"DL Work trip/Finally" cont'd...
5:30am came around pretty early but we were anxious to give the magic morning hour at DL a try. Yes, once again, we found ourselves standing at the gate waiting for the park to open at 6:45. We headed straight to Fantasyland and hopped into the Peter Pan line only to find that they were still testing the ride. Annoying. Finally got on then hit a couple of the other rides. We then headed over to Nemo (not my fav but Bobby's never ridden it) and stood in line for awhile before we told it was also down. Ugh. Kind of frustrating but what can you do? Anyway, even with the delays we still got lots of stuff done before we headed back to the hotel to eat breakfast at Storytellers. This one was on my list because it was the ONLY character meal in any of Disney's 6 parks (Disneyland, Calif Adventure, Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Epcot, and Animal Kingdom including breakfast, lunch and dinner if available) that we hadn't done! I know, I'm a complete dork but I wanted to scratch it off our list :-)

We arrived early for our ressie, checked in and were told it would be just a few mins. Somewhere along the way they lost our ticket and we were never called. By the time we cleared that up and were seated it was really late which is bad because the characters leave at a certain time and I'd already booked the latest reservation possible so we'd have the most early morning park time. We enjoyed the food and the characters but got skipped by one of the Brother Bears. I politely advised the handler we'd been skipped and she told me sorry but there was nothing to be done. The characters were "in for the day". Bummer. However, as a consolation they provided us with a single front of the line pass to be used at the ride of our choice! OK, now you're talking! Actually they told us there was only one ride it couldn't be used for RSR. Uh, ok.

Armed with our "front of the line pass" which, btw, says nothing about excluding certain rides, we headed straight to RSR. Posted stand by wait time: 180 minutes!!! Yes, you read that right, 3 hours!! We handed the little slip to the CM at the front of the line and he said "ok, enjoy your ride!" Yay!! I'll gladly skip a pic with one of the Brother Bears for a front of the line pass any day. BTW, I asked someone who was just getting on the ride with us how long they'd been in line (mostly because I wondered if that 3 hr wait time could be even remotely accurate) and they confirmed they'd been in line for 2:45 mins! Yikes. Its a great ride, it really is, but 3 hrs?? That is some determined Disney folk.

Because it was a Saturday the park was really crowded. We did what we could including two visits to G's all time fav ride Soarin'. At that point our little girl was exhausted and it was time to call it a day. Last stop on the way to the car was a visit with Santa in the lobby of the GC. Georgiana was asleep before we pulled out of the parking lot.

This has become one of G's favorite faces to make... goof!

It was pretty chilly. The princesses were in their winter wear

I guess G didn't want her picture taken :-)

G loves the bubble people. I'm always trying to get a picture that captures her joy she expresses while playing in them. This one comes closer than most.

We spent some more time in the Jingle Jangle Jamboree. Where there had been no line to see Santa a few weeks earlier, it had now increased to over an hour! I told G that I'd wait in line for her while she colored and enjoyed the other activities but she passed. Luckily there was no wait for Mrs Claus!

From this Santa visit we learned that each of the elves makes thousands and thousands of toys each year. G was wondering about that :-)

What a great little trip it turned out to be!

Official title: Work trip :-)
unofficial title: RSR finally!!!

My firm was having their annual client party at Catal in Downtown Disney. Disney? What the heck?? As an added perk they put us up at the Grand Californian (GC)  hotel which was super nice! So back to mousetown we went. Bobby and I are normally really cheap when it comes to hotels so we'd never pay what it costs to stay someplace like the GC. But with one night free and the next at a super great conference rate, we were all over that!

We drove out on Thursday afternoon --the day of the party. We got checked into the hotel in just a few minutes and then hit Calif Adventure. It had been raining that morning and it was mid week and the park was really empty. In just a couple of hours we were able to do all sorts of stuff including ride 2 or the 3 new Carsland rides. Not Radiator Springs Racers (RSR) of course. That silly thing always has a wait of 90mins-3hrs. After that Bobby hung out with G at the park and got some dinner while I attended my work function. Even still, we were able to get G to bed pretty early in hopes of being up super early for the magic morning.

One of the perks of staying at a Disney hotel is the ability to get into the parks an hour before the general public. For me, that meant the opportunity to finally ride RSR. Its been open since June and we've been probably 6-8 times since then but the waits are crazy! At 6:45 we arrived at security for the 7am opening. We were second in line to enter the park and I thought "this is it! we're finally going to ride that stupid ride!" But when we walked in we were immediately informed that it was down. Bummer. So we continued to make the most of our early hour and rode some other stuff with no wait.

At about 7:40 Bobby got into the ever increasing line to get a fastpass to ride RSR sometime later in the day. It was shortly after that I was exiting a ride with G and I heard a man say to his son "its open, let's run!" while looking in the direction of RSR. I grabbed G's little hand and said "let's run too!!!" When we arrived at the entrance the posted wait time was 30 mins. OK, no problem, that's a line I'm willing to wait in. It only ended up being about 20 mins, yay!! It was great! What a fantastic and truly special ride. The animatronic cars are fantastic! By the time we got off Bobby had not only gotten the fastpass (yay again!) but had hopped into the single rider line because it was only 5 mins! Super yay!

Having accomplished our most important goals we hung out around Buena Vista street, visited some characters (and Santa), did the animation academy, etc and then we were zonked. We decided to go back to the hotel for a nap. This is something I've heard about people doing but have never accomplished. Staying at the GC made it really easy though because its only like a 5 min walk from rides to room. We crashed out until about 4pm then decided to head to DL. When we got there, it was PACKED! Super crowded. We made the most of it by hitting pirates, etc but it had gotten cold. My original plan was to go to Blue Bayou for dinner but we weren't really in the mood. Then it started to rain. This required finding an indoor place for dinner fast! We ended up at River Belle Terrace. It was fine. The food was ok and it was dry. Within 5 mins there were no empty seats. After dinner we were about done. It was cold and rainy and so, so crowded. Plus, we knew we wanted to do the early entry the next day so we headed back to the room.

Georgie was super excited to be at DL. The GC hotel is really nice. Our room was decorated in a very subtle Snow White theme.

Taking a spin on the world's slowest bumper cars. G thinks they're fantastic!



yes. we arrived at DL when it was still dark :-) yes. we are crazy.

we had breakfast at Flo's. The french toast was amazing!

On our second trip through Radiator Springs! I love fastpass!

We finally caught the characters on Buena Vista Street. How cute are their costumes!!!

G had been wanting to try the Animation Academy for awhile. This is her interpretation of Oswald the Rabbit. I thought she did pretty well. I wish they'd slow down the instruction just a bit. It was a little too fast for her to keep up easily.

I'm pretty sure I didn't take any pix at DL after our nap. Did I mention it was cold and rainy and really crowded?

A Disney Thanksgiving
We decided to have our Thanksgiving celebration on the Saturday after the big day so that everyone would be available. This left the actual turkey day up for grabs and I thought... heck! maybe we should give those Disney passes a bit more of a work out and head there for the day :-)  As an added bonus, I was able to make lunch reservations for the buffet at the Disneyland Hotel grand ballroom.

My only concern with hitting DL on Tday was that I'd read that it would be REALLY crowded and that sometimes it actually sells out that day. But, we figured no matter how crowded it was we could still have a good time.

Our day started at 5:45am!!! We were out the door at 6:30 and in the parking lot of DL by 7:15. We figured the lines just to get through the gate would be long. Uh, nope. We arrived and found no lines at all! We spent the balance of the morning either walking onto or waiting just a few minutes for all the rides that G likes. We even had time for G to do some more coloring at Jingle Jangle Jamboree. By that time we were ready for lunch so we hopped on the monorail to the DL Hotel. I'm pretty sure that its been at least 20 years since I'd ridden the monorail.

Lunch was fantastic!!! We pretty much ate our fill of lox, shrimp, and crab claws before moving on to traditional turkey and fixings. After that we had far too many desserts. Yum! In between "courses" we talked, G colored and we visited with the characters they had set up around the outside of the room. It was really nice and relaxing.

After finally making it back to the park we had plenty of time to drive the Autopia cars a couple times and take our required spin on the carousel and the rest of the rides in Fantasyland before finding a pretty good viewing spot for the parade. The moment the last parade character went by we headed straight for the tram. It had been a very long day and G, although still a happy camper, was toast.

Getting a bid MAD with the Hatter

Notice the clock?? 8am on the button.

G's already seen Santa 4 times this year. I think she's just into it for the candy canes :-)

More reindeer masks were colored

I thought it was kind of cute that the goats in the petting zoo had on Christmas neckerchiefs

The pumpkin in Goofy's garden gets a lot of use by families this time of year

Finally we made it over to the DL Hotel.

The bears from Brother Bear.

Western Chip and Dale

Georgie later told me that seeing Pocahantas was her "favorite part"

How cute is Minnie in her western costume? Gotta love those boots!

G perusing a portion of the dessert table. The kid has a sweet tooth the likes I don't think are often encountered. Understanding that she could have just a bite or two of each thing she chose many to try

G loves her sweets!

All of us doing Pluto puppy paws

My favorite characters of the day were definitely Daisy and Donald. I just loved their costumes and with the background they set up it was ADORABLE!

G saw the sign and asked what "Tomorrowland" meant. I had a really difficult time explaining the concept.

G's favorite ride these days is probably the Autopia cars. She loves them!! She tells me over and over again about what a good driver she is. She actually does a pretty good job. We always make sure to follow behind Daddy so we can bump him a bit. Every time we'd do it G would absolutely howl and scream with laughter. Funniest thing I've ever heard.

I'm in charge of the gas pedal, G steers. Obviously I'm not much of a rule follower.

By this point in the evening, G was getting a little tired and little crazy...

crazy girl...

sweet girl!

As we were walking to the end of main street to watch the parade, I decided to get a shot of G in front of the partly lit up castle. This requires shooting into the dark. I didn't look at the picture until after I got home and then found this crazy little face.

It was a very different way for us to spend Thanksgiving but overall a great time!