09 Jan

Day 1- Drive to LA and Napa Rose

 

This trip started on a Wednesday morning for me! Stephen was travelling for 5 weeks, so it was just Ally and I at home. I got up and got ready and as soon as Ally left for school, I jumped in the car! The night before she asked when I was leaving and I said, “As soon as you leave for school.”

She said, “So basically as soon as I pull out of the driveway you will run to the car with your suitcase, cackling the whole way?”

I said, “Yep. Pretty much! Wait until you leave for college!”  

Lol. Mean mother!

My front door to the Grand Californian is exactly 4 hours. Of course, that can vary greatly based on what time of day it is, but if you avoid rush hours, it should be 4 hours.  Yes, I know this and yes, I love this.

Kelly updated me at some point after they landed. The rooms weren’t ready, so they were headed to a park. We were all a little worried about Darolyn and Ashley making it because Boston was in the middle of Snowmageddon. It sounded like they were going to make their later flight and get in crazy late, but they were coming! Yay!

I pulled up to my favorite – the Grand Californian. We originally had two connecting standard view rooms. My favorite view is a Downtown Disney view, and I generally say it’s worth the extra money. We’d been hoping for an upgrade when Kelly and I decided to take our own advice that we generally give people, and book the room category we would be happy in.

So we upgraded! Downtown Disney view it is!  

I dropped off my bags, checked in and then went and parked my car across the street.

Kelly, Tracey and Jerry were in the park so I started in that direction.

I walked out through the Downtown Disney entrance.

Ooh, Anna and Elsa store! I had to stop to take pictures for Instagram!

Starbucks!

I’m in!

Main Street U.S.A.!

I love these, I could watch them for quite a while!

Well hello, Baymax!

I found them! I didn’t take a picture, but I found them back in Adventureland! Thankfully we were all hungry and we went to eat first! I present Disneyland’s world famous hand dipped corndogs.

My word I love these corn dogs.

Our lunch view:

Our first ride was a trip on the wildest ride in the wilderness!

We were looking for Weber!! Found him!

We walked around the back towards Tracey’s favorite ride (sarcasm again) Finding Nemo Subs! 🙂

We passed the best popcorn turner ever!

Here we are!

Onboard!

Really bad phone selfie. Hello, up my nose:

The Sutton/O’Brien family was not really impressed with the subs. Lol

So we were off to a sure fire crowd pleaser – Space Mountain!

It broke down while we were in line, but it didn’t take too long. Space selfie!

We got the text that our rooms were ready at some point and decided to go that direction. We stopped to see the Haunted Mansion merchandise on the way out.

 

I also was very tempted by this.

On our way back to the room, Kelly wanted to find some more comfortable shoes so we stopped in Sanuk in Downtown Disney. Jerry and Tracey said they would go find the room.

We were pointing at some rooms across the way and said, “That’s probably them right there!” They said they would scream at us if they were.

Kelly found two pairs of super cute comfy shoes. Her feet were so happy!

We walked out of the store and looked up, and what do you know, those were our rooms and the guys were waving at us. It was pretty funny!

It was time to eat again, so we stopped in Marceline’s before going up!

I can’t remember what I got! I must have eaten it pretty quickly! I took a crazy number of pictures of my room with Darolyn and Ashley who were on their way!

We changed clothes for dinner and went to California Adventure. We had reservations at Napa Rose tonight! Yay!

We rode Tower of Terror and took an epic “Behind the Yellow Line Toes” picture!

I have no picture evidence of anything else we did, so I’ll assume we walked over to Napa Rose next!

We were early so we sat in the lounge for a few minutes while Jerry ran upstairs to get something and Mukta caught up with us.

Don’t worry I took pictures of us at the end!

Menu:

Mukta and Kelly and I split this pizza and it was amazing! I didn’t know I would like the savory and sweet so much. I must try it at Palo next time.

We also split one of my favorite things (even the server insisted someone had to order it – truffled mac and cheese!

Tracey had scallops:

I had steak of course!

We were some of the last people to leave!

I remembered to take a picture this time! Mukta, Kelly and I!

Over dinner we sold Mukta on the Ladies of Leisure cruise! Yay! So it was the best dinner ever.

We said goodbye and walked back into Downtown Disney. Most of the stores were closed though! Sadness.

I stopped in Build a Bear for some adorable bear pics:

And then I think we were back to the room for bed! Darolyn and Ashley came in crazy late! Like 1:30? I woke up and told them what time we were leaving the next morning if they were awake.

Full day of fun tomorrow!

 

Disneyland With the Grown-Ups!

Day 1 – Drive to LA and Napa Rose
Day 2 – Don’t Touch Oswald! 
Day 3 – Parks and Fantasmic!