|
|
|
|
| May 29th |
| Arrival day. We got to Disneyland at approx 1pm California time. The 3 hour time difference would definitely be felt throughout our trip. The Disneyland Hotel is a beautiful place. Our rooms were ready so we were able to get right in them. We had a nice view of the Neverland Pool from our 8th floor rooms. We did a quick unpacking, went through our Welcome package and then headed off to the park. We decided to take the monorail over. Boy is this different! It is almost nothing like the one you find in WDW. It reminds me of a miniature version. It’s approx a 2 ½ mile long track, leaves from Downtown Disney & goes over to Tomorrowland in Disneyland. We got off & decided to explore the park. I decided we had to explore the park from the beginning of it so off we wandered to Main Street. What a neat place. It’s definitely not Disney World, but it’s special in it’s own way. We had a dinner to be at at 6ish so all we really did this day was wander the park to see how differently things were compared to “The World”. Oh yeah…we shopped too! Went back to our rooms to change our clothes & headed over to the Pavilion where we were meeting the rest of our group. We met some really neat people…Bonnie with Walt Disney Travel Company (she’s the one that arranged all of this) Robbi, also with WDTC, Matt, the Disneyland Ambassador. Or as he likes to be called, the “Mattbassador”, some really neat Disney Store Cast Members, “Captain Magic”, Randall & Jean, all from Colorado; Mel, Kate & Daniel from the Sydney Australia store, Kathy, Donna & Leeann from Kansas…those are just the names I remember off the top of my head. There were probably 30 more people that were there & they were all really fun people. We had a very nice surprise soon after we sat down…Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck came to dinner! They hung out with us for a little while, then we ate. After Mickey & Donald left, Bonnie had a few announcements to make & then we were off to bed. By then its 10pm California time (2am our time) & we were dead tired! |
| May 30th |
| Today is our “touring day”. No time for the parks today! We met at Goofy’s Kitchen at 615am. The restaurant was opening up for our group 15 minutes before they opened to the public. What a neat place! We had peanut butter & jelly pizza, worms & dirt, hot dogs, ice cream, Goofy cake, salad, Mickey McNuggets, Mickey Waffles, French toast, Roast Beef, ham…so much more that I can’t even begin to remember! It was very cool! Goofy came out & greeted all of us, Pluto too. We ended up doing the Macarena with them. It was very fun. By now it’s about 715am & we need to catch our bus. Our first stop was to the Disney Store Home Base. We saw the new product line, got to see which direction the Disney Store’s are going to be taking & got to ask a lot of questions. We spent about an hour & a ½ there I think. When we finished there, we took off to Walt Disney Imagineering! Since we had to sign a Confidentiality agreement, there’s very little I can tell you about that part of our tour. It was a lot of fun & we got to see some crazy stuff! We can tell you that we saw the ORIGINAL drawing of Disneyland! What a thrill! This thing was done all in pencil & it’s HUGE. It’s bigger than the top of my desk & I’m sitting at a 2’x4’ desk right now. The story behind this drawing is that Walt needed to pitch this idea but couldn’t do it with out a drawing. So he asks his guy…can’t remember the guys name…to do the drawing, but he needed it that Monday. It was Friday when he asked him to do it. He said sure but that Walt would have to stay with him while he did it. That entire weekend they spent at Walt’s house doing this drawing. It was AMAZING to see this thing! Words can’t describe it really. After we left WDI, we were supposed to go over to the Studios. Since everyone was in a meeting over there, there wasn’t much sense in doing that. A quick change of plans & Bonnie had us heading off to Carolwood. This is also something extremely neat! The barn Walt originally built on his property when he was doing his trains is now in this little park. They tore the barn down piece by piece, numbering each board & rebuilt the barn here. The guy that was telling us all about the barn & all of Walt’s stuff in the barn was none other than Michael Broggie!!!!! His father, Roger Broggie, was one of the 1st Imagineers! What a thrill to meet him! This was a guy that got to “hang out” with Walt Disney! Jeez Louise! How great is this? He has a book that we bought 2 of while we were there & he autographed them for us! What a great thing! We spent about an hour there looking at all of Walt’s original benches and tools that he used to build his trains, then we were off to Universal City Walk. We had dinner at Hard Rock Café. The restaurant was closed to everyone except us and the media. They were having the premier of Undercover Brother that night right outside the restaurant! We weren’t able to stay long enough to see any celebrities though. Headed back to Disneyland at around 6pm. We made it back there by 715pm. We come from a small town, that LA traffic is something we’ve never experienced before. Something we don’t want to experience again anytime soon either. |
| May 31st |
| Happy Anniversary! Today is our 5th anniversary! What a great way to spend it! This was actually the main reason we went to Disneyland…to celebrate our anniversary. The Cast Blast part of it just fell into place. This morning we were told there was an optional tour for our group at 615am at Disneyland. They wouldn’t tell us what it was, just that we would be pleased if we showed up. So…our curiosity piqued, we dragged our bodies out of bed to see what was up. Disneyland hosted Grad Night from Midnight to 6am so we were able to see TONS of kids come out of the park as we waited for our group to show up. Bonnie came for a minute, then handed us over to Robbi who introduced us to Claudia. Claudia took all of us into the park. What a sight to see! Normally the cleaning crew has from the time the park empties out until the next morning to clean up & get things back in order. This morning they had approx 3 hours to do what normally takes them at least 8 hours to do. There were delivery trucks & Brinks trucks & men on bikes all over the place. Everyone was looking at us like we were crazy to be in there that early. We headed over to the Indiana Jones attraction. We met up with the area manager of that attraction…I’m pretty sure he was a Mark…and he took us inside for a walking tour! How cool is this?!?!? They had the lights turned on & it took us about 15 minutes to walk what it would have taken us 3 minutes to ride. It was very cool. After that, Claudia had another surprise for us…but first, let’s go to Innoventions. Here we met the area manager Russell. He was very nice to our group! Personally, I was disappointed that they put Innoventions in the old Carousel of Progress building. I’m really not into that type of thing but what the heck. We hung out there for about 45 minutes. Since it was so early in the morning, none of us had had any coffee & some of us desperately needed it! We were able to go backstage to the Inn Keeper and grab some coffee & some munchies for breakfast. This is the Cast Member cafeteria. Very neat place to be. Once we were done there, we were able to go into Space Mountain. David really doesn’t enjoy roller coasters, but he decided this wasn’t something he could pass up on. They allowed us to ride SM with the lights on. Very cool. Then…without getting out of our car…they turned the lights off & let us ride again! It’s much scarier in the dark than in the light! SM in DL is different than at WDW in that you ride next to the person in your car, not behind them. That was cool. I definitely had to buy a photo since that’s the 1st roller coaster David & I have ever ridden on together! I told him he was off the hook for an anniversary present for me because that was plenty! (what was I thinking?) Now it’s time for the Walk in Walt’s Footsteps tour. Normally this is a 1 ½ hour tour & anyone can take it. Ours was a bit specialized. They made it into a 3 hour tour & we were able to go up into Walt’s apartment! Oh my goodness! How exciting this was!! NO ONE is allowed to go into Walt’s apartment! Very few people have been there! We were allowed to take just 1 picture of our group (they had split us up into 3 groups of 14 or so for this tour) with as many cameras as we wanted. I think all of us gave “Tour Guide David” and Claudia our cameras so they could take our picture. I can’t wait to see that developed! By the time we finished out our tour, David was pretty sick. Between the headache he woke up with & the heat, he was starting to black out. Thank goodness the tour ended when it did. After a bottled water & some wet cloths on his neck, he felt good enough to walk to our lunch. We stopped at the Blue Bayou and had a nice lunch. David didn’t look good enough to finish the day in the park, so he & I left Trey & Seghers in the park & headed back to our room. After a nice 2 hour nap, David woke up a brand new guy! After a quick bite at Croc’s Bits & Bites, we headed over to see some more of Disneyland. The crowds were something we are definitely not used to. Whenever we go to WDW it’s either October or early December & the crowds are NOTHING like what we experienced this trip. Went on a few attractions, then headed back to the DL Hotel to meet up with Trey & Seghers for dinner. We went to Granville’s Steak House. It was ok. After dinner we decided to wander Downtown Disney. Did some damage shopping there for awhile, then headed back to our rooms. |
| June 1st |
| This morning we headed over to the Storytellers Café at the Grand Californian for their breakfast buffet. Comparing this one to Goofy’s…I would definitely choose Goofy’s. To me Goofy’s is just more fun. They had characters at Storytellers…Pluto, Chip & Dale were there. There was more to choose from at Goofy’s & the atmosphere was just a lot more fun. We did have a neat experience here though…Trey, Seghers & I were at the table & I watched another group sit at the next table over. The girl looked pretty familiar to me. After a minute I realized it was Sarah Gilbert from the sitcom Roseanne. That was kind of neat to have a celebrity eating in the same restaurant we were. After we ate our breakfast we headed over to the entrance to Disney’s California Adventure. The entrance from the Grand Californian wouldn’t open for another ½ hour & the park wouldn’t open for another ½ hour after that! We decided instead of wasting an hour standing around doing nothing, we’d grab a cab & go to the Company D store. This store is for Cast Members & their parties only. The only way to get into this store is to have a Cast Member ID. What great things we found! T-shirts for $5, fleece sweatshirts for $10-$15…everything in the store was at least 50% off…had some that was 75% & even some that were 90%! This wasn’t the cast offs or the stuff they couldn’t sell…this was the exact same stuff you could get inside the parks…just at a better price!! By the time we walked out of there…we all had spent quite a bit of money! We had so much stuff that once we got back to the Disneyland Hotel we had to find boxes so we could ship the stuff home! There was no way we could take that stuff home in our suitcases! We sent down 2 boxes each from both of our rooms! Can’t wait til those boxes get here! It’ll be like Christmas! After we got everything boxed up & down to Bell Services, we headed over the Disney’s California Adventure. We had heard that Soarin Over California was not to be missed so we headed right over there. I can definitely tell you, if you get the chance to do this…you will not be sorry! You are seated in a row of seats & seat belted in. There are 3 rows to each room…3 rooms for the attraction. The concept of this is that you are in a glider & being taken through different scenes. Normally I get sick in these things because I’ve only been in the ones where you watch the movie as you stand in a room. Here…you are lifted up into the air & the scenes play out on a screen in front of you. The best part of it was when you flew over different areas…different scents wafted through the air. Go over a forest during the river rapid sequence & you smell pine, go over the orchards & you get a sniff of orange & grapefruit…YUMMY!! See if you can spot the Mickey head on the golf ball when you pass over the PGA Tournament. Look fast! After Soarin we went to find some lunch. Ended up eating at the McDonalds over near Paradise Pier. After lunch Trey & I had to ride some rides. We went on Mulholland Madness…I think this is a lot like what Primeval Whirl is going to be like in WDW. You definitely need to like your neighbor because in a couple of those turns you get thrown into his lap! Sorry Trey! J After that it’s off to the Mailiboomer. Too cool. This reminded me of the ride at Islands of Adventure…Dr Doom’s Fearfall. For scare factor, I’ll take Tower of Terror over both of these ridges. Seghers decided to join us on the Orange Stinger. That was neat. It’s basically just the Swings. Then we went over to the Sun Wheel. Holy huge! We chose a car that swung rather than a stationary one. Definitely puts a twist on the old ferris wheel rides! Then Trey & I decided it was time for California Screamin’. David & Seghers went off to find a park bench. Seghers didn’t sit very long, she was soon shopping. Trey & I loved California Screamin’. That was probably the smoothest roller coaster I have ever been on. After California Screamin’ we decided to head on out of the park. Did some more shopping on our way. Trey needed to go back over to DL to meet up with his fireman friend, David & I decided to go off to Downtown Disney. I needed to stop at the Build a Bear shop. After that we needed to find some dinner. The line at Rainforest Café was a 2 hour wait so we headed back to Croc’s & had a decent dinner there. We listened to the band for a little while then decided it was time for bed. |
| June 2nd |
| Today is our last park day. Another breakfast at Goofy’s Kitchen & we are on our way! We ended up going to both parks so we could catch some rides we hadn’t seen before. Trey & Seghers hadn’t been able to see all of Pirates…when they 1st tried to ride it, it broke down! All of the boats had to be pushed to the closest exits & all of the guests had to leave through there. Disney did give them a bunch of Fast Passes to make up for it. We decided that we would also take another run over to the Company D store. A Cast Member had told us that they bring new stuff in every day & we just couldn’t miss out on the opportunity to spend more money! We did end up spending, but not nearly as much as we had spent the day before. By going over to the Company D store, we forfeited our chance to win the Spin Off contest our group was holding at the Tea Cups at high noon. Bummer. I just know we could have beaten everyone entering! We took a lot of ribbing for that! We did Soarin over California one more time before heading off to our final dinner at the Golden Vine Winery. This was a very nice dinner. We were all out on the patio. Good food, good service, good company! It doesn’t get any better than this! The Electric Light Parade was going to pass by right where we were having dinner so we had a nice birds eye view of it. After the parade we said our goodbyes to everyone with promises to email & do another trip. We needed to head back to the hotel since we had to get up at 330am to catch our shuttle to the airport. |
| Closing |
| That’s the entire trip. We had a nice time & are looking forward to doing it again. David & I both thank Seghers very much. If she weren’t a Cast Member then we wouldn’t have been able to have the opportunities this trip gave us. Since going on this trip I’ve decided that I’m going to my nearest Disney Store (an hour away) & will submit my application. Even if I work a few hours a month I’ll still be able to enjoy the perks of a full time cast member. This trip was very nice but now I can’t wait to get to WDW! October 27th hurry up!! |
|
|