California Vacation! June 2002
California Trip!
Alan 33
Lisa 32
Olivia 12
Owen 2 (almost3!)
Some background about the trip. I was partially a work trip for Alan of course since a lot of our trips are. He found out that there was a convention in San Diego in June and we had just moved into our new house the 1st of March! Well we looked at the dates and cashed in some Frequent Flier miles to book the trip. We would Fly out of St. Louis non stop to Orange County airport and spend the 1st week in Anaheim! We wanted to see Disneyland and take Olivia to Hollywood and Long Beach. Alan was planning some time for hot wheeling since there are a lot of special stores out there for it. Then for the second week we would drive down to San Diego and stay for his convention. This means we would be gone a total of 2 weeks and would be crammed into regular sized hotel rooms with the kids for 2 weeks too!
Our dates were the last 2 full weeks of June 2002.
Fly in and get our rental car at the John Wayne Orange County airport. This is a big airport but not nearly as big as LAX and it is close to Disneyland. We drive over to the Disneyland hotel and check in. We are staying with a really good AP rate. Only one of us has to have an AP to get the rate so Alan got one and the rest of us got regular tickets. But this worked out better then paying the regular rate at the hotel and getting a regular ticket for Alan. Also we choose Alan to get the AP since if anyone would have the slightest chance of coming back in the next year it would be him on business! (which he did by the way!)
First I must say that the drive to the hotel was interesting. We did not have to get on the interstate but took a busy main road and Olivia just stared out the windows at all the different sites. She is used to a vacation at the beach or at Disney World but this was a big city and there were homeless people and nice houses then dumpy houses all within blocks of each other!
We arrive and check in but our room wasn’t ready yet since it was only noon so we looked around the lobby and then left since our car was parked out front where it wasn’t supposed to be. We drove over to find the Disney outlet, it was nothing like the nice ones in Orlando! But we somehow managed to spend $25 anyway! Then over to burger king for lunch, after eating we stopped at a K-mart and don’t know what we bought but we spent $28! After another stop at a grocery store where we spent another $25, which I must say is like going to a grocery store in another country! Very different grocery shopping out there! We went back to the hotel and got into our room. It was now about 3pm. Our room was in the building that had the lobby and so I was pleased with that and we had a balcony which is only big enough for one person to stand on an look out but we had a view of Disneyland! We could see the fireworks and splash mountain from our room.
We got changed and went down to go for a swim the pool was nice and had a Peter Pan theme with a shipwreck and a slide but it could have been a bigger pool! It was packed! We stayed for about 2 hours though.
After our swim we got changed and took a drive over toward the beach. We ate at a Denny’s across the street from Newport Beach and it was a nice place but it took forever! ($15) Once we got to the beach we realized that it was freezing out! Turns out this is the reason they have all those fire pits on the beach in California! We were swimming at our hotel just a little while ago and now it was so cold we couldn’t stand it! Literally lasted about 10 minutes and then ran back to the car for warmth! What a waste of a perfectly good evening! But we did get back to the room in time to see the 9:30 fireworks show!
We are up at 7:00am and we had to return the rental car today over a couple blocks away but here in the Disneyland area. Alan left to go and do that while the kids and I got ready and went downstairs to wait for him to meet us. We got out to our meeting spot just outside the back of the hotel in the nice courtyard area where everyone leaves to walk to Disneyland at 8:00 but he didn’t get back till 9:00am! That was a fun wait with Owen for an hour! He was wound up and driving Olivia and I crazy!
Once we arrived we walked over and entered the park and went straight to the Matterhorn for Alan and Olivia while Owen and I went to Autopia to ride the cars. We meet back up and went to go see Buzz and we ate breakfast while waiting for the Buzz show to start but for some unknown reason they cancelled it!! We were so mad! Alan and Olivia went and used Fast Pass for Space Mountain then we walked around a little while trying to figure out what to go next but decided to just leave the park because it was so crowded!
Back at the hotel we ate lunch in the room and I took Olivia to the pool. Alan and Owen took a nap then joined us at the pool when they were done. At 5pm we went over to California Adventure (Disney’s other theme park which was pretty new still) to spend the evening. We spent most of our time in the Paradise Pier area riding rides. For dinner Alan and I had the soup in a bread bowl which was good but not big enough to fill us up. When we were done at the park we were able to just leave through the back entrance and walk back to the hotel across the street! This is such a strange thing since in Orlando we always have to take a bus to get back to the hotel. The kids had chicken strips for dinner at the hotel.
We were up at 8:00am today and walked over to take the monorail into the park. This monorail actually drops you off in the middle of the park instead of out front. But the wait here was long this took forever! We finally got in and 9:30 and I rode the Matterhorn with Olivia and they don’t have this ride in Orlando so I was nervous! Alan and Oen went over and got Fast Passes for the Indiana Jones ride. They also saw Woody and Jessie on there way! Then they all rode the tea cups except me since I was taking pictures. We all went and did the Storybook canal boats and then rode the train over to Big Thunder but it wasn’t working. So instead we used our FP’s for the Indiana Jones Ride and by then Owen had met his limit of the crowded park and so had we really. So we left but as we exited we decided that I would take Owen back to the room for his nap and Alan and Olivia would go next door to California Adventure and pick up FP’s for Soarin that we could use tonight.
So Owen and I took off walking and you have to walk through Downtown Disney to get back to the hotel so we stopped at the Lego store for him to look around. Then in front of the Rainforest Cafe they had a huge bird cage outside and a crowd around it so we walked over to see what was going one. Well an employee was doing questions and answers about the birds and Owen just loved this! This was the most fun he had so far today! I held him up on the concrete ledge and he watched it all! Finally we tore ourselves away from this fun and went back to the room for sandwiches since it was about 12:30 and naps. The others got back about an hour later, they had rode the big Mickey shaped coaster twice and the mail boomer once and Olivia was all hyped up telling me all about it! They fixed sandwiches and then they went to the pool. Owen was still asleep but after he woke up we went down too. I got a drink from the bar but it was $7.50! and we all swam till 4:30 then got dressed for dinner.
We had reservations at Goofy’s Kitchen which is a lot like Chef Mickey’s in Orlando. Our dinner was at 5pm and it was not cheap but we ate enough to make up for it! (with tip it was almost $80! But we had eaten sandwiches for 2 days to pay for it!) Owen just LOVED all the characters he would stand up in the booth and dance while stuffing food in his mouth! Then I believe it was Snow White that came over and sat down beside him and I think he would have got up and left and went home with her he liked her THAT much! At one point They play a special song and Goofy gets all the kids to come and dance with him and Owen loved that! We have video of him shaking it all over the place he really had the beat!
Once we were done we went to the hotel gift shop since Owen was just about out of diapers and try as we might he was not potty trained yet! (however, about 2-3 weeks after the trip he was!) Well being stuck without a car meant I had to buy there diapers to hold us over and I paid $10 for 7 diapers! I was not pleased but what choice did I have! The kids used some of there souvenir money and bought Mickey (Lib) and Goofy(Owen) headband ears for $7 each.
Then we walked over to the back entrance of Cal. Adventure and called home to check in while we were walking over. We used out FP’s to ride Soarin and WOW! This was the 1st time any of us had ridden this! We all loved it and thought it was so cool! Once we had taken 2 rides on Soarin we went back over to the back of the park to Paradise Pier for some more rides and we left as the parade was just starting. We cut through the Grand Californian Hotel (WOW) and went over to the World of Disney store just to look around. We saw some fireworks going off and then went back to the room and to bed at 10.
The alarm was set for 7am but I was awake at 6:30 and started getting ready. We left the room and walked to Disneyland and we were out front waiting for the park to open! Then we went straight to Peter Pan which already had a 10 minute wait!Jeez! And to Dumbo which also had a 10 min. wait! We were able to ride the tea cups with no wait and then went to Big Thunder and got FP’s. We decided to wait in line to ride twice since it was only a 15 minute wait. So Olivia and I rode 3 times and Alan and Olivia rode once! We had also used the child swap since Owen is too young to ride. By now it is 10:30am and the FP return time for Splash isn’t till 2:30 this afternoon! So we got one for Pirates and then left the park again since it was SO packed! We went across over to Cal. Adv. And I made them go through the Soap Opera set tour! They had one set from each of the 3 ABC soaps! I can’t remember which ones they had except that General Hospital had Luke’s club and Kelly’s diner! This was very exciting for me! The rest of them could have cared less since Olivia wasn’t watching soaps yet!