The Jedi & Toons Tour - May 2007 (Disneyland & Star Wars Celebration IV) - Days 10 & 11 (5/26 & 5/27) *UPDATED 7/6* About This Page:

[Politzania]

Two weeks and one day to go! DH and I have been planning this trip on & off since last year -- our planning thread: May in L.A.

We've got a busy week & weekend leading up to our trip: working at a gift kiosk at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on the Saturday before, then going to see Spamalot on Sunday. Monday or Tuesday, we need to take our dog to my parents' & (if we still have her) take the foster dog to a fellow dog rescue foster family.

I hope to be pretty much packed by that time (have already started!) & ready to go down to Indy after work on Wednesday 5/16 - doing the Stay, Park & Fly package with a LaQuinta inn near the airport - the price isn't too much more than airport parking & we get another hour or two of sleep! We may go see a movie or hang out at a mall for a while before hitting the sack.

We fly out at 7:15 am on Thursday 5/17 - arriving in LAX at 8:43 am (crossing 3 time zones). We'll pick up our rental car & venture out into the tail end of rush hour, heading northeast to DH's aunt & uncle's home. We'll spend Thursday, Friday & Saturday with them --- nothing in particular planned, tho I'd like to visit the Jet Propulsion Labratory Open House on Saturday: Open House 2007

Up early Sunday morning - drive to Anaheim & Tropicana Inn & Suites. I'm not expecting to get a room that quickly, but hopefully can at least get checked in & a parking pass. Finally - over to Disneyland! We'll play in the park until mid-afternoon, then go grocery shopping & to the outlet mall - maybe get dinner before returning to DL to finish the evening off - definitely want to stay thru the fireworks and maybe til closing at 11.

Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday - continue our DLR visit. We definitely want to do Toontown Morning Madness (missed it in Dec 2005) and the Aladdin show. Not sure if we'll go out in the evenings, since the parks close at 8 - or just rest up for the next day. We have a reservation at Blue Bayou and want to have breakfast at River Belle Terrace and/or Carnation Cafe - Mickey waffles/pancakes!

Thursday morning - after breakfast with Lilo & Stitch - pack up the car & drive downtown for the Star Wars Celebration IV convention. We'll stop at the hotel (Kawada), again, hopefully we can at least check in, if not get into our room. Haven't decided if we'll drive over to the Convention Center or use the Metro on this day - but will probably use mass transit for the rest of the week ($12/day to park vs $3/person for a day pass seems an easy choice to me!). Saturday we got tickets for "A Conversation with Carrie Fisher" - not sure what other festivities we'll participate in, as the schedule isn't out yet.

We may take the Metro over to El Capitan on Sunday to catch Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End on opening weekend! We have our VIP tickets already - guaranteed seats in the balcony (front row!) plus soda & popcorn.

Monday morning - get up early to make it to LAX with plenty of time for our 9:45am flight back home - arriving 4:49pm. Catch shuttle to hotel, then drive home. We're currently both planning to go back to work on Tuesday - tho I'm considering whether to take an extra day off to recuperate!

[NanaTink]

Wow! What wonderful plans! I LOVED ToonTown Morning Madness! It's great fun!

I think you will need Tuesday to recuperate! can't wait to read all about it!

[Colexis Mom]

Have a great time Love your plans

[Chrissi]

Wow! You are going to be busy!!! Great vacay you've got planned there!

[DyanKJ130]

Your plans look great!! Can't wait to read all about your trip!

[DrDolphin]

Sounds like a wonderful trip!!!

[Politzania]

Woo-hoo! We're doing the single-digit dance & checking out the 10-day forecast for Anaheim .. vacation time is coming and boy, do I need it!

The minor dilemma comes in when I realized that Walt's Barn at Griffith Park would be open to the public on Sunday, May 20th! Scott's aunt & uncle only live about a dozen miles away (Pasadena area) & it would be pretty much on our way from their house to DLR ..... The problem is timing. Disneyland opens at 8am that day & we were planning on getting up early to arrive to the Anaheim area around that time. However, Walt's barn doesn't open til 11am.

It would be way too much hassle to go to Anaheim, backtrack to Griffith Park, then return to DLR, so if we do decide to visit Walt's Barn, we'll lose 4-5 hours of park time. However, Disneyland is open til 11pm that night and I really would like to see the Birthplace of Imagineering ... what do you folks think?

[Colexis Mom]

I would check with them as there's just been a major brush fire in Griffith Park, and not sure if this venue was affected

Wildfire threatens L.A. landmarks - U.S. Life - MSNBC.com

[Politzania]

Yikes! I heard something about brush fires in LA this morning on the news...
Hundreds flee as wind drives flames through Griffith Park - Los Angeles Times

[PrincessSharon]

Your plans look great. Have a wonderful trip!

[disneydani]

You have some great plans, looking forward to reading all about it!

danielle

[bsblady01]

I hope that you have a magical time at the land.

[Nicole626Stitch]

Ah ha!!! So that is why I saw a bunch of people at the land yesterday with Star Wars stuff on!!!! I was wondering...

[DyanKJ130]

Hope you're having a magical time!! Can't wait to hear all about it when you return!

[Politzania]

Day 1 – Thursday, May 17, 2007
We stayed the night before in Indy, so we wouldn’t have to get up quite so early for our morning flight – not too much more expensive than paying for parking. Flew out pretty much on time at 7:15 am Eastern time. The flight was uneventful – a bit of turbulence here & there. I listened to about the first half of the Star Wars NPR Radio program from the early 1980’s.
Landed & got our luggage with not much delay, then picked up the rental car & were off to see Scott’s aunt & uncle (Skip & Becci) who live in the Glendale area. Traffic was a little heavy, but it was the tail end of rush hour, so not too bad.

We arrived and visited with Becci for a little while, then her daughter, Laurie came over with her younger son, J.D. The 4 of us drove around for a bit – checking out Griffith Park. Parts of it were still closed off, due to the fire of the previous week. When we got back, Skip wsa home from work. Laurie went to pick up her older son, Brett, and take care of some things at their house – so the 5 of us went out to dinner at a Mexican place. We were pretty tired by this time, so headed off to bed about 7:30 – 8:00 (closer to 11:00 our time!)

Day 2 – Friday, May 18, 2007
Not surprisingly, we were up bright & early, since our body clocks were still on Indiana time. We checked e-mail & did a couple of other things before breakfast with Skip & Becci.
Laurie had the day off, so she was kind enough to be our tour guide for the day. We went to the La Brea Tar Pits & museum about 11:00 and spent about 2 hours touring the museum & the grounds. They still have an active excavation site – Pit 91. They work it for about 12 weeks in the summer & spend the rest of the year cleaning & sorting the fossils – including microfossils, such as seeds & plant parts, insects and small amphibian & mammal bones. There were several school groups there, but most of them were at lunch while we toured the museum.
We had lunch at Koo-Koo-Roo – a semi-fast food chain, serving mostly chicken & burgers from Fuddruckers. It was about a block or so from the La Brea park area & a little busy, but not too bad. The food was quite good!

We rode along when Laurie picked up the boys, and we were off to see Shrek the Third. It was a fairly entertaining movie – about the same level as the first two. The three of us got back in time to meet Skip to head out to an Angels & Dodgers game – J.D. stayed home with his grandma, but Brett came along. We picked up Craig, Laurie’s husband from work (downtown LA) and headed out to Anaheim in the middle of rush hour. Yuk. I’m very, very glad I don’t have to drive (or even ride) in that kind of traffic on a regular basis! Skip is definitely a California native when it comes to freeway driving – Laurie joked that he drives his SUV like a sports car…at least I think she was joking...

We arrived (in one piece) and got a fairly decent parking place… club level seats between home & second base. After we got settled & the game started, Laurie & I went to go get something to eat for everyone. I had soft tacos (messy!) and got Scott a hot dog. Skip (The Dodger fan) was disappointed in the game (they lost by several runs), but Craig & Brett (the Angels fans) were happy. Scott enjoyed the game in general – I’m not a bit sports fan, but it’s fun to go out to a game every once in a while. There were fireworks after the game – not Disney quality, but a nice little show. It got a bit chilly by the end of the game and I was glad to get back in the truck & be headed home. It was a busy day & a late night, but we had a good time!

Day 3 – Saturday, 19 May 2007
We slept in a bit, since we’d been up so late the night before. After breakfast, Skip and the two of us went to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Open House – I’d found out about it thanks to another Passporter poster & it turned out to only be a few miles from their house.
It was a LOT busier & a LOT bigger than I had imagined! The JPL campus is comparable to Disneyland (according to the shuttle bus driver) – we had to park out in the “North 40” lot & walked over to the main campus. We toured thru the fabrication area & got to see ourselves on a very sensitive infrared camera – they had ice to “paint” your face – it showed up incredibly dark!
Next we went over to the Robo-Dome to see a project on synchronized movement between robots – eventually to be used for a multi-platform telescope. For now, the robots are mounted on what was basically a hovercraft so they could glide almost frictionlessly in 2 dimensions – then on a gimbal to get near 3D movement. The line for the 10-min demo was VERY long – we waited close to an hour. We browsed around some of the outdoor displays – saw a replica of Voyager (which is also celebrating its 30th anniversary) and some other spacecraft. We bought first-day covers for Spirit & Opportunity, and some other souvenirs (t-shirts), then finished the morning with a tour of the Rover building, where we saw some of the other robots in development & on display. We talked for a bit with one of the developers of Phoenix, which is the next mission to Mars.
We spent about 2 hours or so at JPL – the crowds were getting kind of heavy & we didn’t want to spend all our line-waiting patience up too early, so we headed back about 1:00. Spent the afternoon with family and had a wonderful home-cooked dinner that night. Skip and Becci were wonderfully gracious hosts and Laurie was a great tour guide. We definitely have some thank-you cards to write!
We called it a night somewhat early again, as we wanted to get a good start for the next phase of vacation – Disneyland!