Aussies beat the heat and escape to a Winter Wonderland! 01/06 COMPLETE!

[Ms. Shuttergirl]

I adored your Washington update. Looks absolutely wonderful. I'm thrilled that we are going there on our next trip. Do you think with kids in tow that 2 1/2 days will be enough or perhaps add another day?

Your photos from the Monument of Washington are wonderful.

Bummer about Boston. We plan to go there but I have to say I'm a little worried because of your review and that the weather was so bad . Hmmmm, something to think on some more. My DH and DS are keen to go and see the Boston Celtics when we are there are they are hoping I will plan the whole trip around being their to see them . Yeah right.

Keep those updates coming, I am having such a wonderful time reading along.

 

[Anne_Aus]

I am worried about Boston and the cold, but its one place I really want to go. I am weird with wanting to go to the obscure places over the more popular.

Any chance of the last update in say the next umm 2 weeks
No hurry honestly

 

[Lulu83]

DAY THIRTY –Anaheim Part One

As I’ve already mentioned we really had no preconceptions about DL and had done no research at all (unlike our upcoming WDW trip!).

We must have arrived at the park shortly after opening time. We bought one day tickets to DL as we’d decided to skip California Adventure Park. There were no queues to buy tickets, or to get into the park.

In fact we didn’t really encounter any queues or big crowds at all, late January must be a quiet time! We certainly didn’t feel the need to use Fast Passes. It was about 19 deg C. and both of us felt it was pretty warm. We’re usually used to the heat being from Perth, but we’d acclimatised to the cold on the east coast! The only disadvantage to visiting in the off season was there was a bit of maintenance going on; so for example Splash Mountain , Star Tours and It’s a Small World were both closed.

As soon as we got through the gates and saw this I knew we were in for a special day!

Unfortunately there was some maintenance work being done on Main St which spoilt the view a little bit, but it was so exciting to have our first glimpse of the castle and it really felt like we’d entered another world. There were some CMs wearing Mickey hands waving at everybody, it must us feel very welcome!

Construction on main street

I’d picked up a map of the park from the ticket booth and we really had no plan of attack in terms of rides. We decided to head right into Tomorrowland to start the day, and our first ride was the Astro Orbitor. DF and I made the mistake of getting into the same spaceship which was extremely cramped! It was a nice view of the park though.

Next we walked past Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters and looked at each other as if to say “is this too young for us?” (believe me we got over this concern very very quickly!)The CM outside obviously said “you will definitely enjoy it, give it a go!” so we went on. We had a great time and both said this was one of our favourite rides of the day. Unfortunately DF beat me every time, but hey he’s a boy and he plays a lot of computer games!

We decided to check out Space Mountain next but the sign at the entry about the dark and sudden turns etc. freaked me out and I changed my mind. I encouraged DF to give it a go without me while I sat and waited but he was a gentleman and refused. I am a bit of a wimp and had never been on a roller coaster before DL so I thought Space Mountain might scare me off. We did end up returning later in the day though so stay tuned! We watched the Jedi Training Academy for a little while after this and lamented that Star Tours was closed as we are both big Star Wars fans.

Our next stop was Nemo’s Submarine Voyage. Once again there was a pretty short queue for this which was great. We had a lot of fun on this one; we both love the movie and the Australian connection! I was also enjoying the non-scariness of the rides we’d done so far which was doing great things for my courage.

We were planning to tackle the Tomorrowland Speedway next but it looked like there was a reasonable queue and DF wasn’t particularly interested so we kept moving instead.

DF was very excited when the Matterhorn came into view. He knew even less about DL than I did so I had to tell him what it was (I thought everybody had heard of the famous Matterhorn Bobsleds). He was very surprised when I told him I wanted to give it a go. I’d decided that if I was every going to overcome my rollercoaster fear there was no better place to do it than DL!

I was quite anxious waiting to get on and increasingly anxious once the ride started climbing the mountain in the dark. It didn’t help that DF (who is fearless) kept fake screaming from behind me! Once the downhill part actually started though I was fine and actually enjoyed myself! I even put my arms up in the air when we went through the water at the end of the ride. DF got the whole thing on video tape as well.

After my Matterhorn experience I needed some nourishment, so we stopped for a snack. I can’t recall exactly what we had but it may well have been popcorn..

We made our way through Fantasyland next. This was probably my favourite area of the park. I adored the teacups!

View from Dumbo

Closed for maintenance

We had one of our longest waits to get on the Storybook land boats, which I have to admit was very cute.

Aladdin

Cinderella’s Castle

I can’t remember everything we rode in Fantasyland, but we did a lot of rides because the queues were so short. Eventually I told DF we should probably move on because we’d spent so much time in the one place and still had a lot left to see!

Toontown was next. We loved the theming here! We also met our first characters of the day, starting with Pluto, and then the big cheese himself Mickey Mouse! By now we couldn’t care less if we were doing childish things, although I was a little bit embarrassed about my level of excitement meeting Mickey (we were the only adults who waited to see him, aside from parents taking photos of their kids!) The rollercoaster in Toontown was definitely within my comfort zone and we rode this one a few times, it was great fun.

To be continued next post (I've posted too many photos!)

 

[Lulu83]

Our next stop was Frontierland.

I was hoping to eat lunch at the Big Thunder Ranch BBQ, but unfortunately it was closed. We did have fun meeting the animals at the ranch though. The goats would have to be the fattest and laziest I have ever seen; they were adorable. I’ve never met a goat that didn’t try to eat my clothes before!

There was no effort going into that headbutt, he just stood there with his horns resting on his friend!

I was ready to tackle my next big rollercoaster with Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Once again I found the climbing in the dark bits scary but loved the ride itself. I also thought it was more comfortable and a bit less ‘jarring’ than the Matterhorn. This ended up being DF’s favourite ride of the day.

DF is very proud of this shot where he caught the train in action

We were getting pretty hungry by now so stopped for lunch at the counter service place next to the Golden Horseshoe for lunch. I can’t remember what we had but I know it wasn’t healthy! We finished lunch by sharing a choc mint ice-cream sundae inside the Golden Horseshoe Saloon which was delicious.

Feeling refreshed we made our way into New Orleans, walking past this on the way.

Once again we just loved the theming! We browsed some of the shops although we didn’t buy anything.

We rode Pirates of the Carribean which was one of my favourite rides as it was exciting but not scary! I loved the look of the Blue Bayou Restaurant with the tables overlooking the start of the pirates ride and we considered having dinner here, but since the park was closing fairly early and we weren’t hungry yet so we just couldn’t make it work. We tried to see the Haunted Mansion but it was temporarily closed so we vowed to return later and kept moving to Critter Country.

We want to be on the OTHER side of these gates!

Unfortunately with Splash Mountain closed for maintenance there wasn’t a lot to do in Critter Country (or at least we thought so initially) We rode Winnie the Pooh and then had a look around the gift shop. I’m a big Winnie the Pooh (especially Eeyore) fan so I couldn’t resist buying my first Disney pin and a cute little plush Eeyore to add to my collection at home. As we made our way out of the shop intending to head over to Adventureland I was beside myself with excitement to see Eeyore himself! I have loved him for as long as I can remember. There was a bit of a queue forming to see him which we joined, but then fortunately for us three quarters of the people disappeared because Tigger arrived and we didn’t have to wait at all!

I became quite nervous when it was my turn to meet Eeyore! It was like meeting my idol! DF took some great photos for me, which are now very treasured. This had to be one of my favourite moments of the day; he was so soft and cuddly! I was too excited to really interact with him but he was very sweet and blew me lots of kisses and gave me a huge hug.

I think I was a bit dazed after meeting my favourite donkey but we eventually made our way to Adventureland. We explored Tarzan’s tree house and rode the jungle cruise and Indiana Jones. Indy was probably our longest wait of the day, but we really enjoyed the queue so it wasn’t a problem. I really enjoyed all of the rides in Adventureland, we had a great ‘captain’ on the cruise and Indiana Jones was good fun, I was so scared when the car stalled and the boulder started rolling towards us!

View from the tree house

We considered checking out the Enchanted Tiki Room but for some reason decided not to. I was very interested by the stand selling pineapple juice and ice-cream though as I’m a huge pineapple lover, so we decided to get a juice. As we were waiting I realised everybody else was buying juice with ice-cream on top and decided we just had to try it, so we split one. This was of course the famous Dole Whip float that I had never heard of before. Oh my goodness I just loved it! I am a total devotee now and can’t wait until I can taste that pineapple-y goodness again..

By this stage it was starting to get dark. We were relieved that we had made it through each of the “lands” and decided to go back and finish off the little bits we hadn’t done earlier. We started with the Haunted Mansion (which I was worried would be terrifying, but thought was really fun) followed by the Mark Twain riverboat and then the carousel.

A CM told me I’d picked Walt’s favourite horse on the carousel (unfortunately the photo isn’t the greatest)

Then we went back and repeated a few of our favourites from earlier in the day; such as Buzz Lightyear and the teacups. DF pointed out to me that there was still one rollercoaster we hadn’t done yet, and feeling confident I agreed to give Space Mountain a go.

I really wish I hadn’t! I didn’t enjoy this ride at all and found it really scary. Definitely outside of my comfort zone. The photo from the ride (which I don’t have) is hilarious as I have my eyes squeezed tightly shut and look sick! DF said he wasn’t cared but didn’t particularly enjoy himself as he didn’t find the dark very stimulating. I must admit the very start of the ride; overlooking the stars is gorgeous.

It was approaching closing time now so we made our way back to Main St, stopping for a photo in front of the castle on our way.

We only ended up having 3 photopass photos taken, as I wasn’t really prepared for this, but I was happy with the shots that we got and would do it again. I ordered a photobook from the photopass website after we got home, and we really love it! The park was beautiful at night, I really liked riding the tea cups in the dark.

We had a look through the shops on Main St and bought a nice photo frame. I was quite interested in the pins and a CM suggested we check out World of Disney at Downtown Disney as they had a bigger selection. The park was closing very soon anyway so we sadly headed out, stopping for one last photo on the way!

I have to admit we weren’t hugely impressed with Downtown Disney. I did buy a few more pins, but we weren’t particularly interested in any of the other shops and none of the restaurants really appealed to us. In the end we walked across the road to Denny’s for dinner and had some great burgers. We had such a fantastic day and loved looking through our shopping and the photos on our camera while we ate.

After dinner it was a very short walk back to our hotel for our very last night in the US! We were so glad we’d included DL in our itinerary and that day was definitely the start of a Disney obsession for us both, including me joining the disboards of course!

Next: Our last day! LA

 

[Lulu83]

DAY THIRTY ONE: LA

We had a late night flight out of LAX so had an almost full day in LA to kill. We loaded up our car with our luggage and left Anaheim around mid-morning. We didn’t really have any particular plan for the day and it wasn’t a particularly enjoyable day. It felt like we were just passing time and I think we were quite depressed our perfect holiday was coming to an end.

We decided to check out the famous Hollywood sign and had a drive through the Hollywood Hills. There were signs everywhere saying not to do this, but it was super quiet and we didn’t stop the car at all, I just snapped photos from inside the car. We ended up getting a pretty good view!

Next was knocking off one of DF’s “must-do’s”. He is a big bodybuilding fan and loves following the professional bodybuilders and the Mr Olympia competition. I have absolutely no interest in this and find them pretty disgusting but I know how much it meant to DF to visit the famous Gold’s Gym Venice Beach “the Mecca of bodybuilding” (I thought only DF called it this but I was wrong, there was a sign out the front!) and actually got very excited for him as the visit approached! This is the gym where a lot of famous bodybuilders have trained; including Arnold Schwarzenegger.

DF was like a kid in a candy store here, he loved it! He bought a t-shirt for himself and one for the dog (which looks quite amusing considering he is a greyhound and the furthest thing from a canine bodybuilder you could get) and enjoyed chatting to the man at reception who was more than happy to answer his questions about the gym. We were also allowed to have a walk inside the gym which was really nice.

It was from then on that the day got a bit tiring. We didn’t really have anything specific to do next and jus spent a lot of time driving aimlessly around. We checked out the streets of Beverley Hills and the Santa Monica Pier.

Eventually we decided to blow our last US dollars and tried to find the nearest mall, and ended up at Glendale Mall. We browsed around here until it was time to go the airport and finished up our shopping. I bought a few Pandora charms which were considerably cheaper than they are here!

Finally we made our way to the airport and there isn’t really much else to write about after that! We had an uneventful flight home, although we were unfortunately stuck in the middle of a row of 4 on the plane which was not fun. It was 40 degrees in Perth on our first day back which was a bit of a shock to the system, but we were super happy to see our dog (and our families of course).

 

[Lulu83]

Well I’ve finally made it to the end of my trip report! Thank you SO much to everybody who has read along, been patient with my slow progress (it almost took 12 months to write!) and encouraged me to write it in the first place.

It was a great way to relive our trip and hopefully I might have been able to help some people planning trips of their own. I’m very excited to finally be able to start a PTR for our next holiday later this year!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Lulu - Thanks for sharing your trip and lovely pictures. I wish you smooth sailing for your wedding planning and happy ever afterwards.

I hope you'll let us know where you are writing you wedding PTR if it isn't on the Aussie boards section so that we can follow along.

Thanks again.

 

[Anne_Aus]

Loved it! thank you so much for writing it and finishing it.
The journey was so great, especially since we seem to have so many of the same places on our holidays.

I can't wait to read all about your wedding plans

 

[Kangarucci]

Thank you so much for taking the time to write a wonderful TR. I truly enjoyed it.

 

[Lulu83]

Lulu - Thanks for sharing your trip and lovely pictures. I wish you smooth sailing for your wedding planning and happy ever afterwards.

I hope you'll let us know where you are writing you wedding PTR if it isn't on the Aussie boards section so that we can follow along.

Thanks again.

Thank you very much! I will definitely keep you informed when I get around to starting my PTR!

Loved it! thank you so much for writing it and finishing it.
The journey was so great, especially since we seem to have so many of the same places on our holidays.

I can't wait to read all about your wedding plans

Thank you! And thanks for all of your encouragement every time I lagged behind with the report, knowing somebody was reading kept me going!

I'm really looking forward to hearing about your trip, it must be feeling very real to you now, so exciting to see your ticker saying only a week and a bit to go

Thank you so much for taking the time to write a wonderful TR. I truly enjoyed it.

Thanks so much!

 

[Caroline NZ]

I've really enjoyed reading your trip report. Thanks for sharing.
I look forward to hearing about your next big adventure.

 

[Mum from oz]

Thanks for a great trip report. I really enjoyed reading along. Good luck with the wedding planning!

 

[maryr1oz]

Just came across your report and read it all - i loved it!

Great photos and good descriptions too...

Have you started a disboard planning journal for your wedding??