Khokhonutt
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2004
Let’s go to Disneyland! Meet the family!
This will be my first pre-trip report. I’ve done (post) trip reports in the past, but those were published on a personal website that I’ve since let go. I’ve read through a few pre-trip reports recently and found them helpful, both in the poster’s comments and in the responses they get, so I figured I’d give this a shot.
First let me introduce myself and the family:
That time when we had the chase the revenuers away:
Me and the pups and the kids:
My name is Jeff. I was born on an Army base in California. I mention that because technically I’ve been to Disneyland, but it when I was 1 or 2 years old, back in the 60s. I have no memory of going there, but I like to assume it helped kindle my love for Disney.
Since then, I’ve lived all over the country and lived overseas for a bit, while in the military. In the 70s I was lucky enough to live in Florida, where we made frequent trips to the Magic Kingdom, then EPCOT when it opened. Moving around, my trips to WDW were less frequent until 2004, when we made our first big family trip to stay on property and visit all of the current parks there. Since that time we’ve made 3 Disney band trips with our kids and their high school band, then one trip in 2011 with just our daughter.
I’m the planner in the family. I like to be thorough in knowing our options and I understand that to get the most out of your visit you need to have a plan. That said, I work hard to make sure we have all of our options, while leaving time for flexibility. I also try to impress on everyone that it’s not a disaster if something doesn’t work out. I find it sad to see some folks come back and hate their whole trip because one or two things didn’t go exactly as planned.
I met my wife in the military. She was checking IDs during Desert Storm and laughed at my last name, the first time I reported to our building. I figured the best revenge was to give her that last name. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. We made our first trip to WDW together when my wife was pregnant with our son. We went to EPCOT, because at the time they had no rides that would be a risk to the baby. That successfully started her love for the parks.
Our son will turn 25 this year. He has joined “the family business” and has been in the military since shortly after high school. His first trip to WDW was when he was 18 months old. We were traveling the country visiting family before a 2 year tour in Korea. We went to the Magic Kingdom that day with my Dad. My step-mom stayed home and took care of our then 6 month old daughter. I have to say that was one of my favorite trips to WDW. He was old enough to thoroughly enjoy the music, shows and sights. He wasn’t bothered by any of the rides, although we didn’t do any of the thrill rides that trip.
Our daughter will turn 24 this year. She also serves in the military at this time, joining after a year and a half of college. Her first trip to WDW was a trip to the Magic Kingdom when we returned from Korea. At that point our son was 3 1/2 and she was 2 1/2. They were huge Lion King fans, but the characters scared the crap out of them at the parks. I guess seeing a 6 foot tall version of Rafiki was a bit much for someone that small.
Our daughter’s boyfriend will also be joining us on this trip. He’s a great kid that we really care about. It appears there’s a future for this guy in our family, so we’re going to help him along with his Disney education. From what I understand he’s made a trip to Disneyland when he was young, but it's been a while and they didn’t stay long, so this will basically be his first big Disney trip.
The plan as we know it, so far…
We started planning this trip in 2015, with the idea we’d visit in June of 2016. We originally were talking about another WDW trip, but a few factors made us consider Disneyland. For one, FP+ was newly implemented at WDW and I was not a fan. There wasn’t enough information on how to make it work and I still think it is ludicrous that you would plan what day you were going to be in what park months in advance. We were also looking at when Avatar land would be open and wondered if it would be worth waiting for that. Then, considering both of the kids are stationed in the southwest US at this time, we started talking about making a Disneyland trip.
I actually credit HydroGuy for inspiring us to look seriously into Disneyland Resort. I’ve always had interest in visiting the park Walt built, but with it being across the country from North Carolina, where we live now, there was never a serious plan. One day I saw where someone on the WDW side posted a link to Hydro’s A DLR Guide for WDW Vets. Reading through that guide, I really appreciated Hydro’s perspective and that piqued my interest in Disneyland. All we had to add is the kids both living out west and poof, we’re planning our trip.
All along we were planning on a June trip, but when my daughter found out she was on a list to potentially be deployed in the summer of 2016, we pushed the whole plan out a year. We’re still planning on June this year, but we’re doing the last week of June at DLR and will spend the week of July 4th in Vegas.
Transportation:
Many people seem to think I’m crazy, when it comes to my choice to drive places, rather than fly. Since the kids have both moved, I’ve driven to/from Arizona and Nevada now a handful of times, from North Carolina. When each of the kids were assigned to their base, I drove them out to their base, spent the weekend helping them get settled, then flew back. Since then we’ve taken a family trip to Las Vegas that we drove out and back for. More recently we visited Arizona, driving out and back.
A few factors figure in my driving foolishness. For one, my family has always been travelers who drive where they go. My grandparents passed this on to my parents who passed it on to me. I’ve driven to most of the states in the US at this point, including a trip from North Carolina to South Dakota on my motorcycle for the Sturgis rally this past summer. For me, driving (anywhere except around Washington DC) is relaxing. I also feel like you don't really have a feel for the country, its sights, and the people unless you drive. Driving out west is beautiful, and you can really make time with their higher speed limits. Factor in the fact that I just can’t justify the price of flights from where we live (just outside Charlotte) and the fact that we typically travel with our dogs and you have our reasoning for driving.
Our current plan is to drive out to Vegas where we’ll stay with our daughter. We’ll board our dogs in Vegas while we go to Disneyland. Then we’ll pick the dogs up at the end of the week and stay to visit a few more days in Vegas before driving home. Our plan for the drive down to Anaheim is to leave Vegas at o’ dark thirty on Sunday morning, hopefully arriving in the Anaheim area by around 10am, local time. We’ve got 5 day park hopper tickets and we plan to be in the parks Monday through Friday. Then we head back to Vegas Saturday morning and pick up the pups.
Lodging:
We’ve got a suite reserved at Best Western Plus Park Place Inn & Mini Suites. The biggest thing I’ve wrestled with, so far, has been where to stay in Anaheim. At WDW we typically stay on property at the value resorts. We’ve chosen the value resorts mainly because when we’re awake, we’re typically at the parks. If we return to the resort it’s to nap, maybe take a quick dip in the pool and to sleep for the night. With that in mind, we’ve never been able to justify the cost of the fancier resorts versus having more money for fun in the parks. At DLR our decision was similar. We could have splurged on staying “on-property”, but that would have meant a tighter budget for other stuff. With the kids both making enlisted pay in the military, I like to help them out where I can and staying off property will allow more budget for that.
The fact that our hotel is very close to the parks, is intriguing. We’re used to the bus rides to the parks at WDW, which we never thought of as inconvenient. I’ve read that many DLR folks are taken aback by the bus rides, but we’ve always enjoyed them for their convenience of not having to deal with parking or finding our way around “the world” while we’re there. Being so close will be different and something I’m looking forward to experiencing.
We also like that breakfast is included in the room price. Our family differs in its appreciation of breakfast. I count on breakfast (and coffee) to get me started, while my kids are still generally fine with a pop tart. While the breakfast doesn’t appear to be extravagant, I think it gives us enough options to please us all. It also allows me to head down early while the others drag themselves out of the bed, where I can have a coffee and get my head ready for the day.
I think I’ll stop here for now. Next post, I’ll get into some of the more specific planning we’ve done so far…
This will be my first pre-trip report. I’ve done (post) trip reports in the past, but those were published on a personal website that I’ve since let go. I’ve read through a few pre-trip reports recently and found them helpful, both in the poster’s comments and in the responses they get, so I figured I’d give this a shot.
First let me introduce myself and the family:
That time when we had the chase the revenuers away:
Me and the pups and the kids:
My name is Jeff. I was born on an Army base in California. I mention that because technically I’ve been to Disneyland, but it when I was 1 or 2 years old, back in the 60s. I have no memory of going there, but I like to assume it helped kindle my love for Disney.
Since then, I’ve lived all over the country and lived overseas for a bit, while in the military. In the 70s I was lucky enough to live in Florida, where we made frequent trips to the Magic Kingdom, then EPCOT when it opened. Moving around, my trips to WDW were less frequent until 2004, when we made our first big family trip to stay on property and visit all of the current parks there. Since that time we’ve made 3 Disney band trips with our kids and their high school band, then one trip in 2011 with just our daughter.
I’m the planner in the family. I like to be thorough in knowing our options and I understand that to get the most out of your visit you need to have a plan. That said, I work hard to make sure we have all of our options, while leaving time for flexibility. I also try to impress on everyone that it’s not a disaster if something doesn’t work out. I find it sad to see some folks come back and hate their whole trip because one or two things didn’t go exactly as planned.
I met my wife in the military. She was checking IDs during Desert Storm and laughed at my last name, the first time I reported to our building. I figured the best revenge was to give her that last name. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. We made our first trip to WDW together when my wife was pregnant with our son. We went to EPCOT, because at the time they had no rides that would be a risk to the baby. That successfully started her love for the parks.
Our son will turn 25 this year. He has joined “the family business” and has been in the military since shortly after high school. His first trip to WDW was when he was 18 months old. We were traveling the country visiting family before a 2 year tour in Korea. We went to the Magic Kingdom that day with my Dad. My step-mom stayed home and took care of our then 6 month old daughter. I have to say that was one of my favorite trips to WDW. He was old enough to thoroughly enjoy the music, shows and sights. He wasn’t bothered by any of the rides, although we didn’t do any of the thrill rides that trip.
Our daughter will turn 24 this year. She also serves in the military at this time, joining after a year and a half of college. Her first trip to WDW was a trip to the Magic Kingdom when we returned from Korea. At that point our son was 3 1/2 and she was 2 1/2. They were huge Lion King fans, but the characters scared the crap out of them at the parks. I guess seeing a 6 foot tall version of Rafiki was a bit much for someone that small.
Our daughter’s boyfriend will also be joining us on this trip. He’s a great kid that we really care about. It appears there’s a future for this guy in our family, so we’re going to help him along with his Disney education. From what I understand he’s made a trip to Disneyland when he was young, but it's been a while and they didn’t stay long, so this will basically be his first big Disney trip.
The plan as we know it, so far…
We started planning this trip in 2015, with the idea we’d visit in June of 2016. We originally were talking about another WDW trip, but a few factors made us consider Disneyland. For one, FP+ was newly implemented at WDW and I was not a fan. There wasn’t enough information on how to make it work and I still think it is ludicrous that you would plan what day you were going to be in what park months in advance. We were also looking at when Avatar land would be open and wondered if it would be worth waiting for that. Then, considering both of the kids are stationed in the southwest US at this time, we started talking about making a Disneyland trip.
I actually credit HydroGuy for inspiring us to look seriously into Disneyland Resort. I’ve always had interest in visiting the park Walt built, but with it being across the country from North Carolina, where we live now, there was never a serious plan. One day I saw where someone on the WDW side posted a link to Hydro’s A DLR Guide for WDW Vets. Reading through that guide, I really appreciated Hydro’s perspective and that piqued my interest in Disneyland. All we had to add is the kids both living out west and poof, we’re planning our trip.
All along we were planning on a June trip, but when my daughter found out she was on a list to potentially be deployed in the summer of 2016, we pushed the whole plan out a year. We’re still planning on June this year, but we’re doing the last week of June at DLR and will spend the week of July 4th in Vegas.
Transportation:
Many people seem to think I’m crazy, when it comes to my choice to drive places, rather than fly. Since the kids have both moved, I’ve driven to/from Arizona and Nevada now a handful of times, from North Carolina. When each of the kids were assigned to their base, I drove them out to their base, spent the weekend helping them get settled, then flew back. Since then we’ve taken a family trip to Las Vegas that we drove out and back for. More recently we visited Arizona, driving out and back.
A few factors figure in my driving foolishness. For one, my family has always been travelers who drive where they go. My grandparents passed this on to my parents who passed it on to me. I’ve driven to most of the states in the US at this point, including a trip from North Carolina to South Dakota on my motorcycle for the Sturgis rally this past summer. For me, driving (anywhere except around Washington DC) is relaxing. I also feel like you don't really have a feel for the country, its sights, and the people unless you drive. Driving out west is beautiful, and you can really make time with their higher speed limits. Factor in the fact that I just can’t justify the price of flights from where we live (just outside Charlotte) and the fact that we typically travel with our dogs and you have our reasoning for driving.
Our current plan is to drive out to Vegas where we’ll stay with our daughter. We’ll board our dogs in Vegas while we go to Disneyland. Then we’ll pick the dogs up at the end of the week and stay to visit a few more days in Vegas before driving home. Our plan for the drive down to Anaheim is to leave Vegas at o’ dark thirty on Sunday morning, hopefully arriving in the Anaheim area by around 10am, local time. We’ve got 5 day park hopper tickets and we plan to be in the parks Monday through Friday. Then we head back to Vegas Saturday morning and pick up the pups.
Lodging:
We’ve got a suite reserved at Best Western Plus Park Place Inn & Mini Suites. The biggest thing I’ve wrestled with, so far, has been where to stay in Anaheim. At WDW we typically stay on property at the value resorts. We’ve chosen the value resorts mainly because when we’re awake, we’re typically at the parks. If we return to the resort it’s to nap, maybe take a quick dip in the pool and to sleep for the night. With that in mind, we’ve never been able to justify the cost of the fancier resorts versus having more money for fun in the parks. At DLR our decision was similar. We could have splurged on staying “on-property”, but that would have meant a tighter budget for other stuff. With the kids both making enlisted pay in the military, I like to help them out where I can and staying off property will allow more budget for that.
The fact that our hotel is very close to the parks, is intriguing. We’re used to the bus rides to the parks at WDW, which we never thought of as inconvenient. I’ve read that many DLR folks are taken aback by the bus rides, but we’ve always enjoyed them for their convenience of not having to deal with parking or finding our way around “the world” while we’re there. Being so close will be different and something I’m looking forward to experiencing.
We also like that breakfast is included in the room price. Our family differs in its appreciation of breakfast. I count on breakfast (and coffee) to get me started, while my kids are still generally fine with a pop tart. While the breakfast doesn’t appear to be extravagant, I think it gives us enough options to please us all. It also allows me to head down early while the others drag themselves out of the bed, where I can have a coffee and get my head ready for the day.
I think I’ll stop here for now. Next post, I’ll get into some of the more specific planning we’ve done so far…
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