Memorial Day

We’re getting ready to grill up some lunch so before going out in the sun, I sprayed on my Coppertone. If you’ve read my novel, Real Women Wear Red, you know that 20-something Sandy Brown is addicted to Coppertone. Growing up near Balboa Island on Newport Beach in southern California, I can’t smell Coppertone without feeling nostalgic waves of my childhood. And then I start singing with the Beach Boys. LOL!  Happy Memorial Day!

Final Thoughts

So we’ve thinking about more things we wanted to say and realized we needed to post a “Final Thoughts” post. LOL!

I’m not sure we mentioned how much fun we had twittering about our Disneyland trip at the same time that some of our PP friends at the “Decade of Dreams” at WDW were twittering their trip – posting twitpics – making it feel as if we were at Disneyland and Disney World at the same time. Thanks Bob & Larry – you made our trip even more fun!

We also forgot to mention the sweet little CM from Brooklyn at the DCA entrance from inside the GC. Because the APs have our pictures and names on them, he always greets us by name, “Good morning, Richard,” and “Good morning, Katherine” he says in his distinctive Brooklyn accent. He’s such a sweetie!

Renewing our APs online was a breeze. We debated about whether we should do that or wait until our next trip (not realizing our next trip would be in a month), but eventually decided to renew online. We saved some money by doing this, and our APs were mailed to us – no standing in line, no taking of pictures again, etc. This year there were 2 choices for the design of AP you wanted. Rich chose the new one, and I decided to stick wtih the old one just so we could tell our APs apart at a glance.

The other cool thing about this trip was when we drove up to the guard gate at the GC. Rich was wearing his Epcot shirt and the CM asked him what his favorite WDW resort was. Well, that took awhile since we have so many favorites. It was fun having that connection to WDW while at DL.

And as for our upcoming trip to Disneyland, we just bought tickets to see an Angels game like we did last year. And guess who they’re playing? The Dodgers – wow – two of our teams at the same time – who will we cheer for? I hope you’ll come back for our next trip report to find out.

Rich reminded me that I hadn’t mentioned some of the stuff we got in the gift shops. Well, after riding Toy Story, we landed in the gift shop and had to buy Jessie, a “Hey, Howdy, Hey” Woody coffee cup for Rich, and a big pink pig coffee cup for me because we rode in the “pig” car. LOL! I don’t know what to say about that but it was red and I had to have it!

Besides Rich’s Duke’s Barefoot Bar t-shirt, I found a pink and blue nightie that was oh so comfy for cooler Anaheim nights.

We also had to commemorate the Food & Wine Festival by picking up 2 special Food & Wine wine goblets and special event pins for ourselves and for friends. I only have a picture of the one we didn’t get, but we preferred the ones we did get – and hope our friends did, too.

The pin we didn’t get (can’t figure out the camera or I’d take a pic of the one we did get).

One more pic we wanted to share – this cool display of balloons with a “Thanks for celebrating with us” caption displayed on Main Street in Disneyland for the special “What Will You Celebrate” promotion this year.

Day 4: Breakfast and a Swim Before Heading Home

The morning was sunny and we planned to have a last morning at the pool before driving home. This is the longest morning we’ve had so far at a Disneyland resort since our return to the west. As you may recall, the Paradise Pier room was so wonky, we took off in the middle of the night and drove home that last day. The Disneyland Hotel was much better, but we didn’t feel the need to extend our last morning. But here at the Grand Californian, we were trying to stay as long as we could.

But we had to give the GC one more test: room service breakfast. Before we moved to Las Vegas, we took annual trips to Vegas and were spoiled by Vegas hotel service – especially pool and room service. The Grand Californian is the only Disney hotel (DL or WDW) that equals Vegas pool service – actually, surpasses it. Now for the ultimate test: room service.

We made a pot of coffee in the in-room coffee pot (another thing we loved about the GC), called in our breakfast order, and wondered how long the wait would be. But they promised it in under 30 minutes – a record for us for a Disney hotel. But zippity-do-dah, the breakfast was delivered in probably 10 minutes. Wow! And the food was hot and delicious, too. They passed the test with flying colors. Gotta love the GC!

The pool was just fabulous this sunny morning. The chaise lounges, as I mentioned before, were so cushy you could take a nap out there. And the pool was just warm enough for a delightful swim. We admired the location of the DVC and extra rooms under construction and would love to return once it’s all done (a bit noisy with construction noise on week days right now). We’d love to give a pool view room a try once it’s all quieted down, although our park view was such a hoot and so unique – we’ll miss it. Can we just move in and live here?

But it was time to check out and drive home – we were anxious to see our kitties. Thankfully, we’ve found a wonderful pet sitter, but it’s still hard leaving the kitties behind. That’s what was nice about living just 2 miles from the MK at WDW – we never had to leave our kitties overnight. Yes, they are our kids.

Once we got home and started reflecting on our wonderful trip, we realized we only did 2 rides. Oh my goodness! We had to schedule another trip just to catch up on rides!! Much to our delightful surprise, Rich got a bonus check at work – some companies are making a profit (yay!) – so not only did we renew our APs, but we booked a stay at the Disneyland Hotel for June. The purpose of this next trip is to catch up on all of our favorite rides – the beach – the pool!!!

We loved the Disney’s California Food & Wine Festival, and beforehand, we wondered if it would satisfy this year’s Disney Food & Wine experience, or would we be drawn to the International Food & Wine Festival at Epcot even more? We suspect the latter, although we won’t really know until we receive the brochure from Tables in Wonderland sometime this summer. Will we go to the California festival next year? We think we probably will, but, perhaps, for some of the week day events to change it up, and, perhaps, smaller crowds.

Final Stroll for Food and Wine

The Final Stroll for Food & Wine

Our favorite thing at the Epcot F&W Festival is to stroll the individual booths and select snack-sized items and discover a new wine or beer to go with. For whatever the reason – no room for booths or the fire department or health department says no to that – we’ve heard several reasons – DCA doesn’t have those. Instead, there are special food items offered at several counter service restaurants throughout the park. And that’s why we decided to book those special events instead of focusing on the specialty foods and wine passports.

But we did sample a couple. Boudin Bakery in the Pacific Wharf area had a yummy white cheddar cheese soup in a bread bowl, which we had for lunch this day, and on a previous day, we tried the chicken tamales at Cocina Cucamonga – both amazingly delicious. But the lines were long and it was a full-sized serving and not snack-sized. And there was no wine or beer served with it – you had to track that down separately. Now, that didn’t bother us because we’d had plenty of wine this weekend. To read more about the other events – including wine walkabouts – check out Laura’s Allears Blog.

We wandered around, checked out the offerings, and did a little shopping at the Festival Center Booth, World of Disney, Greetings from California, Rushin’ River Outfitters, and the GC gift shop. Then, we called it a day. Our focus this trip was on the Grand Californian and the Food & Wine Festival and we felt satisfied.

But our trip would not be complete without a stop at the Golden Vine Winery patio and there we enjoyed a final glass of wine, soaking up the atmosphere and people-watching – probably our favorite spot in all of Disneyland Resort. Who knew we would come to love DCA so much?

Next: One more dip in the pool.

Day 2 Part 2: Huntington Beach

Surf City

I almost forgot we went to the beach after the Sweet Sunday event. Being beach lovers now living in Las Vegas, well, we have to find time to get to the beach on our Disneyland trips. This time we chose to go to Huntington Beach – one of my childhood beaches that I introduced to Rich. He said it was the California beach most like his childhood beaches on the Jersey Shore.

Rich on Huntington Beach wearing his Animal Kingdom Lodge t-shirt

We had a fabulous time and had to ask ourselves, “Is there some way we can move back to Southern California?” I don’t think so, but it’s killer not being close to the beach – especially after living in Florida and California. We walked up and down the beach, and had lunch at Duke’s – wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Rich had the beer-battered fish tacos, and I had the grilled fish tacos – delish! Rich also had to memorialize the event with a Duke’s T-shirt.

Duke’s on Huntington Beach

It was difficult leaving the beach – in fact I’m listening to beach boy music as I write this.

Fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon – on Huntington Beach

We eventually made our way back to the Grand Californian – not a bad place to be – can we live here?

Once back at the GC, we decided to swim in the pool. BTW, the first two days the weather was cool and cloudy. But this day was a beautiful day for the beach and the pool at the GC. We were thinking that once construction on the new rooms is finished, we’ll come back to the GC and get a room with a pool view – great access to the pool.

Next: Food & Wine Final Stroll