Disneyland Report

I need to hurry and write about our Disneyland trip while I remember everything (or think I remember it all)! To start off, we stayed in a crappy hotel!! We were so excited because we got a really good deal on the Hilton Garden Inn which was supposed to be a Deluxe Hotel. WRONG!! I guess it is considered a Deluxe Hotel because it is a Hilton??? I don't know...I just wouldn't recommend staying there. The beds were VERY firm. The hotel smelled like smoke, even though it is supposedly smoke-free. They didn't have a port-a-crib for us the first night so I didn't sleep well. Half their parking spots are so small our van filled it from white line to white line. I don't know how Jeff got the van in the spot without hitting another car, but he did. I couldn't even open my door to get out!! The housekeeping staff was horrible, I don't think they really ever cleaned our room and they didn't replace the items we used. And, to top it all off it was 1.5 miles from Disneyland and they didn't have a free shuttle which meant we walked (Jeff is too cheap to pay)!! This is definitely being put on our list of never stay there again but we never would have known all of this if we didn't stay there!

Day One---As previously posted, the night staff wouldn't put forth the extra effort to find us a port a crib so Josh didn't sleep well. I didn't sleep much because I was up with Josh plus we got there late so we were all tired on our first day at Disneyland. The girls were very excited and kept saying "Disneyland here we come!" as we were walking to Disneyland. We didn't go on a ton of rides while at Disneyland just because we were doing other things. The kids wanted to do the carousel, Buzz, and the princesses. We didn't do the princesses because the line was really long. We waited in line for Dumbo for about 20-30 minutes. Andrea had a major melt-down because she wanted to ride right then. She started throwing her paper and pen I brought and was screaming at the top of her lungs!! Fun!! We made it through the line and she loved the ride. While Josh and Andrea were napping I took Sammy on Big Thunder Railroad. She didn't like it!! I tried but she kept saying it was too scary. Jeff kept trying to get her to go again so he could go but she wouldn't budge. Jeff scored later that day by getting her to go on Grizzly Rapids with him. She loved it! Andrea had a good day because I bought her a Jessie doll with my Birthday Fun Card. After we bought the doll we ran into Jessie and Woody as they were going in for a break. They gave Andrea lots of attention because she had the doll so she loved it! We were all really tired so we left Disneyland around 6 or 7 to walk back to the hotel. My feet were killing me by then and I was really tired of walking. It didn't matter the beds were hard because I was completely exhausted and slept good. Luckily Josh slept good too!!

Day Two--We tried to do the princesses today. We stood in line for 1 1/2 to 2 hours and ended up with Jasmine, Mulan, and Belle. This was not good! Andrea is a HUGE Snow White fan and was very upset she didn't get to see Snow White. We told her that Snow White was taking a nap and she bought it! We rode a few more rides today. We went and saw Playhouse Disney Live which the girls loved. Josh was entertained too because there was a lot to watch. We also went to a Bug's Land in California Adventure which has a few kids rides. Andrea really liked the flying ride! The lines over there weren't as long as Fantasyland at Disneyland so it was better.

Day Three--We woke up early so we could be at the park when it opened to get in line for the princesses. We scored. We only waited 20 minutes and saw Cinderella, Aurora, and Snow White. All morning Andrea kept saying that Snow White wasn't tired any more so she would be there. We got lucky!! If you haven't been to the princess fantasy faire, you get three random princesses that change every 15-45 minutes so we got pretty lucky. We also saw Mickey and Minnie in Toon Town. We took the girls one at a time on Gadgets Go Coaster. Sammy hated it and Andrea loved it. I think Andrea went 3 times in a row. Sammy loved this ride when she was 3 but she thinks it is too scary now. We also hit all the Pooh characters in Critter Country and scored there with three characters. When we got in line Tigger was the only one there but Pooh and Eeyore joined him right after we got in line. Josh liked the Pooh ride because there was lots to look at. We did Buzz a million times (Josh liked that too) and drove the Autopia Cars a few times. Thank goodness for fast passes so we didn't' always have to wait in the lines!! Sammy did the Grizzly River ride a few more times which made Andrea mad because she wanted her turn. We ended up staying and watching part of the fireworks so we were at the park for 12 hours our last day. I didn't think I was going to be able to make the walk back to our hotel but my feet somehow made it! We did walk lots slower back to the hotel our last night.

I think that sums up our trip pretty well. We loved it and we would go again in a heart beat. Hopefully we will be able to go again in about a year! Andrea woke up today and kept saying that it was time to go to Disneyland. But, when we were at Disneyland they kept wanting to go back to the hotel (they saw the hotel pool and wanted to swim)!! The biggest let down of the trip was that they didn't have the Christmas ornaments we wanted to buy. Oh, well!!