13 months of Michigander Disneylander AP fun--Update 8/22: Prepping for my husband's 1st day @ DLR!

GlitteryOtters

Michigander Disneylander
Joined
Aug 3, 2015
I've been meaning to do trip reports for a while (have even written notes on each of my last several Disneyland trips!), but just never got around to writing them out. I've decided that will change this time, though. I have a 13 month AP I will be activating in August and I want to keep a full record of my upcoming year+ of Disneyland trips, including a few milestone trips, like my 40th birthday, my husband's first ever Disney trip, my best friend's first ever Disney trip, my first Christmastime trip since the 80s, etc. As I love reading the trip reports on this board, I thought "what better place to record my PTRs and TRs?"

First of all, the cast of the trips will vary each time, so I'll detail the specifics when writing PTRs for each trip, but there is one person who will be on all the trips, so here she is:




This is me...Meg AKA GlitteryOtters here and around the Internet. I'm 39, turning 40 on my next Disneyland trip. I'm a Californian who moved to Michigan 18 years ago. I grew up going to Disneyland a few times each year as a kid. I love dogs, reading, writing fiction, gardening, ice hockey, cooking vegan food, travel, walking, photography, pretty much anything from the 1920s & 30s (especially films!) and, of course, Disneyland.

Disney details: Favorite ride is Mr Toad's Wild Ride, but I also adore Indiana Jones Adventure, Pirates, Haunted Mansion (and the holiday overlay!), RSR, Luigi's Rollickin Roadsters, Little Mermaid, and Heimlich's Chew Chew Train. Alice, Small World, and Disneyland Railroad also rank pretty highly on my list of favorites. Ariel is my favorite princess. I live for Dole Whip (and Dole Whip Floats). Halloween is my favorite holiday, and I hit the park each of the past two Octobers, but am skipping it this year in favor of a longer Christmastime trip. Favorite bits of personal Disneyland trivia: my family used to own some of the orange groves which Walt bought to make up the Disneyland parking lot (now DCA), and I have somehow, strangely, never managed to see the Main Street Electrical Parade despite visiting the park on and off since 1981 (including several years where I lived a mile away in the mid 1980s). I thought I was going to remedy that this year when I booked my August trip...only to have the announcement go out that the parade was going to close the day before we had planned to arrive. Oh well!

Relevant info which may make these trip reports helpful to some: I am vegan, am also on a low sodium diet (which I mostly try to follow when I travel; exceptions being the occasional Blue Bayou visit & the vegetarian (AKA vegan) gumbo at Royal Street Veranda). The low sodium diet is due to advanced heart failure (congenital heart problems, which have worsened to the point where I cannot work and need a heart tranplant. Will probably be on the list by the end of this 13 month trip report). I am also disabled, although not visibly so (meaning I am one of those lucky folk who gets snapped at once or twice per trip for walking too slowly--always fun!) and am pretty good at managing to balance my inner child's desire to ride alllll the rides and do allll the things with my body's needs for enough rest and down time. I hope my experiences recorded here may be of help for those who are curious about the personal experiences of how a vegan navigates the park, how I hit the parks while on a special diet and/or how a relatively mobile, but still disabled person with heat tolerance issues & stamina issues handles trips to the park. I am happy to answer any/all questions about any of these issues, too, so if you have similar issues, or are traveling with someone who does and want to pick my brain, feel free to ask away.

Here are my upcoming planned trips during this 13 month Annual Pass:

August 21st--28th, 2017: my 40th birthday trip & my husband's 1st Disney trip. I am flying into LAX for this trip, but we are driving back to Michigan together (assuming my husband gets the car's air conditioning repaired in time!)

December 2--14th, 2017: mother/daughter trip with my mom, my 1st Christmastime trip since the mid 1980s, her 1st ever Christmastime trip, her 1st trip to DCA and her 1st ever multi-day trip!

Spring Dapper Day 2018 (exact dates not yet set): Dapper Day with my fellow dapper loving best friend, plus her 1st ever Disney trip. Most likely will also be staying at the Grand Californian for a couple of days, as I've never stayed there & we are both enchanted with the hotel.

Other upcoming trips, not yet planned: possibly a short trip in June 2018 after the grad nights are over & hopefully September 2018 (before the AP expires). Possibly more, depending on health, money and airfare specials on Southwest/hotel deals. Fingers crossed. Will edit this post to add info if/when 2018 trips are booked.

I hope to get a detailed PTR for the August trip up soon, but as we are in the midst of preparing for a visit from my mom and are in the middle of a kitchen remodel (we have most items purchased, start demolition after my mom leaves to return home to Sacramento), I can't make any exact guarantees on the timing! Why I thought it was smart to start a kitchen remodel the same month as a Disneyland trip is beyond me. I think I must like a challenge too much. Or possibly I am just plain crazy.

~Meg
 
Howdy Meg!

Yay for jumping on board with a TR! Weird about never seeing the Electrical Parade, but stuff like that happens.

Kudos for not letting your disability get in the way of your fun. It can be hard enough to pace yourself under normal circumstances, you have to really pay attention to what your body is saying. Do you ever do an ECV? My wife has to when we go to WDW because the heat/humidity causes her calves/ankles to swell, making it so she can’t walk other than short distances.

We are fans of the parks at Halloween-time but also decided to choose the Christmas timeframe for our trip. Our last day down there is your first! Some other great trip timeframes, good luck in the heat of August!

And one day my DW and I will make a Dapper Day, I have an old school 3 piece and bowler hat the I want to sport down there :dancer:

Looking forward to seeing that PTR for the August trip! :goodvibes
 
Following along as I think i've seen you on the August thread (we've coming a week after you). So great that you have multiple trips planned (guess that's why you get an AP..duh) and for a miletstone birthday and mother daughter time.

Am so sorry to hear about your heart issues. Must be scary for you. Disney has something for everyone (I have to avoid many thrill rides myself due to eye issues) but it sure won't stop the fun.

For helping with the heat...not sure how well they help, but I've picked up some of those cooling towels (one for each of us). Am hoping it'll help keep us cooler like they claim.

Looking forward to hearing about your trip.
 


Thanks for the replies! Sorry I didn't get back on the boards sooner, the past several days has been crazy busy between housecleaning for our out of town visitor and doing all of the work getting our kitchen ready to be redone. I, sadly, had to cut down on my fun time for a little bit while I did the "adulting" thing for a week. Will be worth it in the long run!


Do you ever do an ECV? My wife has to when we go to WDW because the heat/humidity causes her calves/ankles to swell, making it so she can’t walk other than short distances.

Howdy back! I wish I could do an ECV, but I cannot. The main reason is that my blood pressure likes to randomly dip for several seconds and I cannot see for a couple of seconds, so I cannot drive, ride bikes, use ECVs, basically anything where I could be a danger to others because I'm going at speed while temporarily blind. Additionally, I have some secondary visual problems which mean I am lacking depth perception and have a harder time interpreting the visual clutter at a busy place like Disneyland--can't tell where/how the openings in the crowd are to navigate around very well. I can do it OK on foot, but going any faster than 2-3 miles per hour means I am going too fast to interpret what I am seeing, so i would definitely rather go at a speed I can navigate at.


Your wife has my sympathies...I have never gone to WDW for those very reasons--it is just too much Park for this body to handle. Maybe if/when I get a heart transplant, we can try tackling WDW. I can barely handle the (much easier to deal with) Michigan heat/humidity, I can't even imagine how I'd do in Florida. Maybe someday, though. I grew up wanting to see EPCOT, would be awesome to get out there someday.

We are fans of the parks at Halloween-time but also decided to choose the Christmas timeframe for our trip. Our last day down there is your first! Some other great trip timeframes, good luck in the heat of August!

And one day my DW and I will make a Dapper Day, I have an old school 3 piece and bowler hat the I want to sport down there :dancer:

Looking forward to seeing that PTR for the August trip! :goodvibes

I think we will alll have a fantastic time at Disneyland this Christmastime! I am so excited about your trip, it sounds like a blast. Cannot wait to hear how the pub crawl goes & cannot wait to hear how you enjoy the trip. And, yes, our August plans involve a lot of time spent at the parks early/late and with many breaks. Hopefully that will help. Also, I have all of the good air conditioned locations in and near the park memorized and plan to take full advantage of the a/c.

Having seen your pics from your previous trips, and having seen how well you guys theme your clothes/costumes, I bet you would ROCK Dapper Day! I'd love to see you guys in your dapper attire! My previous Dapper Day trip was truly enjoyable, I would definitely recommend it.


That all sounds like trip planning heaven! Can't wait to read about your adventures. :surfweb:popcorn::

Thank you! Yes, I loooooove trip planning, but especially when I get to share a beloved place with a loved one for the first time. I haven't done that in a few years, I am definitely looking forward to it!


Following along as I think i've seen you on the August thread (we've coming a week after you). So great that you have multiple trips planned (guess that's why you get an AP..duh) and for a miletstone birthday and mother daughter time.


Yup, that August thread is awesome! I am loving reading all of the countdowns to peoples' trips! Yeah, this is only my 2nd AP and will be the last for a while (earliest I anticipate being able to do that again would be a couple years after the heart transplant surgery--money will be verrry tight after the surgery, especially in the first few years with extra meds and more doctors visits & more frequent heart biopsies, etc.).

Am so sorry to hear about your heart issues. Must be scary for you. Disney has something for everyone (I have to avoid many thrill rides myself due to eye issues) but it sure won't stop the fun.

For helping with the heat...not sure how well they help, but I've picked up some of those cooling towels (one for each of us). Am hoping it'll help keep us cooler like they claim.

Looking forward to hearing about your trip.

Thank you, and I'm sorry to hear about your eye issues. My mom has some eye issues that restrict her, too, has been dealing with them for 20+ years, and one of the things we love most about Disneyland is that there are always tons of fun things there she can do, even with her restrictions.

I tried the cooling towels, but they didn't seem to do much for me. Not sure if it is a heart failure thing (can't remember the specifics, but people with heart failure don't cool off the same way as other people, so maybe that's it?), or if I was just doing not wrong (it was given to me by a friend after she used it on a trip). I am planning on lots of detours into air conditioning, taking a lot of frozen drink/dole whip/etc., breaks and I am also planning on focusing on hitting the park early/late with breaks during the heat of the day.

I hope to get the next portion of the PTR up within the next couple of days! Now I'm off to watch Cars with my mom (she's never seen it, I told her that watching it was her homework before we go to Cars Land!)


~Meg
 
Oh yes, I can see why and ECV wouldn't work out for you. May the heart transplant come your way soon so you can make your way to WDW. You would love EPCOT, it is a more leisurely-paced park - especially World Showcase. Plus Avatar Land!

Yeah, I'm watching that ticker slowly count down to our trip! Good call knowing all the spots with AC around the park, that will certainly help. Yup, DW and I will tackle Dapper Day one day in the future!
 
Which AP to get? AKA Why I'm leaning towards upgrading from Deluxe to Signature...plus, thoughts on MaxPass

Before I get into the specifics of my August trip, I wanted to address the annual pass options and talk about which pass I will ultimately end up with.

In February, when I purchased my AP voucher, my Disneyland plans were pretty simple: a week at DLR in late August 2017 with my husband & nearly two weeks at the beginning of December 2017, half of the time spent with my mother, half solo. There were no block out dates for the Deluxe AP (lowest pass I am eligible for) on any of the dates I was going to be in town, and as our dining and souvenir purchases were going to be minimal, I purchased the Deluxe pass voucher.

And then...plans changed. My best friend wanted to go to the Spring 2018 Dapper Day and spend the weekend at the parks & taking advantage of discount pricing at on-site hotels. The dates we wanted to be on-site (and, therefore, taking advantage of Early Morning Hours offered to on-site guests) included a Deluxe pass blackout day, the Saturday before Dapper Day (AKA, the day I would most want the EMH option so I could knock out a bunch of my favorite Fantasyland rides before the park got too busy).

I thought about purchasing a single day ticket through the Dapper Day discounted tickets offerings. Unfortunately, when I viewed the prices for the upcoming Fall Dapper Day for a single day ticket, I found that they were either not discounted, or were so lightly discounted that the single day park ticket for a Saturday cost over $150! Yikes! :eek: The price difference between what I paid for my annual pass ($599, before they raised the Deluxe prices) & the current price of a Signature pass (which is NOT blocked out on the Saturday before Spring Dapper Day) is $250. So, for just under $100 more than the cost of my Deluxe pass plus the one day ticket for during Dapper Day weekend, I could have access to more potential park days, get a better discount on dining & merchandise AND I would have free parking. Since we will definitely have a car for the first trip, I started to consider upgrading my pass.

Then, my husband & I started talking about doing something fun for my birthday dinner during my first trip. Originally we had thought about getting pizza at Vegan Pizza in Garden Grove (my favorite pizza place on the planet--plus their vegan corn dogs are to die for!), but that didn't seem fancy enough for a big milestone birthday.


A short side note: I've had my heart problem since birth, but the cardiac imaging technology wasn't good enough to diagnose it until I was 29. When I was diagnosed, I was told that I had 5 years to live, maybe 10 if I was lucky, but I probably wouldn't hit my 40th birthday. Thus, my 40th birthday became this REALLY big goal, I aimed to prove the original doctors wrong and have a spectacular 40th birthday...thus the idea of the Disney birthday trip was born. And, while my husband & I adore pizza, it didn't seem like a fancy enough celebration for this doubly important milestone birthday.


When Disneyland announced the Fantasmic dining packages, I knew the Blue Bayou package would be the perfect way to celebrate this birthday (the vegan option there is decent and I LOVE the ambiance!), so I snagged us a package on my actual birthday. When I told my mom about the package, she expressed interest in booking it, too, during our December trip. It turns out that she always wanted to eat at the Blue Bayou, and she had always wanted to see Fantasmic, but had thought it wouldn't be possible because she thought the only options were to get a Fastpass & to stand before and during the show. When I told her about the Blue Bayou package, and how they let you sit on the ground, she was sold on that option. Suddenly, with two sets of Fantasmic dining packages being planned, the higher dining discount started to look pretty good!

When I looked over my planned travel plus my current hotel rewards & my frequent flyer miles, I realized I would be able to get free one way airfare and at least a short trip of free hotel stays after my August 2017, December 2017 & April 2018 travel, so I started considering a solo budget trip in late June, after the grad night parties are done & during the odd half week when the Southern California passes are blocked out. Several people had mentioned how decent the crowds had been during that timeframe, surprisingly low for summertime, so I thought this might be a good time for a quick solo trip. Of course, the Saturday I would be in town for this potential June trip would be blocked out on the Deluxe Pass, but would be available on the Signature pass, making that pass, once again, seem like the better option for my planned trips.


So I looked over my finances, looked at my extra travel savings I had set aside from a combination of not going out to other entertainments this year (I am skipping concerts/movies/most eating out & most book/movie/music purchases), from $ shaved off of our food budget by making more cheap meals & from funds I had earned from doing tasks & surveys on Swagbucks. I realized that, as long as there is no price increase on the Signature APs and/or the AP annual MaxPass before I get to Anaheim on 8/21, it looks like I have enough to upgrade my pass to the Signature pass AND add the $75 AP MaxPass to my pass!


I really missed getting to go to our favorite annual film festival this spring & I missed getting to eat out, and I really missed buying more books (I cut my book/movie/music budget by 3/4 to help with travel costs!), but when I look at what the skimping on extras is buying me (i.e., a better Disney experience & more days in the parks), it is worth it!


This AP upgrade slightly alters our August trip plans for the better...originally we had planned to walk to the parks each morning, walk back to the hotels for a midday break on most days (except my birthday, August 25), then walk back to the parks in the early evening to spend a little more time in the parks at night.

Our hotel is close-ish, but since they took away our usual shortcut to the parks via the Grand Californian AND they started requiring that we walk further out of the way to go through security before entering Downtown Disney, this would mean a minimum of 4 miles of walking outside the parks, round trip, on days we take a midday break. With my free parking on the Signature pass, our plans on mornings we hit rope drop are to walk to the park, walk back to the hotel for the midday break, but to potentially drive our car and use the free parking and tram/Toy Story lot bus to get us to the parks in the evening, cutting an extra 2 miles off of our commute.

To MaxPass or Not To MaxPass

This decision was a simple one for me...as a semi disabled person with stamina issues who is fairly proficient on using her smartphone & loves the Disneyland app, the thought of being able to grab FastPasses remotely via my phone sounds fantastic. Sure, if I had the walking ability I had 3 years ago, I wouldn't see the need for me, personally, to have the digital FastPass portion of the MaxPass and would mostly be considering it for the free PhotoPass portion of the pass, but i have slowed down a lot with the heart failure. If I could pay $75 this year to save at least an extra mile or two of walking each day (my estimate of how much extra walking I do as a FastPass runner on my solo trips versus group trips when I can send someone else to get them for me!), it is worth it.

Yes, I know about DAS, but my experience with them is that they said I should just use an ECV, which isn't an option (I don't drive any motorized vehicles or bicycles due to an orthostatic blood pressure problem I have where my blood pressure randomly dips with no warning & I lose my vision for a couple of seconds), so I try to make do in the able bodied world of Disneyland, and I just look for opportunities to take shortcuts which will make things easier for me. :cool1:

Next update, coming soon: planning specifics about our August 21--28 trip, including how we are getting to/from Anaheim (spoiler: there will be some cross country driving!), hotel choice, etc.!
 


:flower1: Quick update...less than a week to go...! We have transportation uncertainty & a random great deal on the Disneyland Hotel! :flower1:


A quick update for now...I hope to post a longer one soon, with more details on the upcoming trip, but I just spent the past few hours doing demolition work on an old 1980s kitchen which had been poorly installed into a 1940s home and I don't have the stamina for that at this moment. Hopefully I will be able to do a full post either tomorrow or on Thursday!

I kept postponing writing an update because I told myself I wanted to wait until my husband was done with all of his work on the car before I updated, but it is Tuesday night right now & he leaves for the cross country drive on Friday morning and he still hasn't finished all of his work. He is a really talented amateur mechanic who was taught a lot by his master mechanic uncle, and he is getting some stuff done at the local shop which he cannot do himself (like alignment work) or which it is worth paying someone to do due to the time crunch, but I am getting a little nervous given that his portion of the trip starts in less around 60 hours! :sad2:


This means I know how I am getting to Disneyland (flying, as I had unused travel vouchers with Southwest that needed to be used), and I know how he is getting there (driving), but I am not sure whether I am driving home with him or flying back. Basically, if the car's air conditioning is fully repaired and he can finish up all of the work he and/or the garage needs to do to get the car fully functional, driving smoothly enough to avoid carsickness & with appropriately working air conditioning, I am canceling my return airfare & am driving back with him. If not, I am keeping the ticket and am flying. It sounds like it will probably be in good shape by Friday, but I am just a little nervous because his original plan was to have all car repair and maintenance work done by this past Sunday, and he isn't quite done yet. So, yeah, more on transportation in a day or two when I know for sure.

In the meantime, exciting opportunities have popped up since my last post! We have actually decided to scrap the Fantasmic! dining package in favor of staying a night at the Disneyland Hotel. We will still see Fantasmic! with a FastPass, but our budgets don't allow for both a short stay at the Disneyland Hotel & the dining package.


I lucked out and, for only the second time ever, was e-mailed one of the special PIN code deals for a 40% off deal at one of the on site hotels. I checked my birthday night (Friday, the 25th) and found it was obscenely expensive and NOT an option, but when I checked the day before my birthday, I found an incredibly good deal. Including the fees & taxes we are paying $277 (cheaper than even the Dapper Day rates I was looking at!) for a splurge day at the hotel on Thursday night/Friday morning.


Per suggestions on the DIS Boards, we plan to check in super early on Thursday, drop off our bags with bell services, and take advantage of the early check in to use the Extra Magic Hour that morning at Disneyland. We plan to hit the park until our room is ready in the afternoon, then we will take a break at the hotel, let my husband enjoy the pool & look around the lobby areas in all 3 towers, possibly grab some virgin drinks from Trader Sams, and/or the vegan salad at Tangeroa Terrace, maybe nap or just enjoy the nicer hotel a bit before heading back for some evening fun.

So far, I've only stayed on site at the Paradise Pier Hotel, so it will be fun to get to try another on site hotel--and as I grew up always thinking it would be AWESOME to stay at the Disneyland Hotel I drove past all the time, this is sort of like a childhood fantasy come true. My older sister, who used to hang out at the hotel alll the time in our youth, is going to be SO jealous!


I wish we could afford both the dining package and the night staying on site, but since our budget doesn't allow for both, we felt we had to take the great hotel deal which doesn't come around very often. I won't enjoy having to stand for Fantasmic!, but if I know I have to do it, I can plan my activities earlier in the day to be a bit lighter, maybe take a longer afternoon break, too, and that will help.


So, yeah...i gotta hit the sack now, as I am exhausted & have to wake up early to do more kitchen demolition. All I have to say is...don't buy old 1940s houses which were renovated on the cheap and by really poor carpenters in the 1980s. We are practically bawling at how shoddily the work is done and how much work has to be done super quickly before the kitchen installers arrive on Monday, after I leave for the parks (our housemate/friend who co-owns the house with us will be sticking around to oversee their work).


More tomorrow or Thursday, just as soon as all the car work is DONE & I know for sure whether it is fully functional enough for a heat sensitive heart patient to travel in, cross country. Keep your fingers crossed for us!


~Meg
 
Three days til Disneyland! Transportation & hotel details, plus general excitement about the impending trip!

We are now 3 days away from landing at Disneyland & I pretty much look like this right now:


:jumping1::jumping1:

Everything is starting to come together...my husband finally has all the car issues straightened out, I've finished all of the demo work necessary to prep our kitchen for the flooring & cabinetry/counter installers who will be working in the kitchen while we are away, allll my bags are packed and I am literally counting down the hours until I leave (we are at 60 hours right now).

Traveling separately at first...my husband's plan to get to DLR


Our transportation plan has been pretty simple...While we are driving home together, we are traveling separately to California. I am flying into LAX on Monday & my husband was planning to leave first thing Friday morning in our Prius & drive cross country. He did this a year ago & loved it. This is the route he has planned:


IMG_7874.jpg
Last spring he did it in 3 days (yes, 3 days from Michigan driving solo--he's a little crazy), but this time he had planned on trying to go a little slower so he could stop and tour an animal sanctuary he'd really been wanting to visit, and so he could have a tiny bit of solo beach time in Southern CA before I arrived, so he had planned on taking 4 days.

Wellllll...procrastination is, unfortunately, my husband's middle name. He got to midnight last night and realized that, while he had just procured his road trip food from our local 24 hour grocery store, that was the only thing he had ready to go. His laundry was still unwashed (I'd do it, but he insists upon washing his own stuff), his bags were unpacked and he still needed to make a deposit at the credit union, notify them of his travel plans so they don't block his card for unusual activity, and he still needed to do a couple of things to get ready for the college semester that starts right after we return from our trip (ie, order his last textbooks & complete some paperwork on campus).


He knew there was no way he'd be leaving Ann Arbor at 8 AM the next day, so he changed his travel plans. He decided that he could make the drive in 3 days again, and he would spend Friday focusing on getting ready for the trip.


Well, it's 8:30 PM, he is supposed to leave in 10.5 hours and the only thing he has done so far is wash some laundry. He still hasn't pulled it out of the dryer yet, his clothes and food remain unpacked, his car is still full of junk he doesn't need to bring on the trip, etc., etc. So, I am beginning to doubt the planned early Saturday morning departure time. He still insists he will be ready to leave first thing Saturday, swears that he'll still have time to tour the animal sanctuary, grab vegan donuts from Ronald's in Las Vegas and will arrive in Anaheim Monday afternoon. I'm a little skeptical.

I am one of those obsessively punctual people, so let me tell you that I am SO glad we are traveling separately to California. This is how we manage to stay married...it would freak me out to no end to risk losing our Anaheim hotel room by leaving so late that we'd risk arriving late, and it would drive me crazy waiting around for him to finally get going. He has no problem leaving reasonably on time when he is about to get kicked out of a hotel room, but if he feels no extreme time pressure that will cost him $, he is hard to get motivated. So we do the time pressure/time sensitive travel separately, allowing me to ensure I will arrive on time, will be able to secure our hotel room & will be able to do the things I need/plan to do on Monday evening (namely, picking up my new AP, upgrading it to Signature & purchasing the AP MaxPass, plus I will be able to enter the park & make sure everything is working before our first full park day on Tuesday. I want to make sure everything is working OK with my AP because last time I had serious issues with it at first. I'd rather discover problems & get them remedied before precious early morning park time on Tuesday!).


My travel plans: DTW to LAX to DLR


My travel plans are a lot simpler. I love to visit my favorite places, but I hate the stress of travel, so I made my plan an easy one: our housemate (who is staying home with the dogs & will be monitoring the kitchen work while we are gone) is driving me to the Detroit airport early on Monday where I'll catch a no plane change needed flight to LAX. My flight, unfortunately, is not a direct one and will be making a few stops, but it will get me there without requiring plane changes and cost me very little (I was able to use travel vouchers for a cancelled flight to NYC to 100% pay for it...I love it when airlines have great sales like this!).


I will arrive at LAX at 2:20 PM and, I assume, will taxi around the airport for ages before we get to our gate, so I assume I won't be deplaned and to the bus & shuttle service pickup spot in time for the 2:45 Disneyland Resort Express bus, so I am aiming to catch the bus that leaves LAX an hour later. I don't have any checked luggage, though (am sending most of my stuff with my husband, just bringing enough food for a day or so plus two changes of clothes & my lovely handmade Mickey ears in my carry-on). I am trying out the DLR Express bus for the first time to give it a thorough looksee for a family member who is considering using it on a future trip.

I figure traffic will probably slow us down a lot as we should be exiting the LAX area just after 4 PM. As a born & raised Southern Californian, I know what that means. I am hoping we will arrive in the general DLR area by roughly 5:30-ish. My hotel is not too far from the Paradis Pier Hotel, which is one of the first few stops, so I am guessing I'll be to the hotel & checking in roughly around 6 PM-ish.

I plan to eat my dinner meal while waiting for the DLR Express, as my stomach will still be on east coast time, so I figure I'll drop off my bags freshen up and, unless my husband reports that he is close to the hotel at that time, I plan to head over to DLR to exchange my AP voucher & get my upgrade & MaxPass. I hope to pop into the park, familiarize myself with the new MaxPass options on the app and maybe ride a couple of rides. My husband has a Bluetooth phone headset & plans to call when he is within 30 minutes of the Anaheim area, so I plan to head out of the park at that time (assuming he manages to make it cross country as quickly as he thinks & will actually arrive on Monday as planned) & then our week long Disney trip & my 40th birthday extravaganza will begin!

Hotel plans

Our hotel needs when we travel are pretty simple: I prefer to feel safe with the hotel, it's parking lot & the safety of the area. I like a clean room & enough space that two people and limited belongings will fit in Ok. As a budget traveler who frequently visits NYC (where the budget hotel rooms are tiny, often in old buildings & with very limited perks--my favorite NYC hotel is actually a European style one in a 19th century building with tiny rooms & a few bathrooms in the hall), I don't expect a very large room or many fancy features when I travel.


Due to dietary issues (and the fact that the Disney parks area isn't as vegan friendly as NYC), I like to have the perk of a fridge, and a microwave, too, if that is available. When my husband drives instead of flying, we like a hotel/motel with either free or inexpensive parking. I also like to be close enough to walk to the parks & Downtown Disney. My other need is a room I can get to/from without having to do stairs. Either a one story place, a hotel/motel with an elevator, or booking an accessible room at a larger place without an elevator works for my heart. Stairs are basically my nemesis. It is nice & fun to have perks, but unless I am staying on site at a Disney hotel, I don't expect much.

For this trip, we'll be staying at my favorite budget motel, Anaheim Discovery Inn & Suites. I find that, if you book it early enough, you can get a great deal, and it meets my main "wants" and all of my "needs"....free parking, fridges & microwaves in every room, walking distance to DLR, all on one story, so no need to book a disabled room to ensure I have a first floor room. The staff are great and helpful and are willing to store luggage after you check out for the day.

The main negatives are 1) size...the rooms are on the smaller side (nearly half the size of on site hotel rooms), but they are still huge compared to the tiny rooms I usually stay at in NYC 2) the parking can be rough if they are fully booked, you might have issues getting a parking space (although we have disabled parking privileges due to my health issues) and 3) I've heard some on the boards declare this part of town "unsafe", so if you are unused to traveling outside of resort level places and/or in cities, this might seem "scary". It isn't really, though. I literally lived 2 blocks away from this motel for half of the 1980s and the neighborhood feels safer and nicer than it did when I lived there as a kid. Also, I spend a fair amount of my non-Disney trips in NYC, and the Anaheim/Garden Grove area feels less urban and more safe than Brooklyn, so I never feel unsafe there. I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a decent small motel to stay at.


We will, as mentioned earlier, have one night's stay at Disneyland Hotel as part of our trip. This will be our splurge/treat for the trip. My husband is really looking forward to the larger room, the better pools and the fun of staying at a nicer hotel for a night. I am excited to finally get to stay at the hotel I grew up thinking of as "special" & "magical", plus the idea of getting both a slightly shorter walk AND taking advantage of Early Morning Hours sounds awesome.

More this weekend...I have a post partially written already on our food/special diet plans, but I need to go track down my husband & kick his butt to get him to start packing...yes, it is now a little over 9 hours before his planned departure and he has NOT started packing yet. I love the guy, but do NOT understand how his brain works...


~Meg
 
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Travel update & FOOD for a week when you are on a zillion special diets while at Disneyland!

I want to talk about my food planning here in a minute, but first a travel update. As I detailed in my last post, my husband & I are traveling separately to DLR. I fly out tomorrow morning at 5:15 AM Disneyland time (8:15 for us here in Michigan), and my husband is driving. The original plan was for him to leave Friday morning first thing...then it became Friday midmorning, followed by Saturday morning first thing...and then he procrastinated further. This was his actual departure time yesterday (as detailed on my Instagram stories):

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Yup, he left at 12:54 PM eastern time, so 9:54 AM Disneyland time. His goal, at the time of departure, was to arrive at our hotel at roughly 6 PM Monday evening, Disneyland time, with a couple of stops along the way on Sunday and Monday.

He just messaged me right now, at 5:50 AM Disneyland time--so 36 hours before his ETA in Anaheim. He said he was leaving on the day's drive, and told me he was currently in Lincoln, Nebraska. Now his plan: he wants to stop at the vegan grocery store in Denver for snacks & supplies today, plus he has a 2 hour tour of an animal sanctuary in Utah scheduled tomorrow morning, plus he plans to stop in Las Vegas at both a donut shop (with vegan donuts, of course) plus grab a meal at a vegan drive thru that is, basically, like the vegan version of In N Out. I plotted out the stops in Google maps & this is what I came up with:

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Basically, 25 hours of driving, plus 2 hours at the animal sanctuary and at least 30 minutes in Denver to shop & eat, plus another 30 minutes to get donuts & buy and eat lunch in Las Vegas...so a minimum of 28 hours out of the next 36 are scheduled between driving and mandatory stops. I'd also suggest expecting a slightly longer drive in CA to accommodate hitting rush hour traffic on his way to Anaheim, but that's just me. I like to be realistic in my travel expectations. :rolleyes1


My guess is that he'll probably arrive later in the evening, and I am fine with that. If he arrives later that will allow me to head down to the parks and get my AP activated & upgraded and all, and it will allow me to pop into the parks to test it out and make sure everything is working Ok with it before our first full day in the park on Tuesday morning. He doesn't need to be there while I get the AP activated, and as he only has a 5 day park pass, he won't be able to enter the parks, so if he is delayed I can get all of those more boring tasks taken care of without impinging on his fun vacation time.

Food, glorious food! How to survive a week at Disneyland when you are on a zillion special diets


Disneyland is definitely harder when you are on a bunch of special diets, but it is not impossible. It just requires some extra advance planning (thankfully I am good at that!). Here are my special diet needs, in a nutshell:

No meat, seafood, egg or dairy by personal choice

Sodium restriction...no more than 1,600 mg max per day with a cap of no more than 600 mg in one meal (or else I risk swelling up like crazy)

Ingredients restrictions due to medications: I have to keep my vitamin K levels consistent due to my blood thinners, so I cannot have either too much or too little greens/broccoli/berries/cabbage/etc., in the week, plus there are a few ingredients I have to watch for as they impact my beta blockers (mostly stuff not found at Disneyland, but superfoods ingredients I might run into at vegan or natural foods restaurants, so I gotta keep my eye out).

Fluid restriction: 48-60 fl oz per day maximum, and when I say "fluid" this also includes any foods with high water contents, like fruits and vegetables, soymilk in my cereal, vegan yogurts or ice creams, etc.

Now, when I travel I *try* to follow the rules as closely as I can, but I do try to be flexible. For example, I adore the vegetarian gumbo (which is actually vegan!) at Royal Street Veranda, but I know the sodium content of the soup & bread boule greatly exceeds my per-meal allotment. The way I handle this is pretty simple...I let myself eat out a little, but try to limit the meals out to no more than 1 per day, sometimes none in a day if I am still really feeling the after effects of a previous meal out. As a result, I cannot set a strict meal schedule and follow it, as I have to see how my body is feeling, but I find the rule of no more than one meal out in a day, max, to be helpful.

I also try to limit my in-park snacks and bring my own with me so I can control the sodium levels of my snacks. My main exceptions are the unsalted Mickey shaped pretzels which they sell over by Its a Small World ride & Dole Whips/Dole Whip floats. I try to limit my in park snacks to no more than 1 per day, predominantly for budgetary reasons (this is a mostly budget trip after all!). I also allow myself a few specialty beverages, like the non alcoholic version of the pomegranate limeade at the Cozy Cone in DCA (the foam is vegan!), Apple boysen freeze at Maurice's Treats in Disneyland (vegan foam again!). When your eating out is greatly limited due to sodium restrictions, you find yourself prizing the speciality drinks all the more because you can actually have them...!

That said, I am not eating out for most meals & i'm bringing a lot of my own food for this trip. I've watched for sales and/or coupons/phone app rebates on foods which would be useful for our trip & have been stocking up. Having my husband go by car means I was able to send a lot of food along with him (plus, I was able to send my clothes with him, too, freeing up more space in my carryon for the more heat sensitive foods). We plan to buy some produce, juice & vegan yogurts after we arrive, but we are bringing the majority of our own food. As our dietary needs are a little different, we each packed our own foods. Here are my foods:

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Soymilk
Natural foods granola & a box of kiddie cereal (one of my favorite snacks!)
Larabars (heat sensitive, so they are coming in my carryon)
Flavored coconut chips
Annie's gummy bunnies with extra vitamin C (also heat sensitive & flying with me)
EmergenC drink packets
Mints
Chimes mango ginger chews
Tiny apple juice boxes
Lime LaCroix waters
Dried mangoes & apricots
Trail mix
Tiny jam jars
Almond butter packets
Caramel almond & cashew milk
Alo waters
Izzy sodas
Mango chili lime Harvest Snacks
Lenny & Larry's protein cookies
Freeze dried smoothie packets from @koyahlife
Svelte chocolate protein drinks
Coffee packets
Medjool dates
Viana red bell pepper spread


Not pictured:

A few slices of homemade bread I am about to make in my bread machine

Ozery Bakery morning rounds--little sweet flatbreads which are delicious plain or with almond or chocolate hazelnut butter

My airplane food & food I am bringing to eat while waiting for the DLR Express bus, namely a cold salad made with quinoa, homegrown tomatoes, cucumbers, a few olives and a tiny amount of simple dressing, a vegan lunchmeat sandwich (made & frozen yesterday to help keep it cold until mealtime), a serving of homemade blueberry bread plus a couple of pretzel rolls I made & froze before we did our kitchen demolition (keeps them fresh & helps them double as a cold pack for the other food items)


In addition to the above mentioned food, we also plan to do the following bit of eating out while in Southern California:

Lunch with my sister at Vegilicious (a vegan Japanese restaurant) in Huntington Beach

Vegetarian Gumbo at Royal Street Veranda once or twice (depending on how well my body tolerates it)

Promising Future Falafel Pita in DCA at Studio Catering Co food truck

Pizza & vegan corn dogs from my favorite pizza place in the world, Vegan Pizza in Garden Grove

Vegan ice cream at Hug Life in Garden Grove

If my body can tolerate it, we might also hit Healthy Junk in Anaheim, if not my husband will visit that solo

On the drive home we also plan to stop at:

City O' City vegan/vegetarian diner in Denver for lunch on our second day

Beet Box Vegan bakery in Denver for breakfast foods to eat the following (third) day of our drive

Modern Love vegan restaurant in Omaha for an early dinner on the third day of our drive

Possibly Uptons Breakroom in Chicago on our 4th and final half day of driving (if my body can't handle that, my husband will eat there solo as a takeout meal)


More hopefully either later today, or tomorrow while I am in flight (I have a looooong plane flight with several stops on the ground for a half hour to lose/gain passengers, so I might type it while flying & post via my phone during time on the ground). I'll talk about our general plan of attack for the next seven days. I can't wait until I arrive tomorrow...!

~Meg
 
So close to your trip! Must be challenging with so many restrictions but if course it's worth the extra effort. So good that Disney let's you bring in outside food.
Have an awesome trip. Look forward to hearing about it. We leave ourselves in 4 days (LA first, then Disney)
 
So close to your trip! Must be challenging with so many restrictions but if course it's worth the extra effort. So good that Disney let's you bring in outside food.
Have an awesome trip. Look forward to hearing about it. We leave ourselves in 4 days (LA first, then Disney)
Yay! Yes, I am at the point where I am counting the hours until I leave...I bet you guys are at about that same point now, too! We will probably spend a little time in the LA area after our Disney days, but as our planned LA days are now forecast to be nearly 90F, I don't know. We will have to see how we feel.

My husband just texted from a rest stop near Vail, CO, so he is making rather decent time. I am running around sort of like a chicken with its head cut off because the usual minor pre-trip issues are cropping up (two missing priority packages, including my new pair of Alice in Wonderland themed ears. WTG, USPS!) & I'm trying to get things ready for me to leave tomorrow...you know, packing the last few items, finishing the last tiny bits of the kitchen demolition work to prep for the kitchen installers, prepping my plane food for tomorrow, writing up the garden watering instructions, chopping and freezing excess garden tomatoes to be used in soups this winter, etc. Oh, and trying to get my fussy 15.5 year old Husky to eat her food...she knows my husband is gone & can tell I'm prepping to leave, so it's making her extra fussy (even though her favorite human in the world--the Lady Who Takes Her On Walks--is still going to be here).

The dietary issues aren't too bad once you figure them out...when you have a progressively worsening condition, things change, so you always have to tweak stuff a little, but I'll be keeping an eye on how I'm doing, so it shouldn't be too hard. My main worry is whether I can handle a meal out once per day or every other day, as we are currently hoping. If the sodium is just too much for me to handle, I may have to prioritize one DL meal plus the meal with my sister. We are planning mostly a lot of takeout or QS eating, so it shouldn't be awkward if my husband gets food & I eat sandwiches or whatever. Thankfully he's not a very fancy eater & is equally as happy with pizza as he is with a nice gourmet meal. As long as it is tasty, he is fine with the meal!

I hope you guys have a fun trip & really get to enjoy it all.

~Meg
 
Ah yes...the last minute stuff is the hardest...running around and things you just can' t pack until last minute. Sorry about the packages. Ah, and your poor doggy knows something is up. Sounds like she's in good hands at least.

Good luck with everything with your health and the trip. Must be hard for you (and from your intro..I hope after the trip you get on the list and it's just a matter of time). Sounds like you have a good attitude and will adjust when needed. Glad you have a supportive husband and you're able to make the trip.
Safe travels...and thanks for the wishes too. I noticed too it'll be quite hot (dry at least).
 
Prepping for my husband's 1st day ever at DLR!


An update...I got into Anaheim ahead of my husband yesterday (despite leaving 30 hours late, he wasn't too late getting in--he arrived just before 8 PM), so I headed down get my AP upgraded, add the MaxPass (which I like a lot at a price of $75/year...not sure if I could justify a higher cost since I only ride roughly half of the FastPass rides) & pop into the park. I hit up a few of my favorites (Toad, Haunted Mansion with an instant MaxPass FastPass which ended up being a walk-on...yes!, and Pirates).


My main goals were to 1) pick up the AP 2) make sure it worked correctly (I had some major problems with my last one right off the bat, wanted to get them straightened out if they occurred this time) 3) test out the MaxPass function so I'd feel comfortable with it (as a trip gift to my husband, I am buying him MaxPass for his first day in Disneyland & his first in DCA) and 4) the MOST important of them all, I wanted to pick up this for my husband's first trip to Disneyland:


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YESSSS! I was so excited about his first trip to Disneyland today that I woke up at 5 AM & couldn't go back to sleep. Rope drop cannot come soon enough!

Here are a few snapshots from last night:

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Today's plan (assuming all rides wake up successfully & are ready to go at rope drop): purchase MaxPass day pass for my husband, grab us two Indy Fastpasses with MaxPass (which, from what I have been reading, sound like they have a return time a half hour out at rope drop), ride Pirates as his first ride, if standby for Haunted Mansion looks short we might hit that first before heading to Indy, if not I'll quickly grab a FastPass for Haunted Mansion via MaxPass after the first scan into Indy's FP queue (I ride Indy enough I know exactly where I lose signal in that queue, and I should be able to grab it before then). If we ride HM standby, then I will grab Big Thunder Mountain Railroad FPs instead, which has been pretty much an instant one according to the app this early in the day. If there is a wait time between getting off Indy & the BTMRR FP return time, we will hit Jungle Cruise. If there is no wait, we'll ride BTMRR first, then hit Jungle Cruise afterward.

At that point my legs will want a break, so I am planning a full circle tour of the park on the Disneyland Railroad. Odds are good I will schedule a FastPass before hopping the train--maybe Matterhorn for my husband to ride solo (I haven't ridden it since I was 4 and do not plan to ride it again--not my cup of tea!), maybe Star Tours for both of us.

After the full circle tour of the park, I am going to play things by ear a bit. I hope to introduce my husband to my favorite ride (Toad) sometime before lunch, so we may do that after whatever FP we chose. I doubt he'll like it as much as I do, but I want him to see it pretty early on, as I talk about it all the time. We might hit up Autopia before it gets too hot (if not today, we'll do that in the AM on Thursday). We may hit Buzz (which I have, strangely, never ridden!) using the MaxPass FPs, other Fantasyland rides (except Small World, which I have planned along with Toon Town on Thursday). We might also take full advantage of the MaxPass to book some re-rides of the FP rides we did first thing in the morning or, if he's feeling hot & wants a bit of a cooldown (it is supposed to be 83F today), I might book him a Splash FP or send him on it single rider, depending on when he wants to do it (I don't ride Splash, can't handle that steep drop).

We are going to have the vegetarian gumbo (which is actually vegan) at Royal Street Veranda for one of our meals...I'll let him choose whether he wants it for lunch or dinner. I plan to only eat one meal in the park today & am packing food for snacks and the other meal for myself. I'll let him decide if he wants to pack his own food for the other meal, or grab something QS.

Well, Sleeping Beauty (AKA, my husband) just woke up, so I'll stop there. Wish us luck & fully functional rides this morning! I hope you all are having a great week!


~Meg
 

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