So we are back, settled in, and ready (as much as you can be) to get back to regular life. Luckily, we have a big trip planned for WDW next June, so we don't have the post vacation blues as much as normal
In summary, here's a break down of our vacation:
Saturday, Oct 12 - Travel, Disneyland Hotel, and Downtown Disney
Sunday, Oct 13 - Disneyland and Trader Sam's
Monday, Oct 14 - California Adventure
Tuesday, Oct 15 - Shopping in Downtown Disney, Swimming, Trader Sam's, and Halloween Party
Wednesday, Oct 16 - Little Tokyo in LA, Griffith Observatory, Seal Beach, and Vans Skatepark
Thursday, Oct 17 - Disneyland and California Adventure
Friday, Oct 18 - California Adventure, Disneyland, and Back to California Adventure
Saturday, Oct 19 - Packing, Downtown Disney, and Travel Back Home
Starting with Saturday morning..
Stephanie's dad picked us up at 6:30am and we were off to Lambert airport in St. Louis. We checked our luggage and made our way through security without any issues.
Luckily, we had a direct flight and a smooth 4 hours. The kids kept busy with their iPads and Buddy was excited about the flight tracker webpage provided by Southwest WiFi. It showed the airplane's path over a map of the US, and showed the current speed, ETA, altitude, miles left, etc. Very cool!
I kept hoping that a bird didn't get sucked into that engine (just kidding)
The girls all sat in one row, and then Buddy and I sat immediately behind them.
Possibly not the best idea, as Buddy kept on sticking his hand up between the seats and pestering/teasing the girls.
We arrived at LAX on time and grabbed our luggage. We reserved a shuttle through Karmel and called their dispatch line as soon as we had our bags, but it still took about 30 minutes for the shuttle to arrive. We were first on the van, then they had to pick up another party of 4 down at the next terminal. They had a mix up where the people had the right van number, but the driver had the wrong names/destination. It took a while for him to sort that out with the dispatch center, and I was starting to get annoyed about the long wait and then this, but luckily the family was also staying at the Disneyland Hotel, so we had a quick trip after that. The driver was strange, with a weird sense of humor, but at least it made for an interesting 40 minutes. LOL!
We arrived at the lobby at about 2pm. They had giant tea cup chairs that the kids waited in while I checked in. So rad! Luckily, our room was ready, so we headed up to it immediately. Hooray!!
I grabbed a few photos before we unpacked and trashed the room with all our stuff. (I should have had a before and after photo, because by our last day, it looked like the tornado from the Silly Symphonies cartoon tore through our room.)
The headboard above the beds was amazing. If you haven't seen this before, go search for a video on youtube to see the effect in action. It lights up with fireworks and plays "A Wish is a Dream Your Heart Makes". So cool!!
Our room was on the 7th floor in the Fantasy Tower.
Here's the view from our window.
This was a standard view room, but we were happy to be able to see the park fairly well. You could easily see the Matterhorn and some of the castle turrets. You could see the Monorail on it's way to Downtown Disney, and you could also see the LA skyscrapers if you looked over to the left (out of view in the photo.) Great view for the fireworks too!
We hadn't eaten anything other than flight snacks since about 4am PDT and it was now past 2pm PDT. We were all starved, so we headed down to Tangaroa Terrace (the hotel's counter service restaurant) to eat.
We ordered our meals and decided to sit outside and enjoy the view.
And then they brought out the food to us!!!
Ninja Potato and I both ordered the Island Fish and Chips (Panko crusted Mahi Mahi with lime tartar sauce.) You could get it with regular or sweet potato fries. We both opted for the regular fries. We both agreed that it was very tasty! The fish was a bit overcooked/dry, but the flavor was really good.
Stephanie had the Kalua Pork Flatbread. It was good, but not great.
Pickle had the kids hamburger. The tiny little hamburger was cute and it was perfectly sized for her. Nom, nom, nom....
Buddy ordered a regular hamburger, but I guess I forgot to get a picture of it. He ate the whole thing, so it must have been good
After we finished eating, we explored the grounds for a few minutes and browsed around in the gift shop.
Unfortunately, I still can't walk long distances without my foot hurting due to the reconstructive surgery in July. My mom talked me into renting an EVC
scooter for the week. I looked on Disboards and people seem to recommend Deckert's more than anyone else, so I called them and it was $175 for the entire week. Not too bad, all things considered, so I called them a couple days earlier and they had it delivered to the bell hop stand just outside the lobby. We decided to check on it before heading back up to the room and just as expected it was ready to go when we asked. That EVC turned out to be a life saver!!! More on that to come.
Also, we had vouchers for our park tickets, but they couldn't figure out how to redeem them at the front desk, so we had to head to the ticket boxes in the esplanade. No worries, we were excited to explore Downtown Disney and do a little window shopping anyway.
On the way out of the lobby, we ran into Goofy
An then we went straight to the ticket booth and picked up the tickets - 4 day park hoppers. Yahoo!!!
We brought some cereal from home and heard that you can get reasonably priced 1/2 gallons of milk at White Water Snacks in the Grand Californian Hotel, so we stopped there on the way back. They also had two liters of Coke for $3. That sounds ridiculous compared to our local grocery store, but at Disney this is a steal! So we bought a couple to have back in the room.
After we explored the Grand Californian for a while, we decided to head back to our room. I took Buddy and Pickle down to the pool to swim while Stephanie and Ninja Potato unpacked and relaxed for a while.
The pools were awesome and the kids had a blast!
A while later, we decided to head to Downtown Disney for dinner. Ninja Potato was still full and not feeling 100%, so she stayed behind to do all her Instagram, Facebook, iMessage, whatever teenage girls do, etc. on her iPad
We headed to Tortilla Jo's Taqueria, thinking that would be a good idea, but it turns out that Downtown Disney was mobbed. The lines for the various restaurants were super long, and Buddy was giving us a hard time about not wanting to eat there. After waiting in line for a few minutes and it not really moving, we decided to give in and try something else. We decided to head back to Whitewater Snacks in the Grand Californian hoping that it's remote location might mean less of a wait. We were right!! There was no line at all. YES!!!
We'd heard good things about their nachos, so we decided to order that. Went with half chicken, half beef. It was pretty good, but neither Stephanie or I are big fans of "plastic cheese" sauce. I'd eat it again, and enjoy it, but I wouldn't go out of my way for it like some do.
Pickle had the kids hamburger again. Nom, nom, nom....
Buddy had chicken nuggets and fries. Forgot to get a picture of his meal again
At that point, we were tired and content, so we headed back to the room to relax for a little while and then we watched the fireworks from our window before turning in for the night
And there we have the first day of our trip! I hope you like lots of photos (including food photos) because I took a lot of pictures on this trip. Next up will be our first day in the parks, a full day at Disneyland!
I've been a Tony Hawk fan since I started skateboarding in the 80's, and I've been a Disney fan long before that. Love to see two of my favorite hobbies collide 
I ended up winning 4 cardinals tickets to Sundays game along with my 2 six flags tickets so we took the kids I will have to make a trip sometime to get my DD b day stuff though.....and FYI Six Flags is so not worth it....I had two adult free tickets but had to pay $86 for a 4&5 yr old plus $20 to park and half of the stuff they couldn't ride and they up keep on the older rides needs some looking into...can't wait for 
)
