Khokhonutt
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2004
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!
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!