You Only Turn 40 Once - A Pre-trip Report

[dolphingirl47]

Long gone are the days were we went on holiday and stayed at a single hotel. This time round, we will spend time in a total of 4 different hotels. I have already said plenty about Aulani, but here are the 3 other hotels.

Crowne Plaza Manchester Airport

This has become a bit of a tradition. Although we only live in the city centre of Manchester, more often than not we spend the night before we fly on holiday at the Crowne Plaza Manchester Airport. This eliminates the stress of getting to the airport during the morning rush hour and it also feels like the holiday has started as soon as we check in at the hotel. This time round, I have to work the day before we leave so I will head straight from work to the hotel and will meet Graham there. I managed to get a fantastic rate on a Club Room so we will have access to soft drinks and snacks all day and will have a two hour cocktail hour with alcoholic drinks and Appetisers. It is always nice to have some pre- dinner drinks in the club lounge and then head for dinner to their fantastic oriental restaurant. As part of the deal, we also have a choice between a continental breakfast in the club lounge or a full English breakfast in one of the hotel restaurants. We usually just go with the continental version as neither of us is a big breakfast eater.





Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel

This is a new hotel for us. We have been there for the character breakfast twice and also had a look around their public areas, but we usually stay at the Villas at the Grand Californian. Unfortunately the nights that we needed were not available at the 7 months mark and my wait list had not cleared when my banking window was about to close. So I decided to use my points for three nights at Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel. I have recently seen some photos of the rooms at Paradise Pier on somebody's trip report (Hello Jen!) and I actually really love the understated beach decor. We have a standard view booked. I would love to watch World of Color from the hotel, but as my body clock will still be on UK time we will be ready for bed before it starts and it may be dark in those two days anyway as World of Color Winter Dreams starts later that week. I am really looking forward to staying there. An added bonus is that we don't have far to go to get to the Surf's Up Character Breakfast.











Howard Johnson Hotel and Water Playground Anaheim

This is a new concept for us. We have stayed offsite on our first three visits to Disneyland and in that case it was really offsite as far afield as La Habra or near the Angel stadium. In recent stays, we have stayed at the Grand Californian. We have never tried one of the Good Neighbour hotels. I know that this hotel is very popular and we got a great rate for it so we decided to try it. It is actually supposed to be closer to the parks then the Disneyland Hotel and Paradise Pier. I have to admit that I rather walk through Downtown Disney then through the shuttle area, but we are paying for 8 nights pretty much what we would pay for 1 night at the Disneyland Hotel during that period. The rooms look nice and they have some handy extras like a fridge and free WiFi. The pool area also looks nice and you can see the monorail go past. I hope that we will enjoy our stay there.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Your hotel choices look great. The HoJo is very popular with the Aussie Dis-sers and they seem to like it.

 

[jedijill]

Aulani looks amazing...you will have a wonderful time there. I can't wait to hear about paradise pier as well.

Jill in CO

 

[petals]

The hotels look nice. I decided to go with Surf's up after as well. Hopefully it'll be good
My sister lives about 20 minutes drive away from Manchester airport btw.

Are you going to post your Disneyland plan? I wanna know where you'll be our last to park days so I can find you

 

[dolphingirl47]

Your hotel choices look great. The HoJo is very popular with the Aussie Dis-sers and they seem to like it.

I have only heard and read positive things about this and the location just can't be beaten.

Aulani looks amazing...you will have a wonderful time there. I can't wait to hear about paradise pier as well.

Jill in CO

Welcome back. I will make sure to take plenty of photos of both and will do a full report when I get back.

The hotels look nice. I decided to go with Surf's up after as well. Hopefully it'll be good
My sister lives about 20 minutes drive away from Manchester airport btw.

Are you going to post your Disneyland plan? I wanna know where you'll be our last to park days so I can find you

This will be our third time at Surf's Up and we both love it. The food is wonderful and the character interaction is great. You also get the photo package of the welcome photo with Mickey free with Photopass +. My favourite dishes at Surf's Up are the breakfast flatbreads and the Chilaquiles (a Mexican breakfast dish).

I will post an itinerary at some stage, but at the moment so much is still up in the air. Once I have made all my ADRs and booked my tours, I will post the itinerary. This will probably happen about two weeks before we leave.

Corinna

 

[franandaj]

Your hotel choices sound great! I love the idea of staying at a hotels night before a trip, but Fran will never go for it. We are gone from the kitties long enough without adding another night.

Your Asian restaurant always sounds so tasty too.

I can't believe that Hojo's is that much of a savings over the DLH. No wonder so many people stay there! I need to get back to you and ask more questions for our meet up. Crazy life and moving are getting in the way of Disney and friends time!

 

[dolphingirl47]

Your hotel choices sound great! I love the idea of staying at a hotels night before a trip, but Fran will never go for it. We are gone from the kitties long enough without adding another night.

Your Asian restaurant always sounds so tasty too.

I can't believe that Hojo's is that much of a savings over the DLH. No wonder so many people stay there! I need to get back to you and ask more questions for our meet up. Crazy life and moving are getting in the way of Disney and friends time!

I understand where Fran is coming from. As far as we are concerned, nobody is missing us if we are away an extra night. I also find that if we are at home the last night before we go on vacation, it takes me a couple of days to get the vacation feeling whereas if we stay at the hotel the last night, I feel I am on vacation straightaway.

I was really surprised how good value the Howard Johnson is especially as we are staying over Thanksgiving. As it is a Good Neighbor Hotel and seems to be incredibly popular, I expected more of a price tag.

I know what you mean about busy. In 6 weeks time, I am officially on vacation and probably having pre-dinner drinks and appetizers at the club lounge right around this time. Still, my to do list is still as long as my arm. The most important things like the hotels and the flights have been taken care of and my task for this week are the car hire for Hawaii and the transfers in California. I have managed to make some dining reservations this weekend and also booked an excursion for Oahu.

I have two things still on my to do list for today. I owe a friend an email and I want to start spread the word about my latest fundraising effort. I will watch out for your questions and will answer them as soon as I can.

Corinna

 

[dolphingirl47]

With our trip now only 6 weeks away, it is time to get going on another little project. After the relative success of the Ride-A-Thon last year, I started to wonder if there was something else that would lend itself to a sponsored activity for Give Kids The World Village. I got the rides well and truly out of system and have no wish to tackle the likes of California Screamin. However, an announcement that Oswald would be out and about for meet and greets at California Adventure from mid September got my creative juices going. I wondered if I could make a sponsored character hunt work

Disneyland has some rather unusual costumes for their characters from the nautical costumes that can be found around Paradise Pier to the Victorian inspired costumes that the characters wear on Buena Vista Street. There are also a few more unusual characters around at times like Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit, Meeko, Koda and Kennai and Jack Skellington and Sally. Of course, there is also our trip to Aulani and the characters a wearing very distinctive costumes there. I have pre-ordered Photopass+ for Disneyland and also will do Photopass at Aulani. So the photographic evidence will be taken care of. My aim is to get photos of me with as many characters and characters wearing different costumes as possible.

I ran the idea by some of my Disney-mad friends and what was originally quite straightforward became quite involved. Initially I had planned to give people willing to sponsor me two different options: People could either pledge a small amount (like 10 cents) per character or could pledge a flat rate for a certain number of characters for instance $5 for a minimum of 25 characters, $10 for a minimum of 50, $15 for a minimum of 75 and $20 for a minimum of 100 characters). Of course, the exact figures would be up to the individuals. I then thought that people could specify a bonus character, which is more difficult to find or meet (Anna and Elsa anybody?) and pledge a separate amount if I can provide photographic evidence that I have met them. As we bounced some ideas around, the general feeling was that people would be much more likely to part with some money if they could specify the character for which they would like me to sponsor or even a specific character and a special pose or prop (like pretending to be a dog when meeting Pluto or holding a sign saying "Mickey is Number One" when meeting Donald"). So that gives people plenty of different ways to sponsor me. As this trip takes place over my 40th birthday, my target is that I will get at least 40 people to sponsor me. We will see how this will go.

I also made a range of t-shirts thanks to the generousity of Mel (bababear_50) on the Creative DISigns board to celebrate this project. I really love how they have turned out.

 

[petals]

Great idea on the character hunt. Luvin the tshirt ideas as well.

 

[PrincessInOz]

The t-shirts look fantastic.

Corinna - send me a PM with your details for the fundraising. I'm happy to sign up.

 

[Pinkocto]

I'm floored by the Howard Johnson price, WOW!

Very fun character photo ideas. Yes, please, send me a PM too, I'll send some money.

 

[dolphingirl47]

Great idea on the character hunt. Luvin the tshirt ideas as well.

I hope that this will work out. I love how the t-shirts have come out.

The t-shirts look fantastic.

Corinna - send me a PM with your details for the fundraising. I'm happy to sign up.

Thanks. PM will be on the way shortly.

I'm floored by the Howard Johnson price, WOW!

Very fun character photo ideas. Yes, please, send me a PM too, I'll send some money.

I still can't believe the rate we got for that one either.

I will send the PM shortly.

Corinna

 

[dolphingirl47]

Two weeks ago I had the hotels booked and my international flights, but had achieved very little else. If I am brutally honest, I was not even sure I wanted to go on this trip anymore. My head told me that this would be the best trip yet (and I had a few stunning ones), but my heart was not in it. I don't really understand what happened there. After all I had been loosely planning this and anticipating it since October 2011. Still, if I could have cancelled, I probably would have at that stage.

Enter stage right: my Fairy Godmother. Magic is really everywhere and with a little Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust, a lot can be achieved. Suddenly I was planning and contacting people to make arrangements for a very special meet up and their excitement was absolutely infectious. This then gave me the motivation to sort out a few other things. Over the last few days, I did almost all of my dining reservations. I have one more to make and for that I have to get up at 5:00 AM tomorrow morning. Sometimes the time difference stinks!!! I booked Supershuttle from LAX to the hotels and back again. Of course, this time round we are doing the roundtrip twice. I finally pulled the trigger on car rental in Hawaii. I managed to sort out an excursion in Hawaii and planned a few others that we cannot pre-book. So within two weeks, I have gone from having the bare bones of this trip booked to essentially having a fully planned and organized holiday.

There are still a couple of little things to take care off. I want to book one tour in Hawaii that will form part of a bigger excursion and I will book this either tomorrow or Friday. I still have the little matter of two tours to book that I really want to book at Disneyland, but I cannot do this until 30 days out. So the first one I can book on 12th October and the second on 25th October. Ironically, this is around the same time as I can book our hotels for Florida for May next year. I will be a busy bee.

Corinna

 

[PrincessInOz]

YAY for a Fairy Godmother. I love when the pixie dust comes your way. I'm so glad that you're feeling excited about this trip again.

 

[dolphingirl47]

YAY for a Fairy Godmother. I love when the pixie dust comes your way. I'm so glad that you're feeling excited about this trip again.

Yes, things are definitely back on track and the excitement is mounting. Not long to go now.

Corinna

 

[dolphingirl47]

I have had a very productive week. I will post a proper update later today. I have a few errands to run first though. However, I wanted to quickly check in. I am absolutely amazed how much I got done over the last week or so.

Yesterday, I got up bright and early at 5:00AM my time to call California to make a special reservation that I cannot make via the normal dining number. This was not as bad as it sounds as I was on an early shift and would have got up at 5:30 anyway. I did snag the reservation that I wanted and now I am all set. I will post an update about the dining reservations that I have soon.

Today I updated our ESTAs and booked the last tour for Hawaii that I needed to book in advance. So that just leaves the following to take care of:

To Do List
Book a Walk in Walt's Footsteps Tour
Book Holiday Tour
Make some more t-shirts
Print off all documents
Do online check in for Aulani
Do online check in for International flights
Book car service from work to airport hotel

 

[PrincessInOz]

Now that you have a list, I'll bet you'll tick those off real quick.
Nice looking doable list.

Looking forward to seeing which restaurant you booked in for.

 

[Chilly]

I have to say I didn't love the HOJO i'm afraid. I found the room noisey and some of the windows didn't have curtains so the room got very bright very early in the morning.

Disneyland looks beautiful at Christmas, i'm sure you'll get a lot of fabulous photos.

 

[franandaj]

I'm glad you got your vacation mojo back. The shirt idea is very cute, when I see you I'll pitch in some donations. Hopefully black shirts won't be a problem at that time of year. It gets so hot here I can't wear black in the daytime. Today its supposed to be over 100 degrees!

Its coming up very soon! Glad to hear you have all your reservations sorted out.

 

[dolphingirl47]

Now that you have a list, I'll bet you'll tick those off real quick.
Nice looking doable list.

Looking forward to seeing which restaurant you booked in for.

I have to be patient with the remaining items on my to do list as I can only deal with them nearer the time.

I am still working on that update and will probably post this on Tuesday.

I have to say I didn't love the HOJO i'm afraid. I found the room noisey and some of the windows didn't have curtains so the room got very bright very early in the morning.

Disneyland looks beautiful at Christmas, i'm sure you'll get a lot of fabulous photos.

I can't wait to see Disneyland all decked out for the holidays. What a shame that you did not really rate the HOJO. The window issue won't bother me. We have an ensuite at home that has no door and there is a lot of light coming in that way during the summer. I actually rather like it.

I'm glad you got your vacation mojo back. The shirt idea is very cute, when I see you I'll pitch in some donations. Hopefully black shirts won't be a problem at that time of year. It gets so hot here I can't wear black in the daytime. Today its supposed to be over 100 degrees!

Its coming up very soon! Glad to hear you have all your reservations sorted out.

Yes, so am I. I really don't know what happened there as I normally bounce of the walls with excitement months in advance.

I tend to wear mainly black even when we are in Dubai where it is even hotter. Actually that comment made me very happy. I am definitely a warm weather person and I have read a few comments recently that made me wonder if I need to pack warmer clothes. I was thinking in terms of t-shirts and a sweater, but started to wonder if this would be warm enough or if I need to pack more sweaters/ fleeces. 100 degrees is very warm.

I am glad that all the reservations are taking care of as well. Now I just have to be patient until I can book the tours.

Corinna