When Can We Do This Again? A TCD Disneyland Double Dip

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

What's this?

 

A new TCD TR?

 

Yup!

 

It's been a while.

 

The TCD twins moved out to Disneyland in August for their fall semester.

 

And, I've had a Disney drought.

 

But, I've popped over to WDW for a couple of day trips.

 

And, just returned on Sunday from the second Disneyland trip taken in the past few weeks.

 

Time to get this TR rolling, I'd day.

 

So, let's start with our first visit to see the twins.

 

This one was me and Mrs. TCD.

 

You read that right.

 

Mrs. TCD.

 

She needed to see her babies.

 

So we went.

 

The trip was planned about 30 days out, and the twins had a hard time finding any CM discounts at the Disney hotels.

 

They were able to snag us a good rate for two nights at the Grand Californian.

 

And, I booked an off-site room for the first two nights.

 

We headed out on October 16. We flew from Tampa to the John Wayne/Santa Ana airport instead of in to LAX.  That was nice.  It's much closer to Anaheim, and there's a lot less traffic.

 

The twins were able to take off of work for the first two days of the trip.

 

Twin #1 picked us up at the airport.

 

And we headed to our off-site hotel.  For this trip, I wasn't able to find and opening at the hotel we enjoyed so much last year.  I found one a bit further out.  It's called the Anaheim Islander.  It was an old-school motel, but it got the job done.  Here's there website, in case you're interested: http://www.anaheimislander.com/

 

The hotel is located on Katela Ave., and it's about a 3/4 of a mile walk from it to the Esplanade located between Disneyland Park and California Adventure.  I measured it here:

 

 

That's still mind boggling to me.

 

That is the same distance as the walk from the Contemporary Resort dock to the Magic Kingdom entrance.  Yet, we felt like we were way off of Disney property.

 

Disneyland attendance has been off the charts this year, so they had CM's maingate passes blocked out for Disneyland park on Fridays and Saturdays in October. That meant the twins could get us in to California Adventure for free on Friday and Saturday, but we would need to wait until Monday to get in to Disneyland.  That wasn't a big deal for us.

 

I should mention here that I wasn't planning to write a trip report for this first trip.  It was just family time, and we were going to go at a slower than normal pace.  But, I took a few photos, so I thought I'd share them as a prequel to the second part of this report, which is where we went hard.

 

We were luck to run right into Oswald the Lucky Rabbit as soon as we entered California Adventure:

 

 

And we ran right into Mickey and the Red Trolley Newsboys too:

 

 

 

We had not seen the girls since early August, which is the longest they've been away from us, so there was quite a bit of catching up and family time on this trip:

 

 

Since we entered California Adventure in the mid-afternoon, we spent time visiting some of the less busy attractions.  Like their animation building.  I thought this was a funny and unique drawing, until I later realized that it is a scene from Olaf's "In Summer" song in Frozen:

 

 

Mrs. TCD ended up really liking DCA.  But, we had had a long day, so I walked her back to the hotel, and left the girls in the park.  I then walked back and rejoined them and we watched the new 60th anniversary edition of World of Color.  Wow!  It was so much better than the Winter Dreams version we saw last year.  And, the girls have learned where the best viewing spots are.  For this show, we had Fastpasses for the Blue viewing area.  We were in what they call the splash zone, which scares a lot of people away.  But that is where you want to be, and we didn't get so much as a drop of water on us.

 

The next day was California Adventure again.  We hit up Radiator Springs Racers, and Mater's Junkyard Jamboree, and really enjoyed Cars Land.  We saw the Aladdin show, bet Olaf, and did a bunch more.

 

We had a late lunch in the Carthay Circle restaurant, which Mrs. TCD and the girls really enjoyed, and one of the twins had one of the 50% off CM holiday coupons, so I enjoyed the bill:

 

 

That second day flew by, and we ended it with watching World of Color again, this time with Mrs. TCD:

 

 

 

Twin #2 couldn't join us for World of Color, as she had to work a shift at the World of Disney store in Downtown Disney that night.  This is the flagship Disney store at Disneyland, and it's huge and always packed.  We stopped by to see if we could find her, and sure enough we did:

 

 

It was pretty amazing to stand there and watch her work.  It was so busy.  But she was a pro.  She just kept calling customers up, and checking them out.  This program has really helped the girls to grow.  Twin #2 is sure that she wants to pursue a career in management with Disney, and this experience has been awesome for her.  Twin #1 isn't quite as clear with her career goals, but she is enjoying her time as an official Jungle Cruise skipper.  We won't be visiting her at work until the next trip, but that will be coming up soon enough.

 

If it seems like we are moving kind of fast in this report, we are.  We are now already up to our second morning at Disneyland.  It is now Monday, which means we can get in to Disneyland.  The plan for today was to hit Disneyland for rope drop, then I would head back to the hotel and get us packed and moved over to the Grand Californian.

 

Here we go:

 

 

 

 

We headed back to Fantasyland:

 

 

Matterhorn selfie:

 

 

We rode a few of the dark rides, and started to accumulate FP's.

 

Then it was time to switch hotels.

 

So we got that taken care of.

 

We were lucky and one of the twins' CP friends was working at the reception desk.  She didn't hook us up with an upgrade, but she did get us checked in to a room that was available immediately.  So that was nice.

 

We got squared away in the room, and did a bit of exploring.

 

They were setting this area up for a wedding.  It was right across from our room:

 

 

When we headed back in to Disneyland, we ran right in to Mickey and Minnie together, and were able to get our photo with them.  Try doing that at WDW:

 

 

We had a late lunch in the Blue Bayou restaurant, which is located inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. I know the twins were taking photos in there, but I don't have them.

 

We hit Disneyland hard.  We did what we could, and then it was time for the Paint the Night Parade.  The title of this TR is a line from the opening song of the parade.  The twins love it, and insisted that we must see it.  They said the best viewing was on Main Street, which requires claiming a spot 2+ hours before parade time.  People are chill at Disneyland, and you can claim a spot by laying things down and having one person guard the spot.  The girls prevailed upon a friend of theirs who we know from home and is also out in California doing a Disney Internship, and he kindly guarded our spot while we rode a few rides:

 

 

We came back to wait for the parade, and I treated Mrs. TCD to one of the famous Disneyland corndogs:

 

 

And then it was parade time:

 

 

 

It is incredible!

 

Look, light up clamshells:

 

 

Of course:

 

 

The parade blew us away.

 

Seriously, everything about it is great.

 

The reason we had to watch on Main Street is that as soon as the parade passed, it was time to claim spots for the Disneyland forever fireworks.

 

These just started up in May for the 60th anniversary celebration.

 

They include fireworks, as well as projected images on the exterior of the Main Street buildings.  That's why you need to be on Main Street.

 

Here's an example of the projections- these are twinkles:

 

 

If you look carefully, you can see chimneysweep shadows dancing up there:

 

 

And here we have honeycombs for a Pooh song:

 

 

For a number from the Little Mermaid, we had inflatable tentacles on the roofs:

 

 

What I don't have a photo of, but was simply amazing was seeing how Disneyland's Tinkerbell flies around the castle.  We're not talking about some little dude with 5 o'clock shadow riding a wire down to smash into a dirty mattress.  We're talking about Tinkerbell herself flying around the castle.  It was amazing.

 

We closed down Disneyland, and enjoyed our walk back to the Grand Californian.

 

Our next morning we were going to do something we haven't done in a long, long time.

 

A character breakfast.

 

I'll start the next post with that.

 

In the meantime, the last TCD TR first page bragging rights for 2015 are up for grabs.

 

TCD

 

 

[Beckers 1,136]

First?!?!?

[campingdawgs 4]

Second? Really? On a TCD TR? That's a new one for me!

[Littleolwoman.aka.Kristie 119]

Dog gone third. I was watching but not fast enough.

[Littleolwoman.aka.Kristie 119]

Love the way they decorated the entrance to DL.

[parrothead7368 aka Norm 101]

First page!!! Have to get my pics up so I can start mine.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Littleolwoman.aka.Kristie 119]

Wait Tinkerbell at MK is a dude?!? Love the light parade. The more you post of DL the more my husband wants to take a trip there. How long did it take you to drive again?

[Beckers 1,136]

I am not willing to admit the amount of times I've watched Paint the Night on YouTube.

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Disturbing. And I'm sure you know of which picture I am referring.

[Grumpy and Grandma 740]

I'm in, Glad you made it back out to see the girls.

[fowlandfishmommy 10]

Okay so I just have to say, life's been a little crazy around here.  I've been overwhelmed and struggling.  In times like this (well really all the time) I need a whole lotta of Jesus and some TCD trip report!  WooHoo!  Thank goodness!!

[caveat lector 181]

I'm not sure which one I like best, the corn dogs or the cool parade lights.......definitely the monster corn dog

[ependydad...Doug 176]

I'm in. Sad that I missed you by just a couple of weeks. Dec 1 is Disneyland and I'm trying to take a few days off of work to actually vacation a bit.

Are the twins or twins friends available for rent for parade spot holding duty? I'll pay a few bucks and a drink or snack or something! (I'm serious.)

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

I'm in. Glad Mrs TCD was able to make the trip too.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[LONE-STAR 370]

First page

[Memphis 105]

I'm in, been waiting on this one.

[dvccamper 32]

Yay, a TCD Disneyland TR!

Super excited because I just booked our trip to CA for June. Will be taking mental notes!

[rm0530 5]

I miss Disneyland! We had such a fun time in August 2014. If the flights weren't so bad, I'd be more willing to book another visit. The parade and fireworks look amazing. I roll my eyes now at our Main Street Electrical Parade. 

[wdwpoohbear...Jennifer 40]

Wow, first page bragging rights.  Excited to see your adventures in California.

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Only one more first page spot! Better get it while you can....

[Beckers 1,136]

You know I never thought I liked corn dogs but because of this board I was forced to try them. Not bad

[WannaBeImagineer 98]

Great start to the trip report TCD!

 

Nice to see the misses with you out there too!  So did the oldest TCD daughter join you on the second trip?

 

You know we've been talking about the picture taking for our next trip, sometimes you get so caught up in the pictures you miss things in the moment.  It's nice to do what you did and not worry about all the pictures and just enjoy the family time.   Plus a lot of times we end up with a 1000 pictures and honestly it's overwhelming just going through them.  

 

Looking forward to more!

 

WBI

[Katman1356...Jason 1,140]

I am in and remembering my time there in July. Thanks for sharing.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Thanks to all who posted, and congratulations to those who earned FPBR's (First Page Bragging Rights).

 

 

First?!?!?

 

 

YES!  You have arrived!  Congratulations!

Second? Really? On a TCD TR? That's a new one for me!

 

Second is good too.

 

Dog gone third. I was watching but not fast enough.

 

Nothing wrong with a bronze medal.

 

Fourth gets nothing.

 

Love the way they decorated the entrance to DL.

 

Nice job taking the 4th spot.  That way no one has to feel bad about missing out on a medal.

 

I liked the Halloween decorations too- especially the Goofy and Donald pumpkins.  We don't get those at WDW.

 

First page!!! Have to get my pics up so I can start mine. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

It would be awesome to see another Halloween TR from WDW!

 

And especially from the Fort!

 

Wait Tinkerbell at MK is a dude?!? Love the light parade. The more you post of DL the more my husband wants to take a trip there. How long did it take you to drive again?

 

Oh, yeah, Tinkerbell is a dude at WDW.  He has been the subject of many a thread on this very site.

 

If  you think you can take it, try Googling "TinkerBill."  But make sure you're ready to see what you would be better of not seeing.

 

Our drive from the Tampa area of Florida to Anaheim took us three solid days of driving.  That was just two nights on the road, with us pulling into Anaheim in the early evening on the third day.  We took almost no breaks on the road- which would be hard to do with your crew.

 

I am not willing to admit the amount of times I've watched Paint the Night on YouTube.

 

I never watched any videos before I went.  I wanted to be surprised.  But, for those who might want to see it (and for me), please feel free to post a link to a good video of it.

 

Disturbing. And I'm sure you know of which picture I am referring.

 

Disturbing?

 

I thought you'd like those light up clamshells.

 

I'm in, Glad you made it back out to see the girls.

 

Thanks.  We knew we would get there.  They were so busy that they suggested we wait until October, so we did.

 

Okay so I just have to say, life's been a little crazy around here.  I've been overwhelmed and struggling.  In times like this (well really all the time) I need a whole lotta of Jesus and some TCD trip report!  WooHoo!  Thank goodness!!

 

It's great to see a post from you!  I'm sure you're busy as can be.  Hang in there!  These are your good old days!

 

TCD

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Disturbing?

 

I thought you'd like those light up clamshells.

 

 

You know I'm not referring to clamshells.  

 

The cease and desist order for the Germany sausage picture obviously needs to be extended to corn dogs.