She's Having Deja Vu and Going Back to WDW, a June 2024 WL PTR

[ambula603]

Allie has inspired me! I am going to show my girls these ideas, they will love them for our upcoming DL trip! My girls don't love wearing ears but they will participate in a theme for each day. That usually helps me pack, too. I don't over pack when I have a plan.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Did Jon and Brandy stay at Wilderness Lodge on their January trip? Which Downtown Disney restaurant will you be visiting?

Jon and Brandy did stay at WL, in a Copper Creek room since it is their favorite as well.

For this weekend, we decided to do Naples, the Italian restaurant. It was a close race with Tortilla Jo’s which we have enjoyed before, but since Tortilla Jo’s is closing next month we figured we would try something new. Usually we eat at the Grand Californian, but we get more parking validation with a DTD sit down meal.

Allie's wardrobe looks very cute. It also looks like it will be perfect for the Florida heat and humidity.

Yes it should be nice and she is oh so excited. She is acquiring items as she finds deals, so she is building up to the trip.

I am looking forward to your report on the trip to Downtown Disney. We will be spending one wild and crazy - do as much as we can - day in Disneyland. We hope it can include Downtown Disney, too. We have never been to Disneyland so this is all new to us.

Geography is in your favor for your full day of DL fun, since the parks are right next to each other with DTD almost in between. Everything is so much smaller and closer together than in Florida. When are you going to be out here?

A trip to Downtown Disney seems like the perfect thing to do to keep the Disney excitement going! Love your DD's outfit wish list. As a boy Mom (and boy Grandma) I've never experienced the clothes excitement. Sounds fun but maybe a little hard on the checkbook Hope your DD visit is a good one!

Thanks. Marshall definitely doesn’t get as excited about the clothes, but at least we all share in the love of Food. Clothes have always been part of Allie’s trips and I guess she’s continuing that.
We should have a ball at DD, and we will let you all know what we do.

Allie has inspired me! I am going to show my girls these ideas, they will love them for our upcoming DL trip! My girls don't love wearing ears but they will participate in a theme for each day. That usually helps me pack, too. I don't over pack when I have a plan.

That’s awesome! Allie didn’t wear ears too much but she loves collecting them, and now wears them more. She displays them on the wall in her bedroom.
Having a plan does help with the packing, and being able to do laundry on the room cuts down on how much we need to bring too. It all ties into the plan.

 

[DLo]

Following along . Looking forward to reading more.

 

[Wood Nymph]

When are you going to be out here?

We will be in California from April 13th to 18th. Our DL day is Wednesday, April 17th and we fly home the next day.

 

[Woth2982]

Joining in! Love the trip plans so far! Fellow CC owners here! It really is heaven on earth!

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Following along . Looking forward to reading more.

Thanks for joining in. We will have more trip details and planning too, plus this weekend’s visit to Downtown Disney.

We will be in California from April 13th to 18th. Our DL day is Wednesday, April 17th and we fly home the next day.

Sounds good. It is a nice time of year and hopefully you get a nice sample of what Disney has to offer in CA.

Joining in! Love the trip plans so far! Fellow CC owners here! It really is heaven on earth!

Welcome and thanks for joining in. We have always loved the lodge, going back to when we were just reading about it as we planned our honeymoon there in 2007. Then when we got to see it in person we fell in love. When we had the chance to buy at Copper Creek we were able to take advantage of it and have been there every year since.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Yesterday we returned to Downtown Disney for the first time as a family since before COVID. For somewhere we used to go very frequently, it was pretty interesting to go back after so long away.

It was Allies idea and it was fun! It was neat to see the few changes that they’ve made but in general not a whole lot has changed. Some stores and restaurants have closed or changed but the basics are there.

Downtown Disney has been in a state of limbo since before COVID because they had announced plans to change it but then cancelled them after many of the big stores had left. Now they are moving forward with new plans, and it will be nice to see the area re-invigorated. With the great things they have done with Disney Springs, the California verson is just a mere shadow of what it could be, and hopefully will be in the future.

But, all analysis aside, it is still a fun and special place for us, so we had a great afternoon.

Yes! We had reservations at Naples for dinner which, gasp, we’ve actually never eaten at! We got there a little before our reservation so we were able to walk around a bit. I guess we’re totally spoiled by the walk through scanners at WDW now I totally didn’t consider they would be doing classic bag checks and I just took my normal purse with me. I haven’t cleaned it out in a couple weeks so there’s just a lot of random crap in there, like a check I need to deposit, work keys, my giant wallet, anyway, sorry to the security guy, he had a lot to sift through there.

I had to deal with my belt and phone case which is attached to it, but was big enough to set off the traditional magnetic metal detector. After being wanded I was let in, but it sure makes us appreciate the security upgrades they have at WDW, because this felt like a trip back in time.

We only had to do it once though so that was nice.

Our first stop inside security was the Lego store, which Marshall loved. He didn't remember anything about Downtown Disney before, but the Lego store is always one of his favorites in Disney Springs.

There is a new Stitch Lego guy, he’s super cute!

We then walked past the former ESPN Zone and Rainforest Cafe. There is construction underway where they are adding a few new restaurants, which will fill in some vacant space.

The former Build a Bear is a bar and brewery now, and the Sanuk / Basin / Department 56 (yeah, we go that far back) stores are gone.

Aww yeah I loved Department 56. There is a shoe store that carries Sanuk where the Sanuk store was though.

Wetzels is still there though, which was a frequent lunch spot for us when we were dating.

We ate so many pretzel dogs.

As we made our way East towards the park entrances more of the stores were still in place, including the sunglasses store and the beach clothes place, and finally Starbucks, which is doing well. Then it was time for World of Disney, which really does remind us of the Florida version, since they are styled fairly similarly now since their latest remodels.

The CA store is smaller, but still a good sized place to shop.

They sure have plenty to look at and now offer mobile checkout just like WDW. That part was new.

We didn't buy anything yet on our first pass through, but we had just enough time before our reservation to check out our paving stone in the plaza between the parks. This is something so different from WDW, you can see the front gates for both parks in one picture.

Our “rock” is pretty close to the Disneyland entrance and is where Paul proposed.

It’s a special place for us and I can’t believe it’s been there 20 years this year. It was neat to get our feet pictures again with the kids bigger, we have both of them as babies there too.

We spent a lot of time at Disneyland when we were dating, so it was the perfect place to propose and then plan our wedding there exactly two years later.

Eh enough of the sappy memory lane. After this it was time to check in for dinner.

We finally made it to Naples! We considered eating there during one of our very first dates, but I think we wound up at Wetzels instead, and the rest was history... We checked in and chose to wait longer for a table inside because the weather was a little chilly.

We can very much be creatures of habit and honestly we were both poor college students then.

It took about 25 minutes for a table but we got to sit in the open kitchen area which was fun. All of the activity kept Marshall entertained.

We got to watch them toss the pizza dough and could see into the wood fired oven. It was pretty cool. For our dinner we both went with Lasagna, while Marshall went with Spaghetti and meatballs and Allie chose a pork chop with a mushroom sauce.

The food was fantastic and our waiter Cory was fun and brought us Diet Cokes to go. If you want to get straight to Paul’s heart bring him a Diet Coke in a to go cup after a meal.

That is so true. I will glady tip well for a "free" Diet Coke to take with me. It was a great meal, and I enjoyed the extra meat sauce that Cory had recommended. The appetizer we got was exceptiuonal too, which was deep fried pizza dough with ricotta cheese.

I can’t believe we hadn’t eaten here before, we’ll for sure be back. After dinner it was time to finish up shopping at World of Disney.

We picked up some more ears for Allie, and Melissa looked hard at all of the Stitch stuff, but in the end didn't get anything.

Oh that was really tough! There were some really cute new things. There’s also a super cute new Corkcicle tumbler I almost sprang for but talked myself out of, we’re not on vacation yet…

I resisted buying anything too, at least for a little longer. Then we headed over to "our hotel" the Grand Californian. Allie's eyes lit up as she remembered playing in the different courtyards.

We walked through the lobby and Paul took the kids up the staircase while I sat at the bottom and waited like I normally do.

Some things never change.

Marshall only recognized the stairs as being from our wedding pictures but Allie remembered climbing them.

We then went out to the site of our wedding ceremony, which Marshall got a kick out of seeing it. Allie got a cute shot of us on the stage.

Then it was time for more shopping. The gift shop here is one of my favorite hotel gift shops anywhere, there’s always something unique and compelling.

It really is, and they always have something cool.

After looking at luggage and backpacks, I found an awesome hoodie that I could not resist.

Oh yeah we had to buy it, and Allie wanted one too and she was hard to say no to.

How do you say no when your teenage daughter wants to be "twinsies" with you. It was pretty cute and I think I enjoyed buying hers more than mine. We also got another Tervis mug, which we couldn't resist.

Oh yeah, I have quite the collection of those. Marshall felt left out but he got some chocolate coins and that seemed to satisfy him. He’ll make up for it some other time. He’s been going through a lot of RC car parts lately so don’t feel too sorry for him.

Very true. We then headed out the front of the hotel and out to the parking lot. We stopped for some quick shots with the hotel sign, then paid for our parking and headed home.

We were there 4 hours and one minute, but only had to pay $10 to park since we had gotten our parking validated with the table service meal.

It was a perfect little mini taste of Disney and got us talking about the trip. We’ve pretty much nailed down what ADR’s we want to try for and other trip scheduling things. We’ll go over all that in future updates.

Stay tuned, and thanks for following along.

 

[rdkeim]

Fun 4 hours! Nice you live close and can pop in if you need a Disney fix. It's clear DL holds a lot of wonderful memories for your family.

 

[Wood Nymph]

We didn't buy anything yet on our first pass through, but we had just enough time before our reservation to check out our paving stone in the plaza between the parks. This is something so different from WDW, you can see the front gates for both parks in one picture.

Thanks for posting this picture. It has been hard to imagine what the separate park entrances might look like. Your picture helps with that. I've been extremely negligent in learning about Disneyland prior to our visit next month. I'm sorry to see construction walls, though. There are enough of them at WDW.

We then went out to the site of our wedding ceremony, which Marshall got a kick out of seeing it. Allie got a cute shot of us on the stage.

I would love to visit the Grand Californian Resort on our quick one-day visit. It looks beautiful. But I don't know if we can swing it.

Allie did a good job with your picture. It looks like she really enjoyed the "walk down memory lane. "

 

[SimplyGoofy]

I loved hearing about your Disneyland visit - it looks like you all had a wonderful time. I’d love to make it to Disneyland one day!

And I see Allie got a great start on collecting ears for our outfits this year…

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Fun 4 hours! Nice you live close and can pop in if you need a Disney fix. It's clear DL holds a lot of wonderful memories for your family.

Yeah, it is "home" and fun to pop into, but we do love our longer WDW trips.

Thanks for posting this picture. It has been hard to imagine what the separate park entrances might look like. Your picture helps with that. I've been extremely negligent in learning about Disneyland prior to our visit next month. I'm sorry to see construction walls, though. There are enough of them at WDW.

I thought it would be neat to show since it is so different from WDW. You can simply walk from park to park. It's very different here.

I would love to visit the Grand Californian Resort on our quick one-day visit. It looks beautiful. But I don't know if we can swing it.

Fortunately it is right next to Downtown Disney too, and even has its own entrance direct to CA Adventure. If you access Downtown Disney via the hotel though you will have to go through security again going from the hotel to Downtown Disney. We avoided this by gong from DTD to the hotel and then out to the car.

Allie did a good job with your picture. It looks like she really enjoyed the "walk down memory lane. "

We had a lot of fun, and it was neat to be back.

I loved hearing about your Disneyland visit - it looks like you all had a wonderful time. I’d love to make it to Disneyland one day!

It is a fun destination for any Disney fan, and is amazing to see what they could do with so little space.

And I see Allie got a great start on collecting ears for our outfits this year…

She did, and she even found the perfect pair of red shorts to go with the new ears so she is very happy.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Hello everyone. The clock is counting down, so we figured we better look at airfare. When we checked a few weeks ago it was about $1700 round trip for our flights from San Diego like we did last year. Over the weekend the price went up a bit, and then now those same flights are up to over $3000!

I think my poor husband is gonna have a mental breakdown.

She gives me a hard time about over analyzing and worrying about stuff, but we do have that sinking feeling that we may have waited too long.

Since our “ideal” flights went up so much we’re once again thinking out of the box and looking at ALL the options. Except Frontier.

Lol, yeah despite Frontier flying from the airport closest to our house, we have heard enough to not go that route just yet.

We are back to our usual dillema, do we fly nonstop from LAX, or put up with having a layover to fly from an airport closer to home?

Even the LAX flights right now aren’t super compelling right now for the A.time to drive in there, and B.parking nightmares and ptsd (see the Aulani Trip Report)

There are a handful of other nearby airports we could drive to, but none seem to have compelling flight options.

We’ve been checking flights and options at every airport in So Cal.

I *almost* had him convinced it was just a little more to fly first class but he’s too hard to bamboozle.

If we have to pay that much it would be nice to go first class, but unfortunately they tend to want even more for that...

Yeah, someday…. But the Southwest flights are currently the most compelling.

We’re probably going to just keep obsessively checking for the next couple weeks while we figure out what we’re gonna put up with. The great thing though is that the kids are bigger and we don’t have a stroller and car seat to lug through the airport anymore.

That might set us up to better deal with a layover, and it sure would be nice to fly form somewhere closer to home. You can bet I will be watching and checking fares obsessively in the mean time.

I think he single handedly made all of the fares go up because of all the checking. The airlines think 3 million people want to go from So Cal to Orlando on June 4th.

I gave thought to that, but I have checked so many different airports and options I doubt they could even find a trend in it...

In other news, I did a little bit of shopping and got a set of Disney rubber ducks in an Ebay auction. These will be fun to distribute from the Jeep while we're there.

They’re pretty cute and it’s a fun thing to do while we’re driving around. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll collect a duck this year. The kids would really get a kick out of that.

And me too!

Another neat thing is that Allie made a Vlog of our Downtown Disney day!

Here is the link to it:

It’s super cute and has a future trip announcement in there so be sure to watch!

Ahh yes, she shares that we will have another Disney hotel stay planned for this year, check it out!

So that’s it for now, keep me in your thoughts as I try to keep Paul from melting down as we look for airfare.

We're hoping for a weekend rate drop, but it could take a while. Until then, I will be scouring the internet looking for options.

 

[Wood Nymph]

We’ve been checking flights and options at every airport in So Cal.

I hope you can find lower airfare. The whole thing gives me a headache.

We bought airfare on United for our flight to LAX. The prices dropped over $70 per person a few weeks after we bought our tickets. And there was no way to get the cheaper deal.

I did a little bit of shopping and got a set of Disney rubber ducks in an Ebay auction. These will be fun to distribute from the Jeep while we're there.

The rubber ducks are really cute. I hope someone reciprocates.

I enjoyed Allie's blog. She has lots of plans for your WDW trip.

 

[alohamom]

I am sure you guys are doing this already but I always check airfares from incognito mode.
Not sure if this helps but it makes the rebel in me feel like I am beating the system.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

I hope you can find lower airfare. The whole thing gives me a headache.

Tell me about it...

We bought airfare on United for our flight to LAX. The prices dropped over $70 per person a few weeks after we bought our tickets. And there was no way to get the cheaper deal.

It really is all a gamble. Southwest looked pretty good, but we got swayed to go a different direction.

The rubber ducks are really cute. I hope someone reciprocates.

Either way they are fun.

I enjoyed Allie's blog. She has lots of plans for your WDW trip.

She does, and she is so active in the trip planning now and knows exactly what she wants. I guess she has done it almost all her life.

I am sure you guys are doing this already but I always check airfares from incognito mode.
Not sure if this helps but it makes the rebel in me feel like I am beating the system.

I had the internal debate about whether it was better for them to know that I was one person that kept checking the same fares or to let them thing it could be a whole bunch of different people all wanting to go on those days, but In the end I check once a day until I can't take it anymore and we book something. That point came today for us...

 

[GrandCalifornian]

My friends do we have an update for you.

Lol yes we do, it has been quite a day in the planning of our trip. We had been hoping for a Sunday rate drop as we have been shopping for airfare, and we didn't like the way prices were going so we wanted to get something locked in.

When I say we looked at all the options, I mean up to and including in and out of different airports.

Melissa figured out what it would cost to rent a car one way to get back home if we flew back into a different airport than we left from. Nothing was looking great. Unfortunately our desired Alaska flights did not go back down to a reasonable price.

It’s super frustrating to have the flights we think are perfect for us be double the price of anything else for no obvious reason.

I did find a price drop out of LAX on Delta nonstops that got me excited. The times were great and the price was over $1000 less than our Alaska San Diego plan.

was not as excited, I do like Delta though but LAX ugh… So I needed something to push me over the edge.

Parking there is our issue, and we have tried lots of different things, but I looked up the options and found that we could reserve Valet parking at the terminal so we drop the car and head to our flights. It looked good but she wasn't sold yet.

On the way to do our weekly Costco shopping I thought to myself this is my last chance to look for first class tickets before he’s just going to buy these Delta tickets.

I had checked Delta first class and found it to be 5 times the main cabin price, pushing it over $10,000 and way outside our price range.

Yeah that’s not happening, wow, I can’t even imagine. So I put Kayak to work with some filters and found a very compelling option on American out of LAX first class both ways.

It had a layover in Charlotte on the way there, but the times were nice and the pricing was just barely more than the Alaska San Diego flight.

The times seemed perfect and once Paul heard that the plane from LAX to Charlotte was a 777 wide body long haul plane he got more interested. Plane nerd.

That is true. I flew a much older one to India but I heard about American's unique lay flat seat "pods" on the 777-200 and they just looked really neat. Every seat is an aisle seat with the 1-2-1 configuration and there is a bunch of space around each person.

So, after planting that seed I just did our normal Costco shopping and the rest just happened.

While we were in the Costco I looked at seat availability and figured out we could have a whole row of first class to ourselves on each of the three flights, since the trip home is a nonstop. I didn't want the chance to slip away if we waited another day, so about the time we got to the front of the store I clicked to confirm the booking.

Marshall had a minor freak out about the pod seating, he thought he was totally going to have to sit on his own so we had to look up pictures and videos so he didn’t loose it in the freezer section.

They aren't the most family friendly set up, but we'll be close enough and have a ton of room so it will be cool. He admintted that he is starting to look forward to that flight.

You guys! We’re flying FIRST CLASS to Disneyworld! Talk about bucket list check off! Do I know how much more we’re paying for these seats over economy on that same flight, no. Am I going to investigate that, no. Does it feel like a splurge, absolutely.

All of the other perks of it are going to be really neat, like the two free checked bags per person and priority checkin and bag check. Makes us feel kinda fancy.

It really takes the sting out of having to drive in to LA at a ridiculous morning hour.

The flight leaves LA at 6AM which means we will be there by 4, so we will be ahead of most of the weekday traffic. It will be a crazy early morning, but at least we get out of there early and will be in Orlando by 4:35.

It does mean that we will be leaving two hours later than we had planned, so I went to adjust the rental car reservation and found that I would have to re-book. The coolest part is the rate went dowen by almost $200, which helps chip away at the extra airfare cost.

Yes, we still love a deal and saving money where we can and we were able to still get a Jeep.

At $320 for 6 days it is a great rental car bargain. It again is something we are really looking forward to for the trip, and we will finally make it to check out Forever Vintage surplus. We even have a contingency plan to buy an extra suitcase (or two) for whatever we get there and we can check it home for free...

So that’s our super duper exciting update. Stay tuned for more shenanigans as the trip gets closer.

I promise we will share food plans soon, but for now I am glad to know taht we at least have a way to get there.

 

[DaisyDuck001]

Wow, first class? Have you flown that way before? It looks nice that the seating configuration has extra room. I'm guessing one of you will sit with Marshall in the middle, so he won't have to worry after all about sitting alone. Looks like it is a major relief that you have your flights booked.

Yes, I'm curious about your dining plans too. Does Marshall get his wish to go to Skipper Canteen? Do I get my wish that you finally check out Space 220, LOL? Any other new-to-you restaurants on the list for this time?

 

[SimplyGoofy]

Wow, that wasn’t the update I was expecting after your initial airfare post! First class will be amazing - and you got a great price!

Both airfare and rental car prices are nuts - I miss the days of $250 flights! I’m glad you found something that works for you (and can’t wait to read about the experience in your trip report!).

 

[alohamom]

It does mean that we will be leaving two hours later than we had planned, so I went to adjust the rental car reservation and found that I would have to re-book. The coolest part is the rate went dowen by almost $200, which helps chip away at the extra airfare cost.

Looks like this First Class thing was meant to be!

 

[Wood Nymph]

Your first class flight with the pod seats sound like it will be an adventure. Marshall will probably love it once he's there.