Disneyland Trip Report

Okay, here goes. I hope I can remember everything, LOL!

We got to the parks around noon on Tuesday, after a super fun (NOT) drive down from Fresno. The grapevine was not fun, and traffic was icky. But all in all, I was glad to make it alive! We stopped briefly at our hotel (more about that later) and grabbed the key to our room, but it wasn't ready yet, so we headed over to the parks. We parked in Mickey and Friends, and boarded the tram. DD started cheering and yelling "whee!" I think she thought that was what we had come to do, no idea of what was awaiting her! Once into Downtown Disney she insisted that we go and watch the flower water fountian, and then go and look at ducks, still not understanding that just a few yards away was Disneyland, LOL!

We got in through the gates pretty quickly, and walked slowly down Main St. There were no characters! None at all! It was very disappointing and something that continued through out our day. The whole day we only saw Tigger running away from us, the back of Pooh head and Chip and Dale in Toontown.

We headed straight for Tommorrowland, and got in line for Buzz, less then a 5 minutes wait!!! WHOOHOO! The ride was great, and even DD loved it. Then we popped over to Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, which DD didn't love, it was too loud. Then we headed over to Adventureland to eat and hit Indiana Jones. We had skewers at the Bengal BBQ, quite good, thanks for the recommendation, and did the baby swap thing on Indiana Jones. Lots of fun, but I didn't like having to go alone

Wandered over to New Orleans Square and walked on to Pirates and Haunted Mansion, both of which DD loved. I had let her listen to the music for both before hand, so she was singing right along! We walked around to Critter Country and went on Pooh, and she had a ball on that one too! I was so happy, because we were worried that she would be frightened. Out of Critter Country we walked around to Frontierland and had dinner at Rancho Del Zocalo, it was okay, nothing to write home about, ya know? Then we walked through Fantasyland, and up to Toontown, but by then the crowds had gotten fuller, and we were exhasted being up since 5am. So we wandered back through, and caught the tram and went back to our hotel.

We stayed at the Comfort Inn Maingate too far away to walk, but a nice hotel. Clean, not too loud, and the employees were all very nice. Breakfast was far too packed to bother with, and the selections were unremarkable.

The next day, we drove into the park, and waited for the parking structures to open up. We made it to the gate right about 10am, and again headed straight to Buzz. On the way, we were side tracked by a wonderful talking garbage can, and ended up spending a while visiting with Push, LOL! We were then able to walk right on to Buzz, no waiting. DH got some great video! By the time were were all done, and had e-mailed our less then flattering picture, it was time to catch the monorail to brunch at Goofy's Kitchen.

We went to Goofy's Kitchen for Brunch at 11:30am. We arrived at 11am, and only had about a 10 minute wait. We barely got seated and ordered drinks when a ruckus started at the buffet line, Goofy and Hatter brought out pots, pans and spoons for a drum jam with the kidlets. DD didn't want to participate, but enjoyed watching. We had some wonderful character interaction, including Alice and Hatter spending quite a while with Danielle, and while they misunderstood me (I told them her middle name was Alice, after my favorite book ) but they kept calling her Alice, she didn't seem to mind. She had a pouch on her back, that said "If I am lost, my contact information is inside" and both of them thought that was terribly interesting, and wanted to know if DD was lost, and they just were wonderful with her. She cried when they left. We also saw Goofy, of course, and he wrote notes to DD on the table, and stupid mommy forgot to rip that part of the paper off to keep for her scrapbook. She LOVED Chip and Dale, and actually took Chips hand, waved byebye to us, and started to walk off with him! We enjoyed the Macarana with the characters, and decided it was time to move on. The food was okay, the pizza was good, but the rest was just fair.

We hopped back on the monorail, and zipped back to Disneyland. We took a carriage from Tomorrowlandish over to Main St and popped over to DCA. There we ran into JoJo, to DD delight, and spent some time with her. And then bebopped over to Muppet's 3D. Unbeknownst to us, we missed a chance to see Playhouse Disney, on a trial opening, while watching the Muppets And when I went to the store across from Playhouse Disney, I found that early that morning they had moved all the Playhouse Disney things out, and were moving them to Enginears, but hadn't actually got them set up there yet, so no Playhouse Disney toys for us

We wandered around, checked out the bread and tortilla factory tours, spend a few minutes in Flik's Fun Fair. DD liked the train, but hated the ladybugs, it was sooo bumpy! Then we went over to the Wilderness area. I let DD out of her sling to run around there for a while. She enjoyed the tunnel tree, and the slide. Most of the things were for bigger kids. Off to a trip on Soarin', I got a baby pass, but DH decided he didn't want to ride . We then took a nice stroll though DCA and back to DL. Mostly by that point we had done what we wanted to, and while I would have liked to hit POTC and HM again, DD and DH were both very, very tired. So we hopped on the monorail again, and enjoyed a wonderful dinner at The Rainforest Cafe. Back on the monorail again, a nice stroll down Main St and we were back on the Tram. When I got back to our room, I swear I could have fell asleep where I dropped!

It was a wonderful trip, though I could have done more shopping, and I bought a lanyard for DD to trade some pins, but we never got around to doing any trading! So I now have 2 sets of identical Tink pins and that Chip and Dale pin I didn't like. But on the upside, DD did seem to really like Chip and Dale, so I will keep it for her.