think to take pictures, and when I did, it was of things like this, a light!

We kept walking and walking until it seemed like the end, and we almost thought we missed Earl of Sandwich, but then there it was! Almost the end of Downtown Disney and there was my beloved Earl of Sandwich! We were wondering how long the line would be, since you can't go in there in Florida and not wait in a huge line, and guess what? NO LINE!

I got my favorite, a Holiday Sandwich, and Brandon got a tuna melt

and they were SO good! The last time we were in WDW it was a short trip so we didn't have time to go to Downtown Disney, so we missed Earl of Sandwich. I seriously dream about that Holiday Sandwich, that's how good it is! (For anyone who hasn't had it, it's basically Thanksgiving dinner on a sandwich-turkey, gravy, stuffing, and cranberries and it is the best thing ever!)

We finished eating and wanted to go back to the room for a little while so we walked back through Downtown Disney. Brandon stopped at a bar for a beer and I went to World of Disney, and he found me in there, and we looked around a little and then left.

We got back to the room and tried to sleep, but I couldn't, my eyes wouldn't stay closed, so I think I took a shower while Brandon napped. Around 4:45 I woke him up because we had somewhere to be that night...Angels Stadium! Brandon is a Red Sox fan (so am I, just not as much as he is) but he mentioned he wanted to go to an Angels game while we were here, so I bought tickets. Compared to seeing the Red Sox at Fenway, they were SO cheap! The game was at 6 and since we didn't know how the traffic would be or how far the stadium was from our hotel, we figured we should give ourselves and hour.

Well, the Stadium is maybe a 6 minute drive, I think it took longer to turn into the parking lot than it did to drive over! It was nice, seeing other parts of Anaheim too, it looked like a nice city, from what I saw of it that day.

We parked and walked over to the Stadium and went through the metal detectors, got in line to get beer (well I didn't since I had a headache from not sleeping much in 24 hours) and then went to find our seats. The stadium was a little confusing so we had to ask where they were, but we finally found them! They were decent seats, but WAY up! But hey, we paid less than $40 for them, and we only bought them a few days before the trip, that's unheard of if you're going to a game in Boston!



(Sorry, I actually have a few better pictures, but I guess they're too big to put up here!)

That was our view and it was awesome! I didn't pay too much attention to the game, because I was just happy to look around and take it all in, like the mountains the background! We walked around the park a little and watched the sun set, which was really pretty. It was just so much fun, and so calm! Everything about being in California so far was just so calm, it was so different from Disney World. I didn't feel rushed to do anything, it was nice to be able to just do whatever and take our time. No, we didn't get to a park yet or anything, so maybe I would feel differently the next day, but at the game, and at Downtown Disney earlier, this trip just had such a different feeling to it, and it was nice, and totally unexpected!

We left a little early, before the game ended, to avoid getting stuck with all the other cars leaving at the same time, and went back to the hotel. We were SO exhausted at that point and we had to get up super early because Disneyland was opening at 8:00 in the morning and I wanted to be in line by 7:30 so we got back to the room and tried to sleep. And I couldn't. I tossed and turned and slept for maybe 2 hours that night. I think I was just way too excited that I was finally going to see Disneyland tomorrow!

Up next...Disneyland!

(I apologize for this first update being so long, I just wanted to get the travel day out of the way, and the non-Disney stuff! The rest of this will be more pictures and less talking!)

​

 

[missjackiemcg]

I wanted to cry right along with you picturing standing outside the gates of Disneyland and not being able to go in!!!!! What WERE you thinking?!

 

[1983DisneyFanatic]

I'm leaving for my first trip to California tomorrow and after a few days in San Diego, we are heading to Anaheim and doing exactly what you did; arrival day at Downtown Disney and then an Angels game. I will literally be feeling your pain of being so close to Disneyland, but having to wait to go.