A Year of Disney: "Let's Pretend We're Not Parents for a few Days" Jan 24-26 2020

Jaina

Actually, my name is Sara. It's a long, VMK story.
Joined
Jul 22, 2005
A continuation of a year of trips (with my new Flex pass) that started in Nov 2019! 330066

This time I was actually able to orchestrate my husband and I BOTH going to Disney, since my MIL said she could stay with our kids while we're gone. It's hard for us to leave our kids with anyone, so we don't get away together very often. We do a lot of dividing and conquering, and since we have older kids, we try to take opportunities for shorter (2-4 hour) dates during normal life. It's hard both because our kids are at a very busy, slightly-over-scheduled point, and also because we're kind of picky about how things go with them (we try to keep sugar at a minimum, and sticklers about bedtime, etc.) and it's hard to release control. Five kids are a handful, even when they're yours! If we had more family locally, we could farm them out 1-2 at a time to make it easier, but everyone is several hours way. And it's the whole conundrum where the people you know well enough that you'd trust them with your kids won't let you pay them, but it's still a lot of work, and we don't like to ask it very often. So yeah. All of that is why we divide and conquer a lot. :) (ie All my trips to Disney without DH this year, and how he just went to NYC on his own for four days last weekend, which was a huge bucket list item for him!)

I was a little nervous going into this trip, because our last "together" trip was Dec 2017, and it seemed a little stressful for him. It was so expensive, and I felt like he got frustrated when things were too busy and we were having to wait around. He used to love Disney almost as much as me, but his anxiety makes it a little harder these days. It's busier more often, and all the people everywhere make it a little more stressful than enjoyable for him sometimes. And family trips (at the Parks) aren't fun for him at all at this point, but he's a trooper and tries to make it all happen! So I wasn't sure how it was all going to go. My goal was to relax a lot more and to try to keep our steps closer to 20k than to 30k. Ha. Not likely.

A little history of our trips together, just the two of us:
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Our first trip, in March 2005, when we were engaged. My family was going, and invited him a long, and his family got jealous (haha) and planned a trip at the same time. So we were there with both our families, and we were in that golden age where (we are both the oldest) both dads kept giving him money for food (my dad since we invited him, and his dad since he was his dad... we were just 21 and 22). So he -made- money on that trip, haha! We actually took our engagement pics for our announcements behind GRR. :)

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March 2006: We planned this trip to commemorate the first one, (and because I desperately wanted to see the 50th fireworks) but I ended up being in the early stages of pregnancy when it actually happened. 😬 It was a very mixed trip. I had had a miscarriage scare, so was super careful about what I went on, and also, I was super sick, (a trend that continued with all 5 pregnancies) which made it hard to enjoy myself. I was so sick and tired by Friday evening (the only time the fireworks were happening) that I couldn't make it that late, and we had to call it a night by like 6 PM. I was so disappointed! The positives: It was still Disneyland, we got to wander and explore a lot of things that we wouldn't normally make time for. Also, Disneyland has some of the cleanest bathrooms I've every thrown up in. Sorry, way TMI, but it's one of the things that stood out to me. 😝

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June 2009: It was too long (for me) between those two trips, but we'd been very busy, and didn't have much money! We had two babies in that three years, and DH was 2 years into chiropractic school, in Iowa. When we came home one summer, we left the two little ones (2.5 and 18 months) with our parents, and drove even further, onto California! It was a much-needed trip together, but that was the first time I totally wore him out at Disney. :) The third day, he begged to sleep in while I went to rope drop by myself! :)

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December 2017:
Big long stretch in here between trips together, but by this point, we had added 3 more kids, graduated school, moved all over the country, and started a practice! Like I said before, it got harder to get away without the kids. I think there was only one other trip in there (more than 1 night) that we managed it, and that was for 4 days to San Francisco for our 10th anniversary. This trip was really fun, but fast (1 day traveling, 1 day park hopping, and 1 day traveling back!) We had a good time, but there was very little relaxation, because we had one day to do everything, and it was go, go, go!

 
Thursdays are super busy for us, but DH managed to be done with patients by 2:30, and I was done at 1:30 with my class. MIL picked up DS13 at school for us (he's also out at 1:30, and came to hold down the fort. We got on the road by about 3 pm, stopped as little as possible (Baja fresh for dinner at a gas station in Cali!),
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and my husband finally got me to listen to "Hamilton" on the way out. I've been resisting for the last few years, mostly because I don't like rap/hip-hop styles, and when I'd heard him listening to it, it hadn't really appealed to me. Also, because I don't like cursing, and there is a lot in there, even in the "clean" version, haha. BUT. Of course once I took time to listen carefully and understand the story, I am completely, utterly hooked. I can't even imagine the level of writing genius it takes to craft something like that, lyrically and musically. Plus, I loved American history, so that was a big hook for me. Our whole house in obsessed now (after I found the cleanest version possible on Youtube, so I don't feel bad about our kids listening to it). Anyway, back to our trip...

We made it to our hotel, the Wyndham Garden Anaheim, about 8:15 local time. We had splurged just a little bit for a nicer and closer hotel than usual, mostly so my husband could enjoy the trip more. I'm all about the parks, but he really enjoys all the little pluses of a slightly nicer chain. We saved a decent amount by doing a nonrefundable (eek) reservation about 2 weeks before.
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I was hoping to stay awake for the fireworks, but as most parents of young children are, we were kind of exhausted, and were mostly asleep by 9:30 local time. :) Yay! We knew we had an early morning the next day to try for our ROTR boarding group! We had also decided to go ahead and get DH a park hopper, though our first plan was to do one park per day, take less steps, and save $50. We wanted to have a second chance for ROTR if we didn't get it the first day, and it's always nice to have the hopping option.
 
Let me know how you liked the hotel. I noticed it when I was just up there and hadn't heard anything about it, yet.
 
We didn't have trouble getting up early enough to get out the door. I had just finished putting on my cute nails (therefore the picture...). I'm not much of a girly-girl, and never wear nail polish on my fingernails, because it bugs me, and I hate having to remove it. But my friend sells Color Street (which is easy and looks great), and I kind of love having cute nails at Disneyland now. Disneyland inspires me to do lots of things I wouldn't do otherwise...
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We left our hotel at 6:50, and reached the Harbor side of security at 7:02 AM. Lines weren't too bad at security, but they were already decent (well past the monorail at 7:15) on the Disneyland side for an 8 AM open. If I didn't know about ROTR, I would have been blown away and quite worried about crowds that day, haha! I was pretty excited to be doing this!
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They started letting people in a little before 7:30, and we were through at 7:33. The lines were still building!
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We grabbed our first FP via MaxPass (Space Mountain) to make sure all was in order, walked around a little, looking at our signal strength, and trying to find a good place to wait. We considered waiting to head for Alice from the rope drop point, but I was too nervous about being in a crush of people. We used the bathroom on Main Street, and then ended up camping out in the corner by the Firehouse where it wasn't too crowded. I had my iPhone 8, and DH had his iPhone XR (we're on Verizon) and his office phone, (on a different network, not sure which one) a Moto X. The Moto wouldn't even load the app as it approached 8, but our iPhones were still working well, and I got boarding group 36! I was so excited, but the adrenaline was real. My hands were shaking afterwards!
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I threw off DH's groove by asking for some pictures on our way to the castle (which was closed on his last visit), but the lines were pretty short, and I knew they wouldn't be later!
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I think we actually rode the tea cups (8:13), which is a first. We wanted to ride Alice, but it wasn't quite open. By the time we finished on the tea cups (and my stomach let me know it wasn't impressed - oh no! I was relieved when he got a call mid-ride that he needed to take, because he stopped spinning...) Alice in Wonderland (8:26) had opened and we jumped in line. And as we were walking through, a lady with super cute blue hair stopped us and asked if I was Jaina from the DIS boards. (Say hi if you get a chance to read this!) 😬 Guys, that was weird! Not that she said hi, (I thought that was super nice) just that anyone would recognize me. I feel like a lot less people read and reply to these trip report threads than they did back in the day when I joined the boards (like 13 years ago?) and I was just blown away. My husband was surprised too, and thought it was so cool. I was a little embarrassed, but so happy that these trip reports are still useful to people, and flattered that she would bother to say hi to me.
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On our way to Space Mountain via the hub, another sweet lady (@Kjk5457 ) with her kiddos in tow stopped us to say she recognized me from these boards. It was so crazy to have two people in a row recognize me when I don't feel like that many people are on here these days. But thanks, it was so fun to feel helpful enough that people would remember me! (And maybe, I take too many selfies... 🤣 After TWO hellos from strangers in like 20 minutes, my husband teased me (nicely) about it the rest of the morning. :) But I'll bet he doesn't look sideways at me so often when I'm spending all the time typing up these trip reports, right?

Space Mountain (8:43) was good (I already miss Hyperspace Mountain, and ducking to avoid the TIE fighter), but the photos weren't working. We also had a FP for Star Tours (9:07) right after that, and then we wandered over towards Toontown and decided to ride the train around to New Orleans. But somehow at 9:15 in the morning, we waited like 20 minutes for a train! I didn't realize they don't have very many running that early I guess. Anyway, it was a good thing to learn, I guess.

We took long enough at the Tomorrowland stop that we decided to just get off at Main Street and walk down through the Hub again to take our ride on Big Thunder Mountain (10:13). Always enjoyable, even though my stomach was struggling a little. I had taken a meclizine or whatever it's called, and was using Motion Eaze liberally, but my stomach was still unsure. :P
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We had wanted to get on BTMR early in our FP time so we could be available if they were on top of things and called our ROTR group semi-quickly. We saw that they started calling groups while we waited for the train at the Toontown Depot, and they seemed to be going quickly. We headed over to check out Galaxy's Edge (DH hadn't seen it yet) and walked around for a while admiring all the theming. We watched Chewie interact with a cute little boy, and oohed and ahhed over all the merchandise.
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They were getting close to our number, so we went over by the entrance, and hung out, waiting, sure they'd call us any time. Who thinks this was a good plan?
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Let me know how you liked the hotel. I noticed it when I was just up there and hadn't heard anything about it, yet.
We actually really liked it. Parking was a little exciting (it's mostly underground) but not too bad. We got a really great last-minute rate, which ended up being like $150 a night with taxes, but they front desk staff was super friendly, the room was updated and clean, and we didn't notice much noise except people pacing around upstairs at some point. The walk was fair. Would definitely stay there again if we could get a good rate.
 
They were getting close to our number, so we went over by the entrance, and hung out, waiting, sure they'd call us any time. Who thinks this was a good plan?

This sounds ominous! I hope you got in & that you didn't have to wait too long!
 
.... And as we were walking through, a lady with super cute blue hair stopped us and asked if I was Jaina from the DIS boards. (Say hi if you get a chance to read this!) 😬 Guys, that was weird! Not that she said hi, (I thought that was super nice) just that anyone would recognize me. I feel like a lot less people read and reply to these trip report threads than they did back in the day when I joined the boards (like 13 years ago?) and I was just blown away. My husband was surprised too, and thought it was so cool. I was a little embarrassed, but so happy that these trip reports are still useful to people, and flattered that she would bother to say hi to me. ....

....On our way to Space Mountain via the hub, another sweet lady (@Kjk5457 ) with her kiddos in tow stopped us to say she recognized me from these boards. It was so crazy to have two people in a row recognize me when I don't feel like that many people are on here these days. But thanks, it was so fun to feel helpful enough that people would remember me! (And maybe, I take too many selfies... 🤣 After TWO hellos from strangers in like 20 minutes, my husband teased me (nicely) about it the rest of the morning. :) But I'll bet he doesn't look sideways at me so often when I'm spending all the time typing up these trip reports, right? ....

That is very cool that 2 people recognized you and came over to say Hello.
 


This sounds ominous! I hope you got in & that you didn't have to wait too long!
Let's just say we helped ourselves wait quite a bit longer than the line was...

That is very cool that 2 people recognized you and came over to say Hello.
Right? I always talk myself out of stuff like that... I love that other people are braver!
 
So, the problem was that they had been moving so quickly that when they hit group 33 (we were 36) we headed over and started hanging around. But it stopped moving so quickly as soon as it hit that point! And it was kind of warm there in the son. I hadn,t put any sunscreen on, and was getting a little nervous about burning. I had to dig the sunscreen out of the backpack, which I always dislike unless its absolutely necessary... We really hung around for like 40 minutes before they finally called our group, and then the line took another 40 minutes to get through! We started our experience at 11:45 AM. We thought we would save time in line by being ready right when they called our group, but not so much. 🤣 I'll try not to post anything very spoiler-ish here...


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But guys, tell me this doesn't look like Sandra from Superstore? I didn't mean to be a stalker, but I couldn't get it out of my head (yes I took a pic, because I wanted to compare later!) so I looked her up and she does live in L.A., so it's possible...
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After that we high-tailed it over to Indiana Jones to use our fastpass there (12:33), followed by an 8-minute standby line for the Jungle Cruise.
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After browsing some of the shops in New Orleans, we stood in standby for POTC, which only took maybe 10 minutes because it had been closed and recently reopened. We were a little nervous about how long it would really take, because we had a Blue Bayou reservation coming up that we were nervous to be late for. If POTC had broken down or anything, it would have been too late, but as it was, it was just right.

We last ate at the Blue Bayou when we were engaged, almost exactly 15 years ago. We didn't really have extra money to spend on something like that on the last two only-us trips, but we felt like it would be a good engagement-anniversary splurge this time. We split the Golden Beet Salad and the Bone in Ribeye, and they were both seriously amazing. In the top 10 steaks I've had. DH thought it was amazing too, and he's had better steaks than I have. We ordered it medium well (which made me nervous, haha) but it was perfect. We didn't even have any bread (DH is gluten- and dairy-free) and we were both perfectly full after that, without any expensive leftovers to haul around. They subbed the tiniest little roasted potatoes for the steak because of the dairy issues, and the broccoli was tasty but waaay spicy. It was a really fun experience, and we didn't have to wait at all. (We didn't ask for waterside, but we were pretty close) We finished our late lunch about 2:30. Happy Engagement Anniversary to us!
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I really love New Orleans Square. It's not as good as the view from the balcony over POTC (which we spent some time on about 12 years before this when it was the Disney Gallery?) but I like to stand on the bridge and watch people for a few minutes.
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Then it was time to hop back over to California Adventure!

 
It's always strange to see GRR empty while they're working on it. I definitely miss the water whenever some is missing around the Parks!
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Jeremy tried to be a trooper here so we could get pics with some characters I've never posed with before. :) :)
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I checked out some of the Lunar New Year decor while he used the restroom, which was fun, since I've never seen all that before. I heard that the line to meet Minnie and Mickey was like 45 minutes though. No, thank you!
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We enjoyed checking out the Pier while we walked around towards our Incredicoaster fp time. Bing Bong is just so cute! And the Incredicoaster (3:39) never disappoints. :)
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We had another Guardians fp too (how I miss that pass through the old Bug's Land!) so we headed over there, and it took us about 15 minutes in line/ We boarded at 4:15.
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Then we took a couple really cute Photopass pictures, and took a break to get some of the carne asada fries (seasonal, I think) at Award Weiners, and sat and relaxed across from it for a while. I was a wimp and ordered it without the sauce or salsa. My friend had told me it was pretty spicy! :)
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We had a FP for RSR that I was excited about (right at dusk!) but the line took us quite a while. About 25 minutes in the FP line, so it was actually getting pretty dark by the time we rode it. So pretty, though!
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Aaand another ride on Guardians (6:07) that I'd rather forget. My mouth doesn't do cute things when I pretend to be scared and screaming... 🤣 (and how cute is that little postcard thing from UP?) And then a FP for Soarin'. We asked for the top middle, and I'm so glad. It's always a much better experience there!
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Radiator Springs at night is one of my favorite things at DLR. Also, how do I score supercute Photo Pass photos like that?! Ours were all boring regular poses. Do I just have to ask for fun poses?
 
Enjoying following along!
Thanks for letting me know you're here! :)
Radiator Springs at night is one of my favorite things at DLR. Also, how do I score supercute Photo Pass photos like that?! Ours were all boring regular poses. Do I just have to ask for fun poses?
Sometimes we just get great photographers! Those were both her idea! But you can ask for pretty much any pose you want, so if you have some ideas, keep track (maybe on your phone) to remind yourself of what you want to do. You can also ask them if they have any magic shots, and they'll pose you for those, if so. :)
 
But guys, tell me this doesn't look like Sandra from Superstore? I didn't mean to be a stalker, but I couldn't get it out of my head (yes I took a pic, because I wanted to compare later!) so I looked her up and she does live in L.A., so it's possible...
I would have been tempted to ask her, but I never want to disturb people, so I probably wouldn't have asked. It does look like her though.
It's always strange to see GRR empty while they're working on it. I definitely miss the water whenever some is missing around the Parks!
It was empty when I was there last time, too. I always look forward to seeing that. It brings me back down to nature, even though it isn't real.

Loved the picture of you blowing the kiss in your husband's glasses. Absolutely amazing.
 
I am way behind on trip reports! Finally getting mine from last August updated, but still need to play catch up on all the ones that I want to read.

I am loving your year of Disney! It’s a dream of mine to have an AP for a year!

So glad you and your DH got to take a trip together without the kids, I’m looking forward to going with just my DH this summer. Can’t wait to read about more of your adventures :)
 
You look like you're having SO MUCH FUN on the Incredicoaster. And Blue Bayou for your engagement-anniversary is such a sweet idea.
 
Aww love the update! You two are so cute -- love the photopass picture!
Thanks! They turned out cuter than I expected, which was nice, since our last couples' trip mostly had awkward ones, haha!

I would have been tempted to ask her, but I never want to disturb people, so I probably wouldn't have asked. It does look like her though.
It was empty when I was there last time, too. I always look forward to seeing that. It brings me back down to nature, even though it isn't real.

Loved the picture of you blowing the kiss in your husband's glasses. Absolutely amazing.
Yeah, I wasn't going to bother her, even if I was sure it was her. And I wasn't sure! We were in the middle of the experience, anyway. I felt kinda creepy even sneaking the picture, but I really wanted to compare it later!
Thanks - the photopass photographer saw his shades in his pocket, and asked him to pull them out. :)

I am way behind on trip reports! Finally getting mine from last August updated, but still need to play catch up on all the ones that I want to read.

I am loving your year of Disney! It’s a dream of mine to have an AP for a year!

So glad you and your DH got to take a trip together without the kids, I’m looking forward to going with just my DH this summer. Can’t wait to read about more of your adventures :)
Thanks!! I need to catch up on all the trip reports. 🙄 This microschool thing has deleted much of my free time this year, but I don't think I'm guiding next year, so hopefully I'll have a little more time for that, because I really enjoy trip reports!

You look like you're having SO MUCH FUN on the Incredicoaster. And Blue Bayou for your engagement-anniversary is such a sweet idea.
Thanks, I do love the Incredicoaster! It's always nice when pictures reflect that, instead of making you look crazy, with your hair in your face (I'm looking at you, RSR...)
Following along! Sounds like a great day so far :)
Thanks for joining in! I'm going to try to get this finished up this week, since we leave again on Monday. All this Disney-ing is hard to keep up with! (Poor, poor me...😜 )
 
Sheesh, are we still on Day 1? I've got to step it up!

Exiting Soarin', it was about 7:25, and we had Incredicoaster fp's, so we headed towards the Pier. Along the way, we took some more Photopass pictures (some cute, like our backpacks, some awkward, because with his scruff and his grey beanie, my husband looked mildly homeless AND blended into the very misty sky...). Incredicoaster (7:42) was very cold, but still fun.
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The line was finally under 10 minutes for the Little Mermaid, so we hit that before heading towards Carsland. It was so, so misty!
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We still had some time before our nighttime RSR return time, and we had been wanting to ride Luigi's, but it had been closed or had a long line all day. We finally decided to try it, but almost ended up leaving because it shut down while we were in line for a while. I don't know why I like that little ride so much. It ended up taking us about 35-40 minutes. :P
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We ran over to RSR as soon as we got off and didn't have to wait as long as we had earlier in the FP line, thankfully, only about 5 minutes, so I'm kind of remembering that RSR had actually been down during that time, and that we were able to get in line shortly after it came back up. (Rode at 9:27 PM) Either way, it was fun! I always enjoy a nighttime ride on RSR. Like Incredicoaster, pretty much any ride where it's not hot wind, or rain that hurts your face. :)
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Well, it was about 9:40 (10:40 AZ time) and our old selves were pretty tired after a full day of work-stuff then driving Thursday, and getting to bed late, and THEN getting up early-ish and walking all over Disney. So back to the hotel! On our way out, what did my little eyes spy? Mickey and Minnie, with a line of only 2-3 groups! More with the DH-humoring-me Photopass pictures! Get Your Ears On was rocking over at Disney, but it was so hazy that either there weren't fireworks, or we couldn't see them... I thought I remembered hearing them and seeing little bits of color, but it was really interesting weather. The spotlights came through pretty well though. :) The walk back was longer than I wanted that time of night, but not so long that we abandoned all hope or started cursing wanting to save some $$ by not staying across the street. ;-) (I think both of those happened walking back to the Cortana one night last April...)
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