Sunday, February 21, 2010
Exhausted. The morning didn’t start as early as most my mornings do, I actually think I slept in since 2-3 times a week I’m waking up at 3am, so rising to the sound of chirping birds is not something I’m used to. Usually I’m listening to the sounds of animals mating outside my window; always a welcome sound when you first wake up.
The day started like it normally did, except for this day, all my actions would lead me to Disneyland, usually that isn’t the case. Today was the exception, and I was excited yet put on a cool front. There used to be a time when I would get anxious before a trip in part because I wasn’t used to flying and going through security was always logistical nightmare. Only until recently have I become increasingly comfortable going through security, it is still a nerve wracking few minutes as you’re juggling a million different things at once. Did I remember to put my liquids in a 1-qt clear plastic bag? Am I wearing anything that would cause alarms to go off and see a herd of TSA agents hurtling themselves at me for the opportunity to pat me down? You know they enjoy it. In fact, the guy at security this time did take such an opportunity to feel me up pretty good.
This time through, security it was a breeze. I decided I would take my shoes off early so I wouldn’t have to futz around with them while also attempting to remove my laptop, Kindle, and any other article of clothing they require removed. Before we officially made our way to the screeners I grabbed five bins and we quickly got our acts together. I don’t think security has ever been this easy for the both of us. I think it was due to us combining our things. Both of our shoes were in a bin, both our coats were in another, etcetera. Everything worked aside from a TSA agent wanting to feel my mom up.
The flight itself was nice. It wasn’t too bumpy and I forgot to take my Ginger pill. These ginger pills are to prevent upset stomach due to motion sickness. I don’t know why I continue to think I’m going to get sick on a plane, at least so sick I throw up. That hasn’t happened since I was little, yet I remember it so vividly that I am nearly paralyzed in fear that it will happen again. It hasn’t happened since, so from this point forward, I’m just not going to let it bother me anymore. However, there were times at the beginning of the flight where it was bump and I lost my stomach for a moment. I was able to recover quickly and went on to enjoy the remainder.
I could feel my self slipping into exhaustion and I ended up falling asleep during the descent. I hate the descent, that is the absolute worst part of the whole flying experience. It doesn’t feel good and I feel queazy if I constantly feel like I’m losing my stomach. Sleeping through it was awesome. My mom mentioned that it was rough, but then she didn’t know if it was the descent or the gum she was chewing. She claims the flavor of the gum is strong, but it didn’t taste any stronger than gum I normally chew. Of course, I don’t normally chew gum, so what do I know.
We made noted what time it was when we reached the gate. Apparently Alaska Air has a policy that if your plane’s luggage isn’t coming down the baggage claim carousel within 25-minutes you get $25. So far, we have never received $25 because they’ve been so prompt. I’m always scared to see my luggage come down because I’m afraid that all the contents of my bag will be strewn out all over baggage claim and I’ll have to frantically scoop everything up and shove them in my bag. Thankfully this has never happened and more importantly, if everything came flying out of my bag, I highly doubt the staff at the airport would send it down to baggage claim…I hope.
After gathering our bags we got into our Chevy Cobalt rental and made our way to the hotel. This was an adventure, because my Mom’s GPS decided it wouldn’t give us directions in time to get off the freeway. Suddenly getting off a freeway in California is nearly impossible and quite dangerous. It’s frustrating to watch my Mom drive sometimes because it seems that everything is so much harder. I watched my grandfather make this same drive a couple of times and he was able to flawlessly navigate the freeway. Put my mom behind the wheel and it turns into this huge production where we seem completely lost even with a GPS.
Even with the freeway drama we were able to get to Howard Johnson’s. We checked in and a few hours later we would be able to get into our rooms. Checkout was at 4pm and so we had some time to kill. We decided that we would venture over to the Disneyland Resort to get our Annual Passes. We jumped at the opportunity to be a part of Disney’s Give a Day, Get a Day promotion to get a free one day ticket to one of the parks, but we were going to use the value of that ($72) and upgrade the ticket to a deluxe annual pass. This brought the total down to $227. this may seem like a lot, and it is, but my grandparents were planning on taking the family in June; us getting an annual pass would help quell the cost for them.
Getting to the park was easy enough. Since we knew we weren’t going to stay long we parked at Downtown Disney, aware of the forboddenness of theme park parking, but we weren’t going to stay long, we just wanted to get our annual passes and some chow. We pull into Downtown Disney and was forced to park almost as far away from the entrance to Downtown Disney as you can get. Mom wasn’t pleased since she suffers from bad knees and so walking long distances becomes quite painful. Ironic that she loves going to Disneyland where walking long distances is a primary requirement.
It seems the process of buying a ticket into Disneyland is rather involved. Some people were standing at the ticket windows forever and even our transaction required us to go through two different windows. I’m not entirely sure why that was the case, but in the end we got a temporary pass that would get us into the park so we could get our actual annual pass in addition we also got “Honorary VoluntEAR!” buttons. The nice woman at the second window told us to go to Disney’s California Adventure to get the pass because they had better cameras and lighting. It’s true they do.
Going into Disney’s California Adventure we were inundated with the sounds of High School Musical 3. I may finally get the chance to see it! The first order of business was to get the annual passes so we made our way to Hollywood Studios Backlot. Sadly they were doing some construction and putting in a rail car that would go up and down the street, so they had completely blocked it off. We, and the rest of the folks going into Hollywood Studios had to walk along the narrow sidewalk all the way to the end of the street and go into a building that I think at one time held the “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” game show. There, the woman took our picture and gave us our Annual Pass. We were officially official.
We were starving. When I get hungry I have a tendency to get irritable. To save the feelings of my mom it was imperative that we go to Taste Pilot’s Grill, a tradition of ours. Whenever my Mom and I go to Disneyland, that is the first place we eat. We split a Chase Pilot Cheesburger. Yes, we split it. Splitting meals where you can is a great way to make going to Disneyland even more affordable. More importantly, it allows you to have enough room to eat a better variety of things.
I struck me how busy it was and I wasn’t sure the reason. Then I realized, it’s still the weekend. That is always something to consider when you go to any Disney theme park, the crowds, weekends, no matter what time of year are going to be crowded. Taking into account the crowd and the time, we both agreed it would be a good idea to make our way to Food4Less to pick up some essentials, like breakfast foods.
I’m going to be brutally honest here, the areas outside the immediate Disney property are pretty run down so going to Food4Less in the dark is sometimes a scary endeavor. We wanted to avoid that endeavor. We left Disney’s California Adventure, not after I snapped some photo’s and made our way to Food4Less.
We both know exactly where Food4Less is… exactly, getting there was tricky this time because we both swear they put a divider up where there wasn’t one before. My mom turned in too early and we got trapped in this labyrinth of a neighborhood with no outlet. We wandered through this neighborhood trying to find a way out, noticing the fabulous ski chalet style houses. That last statement was loaded with sarcasm. The ski chalet style houses are hysterical and a tourist attraction all their own. If you have the time, from Katella turn right into S Bayless Street, it will feel like you are in Switzerland only without the charm and snow. In order to get out of this labyrinth we followed one side of the street until we found our way back to Katella.
We pulled into a less scary, daylighted Food4Less and did some shopping. Going to Food4Less is essential, because you need to pick up necessities like Cactus Cooler, Manzanita Sol (refresco de manzana) and !Sponch¡ (galletas con malvavisco coco y jalea de fresa). Then there are the non-essential items, like everything else. I did pick up something that I have yet to try, Choco Rolls (rollos rellenos con creme y mermelada de piña con cubierta de chocolate Saborizados artificialmente). They’re made by Marinela, the makers of !Sponch¡ so they have to be delicious, right?
We get to the register and clearly I choose the wrong one. Here’s a little advice, if you are standing in line that appears shorter than all the rest, it is more than likely the one line that will take the longest to get through. This was the case here. The customer at the register had clearly lost something, a coupon or whatever, and was looking for it. There was no urgency to her movements, she just sort of half heartedly looked for it with a blank stare on her face. The customer behind her was getting agitated and was drumming her designer nails against the cart. Her nails didn’t have sunsets or dolphins frolicking in the ocean but there as a subtle design.
The lady continues to look for whatever she was after and then finally gave up. Now, at Food4Less you have to bag your own groceries, and that lady was still looking for her coupon and not bagging. “Designer nails” was finished with her transaction and had already begun bagging her groceries and still the lady in front of her was looking for that blasted coupon. WHO FREAKING CARES!!! It was probably to save a quarter anyway, just bag your groceries so my mom and I can bag ours and get the heck out of here.
Finally she found what she was looking for and went back to Luis, the cashier to show him. He didn’t do anything about it and she went back and started bagging. Our groceries were backing up behind hers and she started moving a little faster, but not fast enough. I stood there trying to keep our groceries separated, she wasn’t going to get my Manzanita Sol or !Sponch¡ I made sure of that. She finished, we bagged ours and we finally left.
We went back to Howard Johnson’s and went up to our rooms. The rooms there are always really nice and clean as are the staff. The first thing my mom noticed upon entering her room was the lack of a safe. She called the front desk and they informed her that there are no safes in King rooms. It wasn’t critical because I was willing to share what room I had in my safe with her. She had nothing more than her iPod and netbook so there was still plenty of room for whatever I had to put in there.
I turned on my television with the supplied remote and the remote wouldn’t work well. I thought the battery might be dying and so I fooled around with it and then wondered if that was what it was like using the TVs here. I went over to my Mom’s room and tried her remote and the confirmed my suspicion that it was the battery. So I called the front desk, the guy came within 20 minutes and I was able to watch more of Pirates of the Caribbean.
We hung around the hotel for a while and then ventured back out to the parks. This time we parked in the Mickey and Friends parking structure and took the tram. I hate the tram because it just feels like a waiting game and I’m concerned that I’m going to have to wait an eternity to get on. This is more a problem in the evening just as the park is closing, or after the fireworks, or after the last parade of the day. Either way, it’s usually a nightmare and I can’t stand it.
We get to the park and go through security where they checked our bags and the fun was about to begin. The first thing on our docket was to get some coffee at the Market House. The Market House on Main Street is the only establishment in the parks that offer free refills on their coffee. All you need is you receipt and tell them the flavor you want and they hand you another cup. It’s nice and worth taking advantage of. The problem this evening was, the line was too long to make the trip worthwhile, so we skipped it.
Then we thought maybe we would ride Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters and there was a 20 minute wait. Again, the line was too long for our, at the time, impatient minds instead we each got a FastPass. Then we decided to see what was going on with Captain EO: Tribute. We walked over to where Honey, I Shrunk the Audience used to be and there was nothing there to indicate that Captain EO was coming. I was hoping for some signage or something exciting to take a picture of, but alas my desire to share am illuminated sign with the world on the Internet was foiled once again. We are so far, 3 for 3 on things we were planning on doing and then failing miserably.
It was at this point that we both felt hungry. We talked about what we felt like and got briefly distracted when we saw that floating ball thing in the middle of Tomorrowland surrounded by planters. We didn’t remember that being their before. It didn’t take long to decide then to go check out Pizza Port for dinner.
Upon entering Pizza Port a nice castmember thanked us for voluntEARing. This was the first time I had heard this and realized throughout the trip that castmembers frequently thanked us for volunteering upon seeing the buttons that we wore. I know that this Give a Day, Get a Day promotion was popular, but I didn’t realize just how popular. Everywhere I look there are people wearing these buttons, and I find it amazing that there were so many that took the time out of their busy schedule to “volunteer” their time.
My mom and I walked around Pizza Port looking at the menu and I just couldn’t spend $7 for a slice of pizza. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m well aware the cost of eating in the park, but $7 for a slice of pizza. I just couldn’t do it. I explained this to my mom and she agreed, she also said that she didn’t remember the pizza being all that spectacular and so that solidified our position that we would make other arrangements.
We sat down at one of the booths and began talking about what else we could have. Some funny things were said about various things, and we laughed until we both had tears in our eyes. It’s sad that we can’t remember what we were talking about because I’m certain that you would be laughing hysterically with us. Ultimately we decided that we would walk back to Refreshment Corner to get a couple of hot dogs.
Here I’m going to take this opportunity to whine about there not being corn dog nuggets. They have them at Walt Disney World, but they do not have them at Disneyland. Clearly they don’t see the immense value they would have on their menus. They’re a great snack to have with you as you are walking around the park. Or you could just enjoy them at the Refreshment Corner. Instead we had to settle for a couple of hot dogs and a bag of chips. Don’t get me wrong, the hot dogs are good, but they’re no corn dog nuggets.
Realizing what good of a spot we had, we decided to stick around for an hour so that we could be ready for the fireworks. This was an okay spot… actually it’s sort of terrible, but you could see them a enough to know what was going on. After we ate my Mom said that she would go get us some coffee and a cookie from the Market House.
I love the cookies there, I think they are the best cookies in the whole park. There is just something about them that make them not only taste awesome, but the texture and density of the cookie really make you think you are getting your money’s worth. These are some dense and heavy cookies. While she walked to the Market House I took this opportunity to play a little Doodle Jump on my iPhone. I bought it at the airport along with the WishingStars app and I thought I would have some time on the flight to play it. I didn’t but I had some time now. It’s a fun game and reminds me of a game I played online involving a penguin or a polar bear or some such arctic or antarctic animal.
It was a long while before she came back. Throughout this time we kept hearing over the loud speaker that due to weather, the firework’s may be cancelled. I found this frustrating because they were playing this 30 minutes before the fireworks would begin. They kept playing this announcement every 10 minutes or so until the announcement changed that the lights would be dimming for the fireworks. So what did I find frustrating about all this? Well, if they were going to cancel the fireworks, then tell people in advance so they aren’t waiting around in the “cold” longer than they have to. I don’t know, I think it’s a little inconsiderate.
My Mom came back with the goodies and we sat and watched the fireworks. It was nice and relaxing especially after having such a long day. Once the fireworks ended there was the grand exodus of guests, lightening up the park and the lines. The only thing we would do during this time would be to use our FastPass for Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, grab a free refill of coffee and head to the trams to go back to the hotel.
I talked earlier on how much I hate the trams. When it goes as good as it went for us this time, I love the trams. Occasionally, after parades, or fireworks, or when the park is closing, they have both tram stops open for loading and unloading. Most of the guests go to the first tram stop making it ridiculously crowded and they don’t think about checking to see if the second one is open for loading. Tonight, that worked to our advantage and we were able to bypass hundreds of people waiting to get on a tram at the first stop, to immediately boarding a tram at the second stop. Jason & Patty: 1; The Man: 0!
I wrote this when I was tired and so some/all of it may not make sense. I didn’t proof it because it’s long. If you have any questions let me know in the comments.
