48 Hours at Disneyland - It's Shocking How Much You Can Do! Solo at DLR May 2018 - FINAL Update 8/19

"It's the Paint the Night Parade (Parade, Parade, Parade...) - Day 2, Part 4 (Sunday, May 27th)

Currently listening to the PTN soundtrack to go along with this post because I ADORE IT SO MUCH. That bass drop at the beginning is just LIFE.

So before the trip, I read everything I could find about the dining packages and viewing areas to decide which one would be best for me. I quickly ruled out Carthay Circle because of price, limited menu, and the option on the menu not appealing. I ended up canceling the Sonoma Terrace viewing because charcuterie isn't really my thing. But I liked the WCT menu and the viewing area seemed great. I had also read that the first couple rows of people were allowed to stay seated, so I figured if I stayed towards the back, I'd get good pictures without people's heads. FALSE. Shortly before parade time, CMs came by and made EVERYONE stand up. Boooo. Thankfully my section of the viewing area wasn't too crowded so I wiggled up to the front and still got decent pics. In the end, I didn't actually take that many photos because I had a TON from my 2015 trip, when I saw it twice, and the Incredibles float wasn't added in yet at this point.

Beginning of PTN (Music starts at 2:10, parade actually appears around 8:00)

In 2015, the two consecutive nights I saw this parade, Tigger wasn't participating, so I was glad to see the full trio was there!
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Mack Truck because its the coolest thing since sliced bread
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OK, I LOVE Belle, but this dress just annoys me to no end. She's not 17 feet tall, people! Who designed this?! It looks so poorly proportioned that I can't focus on anything else!
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I'd never noticed before that Rapunzel has glowing flowers in her hair!
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Finale

After the parade, since I was right across from Cars Land, and the park was open until 10pm, I hustled over to RSR to get another ride in, and this time, for only the second time out of ten, I ended up in Ramone's House of Body Art! Whoo hoo! (Not that it's actually an exciting room, but the odds are clearly not in my favor.)
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You can see Disneyland's fireworks all the way back in Cars Land!
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Then I wanted to ride Mater's Junkyard Jamboree and the wait didn't look too long, so I got in line. Alas, only one side of the attraction was running, and maintenance CMs were clearly working on the broken side. This obviously reduced capacity by a lot and slowed the line waaaay and I still wanted my darn soft serve, so I exited and went back to Cozy Cone. No line at that point...but foiled by my debit card being declined. WHAT?! Never mind, I told them, sadly.

As I walked out of the park, I looked at my mobile banking app, trying to figure out what happened. What the heck was that charge for $135 that's pending? I had no idea. I had to sit down and think for a minute, honestly. Waaaaiiit a minute...oops, that was my Comcast internet/cable bill being auto-deducted. I'm the first to admit I'm really bad at budgeting, though it's work in progress and I'm getting better. My bank doesn't help though, because they have the worst mobile app ever, and it's impossible to tell if the balance is accurate at any given time. Transactions appear, disappear, reappear...my most recent paycheck was there when I looked late Wednesday night but Thursday afternoon (actual deposit day)...poof, it was gone! No record of the deposit, no change to the balance, it was like it never existed. Who wants to still balance a paper checkbook? Not me. I really need to get a new bank.

Anyway, I digress. Soft serve ice cream was out because there's no where in Downtown Disney to get it, but I transferred some money from the emergency PayPal fund and was able to stop at get an ever-so-delicious Wetzel's Pretzel. Oooh yeah. Almost as good as ice cream!

Then I continued my walk back to the hotel. I wanted to take a picture of the Sorcerer's Hat outside Disneyland Hotel at night, all lit up, but I had my pretzel in one hand and a lemonade in the other so that didn't happen. Oh well, there's always next year.

Back at the hotel, I showered - figured out the shower settings a little more easily, packed my small amount of stuff, and CRASHED.
 
Final Wrap Up and Future Trips

When Monday morning rolled around, I dragged myself down to breakfast. I know I ate, I know my shuttle pick up was actually a few minutes early, and after that...I fell asleep and can barely tell you any of what happened on the trip home. I was EXHAUSTED. I slept through the shuttle ride. I made it through security at SNA and I'm sure it was a lovely airport but I can't tell you anything else about it. I slept in the terminal. I tried drinking a Starbucks frappuccino to help wake me up but to no avail. I slept on the plane back to Sea-Tac. All I can tell you is that I thought the seats (Alaska, my first time flying them) were on the narrow side. When we landed, I woke up a bit and since I had no checked luggage, I went right down to the pick up area and got a shuttle back to the parking lot where my car was. I had pre-paid and saved 20%, which is always nice. Then I started the two hour drive back north to Bellingham. I did manage to stay awake for that whole thing! I think I got home around 3pm, maybe? My flight left SNA at 10:00 and was set to land at SEA at 12:47, so about 1-3 would be the two hour drive, though I also stopped for a quick lunch at McDonald's (a real letdown after Disney food, lemme tell ya). My cats were very happy to see me and I was happy to see them too!

So, upcoming trips:

1. In just 11 days, I return for my first "real" vacation to WDW in 3.5 years (that one night pre-cruise back in February and the few hours at Disney Springs post-cruise doesn't count). My mom is coming along too. We are staying at Art of Animation (for the third time, that's how much I love it) but in The Little Mermaid section, which is a first (turns out travel agent discounts are valid there, even though no general public or AP discount ever is!). We plan to spend two days at Epcot for the beginning of Food & Wine Festival (it opens on Thursday but we'll go Friday and Saturday) and attend Mickey's Not-So-Scary on Monday - Labor Day. We haven't done either of those events since 2011. Other new things for us: Pandora, Rivers of Light, DAK at night, Toy Story Land, Frozen Ever After, Happily Ever After, and (for me only, mom isn't attending) Disney After Hours! I'm going on our arrival day, August 30th. I'm getting in around 11am so have a bit of downtime (and will need it because my flights are a red-eye to Toronto and then an early morning flight to Orlando) but mom isn't arriving until around 7pm and we thought it'd be cutting it too close for her to attend as well.

2. Next April, I am attending my FIRST Adventures by Disney vacation! It's the Southern California Short Escape (3 nights, 4 days) and other agents from my agency are going as well, so we're all very excited about it! I get to stay at the Grand Californian and tour Walt Disney Studios. It's a literal dream come true! PLUS it begins the day after my birthday, so I'm totally flying in a day early to spend my ACTUAL birthday there. I haven't done that since I turned 21 on my WDW DCP!

3. Mom and I are tentatively looking at a Very Merrytime Cruise on the Magic out of Miami in December 2019 to replace the Marvel Day at Sea one I cancelled for next January. 5 nights, which is perfect (3 was too short and we think 7 might be too much); a full day at sea; and it visits Key West, which we really want to do, PLUS it's Christmas-themed, so...duh. However, I would also like to see Disneyland Resort around the holidays so I'm trying to figure out how to work that in as well with only 8 days off from work allowed.

I'm 99% sure I'll do a trip report after this upcoming trip so I'll come back and post the link here when it happens.

Thank you for reading, everyone!
 
Nice parade pics! Glad you had a nice trip!

Have so much fun on your upcoming trip!! Can't wait to hear about it!
 


I loved reading your trip report. Looks like you had a great, but exhausting time! I hope you are having fun in DW. I'm headed back for my first trip in nearly 5 yrs in December. I'm not looking forward to fp+, I will miss maxpass.
 
Got behind and never caught up! I hope you guys are having a great time at WDW and look forward to reading about it!
 



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