The Big Kahuna Family's Welcome Home **Updated 6/6** COMPLETE! About This Page:

[Two4Disney]

Destination: Disneyland

Dates: May 17-20, 2008

Adventurers:
Rich & Kathy, aka Two4Disney, veteran Disneyland and WDW travelers who just returned to the west coast after living outside the gates of Walt Disney World

Resort:
Paradise Pier

Dining Plans:
Saturday:
Leave Home in AM
Lunch: Tortilla Joe’s
Dinner: Redd Rocket’s Pizza Port

Sunday:
Breakfast: Blue Ribbon Bakery
Lunch: Rancho del Zocala
Dinner: Vineyard Room

Monday:
Breakfast: Bakers’ Field Bakery
Lunch: Blue Water Grill (side trip to Newport Beach)
Dinner: Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen

Tuesday:
Breakfast: Storyteller’s Café
Drive Home


You may have heard of us from the WDW Passporter Boards, both as a trip reporter and commenter on Bob & Larry’s trip reports. Or maybe you read our Two4Disney blog (which later became the Two4Disney: After the Safari blog) when we lived in Florida for 4 years, including 1 year outside the gates of WDW. If so, you know that I grew up near Disneyland, supposedly met Walt Disney when I was too young to remember, and worked as a technical writer for WDW and blogger for the Orlando Sentinel.

And as fun as that time was for us, I couldn’t forget my first love for Disneyland. To make a long story short (too late), we moved back across the country and are now just 4 hours from Disneyland from our new home in Las Vegas.

After living so close to WDW and going at least once a week for a year, we knew we’d eventually have to have a Disney fix. And living this close to Disneyland, it was only a matter of time before we’d book a trip. We can’t believe we haven’t been to Disneyland in over 6 years (or is it 8 years already?) and the last time we went, DCA was getting ready to open so we haven’t even experienced that park at all. Where did time go?

When we lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 20 years, we made annual trips to Disneyland but never had an Annual Pass. But after having a WDW AP while living in Florida, we decided we must have one for Disneyland. Woo hoo – we are now AP holders for Disneyland! Looks like we’ll just have to go quite often over the next year. So many new things to try and we’ll look forward to sampling something new over the next few trips.

Note: We used to eat at Blue Bayou on every trip, but now that there are other choices for the same amount of money, we decided to skip it this time. I can’t justify paying over $20 for a Monte Cristo. I say that sitting here but we’ll see what happens when we’re actually there. That’s true for all of our plans, of course.

[emtpej]

I have never been to DL. It will be neat to follow along on your TR!

[Colexis Mom]

Yeah, a Rich and Kathy report Great plans

[chezp]

How cool - I can't wait to read all about your adventures in Disneyland!

[PrincessSharon]

Great start! Can't wait to hear all about it.

[bsblady01]

more please

[Two4Disney]

Thanks, everybody, for the encouragement - it's been awhile since I posted a report on Passporter. We can't wait for the trip - we have our plans written on the white board in our office, decorated Disney-style (of course), and just looking at them make me smile.

[DyanKJ130]

Great start!! Your plans look wonderful!

[ilovedisney0_0]

I am so excited to get your take on DCA! It is my favorite CA park - I it - and I hope you do, too!

[Two4Disney]

Originally Posted by ilovedisney0_0

I am so excited to get your take on DCA! It is my favorite CA park - I it - and I hope you do, too!

Wow! That's exciting to hear! We're thinking that it may just have some of the things we miss about WDW - sipping a drink by the water, Tower of Terror, Soaring Over CA, etc. We can't wait.

We got our confirmation in the mail and were so excited to see the envelope.

Today our Mickey desk lamp arrived - that should pull the office together.

Thanks all!

[chezp]

Sounds like it's all real now, with the arrival of the confirmation!

[Two4Disney]

Less than 3 weeks to go and we made a couple of changes to our plans. I'm sure the reality won't exactly match up with the plans anyway.

We called Disneyland to ask where we could convert our AP voucher and the only place to do that is at Guest Services on Main Street inside Disneyland Park. We had planned to go to DCA first but since we can only get our AP inside Disneyland, we changed our first day touring plans. That means we also changed our lunch plans.

We now have a PS at Cafe Orleans for lunch on Saturday. We plan to have dinner at Rancho del Zacolo, the beach day is now Sunday instead of Monday - we'll be back in time for a quick tour of DCA and dinner at the Vineyard Room. Monday morning we hope to get to the Sub ride first thing in Disneyland and finish the morning riding rides we couldn't get to on Saturday, afternoon at DCA, finishing up with dinner at Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen.

Confused yet? Tuesday morning we'll check out and have breakfast at Mrs. Knotts Chicken Dinner Restaurant at Knott's Berry Farm and then drive home. Gotta get back to Mrs. Knotts.

Whew! There's so much we want to pack in on this first short trip back to Disneyland - the first one in years. We can't believe it's been so long since we've been (especially since I grew up there), but we moved to Florida several years ago and just moved back. There's a lot of catching up to do. We'll just have to make several trips.

[chezp]

Sounds like your plans are pretty much sorted out. I'm looking forward to hearing all about it.

[DyanKJ130]

Looks like everything is coming together nicely, even though you've had to juggle a couple of things around. Won't be much longer now!

[Two4Disney]

But then this morning we were thinking we really aren't going to have much time for DCA. Maybe we should make a quick dash to the beach Tuesday morning instead of breakfast at Mrs. Knott's so we won't have to leave the Resort at all until we check out and have more park time.

Don't be surprised if the actual trip report is nothing like this pre-trip report.

Thanks for reading my ramblings.