TBpony414 Posted June 12, 2014 Posted June 12, 2014 "“Guess what? Free Tampons” (You don’t know how badly I wanted to use that as my TR title. LOL)" OMG LOL!!! Only girls get how important this kind of knowledge is, especially when traveling! I always take the little bottles of ketchup too. It's sort of become a running joke with my family when we go on trips. "I just went to (insert awesome place) and I brought you back this little bottle of ketchup as a souvenir!" Recently my mom brought me back a little jar of this super fancy jelly haha.
jenseib Posted June 12, 2014 Author Posted June 12, 2014 "“Guess what? Free Tampons” (You don’t know how badly I wanted to use that as my TR title. LOL)"OMG LOL!!! Only girls get how important this kind of knowledge is, especially when traveling! I always take the little bottles of ketchup too. It's sort of become a running joke with my family when we go on trips. "I just went to (insert awesome place) and I brought you back this little bottle of ketchup as a souvenir!" Recently my mom brought me back a little jar of this super fancy jelly haha. It has been such a running joke now with my co-workers. The funny thing is one girl is really obsessed with it and wants a list of places. She's one of those people who REALLY likes free stuff...I mean we all do, but she will walk a mile out of her way for free stuff! They had tiny jelly jars too but I never snagged any of those.
jenseib Posted June 13, 2014 Author Posted June 13, 2014 Moving along in our tour. I believe this area was being prepped for a party. I love these trees….remember, its February here!!! Some rooms had a little patio. It must’ve been a cooler day as I noticed I am wearing a sweatshirt. That’s our guide in black with her hair up. I thought she just radiated “classy”. She seemed like one of those people who would be in jeans and a t-shirt and still make it look good. Another pool! A few last pictures. As we came to an end of our tour we were each offered a tangerine drink, so I grabbed one. It was decent, but seemed to have an aftertaste to me. Cass then says to me “I thought you didn’t like tea?” and I told her I don’t. And she says “Well that’s tea you’re drinking”. UGH, it instantly tasted yucky after that. LOL. It was OK, but once she told me it was tea, I knew the funny off taste I tasted was the tea part of it and I couldn’t finish it. We had to wait a few minutes for the rest of the group to be done before we headed off to the next destination. In case you were wondering where the Annabella is located in terms of distance to the parks, I have circled it on this map. Once everyone was done with the tour we loaded back on the bus and headed to the Courtyard. In case you want to know where the courtyard is, I have circled it on this map. As you can see, this really is not that close in terms of walking to the parks. For me personally, I would not want to stay this far away. Construction was going on next door. I believe it was here, that while walking in, Cass whispered to me “So and so looks like she is wearing a diaper”. OK, how do you not totally crack up laughing at that? So I take a peek really quickly and reply “L’il bit”. Cass just totally cracked up at my reply. Of course through the rest of the trip she would say “l’il bit” whenever she had the chance. I guess I never realized it, but I say l’il bit quite a bit. HAH! The Lobby was very nice. As you may remember, I stayed at a Courtyard the night before my flight out to California and the lobby was very similar to this, though I never took pictures. Courtyards have been remodeling their hotels to this new look. Again, we had some waiting around before we got started, so I took pictures.
jenseib Posted June 14, 2014 Author Posted June 14, 2014 I noticed a few walked out to the pool area, so I did too. Back into the lobby to wait. I love this picture and I am actually thinking of making it bigger to put on my wall at my house. On to the room tours. After we toured a few rooms we headed back to the lobby to wait for the rest. I was talking and one of the head guys of the Courtyard asked me if I was from Michigan. I said, no, Ohio, and he said he was from Ohio too and he recognized my “accent”. I laughed, as I am told this often. I told him I never really think I have one, and one of the girls in our group said she had noticed I had a l’il bit of one too. Of course, I think she was from Texas, so I noticed hers as well. LOL. As we waited, I took a few more lobby pictures. Back on the bus we went to our next destination, The Hampton Inn and Suites. Again, I circled where this is located and it is further away. I personally would not want to stay this far from the parks. We all gathered around in the lobby. We had been making good time and were a bit early, but they soon got tour guides ready for us. We had some head lady as our guide. Let’s just say she needed some make up tips. I looked at her and I swear it was the scariest thing I ever saw. Way too much eye liner and lip liner. I thought it was just me, but Cass said the same thing and she said she saw others looking at her strangely too. Our first stop, the workout room. Business center. The patio. With pool behind it. I think we had to go down this hallway to get to the pool. The pool. This room is off the lobby, but closed off during the day. They have breakfast here. And cookies were brought out for us. YUM!
jenseib Posted June 14, 2014 Author Posted June 14, 2014 We then made our way to tour some rooms. We toured a lot of rooms here and most were pretty much the same. This one had a small closet sized area that had a small bed with a TV for kids. It was really kind of weird to me, but the lady sang its praises. The room number signs were cute. I believe this was a suite. This seemed to take forever here. It was a nice place, but just too far away for my tastes and I didn’t like how pushy the makeup lady was. The cookies were a highlight though! On again we went to the next stop, The Marriott Suites! Here it is on the map….way at the bottom. We all piled into the lobby. It was huge! This place really is nice, but again, not very close. This was in the lobby and really pretty. We had arrived at the Marriot VERY early and they were not ready for us at all. We did a lot of waiting around and I walked around and took pictures. Fruity water must be the big thing in this area. I am not sure if you can tell by the picture, but this had water running down the sides and the lights changed on it. The restaurant. I am not a patient person and I was getting antsy. We really did wait quite a while before they were ready for us, but eventually they did and they gave us each a little Marriott bag. I think it might have had a pad of paper in it too, but really it was too small of a bag to use at the grocery store. (It was like the ones you use to bag your own stuff, but a much smaller version) We headed up and again, we were in smaller groups, but not everyone can fit in one elevator, so I waited at the top. Nice view.
jenseib Posted June 16, 2014 Author Posted June 16, 2014 I think by now, many of us were getting tired and acting a little silly while we waited. Once everyone was on the right floor, we headed off to see some rooms. I was obsessed with these pictures over the bed. I just thought they were so pretty….and then I had a thought….I took similar pictures to these on my day at Venice Beach, so I decided I would see what I had and possibly make some for my home. And a few weeks ago I did just that. This first one is blurry, but you get the idea…(that picture above them is the bridge at Pop Century ..now leading to AoA…that I took several years ago.) And while I am on the topic of pictures, I also had this one made into canvas print as well. Back to more room pictures. This room had the pictures too, but just put up differently. I believe this is another hallway picture….probably while I was waiting for another elevator. As our tour was coming to an end we went by the arcade. And took a peek at the 2 work out rooms. And the arcade area once again…out that window you could see the pool. Some of us wanted to see the pool; we could either go down the stairs or take an elevator down. By this time most of us were feeling done for the day. But we still had one more place to go. I think when they make the schedule for these things they estimate how long people can handle it and then add an hour. LOL! So the next stop is the Sheraton Anaheim. I have it circled on the map, up towards the top. As you can see, this one is fairly close, but still borderline walkable. We had a few minutes to wait so we explored the area and used the restrooms. They also had drinks and snacks waiting for us as well. I just never took a picture… We started our tour and I believe our guide was the manager. This guy was telling us all about the hotel and it was very nice, but there were some drawbacks for me, and Cass agreed too. They charge for wifi….and not just a flat rate, it’s per device…and I think it was like $9 or 10 per device per day. That just seemed outrageous to me and it would be a reason for me not to stay. They also had a parking fee, but most off site hotels in this are do, so that wasn’t a shocker.
cfc Posted June 16, 2014 Posted June 16, 2014 I remember being intrigued by the Sheraton Anaheim when I was a kid because it looked like a castle.
WFChris Posted June 16, 2014 Posted June 16, 2014 When I do a weekend at the parks, I stay at the Rodeway. It's about a 20 minute walk to the parks, and to get back, you can use the Mickey & Friends Tram, walk through the parking garage on the 2nd floor, and leave through the employee entrance. Unfortunately, this won't work going TO the parks, just coming FROM them. At around $45 a night mid-week it's hard to beat! It's NOTHING fancy...at all...but the only time we spend there is sleeping so it hardly matters.
jenseib Posted June 16, 2014 Author Posted June 16, 2014 I remember being intrigued by the Sheraton Anaheim when I was a kid because it looked like a castle. thats funny because as an adult...I still am attracted to things that look like castles too.
jenseib Posted June 16, 2014 Author Posted June 16, 2014 When I do a weekend at the parks, I stay at the Rodeway. It's about a 20 minute walk to the parks, and to get back, you can use the Mickey & Friends Tram, walk through the parking garage on the 2nd floor, and leave through the employee entrance. Unfortunately, this won't work going TO the parks, just coming FROM them. At around $45 a night mid-week it's hard to beat! It's NOTHING fancy...at all...but the only time we spend there is sleeping so it hardly matters. That sounds like a good deal!!! I think if I went more often (you know more than just once in my lifetime so far. LOL), I would be more open to staying further away, but I am still getting my feet wet there.
jenseib Posted June 16, 2014 Author Posted June 16, 2014 Most of the areas he took us around to were outside areas. It really is a beautiful hotel. We finally did see a room and WOW….these are huge. I want to say that most of the rooms here are not this big, but these were the only ones we were shown, but I might be wrong. Of course I have to check out the bathroom. We then headed back to the lobby area to wait for the rest of the groups. There was a quick service type food place and a gift shop area as well. And then we were done! We all loaded back onto the bus and headed back to the GC and we got instructions for the next morning and were let free to do as we wished after that. Cass and I went back to the room and freshened up and I think she called home…I probably did too. I know at one point she was talking to her daughter via skype and I walked by and I put my fat head in front of the screen and said hi and waved and she was so darn cute and waved back to me all excitedly….just like we have known each other for years. It was so cute. I think we also then made a dining reservation for tonight. Did not want to chance it this time! We selected Steakhouse 55 and I think we made it for around 8:30, but I could be off on time…it might have been 8. Tonight we were heading off to California Adventure as they gave us a couple of FP’s for there, and of course, they were to be used in the 5-6 PM hours. We headed towards Carsland because Cass had heard they have a lighting ceremony each night and we wanted to find out what time it was. We found a CM and asked and he looked on his schedule and we were given a time. We also ran into this party going on. We had a FP for California Screamin, so I believe we headed that way next. But first we decided to watch the racers a bit.
simon8899 Posted June 16, 2014 Posted June 16, 2014 Looks like you had a great time. Cannot wait for next year to vacation again in the US - only minus what in the US is called "breakfast"...
jenseib Posted June 18, 2014 Author Posted June 18, 2014 Looks like you had a great time. Cannot wait for next year to vacation again in the US - only minus what in the US is called "breakfast"... LOL, I guess you don't like what we eat? Thats OK, I probably don't like stuff in other countries too. It's all how we grow up. I need to get busy on this as I have another TR to write from March and 2 more small trips this year yet as well.
jenseib Posted June 18, 2014 Author Posted June 18, 2014 California Screamin was down and they told us our FP would be good if it started running again tonight, but the way they said it made it sound like it may be down for the night. We never did go back and check. We had a second FP and for the life of me, I can’t remember what it was for or if we even used it….maybe I’ll remember later…. We kept moving on. Me~ Hey! I bet this is where Toy Story Characters meet. Cass~ Yes and you took a picture of Buzz there the other day! Oh yeah!!!!! Snack time! I got the jalapeno and cheese filled pretzel and it was VERY good. I actually thought it would be spicier than it was, so I was pleasantly surprised and it filled me us just nicely. I think Cass ran off to find a corn dog. We were now working our way back towards Carsland, as I think we were getting close to the lighting ceremony time. But wait…a parade is coming through! I took a few pictures as we walked. If you haven’t guessed…..this is a Pixar parade. We actually did stop for a little bit and watch it go by and so it would be easier for me to take a few pictures. I think I would get dizzy swinging around on that bar after a while. We then cut through near Flo’s. This is part of the outdoor eating area…isn’t it so cute? So we’re walking and talking…we still have a few minutes yet. We decide to walk back a little further to get better pictures of the whole thing and all of a sudden I see Flo’s lights turn on. I quickly turn around and sure enough, Radiator Springs just lit up as well. No music, no announcement…..no fanfare whats so ever. What a bummer. We then cut through a Bug’s Land. I took some really quick pictures on the go. Sadly I didn’t get back here again and do not have too many pictures of this area at all. I like this picture of ToT rising out of Bug’s Land.
jenseib Posted June 20, 2014 Author Posted June 20, 2014 Continuing my walk through Bugs! Love the “lightening” bugs. Do you really want to use a restroom in an area infested with bugs???? Doesn’t a giant band aid just give you the heevy jeevies? On to our next destination. Monsters U! I took a few pictures of the Tea Party area. And then we headed to Monsters Inc. …. Ok, I thought this was just like the Laugh Floor at WDW and was surprised when Cass told me it was a ride! How have I not heard of this before? I guess I probably have and it just didn’t stick in my brain. The indoor queue here was really themed well. I have a confession to make! I have never seen all of Mosters Inc. I have seen Monsters U though. I have seen Monster’s Inc. on TV, but just never sat through the whole thing….really only watching bits and pieces of it…..but I do have a good idea of what it is about, but I guess I better actually watch the whole thing someday. While in line, Cass filled me in on some of the story, and with the small bit of knowledge I have from watching pieces, I could understand a bit more of it now. The line moved quickly and it didn’t take too long before we were ready to load in our car. I took several pictures while on the ride, but many turned out super blurry. Here are the ones that were somewhat decent.
WFChris Posted June 20, 2014 Posted June 20, 2014 The 'giant band-aid' is actually a garden hose watering nozzle. But yeah it does look kind of band-aid-y.
jenseib Posted June 21, 2014 Author Posted June 21, 2014 The 'giant band-aid' is actually a garden hose watering nozzle. But yeah it does look kind of band-aid-y. Wow!!! I had no idea! how cool is that!
jenseib Posted June 21, 2014 Author Posted June 21, 2014 As the ride ended, we were stopped right before the unloading area and I snapped this picture. She then looked at me and something along the lines of “I forgot to smile”. And I laughed, I wasn’t sure if it was coincidence or if it was really interacting with us. She then started making comments about other people in the car, so definitely interactive, which was pretty cool. Back into the night we went, and I took more pictures as we walked. One thing that was weird, was it got dark early. Now in Feb, yes it does get dark early, but it really seemed weird to me that it got dark early in such nice weather. Most of the time when we go to Florida, it’s right around the time change…and I guess a few weeks makes a difference too. Off we headed to Carsland once again. We decided to check out the single rider line for Radiator springs as we wanted to ride it in the dark. It was longer than we had hoped it would be, but we decided we would chance it. We seemed to be at a standstill for quite some time and now our ADR time was fast approaching. We decided to see if we could change it, well I tried on my phone and it was taking forever to work and it wouldn’t let me move it that way. I tried googling the direct number, but couldn’t find that. I think I called dining as well, and they couldn’t help me either. We just decided that we would show up late and hope for the best. We inched our way along. We finally got into a line up for our cars. There goes Cass! Now I should’ve been in the car in front of her, but for some reason they didn’t let anyone in that car, so I guess there must’ve been something wrong with it, but I did get in the next set. And off I go! At one point you go in one direction or the other on the ride. I had always gone into the paint room and thought that was what was in the other room too. This was the only time I went the other direction and lo and behold…it was different. It was a tire changing room. I was excited to see it…and didn’t take any pictures. LOL I got off the ride and did a super-fast walk out the exit. I didn’t even stop to look at my photo. Cass was waiting for me and wondered where I have been since she thought I was in the car in front of her. I told her for some reason we weren’t allowed on it so I had to wait. And then we did the fast walk. A SUPER Fast Walk. It was our ADR time now, so we were officially late. We walked so fast that our legs were killing us. At times Cass was in the lead and then I would take over the lead for a bit, but neither of us were ever too far behind the other. I have no idea when, but at some point I took this picture. It was like we were in a race and our life depended on fast walking. I was surprised but instead of my thighs burning, my calves were. I put every drop of energy I had in that walk! As we approached DLH I started to slow down, I just couldn’t go as fast anymore. Cass passed me and asked if she should slow down…..and I was like “NO…go on…..get there….I’ll make it….win it for me!!! “ LOL! She arrived before me, but I wasn’t too far behind and we checked in and had no issues. I think we were about 15-20 minutes late? I don’t remember now for sure, but they didn’t seem to care, which was good. And it wasn’t long at all and we were seated. It seems like there was a special menu we could order off of too this night, though I could be wrong. I am pretty sure there was though and we got a prix fixe meal. We started out with bread! Cass had ordered soup and we just busted out laughing when we saw how big the bowl was. So we took a goofy picture. I got the Shrimp Cocktail. And we both got the steak, but I can’t remember which kind it was???? Perhaps Filet Mignon. The potato casserole with it was heavenly!!!! We both wished the helping was bigger. I believe we had a couple of dessert choices and I was just so full that I really didn’t want one, but it came with the meal so I ordered the same that Cass had, which I think was described as a mousse cake. I am not a big fan of chocolate cake normally, but I usually like Disney’s and I figured if it had some sort of mousse filling with it, it would be ok to nibble on. This is what we got. It was basically a chocolate shell filled with mousse. This made me happy and yes I ate the whole darn thing, however, this is not what Cass thought it would be (nor I for that matter) and she wasn’t too thrilled with it. This meal was darn good! I am so glad we went here. It was expensive, but with the prix fixe meal we got, it wasn’t too bad for what we got…..and we had vouchers, so those covered our meals. We rolled ourselves out and wobbled back towards the GC once again. Of course I took pictures along the way. The long way to our room I believe we did go to DTD for a little bit and shopped at World of Disney. I know at some point Cass bought the same sweatshirt that I had bought, but not sure if this was the night or not. We did finally go to sleep, but of course we laughed and talked first. It was like one big slumber party this week, but we did eventually go to sleep.
jenseib Posted June 22, 2014 Author Posted June 22, 2014 Friday, Feb. 28, 2014 This was our last full day. We were going to have breakfast together this morning as a group at Goofy’s kitchen and then some meetings and an official graduation. This was going to be held at the DLH today. One thing I did not tell you was that we had been watching the weather forecast all week long. Sunny California had actual rain predicted for today. Now Cass loves rain, and was hoping it would. She also hoped it would make the parks less busy. I prefer it to not rain on the other hand. I just hate being wet, and I really hate wet shoes. Knowing that rain was in the forecast, I did bring a WDW rain poncho along with me though. We woke up bright and early and it looked like rain. I went outside and it was doing the on and off rain at that point in time. I called Skip and he wondered if I would be stuck in CA as they were expecting more snow at home on Sat. as well. I would not have been disappointed if I was stuck another day in CA, but the thing was, I had a connecting flight in Nashville and that is most likely where I would end up getting stuck if it came down to it. Stacy also texted me and told me that if my flight was canceled due to the rain storms, I could stay with them till I could get home. I must say, I really liked this idea. I did ask her if flights would cancel because of rain and she said in CA they sometimes due as they can’t handle the rain and it floods. Ok, here’s hoping! Cass and I both did a little extra primping today since it was our last day and in the hopes of getting our picture taken with Mickey later on. Cass said there was no way she was walking to DLH in a dress and strappy shoes in this rain, so we were getting a taxi, which sounded fine by me as well! Once we were ready we headed down to the lobby to catch a cab and we saw another girl who was at our conference and we told her to join us and she did. The 3 of us got in a cab (van I believe) and stated where we wanted to go and laughed. It was probably the shortest drive this guy has ever made, but oh well, we didn’t want to get soaked. Within a few minutes we were at the Disneyland Hotel. We gathered around Goofy’s and waited for everyone. Pluto was out taking pictures. He wasn’t there very long and then Baloo took his place. Before we were seated we decided we would take a group picture. I don’t know what happened for sure, but people went up and then I think some girls wanted their own because they had bought photopass. It ended up that only 4 of us were in our picture. I blurred out their faces though. And then we headed to our seats. The had a few tables for us by the windows, but they had it set up poorly and wanted so many of us to sit at one table and there was just no way. Some people grabbed another table and there was a little bit of fussing, but finally they let them sit there. This place is a buffet, you have to be able to get in and out and it was really stupid on their part to stuff us at just a few tables. Characters came around pretty fast! Evidently Cass must’ve said something pretty darn funny. I made a trip up to the buffet and got a few things. My buddy Pluto was next. Again!!! Cass must be cracking jokes or something. And while Cass was at the buffet, Chip came around and another girl was nice enough to take my picture. She obviously wasn’t cracking jokes! I made a couple of trips up to the buffet. At one point it just started pouring rain outside. UGH. The really hard stuff too! We never had all the characters come back to our room, though I have heard this is typical at Goofy’s. I know the Mad Hatter and Goofy himself were in other areas, but we never did see them in our area. We left and luckily it wasn’t raining much as we went outside to the next building we were heading to, The Frontier Tower I believe! I didn’t know it before, but there is a conference room in this tower as well. But that wasn’t where we were going first.
jenseib Posted June 24, 2014 Author Posted June 24, 2014 Out the back door was the DVC building and a model room for Aulani and we were going to tour that next. Since we had a big group, half went over first and as they came out the rest of us trickled over. I sure wish I had that view right now! Awwww! These rooms didn’t totally wow me, but I am sure I would have no complaints if I got to stay there either. As we came out of the model room……you guessed it, it was POURING!!!! Ugh. Really hard once again. Cass took a video of it too. I pulled out my rain poncho and put it on. There was no way I was walking through this crap without it. And I wanted to protect my camera as well. We ran when the rain slightly let up, but even with a poncho, I was still very wet and looked like a drowned rat…and I HATE wet shoes! We settled into the conference room in the Frontier Tower and the last meeting began. I was really hoping this would be a fun meeting, but I was dead wrong. It was really long and boring. I think the lack of sleep was now catching up to me and I was doing all I could to stay awake. They then had a drawing and were pulling business cards out of a bowl to win a few things. Cass goes…that looks like your card…and sure enough it was me. I never win anything. I won a 2 night stay at a Best Western in San Diego. The sad thing is ..it is only good for a year and I won’t be back in time, so I have offered this to Stacy so her and Mark can have a weekend getaway sometime. We were then given our certificates for attending the conference. I was disappointed as traditionally Mickey gives those out. Finally we had a break and I stood up and stretched. I went outside and was talking to the one guy and then we came back in and I was going to use the restroom, but they flagged us in the conference room and told us to hurry back for the surprise. OK, it HAS to be Mickey! And it was. Woohoo!!! Many people were leaving today and in fact some had left already to catch the Disneyland Express while the meeting was still going on….this made me really happy that we chose to stay an extra night….and then one came back and told everyone who had flights in the next few hours that they better go wait for the shuttle as it was an hour behind already. OMG! This should NEVER happen. I don’t know if anyone missed their flights or not, but this would’ve put me in a panic! Some still had time though and we let those who needed to hurry to go and get their pictures with Mickey first. Cass and I waited till the line died down a bit and then got our pictures taken. After we all visited Mickey it was time for him to go. We finally wrapped up everything and were allowed to leave. The majority of the people at the conference were flying home today. Cass and I were so happy that we had decided to stay one more night. We walked back to the GC and got changed and headed off to Disneyland. I decided to just take my point and shoot so I wouldn’t get my nice camera ruined in the rain today. Yep, it was still raining off and on and I had my poncho on, which wasn’t perfect, but did help. This is definitely duck weather.
TBpony414 Posted June 24, 2014 Posted June 24, 2014 I LOVE your red dress in the Mickey graduation picture!! Rain sucks and there is nothing on the planet I hate more than wet shoes so I'm with you there. However, it definitely scares away the crowds so I bet you hopped on everything at DL in no time.
WFChris Posted June 24, 2014 Posted June 24, 2014 ^In my experience, I don't really notice rain affecting crowd levels at Disneyland. Other parks, yes, but I have seen some crazy crowds there on rainy days.
bert425 Posted June 25, 2014 Posted June 25, 2014 this was a work conference? I'm wondering why tour all the hotel rooms (I must have missed it in your report). . tho it sounds like fun regardless. I'm thinking you might be a Travel Agent?
jenseib Posted June 25, 2014 Author Posted June 25, 2014 I LOVE your red dress in the Mickey graduation picture!! Rain sucks and there is nothing on the planet I hate more than wet shoes so I'm with you there. However, it definitely scares away the crowds so I bet you hopped on everything at DL in no time. It was only slightly less busy, I don't think people cared. LOL
jenseib Posted June 25, 2014 Author Posted June 25, 2014 ^In my experience, I don't really notice rain affecting crowd levels at Disneyland. Other parks, yes, but I have seen some crazy crowds there on rainy days. You are correct! It really didn't seem that much less crowded to me either.
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