The Disneyland Pilgrimage & Cruise - COMPLETE

*****TRIP REPORT BEGINS ON PAGE 2, POST 6*****

We're less than 60 days out! In fact, in 60 days, we'll be back home.

And I still feel like my plans are not very well defined. I called Disney Dining at DL last week and the CM that I spoke with told me "don't worry about it. You can get any reservation that you want even if it's the day before." Huh? She even seemed confused that I felt the need to make an ADR already. She's apparently never been to WDW. So I have no spreadsheet. There are some things that aren't even available for booking yet. I'm totally out of my element!!

We ended up adding a night because even the earliest the flight out on Wednesday morning would have gotten us to the park around 2:00pm, so we were basically losing a 1/2 day. So we decided to fly Tuesday night. We'll land at LAX around 9:10 and we're still trying to decide how we're getting from LAX to DL. I'm leaning toward a taxi because we'll be landing at 1am Eastern time. With collecting the luggage, navigating the airport, and driving to the Eden Roc Inn, it will feel like 3am to us until we finally get to go to sleep.

Day 1 (Wednesday) We'll get up (hopefully) early, walk .4 miles to Grand Californian, check-in & drop off our luggage, and go to Disneyland. The first morning, we'll probably spend a lot of time just exploring and maybe picking up some minor attractions with shorter wait times. We're hoping to book the Walk in Walt's Footsteps Tour for 2:30 that day, but the booking window doesn't open until 30 days before, so there's no guarantee that a tour will be offered at that time yet. They only offer an afternoon tour during peak periods. That day will be dinner at Jolly Holiday bakery since that is included with the tour. We will probably do lunch at the Plaza Inn because I've heard nothing but rave reviews about their chicken (and I love me some chicken!) On Day 1, we'll probably try to see the fireworks. I've heard a lot of people complaining about Fantasy in the Sky, which is the placeholder until the new fireworks show starts, but I'm not going to fly across the country to skip the fireworks. It's brightly colored explosions creating a backdrop for a castle. How bad can it be??

We have 30 attractions that we want to see at DL and 17 at DCA that are not on the refurb list during our visit, so we basically plan to spend 2 days at DL and 1 day at DCA. We did get park hoppers since we're staying at GC and have the back door access to DCA. Since we are traveling ahead of the 60th anniversary, we're running into quite a few closures for rehabs. We're going to miss Peter Pan's Flight and Soarin'--not a huge deal because we do have them at "home", but they're two of our favorites, so I'd be lying if I said I wasn't just a little bit sad about missing them. The two that I'm totally bummed about are Matterhorn Bobsleds and Luigi's Flying Tires. Matterhorn is just so iconically "Disneyland" and Luigi's Flying Tires looked just like the old Flying Saucer ride that I've always thought looked awesomely fun. Luckily, there are still a ton of our favorite attractions and some completely new experiences waiting for us!!

When I heard about the Fantasmic and World of Color dining packages, we were planning to take advantage of that to get preferred viewing for the shows, but when I spoke to the folks at Disney Dining, they said told me that the menus are fixed for the packages, so I think we'll just get FP for the shows and book dinner where we want to eat.

Day 2 (Thursday) will be a mostly DCA day. Our only "plan" for the day will be a meal at Carthay Circle. I'm thinking that our other meal might be at Tortilla Jo's at DTD today. I'm very excited about doing the Animation Academy (probably while Benn is on ToT), Monsters Inc, and Radiator Springs Racers. Todays' evening goal is World of Color.

Day 3 (Friday) will mostly be a DL day. If we don't hist them on Wednesday, our priorities are Alice in Wonderland, Snow White's Scary Adventures, Toontown, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Haunted Mansion, Pirates, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, and BTMR. Presumably Benn will ride Space Mountain. I'll probably opt for Astro Orbiter instead unless I'm feeling extra brave. Food today is very much up in the air. We were going to do Blue Bayou, but it would be more for the novelty of the location in Pirates of the Caribbean, so we're probably going to scrap that and go counter service for the day. There's a possibility that we may do Cafe Orleans or Carnation Cafe. I'm still thinking about it.

Day 4 (Saturday) is transfer-to-the-cruise day. We'll be out of park tickets, so we'll probably hit DTD in the morning and stop at Earl of Sandwich for breakfast. In Orlando, I can get a holiday turkey sandwich at 8:30 in the morning. I hope the same holds true on the west coast! We'll transfer toe the cruise somehow--maybe a cab, maybe a service like Uber or Lyft--haven't decided yet. This is the point where we'll meet up with my parents who will be joint us for the cruise to celebrate their 60th birthdays. Our cruise is a California Coastal on the Ruby Princess.

Day 5 (Sunday) is an at sea day, which might be the day that Benn is looking forward to the most! It's the day that I'm looking forward to the least! After our Carnival cruise on the boat with the broken stabilizer, I'm very leery of at sea days.

Day 6 (Monday) is San Francisco day. We'll be visiting the Walt Disney Family Museum, Industrial Light and Magic (it's not open to the public, but there's apparently a Yoda statue that IS public, so we're going on a scavenger hunt), Ghiradelli Square, Fisherman's Wharf, and Alcatraz at night. I'm really executed about this day.

Day 7 (Tuesday) is another at sea day. for calm seas.

Day 8 (Wednesday) is Santa Barbara. We're doing a trolley tour and then we're not really sure. Maybe hitting the beach? and probably freezing.

Day 9 (Thursday) is San Diego. I was really excited about SD because originally we were going to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, but I got overruled and now we're going to Balboa Park. It should still be an awesome day because we'll be doing the Model Railroad Museum, Science Museum, and Air & Space Museum.

Day 10 (Friday) is Ensenada, MX. This is the last day of vacation and it's the one I'm the least excited about. Our excursion doesn't sound all that interesting, but in light of the frequent State Dept. warnings for this area, I wasn't feeling adventurous enough to go off the boat on our own, so we had three cruise-sponsoroed excursions to choose from.

Day 11 (Saturday) is back to LA and travel home day.