June 2017 Pre-Trip Report – WDW vets make their first DLR trip

[Khokhonutt]

Holy cow! We're getting close!

It's hard to believe we're so close at this point. Between the holiday weekend coming up, work and everything else, it's going to be on us in no time.

For the most part I think we're ready. RideMax just published planning for our days yesterday, so I've started playing around with touring plans. As I've mentioned before, I've not used specific touring plans before, but they make sense to me for this trip. I'm not saying we're going to hard core follow every plan we setup, but I have to say I really like how RideMax includes tips with their plans. Things like where to find certain fastpasses, how they suggest navigating through certain rides seem really helpful. Also, as I've said before, using the plans as a way to get oriented to the California parks will certainly be helpful for our first few days.

At this point here's our basic plan, revisited:

Wednesday: Leave NC after work and probably drive as far as somewhere between Knoxville and Nashville, TN.
Thursday: Finish Tennessee, drive through Arkansas and likely stop somewhere between Oklahoma City, OK and Amarillo, TX.
Friday: Oklahoma-Texas to as close to Las Vegas as we can get.

If all goes well, I'd like to make Vegas Friday night, but as long as we're there by lunch time on Saturday, we're good. We've got to drop the dogs off by 5pm at the vet where they'll be boarded. I'd like to have Saturday as a day to hang out and rest.

Sunday (arrival day):
Depart Vegas as o-dark-thirty. If I can have everyone on the road by 5am, that's the goal. The rest can all sleep while I have my coffee and sunflower seeds. I'd like to stop in Barstow, CA for breakfast, then hopefully get into Anaheim by 10am-11am. I realize that counts on us not hitting traffic, which is why nothing is etched in stone at this point. No matter what, we'll plan on driving to the hotel first. We'll see if they can check us in and let us park when we arrive. That's plan A. Plan B will be if we can't park and they say we have to come back after 1pm. Right now, we're toying with a plan B of parking in Downtown Disney and going to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. If the parking, movie and timing all work, we'd get 4 hours of parking while we see the movie and waste time, then head back to the hotel. If plan B looks like we will have issues, then plan C is to head down to the Dim Sum place discussed earlier in this thread. We'll eat and waste time until the room is ready. The rest of the day Sunday we'd like to explore Downtown Disney, explore the Disney Hotels, especially the Disneyland Hotel and Trader Sam's.

Monday (first day in the parks):
We've got our list of rides that we would really like to ride our first day. Those are Toy Story Mania, Pirates, Splash Mountain, Space Mountain and the Matterhorn. According to the RideMax, we should easily be able to do the Disneyland rides and a couple extras if we rope drop Disneyland. Then we have a lunch reservation at Blue Bayou. We'll likely fastpass Toy Story Mania sometime after lunch and explore CA while we're over there. Then we want to be back in Disneyland to see the fireworks. We're not planning on too aggressive of a schedule on Monday, so we can get a feel for the layout.

Tuesday (Use our Magic Morning):
Hit Disneyland for MM and ride as much as we can early in DLR. We've got a lunch reservation at Cafe Orleans and then bit the bullet on the World of Color dessert party that evening.

Wednesday (CA):
I know this is EMH for CA, but we're going to ropedrop and do our thing in CA. We have no reservations this day, but hope to hit the Cove Bar for lunch and play the rest of the day by ear.

Thursday/Friday:
We'll do as much as we can to finish hitting everything we want and repeat a few things on the last two days. How aggressive we are will depend on how much we've gotten done in the first 3 days. We do have a lunch reservation at the River Belle Terrace on Friday. Otherwise we have a list of counter service places we want to try and snacks we want to try.

Saturday we head back to Vegas, pick up the pups, then hang out with the kids for most of the week of the 4th.

At this point it's down to making sure our packing lists are good and resist the urge to start packing too soon. There's not a bunch of new info here, but I would like to do an entry with our GoPro gear. I'm going to try and do a better job of using our GoPro cameras on this trip, so I've amassed a collection of items I'm going to bring. Hopefully in the next week or two I'll post on that.

Until then, we'll continue to count down the days!

 

[Khokhonutt]

Special delivery!!!

We're 15 days out from leaving and 19 days out from arriving in Anaheim. Now it's getting official!

 

[Khokhonutt]

So we're about a week out from leaving on our trip.

Yes, I've started packing. It's not what I'd call serious packing, but more grouping stuff and putting it in bags. I have a twin bed in my office, so I can have the stuff there and not in the way. I'm also notorious for wearing my clothes out of the top of the drawer. For that reason, I started pulling some of the shorts I plan to bring from my dresser, grouping them with a shirt, underwear and socks and putting them in a bag. Part of our plan will be for us each to have a large suitcase, where we'll pack our clothes for the week in the Disneyland area. We'll also have at least one smaller bag, where we'll pack our travelling clothes. When we're travelling long distances, I like to pack the trunk and then avoid opening it until we reach our final destination. To me it's one less thing for prying eyes to see when we're moving into a room for the night. By having one small bag and the dog's needs, it also makes it quick and easy to move into a room at night and out again in the morning.

The pups should be set. Our little girl dog got her yearly shots today and I emailed copies of her documentation to the vet in Vegas. I called them today and they confirmed all paperwork and vaccinations are in order and all we have to do is show up a week from Saturday to drop them off. We'll bring their food for the boarding, just to minimize that change. We'll also have one of their blankets to keep in the kennel, so they have something familiar. They're also small enough that we've arranged for them to share a space at the kennel for the week.

Our paperwork is in my bag. I've got our ticket packet in my "Disney" suitcase. I've also got a copy of all of the dogs' paperwork (even though I've confirmed we should be good, I hate to cross the country without a hard copy).

I've just about got my camera kit ready to go. I used to carry a DSLR to the parks. While I loved the pictures, it was a lot to haul around and I sometimes missed the more spur of the moment shots. Over the years we've gotten to where we use our phones for most day to day shooting, but I don't like them as much for video. With that in mind, I've got a Sony Action Cam that will be my primary walk-around video recorder. It's a competitor for the GoPro, so it's pretty tiny, but it beats GoPro on video stabilization, which is why I've moved to is for video. I do still carry a GoPro. I still think it beats the Sony for photography stuff. The GoPro allows me to feed my DSLR/"fancy" picture needs in a pocket sized package. I carry all of my camera equipment in two bags. One is a backpack, where I also carry my small laptop. The other is kind of a military style cross body bag that is very small. It's perfect for carting around the camera equipment I'll bring in the parks along with my portable power supply that I'll use to charge everything (and my phone) while I'm in the parks.

The one thing I'm still waffling on is our driving plans. Our plan all along has been to leave after work on Wednesday, then drive Thursday and Friday, hopefully reaching Vegas sometime Friday evening. But I've also considered going to bed after work and getting up at 2 or 3am, getting a very early start, have a long day on Thursday and still have a goal of arriving Friday evening. The deciding factor will likely be what time I can get away from work on Wednesday. If I can finish things in time to head out closer to noon, that's likely what we'll do. If things are busy and I have to work later into the day, then the sleep then get a very early start may be what I do. I really prefer getting on the road very early. I think those few hours you get on the road before most people are awake are the most efficient miles you can drive. It's fairly common for us to be on the road not long after 5am, so the 2 or 3am isn't a big stretch from there.

It's hard to believe we're this close. I've been chatting with everyone and we're all excited. As Mickey says, "See ya real soon!"

 

[Khokhonutt]

Just picked up our ride for the next 2.5 weeks. We head west tomorrow!

 

[Khokhonutt]

Off we go...

As I write this, we're about 3 hours from heading west. I've got one more meeting at work and my wife has a meeting, then we'll put the rest of our stuff and the dogs in the car and head east. Our goal at this point is to make Nashville, TN tonight. That should put us just east of Albuquerque, NM on Thursday night, with an easy day on Friday into Vegas. We'll relax on Saturday, board the dogs, then head out early, early on Sunday for Anaheim.

This will likely be my final entry in this pre-trip report. I'll work on and post a trip report as soon as I can. Thanks for everyone who followed this. Thanks for the input and the help planning. We'll check in again soon!

 

[AuntieMe3]

Enjoy your trip! I look forward to reading your trip report.

 

[TEAMJACOB]

Can't wait to hear all about it.

 

[theluckyrabbit]

Our family are suckers for good Asian food as well! On our next trip this May/June, I really want to try out the food at Kitakata Ramen Ban Nai, which is a Japanese ramen noodle place in Buena Park. http://ramenbannai.com/location/. They also have a location in Costa Mesa. They are open Sundays starting at 11am.

The Costa Mesa location is our go-to for ramen. We are there frequently. Maybe we'll bump into you there on your next DLR trip!

 

[warrenz1963]

Thanks OP and all respondents for the good information. I haven't been to DL in over 25 years but would like to visit in the next year or two. Following to see how it all turns out.

 

[Khokhonutt]

We just got back home this evening. We logged 5,432.9 miles and had a stellar, almost problem free trip. I'll start working on my trip report in the next day or so and will leave a link to it here, if you want to check it out.