Disneyland!

Here it is, the big trip. Like I said, we splurged this month on ourselves and took some family outings. We took advantage of another time-share offer thingy. I don’t even remember what the name of it was, that’s how much I care about it. They offered us two free nights at a hotel just outside of Disneyland. I listen to them for 90 minutes an in return they pay for our room and board. Sounds ok to me.

This was a pretty inexpensive trip for us. My birthday was the 15th and Heidi’s was the 16th. Disneyland offers free entry on your birthday so it was a good week to take advantage of that. Our tickets and room were paid for.

On Wednesday afternoon after we arrived I took Daniel to the park, just the two of us, because we both got in free. He was amazed like you would expect a toddler to be in such a wondrous place. He had a wonderful time.

Here are a few pictures of Wednesday. Look how happy he is. He was in awe the whole time. The only minor problem was trying to keep him entertained while standing in line. Can you imagine standing in the check out line at the grocery store for 45 minutes trying to keep an antsy two year old entertained? And then repeat 5 or 6 more times?

As it turned out, I had to hold him almost the entire time otherwise he would bolt and run for the entrance to whatever ride we were in line for. Here are a few pictures of our first evening there.

We hit Dumbo, Casey Jr train, Merry-go-round, It’s a small world, which was Daniels favorite based on the size of his eyes and his ooing and awing... and we took the main park train around the entire park twice. Somewhere in between we stopped for an $11 burger and fries. (The next day we took enough food and drink for all of us to fill 3 square meals.)

We took a shuttle back to the Travel Lodge where we were staying. That was like a bonus ride for Daniel.

Then our first night of hell commenced. I don’t think Heidi or I got any sleep at all that night. Rylie woke up every hour and guests continued to check in until midnight, cars kept coming and going in and out of the parking lot, car doors kept slamming, room doors kept slamming, and car alarms kept going off every 30 minutes. When I closed my eyes it sounded like I was in the parking lot. Our AC unit didn’t work, there were about 3 channels on TV to choose from, the rest was Spanish, Japanese or snow. We woke up to ants on the room table and the beds left a lot to be desired for comfortableness.

The next morning completely groggy and grumpy we got ready to head back to the park. Thursday was Heidi’s birthday so she, Rylie and Daniel all got in free again, and I paid for the one ticket we had to buy.

Daniels previous jubilee from the day before was no more. I think a combination of change, over excitement and a poor nights sleep put us all on edge, but Daniel for some reason decided he didn’t want to go back to the park after we got there. It was less than a mile from our hotel to the park so we had decided to save $12 by walking. Right as we went through the entrance he just suddenly lost it and threw one of his titanium tantrums. It couldn’t have been a more crowded, public place, except maybe the airport. Joy.

(If I ever laugh at you trying to contain your tantruming child, it's nothing personal, I'm just celebrating the fact that it's not mine.)

He continued to cry and scream and scare people we walked past for about 20 minutes as we made our way through the throngs of people rubbernecking to catch a glimpse of the wild child. I had to stop and take a picture in front of the iconic statue of Walt Disney holding hands with Mickey Mouse. As you can see in the picture below, I was not going to be deterred from having a good time. I’m at Disneyland! WooHoo!!

He eventually stopped. An eternity later. Lines were longer this time but we got to ride on the monorail, drive a car twice, help Buzz Lightyear shoot aliens and even got to meet Buzz Lightyear! We went to the Honey I shrunk the audience show but had to leave after 10 minutes when Daniel got scared of the 3D lion and when the floors started shaking.

We stopped for lunch and saved another $50 by making homemade sandwiches. People around us were jealous.

This spinning rock was the most amazing attraction for little kids. Sure it’s cool and all, but still it’s a rock… that spins… I guess it looked pretty sci-fi. Like the futuristic Tomorrowland house we looked through. Except in the Tomorrowland house most of the technical gadgets on display didn’t work. It reminded me of my todayland hotel room.

Then we hung out in Toon Town for the rest of the time. Daniel ran around and really had a blast.

We came across Mickey Mouse’s house and thought we’d meet Mickey and get a picture. The line didn't look long at all leading into the front doors of the house. I guess that’s how they sucker you in. After we were inside we kept going and going and going, turning around corner after corner. We didn’t realize that once inside, Mickey’s house really stretched 15 miles. It was more like Dr Who’s house.

That was the turning point of the day for us. Without any posted notice of how long it would really take to get through the line to meet Mickey (like most other lines have: wait time: 15 minutes), we convinced ourselves to stay in line thinking he would finally be around the next corner… we ended up waiting over an hour. Then the big magical moment arrived and we got to spend a whole 10 seconds with Mickey, enough to take one picture.

We were bugged. Do they honestly expect parents to be able to entertain their kids for that long standing in a deceivingly long boring line? Not if Daniel can help it. At the first opportunity he broke free and bolted to the main room running under or around barriers, bypassing about 6 more turns and 50 people and just managed to make it through the final door as they closed it behind him. That’s Daniel, he has no patience for stuff like social norms and "organized lines."

Well, as Heidi was frantically trying to chase him down and tell 50 people to get out of her way, the sacred doors (because Mickey was on the other side) opened again about 10 seconds later and some official looking person escorted the parentless kid back out, looking around for the owners. I had been holding Daniel in my arms for most of the day just to avoid such an incident. You try holding 35lbs in your arms for 6 hours straight without a break! The one time I set him down to rest…

We were all pretty disgruntled after that tiresome experience and Daniel started getting more and more ornery by the minute. We decided to call it day and started making our way back to the entrance. We couldn’t have timed it better, or worse, as a big marching parade appeared from nowhere and blocked our exit.

Daniel watched with interest for about 60 seconds then started to fuss, which I recognized as a pre-emptive to tantruming again. I let him have a sucker half the size of his head, which is huge, hoping to buy us more time to get out of the park but I guess in hind site that just fueled the fire.

The parade finally ended and we eventually got past the 50 million people standing shoulder to shoulder between us and the exit, with our two seat stroller. Right when we reached the exit he finally lost it. He cried and screamed all the way back to the hotel. We came in screaming, we left screaming.

In hind sight, I would make sure to stay in a little nicer place, preferably something with two rooms and a kitchen. And I would have to seriously rethink taking kids under 5 years old again. They just don’t adapt to change very well. At least my kids don’t.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. That night in the same hotel was just slightly less hellish than the previous night. I think we were all so tired we just slept through most of the noise. Friday we went to our mandatory time-share presentation thing, agreed that it's the best deal we've ever heard of then promptly declined to invest and left for San Diego.

We had initial plans to hang out in La Joya, but once we got to the Marriott we felt like we had just arrived in heaven and didn't have any motivation to leave. In fact, we were staying there using a gift card but as it turns out we forgot to bring it with us so we had to pay for it out of pocket. I think it was the best money we spent on the whole trip.

Rylie had her own room, Daniel eventually stayed on the pull out bed in the main room (after we kicked him off our king size bed) and we had the king size bed. The unit had two separate bedrooms, each with it's own bathroom and a kitchen. Complimentary breakfast included about everything you can think of. Then we topped off the morning by going swimming.

Then home again. The best part about it is that we still have a gift card to stay at the Marriott again.