Halloween at the Grand Californian Day 2 Part 1
Note: We made some changes to the previous day’s report since I mixed up a couple of nights. I should have listened to Rich’s voice notes before I started writing the report, but I now have it in my possession. 
Back to the report.
We woke up to thick fog, a common summer weather pattern due to hot inland areas, but since it was so hot this weekend, it’s not surprising the morning fog slipped into September – Indian summer – another common weather pattern for the area. It soon cleared up, though. My mother tells stories of how she’d have to put on long pants in the morning, change into shorts for the hot afternoon, and then back into long pants for the cool coastal evenings when we lived in nearby Westminster.
Foggy morning view overlooking the Porte Cochere of the Grand Californian
Sunny mid-morning view of the Porte Cochere of the Grand Californian
We ordered an American Breakfast room service to share and a pot of coffee, and the GC staff came through again and delivered it within 30 minutes – not bad.
DCA was the plan for this morning, and while it didn’t open until 10 a.m., Soarin Over California opens at 9:30. So we lined up at the GC entry gate at about 9:25 and they let us in at about 9:30 and we walked onto Soarin. We got the top middle row – woo hoo!!!
Who doesn’t love this ride? It makes me cry because it captures all of my California memories, where I lived most of my life. It’s like watching home movies. It opens soaring over the Golden Gate Bridge, and not only was I conceived there (where my mother and father honeymooned while he waited for his military deployment from San Francisco to the Pacific), but I spent 22 years of my adult life there. Rich and I met, worked together, and got married there. It’s a beautiful place, no doubt about that. Then the film moves up to the Russian River – one of our favorite getaways from San Francisco.
Other nostalgic stops along the way: Yosemite where my dad and his family spent most of his summers growing up and where Rich hiked Half Dome, backpacked into the Sierras, and overnight camping trips in cabins. The Central Valley where Dad#1 and Dad#2 grew up – where one family still grows grapes for raisins – as in “The California Raisins.” LOL! The fighter jets recall Dad#1 and his love for planes and his time in the Air Force, the hot air balloons over Napa and hang gliders – a particular passion of Dad#2.
And then the ride zooms in over the L.A. freeways, where my mother grew up and where I was born, and then the finale soarin over Disneyland (where I grew up) at Christmas – wow – who wouldn’t cry? I might cry right now.
Anyway, after Soarin, we walked through “Candy Corn Acres,” and took some pics, and listened to every candy-themed song there ever was. My personal childhood favorite: Sunshine, Lollipops” and Rich’s “Sugar, Sugar.”
Photo Op – you just have to point and click and you get whoever happens to be posing.
Candy Corn Acres - Farmer Mickey grows the corn – who knew?
We waited around for about 5 minutes until rope drop, and the designated family dropped the rope and led us down Hollywood Boulevard. We went straight for Tower of Terror, which is Rich’s favorite ride, and while I love the theming, I have a hard time with that dropping feeling.
Tower of Terror at DCA
We then rode Monsters Inc for the very first time. It was a lot of fun.
Halloween at the Grand Californian Day 1 Part 2
In Part 1, we left you out by the pool…
The chaise lounges out by the pool in the shade were all taken, so we parked ourselves on some lounge chairs in the sun. It was blazing hot – the sun in the southwest (including SoCal) is so bright, it’s blinding. After so much brightness in Las Vegas all summer, we were hoping for some cooler weather, which we did get, but first we’d have to get through the weekend. We ordered a couple of FABs, and while waiting for them, we took turns jumping in the pool to cool off. By the time the drinks arrived, we decided it was way too hot to drink them sitting on the lounge chairs and we took them to the edge of the pool and drank them while immersing our legs in the pool. We then jumped in the pool and splashed around for a bit. It felt wonderful.
After we changed in the room, we decided we’d drop in on DCA via the GC gate. We looked for CM Chappy from Brooklyn, but he wasn’t there – probably only works on week days, and headed for the Lucky Fortune Cookery – open once again now that it changed places with Cocina Cucamonga – in the Pacific Wharf area. We ordered rice bowls – you have 3 choices of protein and 4 choices of sauce. I ordered one with chicken and spicy Korean sauce, and Rich had the beef with Teriyaki sauce. Quite yummy and filling.
After we ate, we walked around a bit. Normally, we head right for the Golden Vine Winery for a glass of wine, but we didn’t want any wine – too hot and we had the FAB at the pool. But we did finally get to taste a shake at Andreas Shakers – the one and only time we tried to get a shake here, we were too late and the stand had just closed. This time it closed right after we got ours. While date shakes are famous up and down the Central Valley, neither of us are that wild about dates. So we shared a Blueberry Crumble out by the picnic table – it was incredibly delicious!
By this time DCA was getting ready to close so we headed for nighttime at Disneyland Park – exiting the DCA gate and going straight to the Disneyland gate bypassing the bag check. It’s so much easier to do the bag check through the GC DCA gate so this is when being a resort guest really works in your favor. But Disneyland looked too busy and we were tired after travel day. So we headed for Downtown Disney instead.
Downtown Disney at Disneyland is really cool – love the vibe – love the independent musicians along the way. This time we stopped to listen to David Wayne, a southern California native and SoCal was our favorite song that we heard, and so we bought 2 of his CDs. We then peeked into World of Disney but it was too busy and we’d have other shopping opportunities. A stop into Basin was mandatory and we picked up two more jars of body butter – a must living in the desert. Then we walked the entire length of Dowtown Disney – or so we thought – and were miffed when we thought the book store had been replaced with a kiddie store – more on that later.
We headed back to the resort, stopped in at the hotel gift shop, one of our favorites, and then back up to the room. We were pleasantly surprised to see little pixies had dropped in on our room and given us turndown service with 3 chocolates. A very nice touch, and one we wouldn’t see again.
Halloween at the Grand Californian Day 1 Part 1
Who: Rich and Kathy
Where: Disneyland Resort
When: September 26-30
Resort: Grand Californian (aka GC)
Why: A Disney and Baseball Fix
Background
Our last trip to Disneyland was in June when we stayed at the Hilton for baseball, beach, and Disneyland. Well, that taught us that we much prefer staying onsite these days. The problem is that after staying at the Grand Californian (Park View) during the Food & Wine Festival, we have become so spoiled and don’t want to stay at other Disneyland resorts. But we also don’t want to pay those prices every time. So when we saw online that the AP standard view rate was actually quite reasonable, we decided to book it, thinking that any room at the GC was better than no room at the GC.
The problem was that Saturday night was full. We booked Sunday through Tuesday at the Grand Californian, and then booked one night at Embassy Suites, Dyer Road, near John Wayne Airport – an old favorite of ours when we used to come down from San Francisco. We also bought 2 tickets to the Angels vs. Texas Rangers game at Angel Stadium to catch another baseball game this season and we got some really good seats this time. But a couple of nights before the trip, we were sipping wine and Rich got the idea to check to see if any rooms had opened up at the GC for Saturday night. And, sure enough, there was availability, so we cancelled Embassy Suites and added Saturday night to our reservation. Woo hoo!
We left our home around 10 a.m. to start the four-hour drive. Last time we were at the GC, our room wasn’t ready when we arrived so we sat out by the pool and ordered a FAB (frosty adult beverage) while we waited. We love how the GC has food and beverage service at the pool – unusual for Disney. But this time we decided to wear our swim suits underneath our clothes so that we could get in the pool while we waited for our room. When we arrived at 2 p.m., picketers were outside the front of the hotel – protesting Disney’s treatment of workers – construction perhaps?
I followed Rich to the registration desk and a CM approached me and said, “This is the line for check-in – are you checking in?” Didn’t know why she asked – maybe doing a little crowd control because it was so busy. We had a pleasant surprise when the CM checking us in found a King room that was ready. LOL! Of course it was since were prepared for it not to be. But that’s okay – we weren’t complaining.
The registration desk with wonderful Disney theming.
The room was in a nicer location than the one we had before because it was just off the lobby – I’d always wanted a room located off the lobby at the Wilderness Lodge at WDW, but we always booked a water view. We were on the 4th floor and we noticed a wonderful cozy sitting area on the 3rd floor overlooking the lobby and planned to hang out there over the course of the trip, but never made it. The GC lobby is a combination of Wilderness Lodge and the Grand Floridian – it has the western architecture with the upscale touches like the pianist playing throughout the day – a very nice touch!
View of lobby taken from the 4th floor.
Standard view overlooking the porte cochere.
A standard king room – nice but lacked some amenities and we later discovered they were refurbing this wing.
We unpacked and headed for the pool. It was very hot today and the pool was packed. Also, we noticed the GC was very busy with check-ins. This was the first weekend that the DVC villas were open, and we also noticed the hotel and parks were full of locals for the weekend – also the kickoff weekend to Halloween with new fireworks, decorations, and themed attractions. It seemed almost as busy as Christmas.
Florida Nostalgia
It’s been a month since Hawaii, three months since our last Disneyland trip with the next trip still a couple of weeks off, so I find myself thumbing through some of our Florida pics, sending a few to Rich, and labelling them “some of the fun we’ve had.” It’s easy for beach/Disney lovers like us to miss Florida when we’re sitting in the middle of a desert with no water or green anything in sight – other than a few desert plants in the front and back yards.
We originally left our California home, and moved to the Orlando area because we were such Disney fans. But “the job” ended up being in Tampa, so after seven short weeks in Orlando, we were whisked away to Tampa Bay. Later, before we moved back west, we had the opportunity to live outside the gates of WDW (literally two miles from the Magic Kingdom) for one year. And while we loved having such access to WDW, experiencing things we never would have if we hadn’t lived so close, looking back, we see that Tampa suited us so much better. Here are some of our favorite pics.
While our house in Vegas may be “fancier,” we loved watching this house being built while we lived in an apartment close to the beach. And the single-story suited us so much – we still miss the entry to the kitchen from the garage with the gorgeous view of the trees straight out back and the pond to the left.
The kitties loved spending the day with me in that front office, and I had the sheer thrill of writing my third novel (the one to get an agent), Real Women Wear Red, in that office and out on the Lanai. Exciting times, indeed.
Besides writing, we spent many hours relaxing on the screened Lanai, listening to tree frogs after a storm, watching the fire flies at night, with occasional visits by deer at dusk.
This is also the view we enjoyed from the master bedroom because a true Florida home has two sliders out to the Lanai – one from the Great Room, and the other from the Master bedroom. The entire house is designed to showcase the screened-in pool, which is another “must have” Florida feature. And while we weren’t in the house long enough to build our own pool, we absolutely loved the community pool, where we were found frolicking on most summer Saturday mornings – unless we were off to Disney World.
When we were in Hawaii last month, we kept noting the similar feelings we experienced in our community pool that we were enjoying in the resort pool. We also asked ourselves if we would continue to choose living in the west because it’s our home or did Florida somehow get under our skin and become home? Would love to experience some of that again – the house, the beach, the pool, and Walt Disney World.
We’ve enjoyed pools in other warm locales, having lived in California and now Las Vegas, but there’s something about immersing your body in a pool when the humidity is high that is especially enjoyable. This is the only place where I would actually swim underwater because it felt so good.
When we first moved to Florida, we had a Ford Sport Trac (great for long-distance moves), but we soon traded it in for a real Florida car – our red Mustang. We’d had a blue/green Mustang when we lived in California and it seemed like the perfect Florida car, too. The only downside was that the seats weren’t as comfortable as we would like – by the time we got to WDW an hour away our butts would be numb. LOL! And, for some reason, the Mustang didn’t like the headwinds driving from Tampa to Orlando.
We also miss the friendliness and neighborliness of living in Florida, compared to living in California and Las Vegas, where the independent lifestyle is the norm. In our Florida neighborhood, we had our own mailbox in front of our house, and when you went out to get the mail, a neighbor would surely wave to you. A lot more women were home in Florida, either full-time mothers, housewives, or retired. In the west, it seems most women are working and it’s a busier, more stress-filled atmosphere. I miss the more relaxed “we’re on vacation” atmosphere of Florida.
If we do move back to Florida, we’d like to live the real Florida dream, though, and have our own screened-in pool. We rented one near WDW, and it was a lot of fun.
We think maybe we’d never have left Florida if we’d had our own pool. Another thing we’d like to do differently is live closer in to Tampa. We were out in the new builds in Pasco County, and we began to get dissatisfied quickly because it was just too far for every day things.
But we did have our great property with views because we were further out, so there’s a trade-off.
But wherever we’d be in Tampa Bay, we’d be looking forward to our favorite pizza chain of all-time – Westshore Pizza. Try the Philly Cheesesteak – it’s the best pizza ever!
Another intriguing type of pool home that we toured is the “cabana pool home.” Check it out. As soon as you open the front door, you practically fall into the pool. And, as a bonus, there’s a separate front office, which could be nice when working at home full-time.
Sometime after we sold our house in Tampa Bay, and realized that living outside the gates of WDW wasn’t really working because Rich had to commute to Tampa one day per week (sounds easy, but it got old really fast), we thought about moving back to Tampa. We looked at a couple of rentals and one was like this cabana home. Unfortunately, by the time we called about it, it was already rented. Guess it was all meant to be because, instead of moving back to Tampa, we ended up moving back west, which we were really missing by then.
Revisiting Florida may tide me over for now, but in a couple of weeks, we’ll be checking into our home away from home out west – the Grand Californian, enjoying the pool, a glass of wine at our favorite part of DCA – the Golden Vine Winery – and visiting some of our favorite places in California such as the Pacific Wharf (Monterey), Napa/Sonoma, and the Russian River – without leaving Anaheim. We’ll ride the rides that only Disneyland has, or Disneyland does better, or Disneyland does differently, and for the moment, we’ll be so very happy that we moved back west.
In the meantime, I’ve made a list of all of the Disneyland attractions we must do – just in case we do move back to Florida. Some of those are:
The Matterhorn, Indiana Jones, It’s a Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, the Submarines, Winnie the Pooh, Mr. Toad, Alice in Wonderland, Roger Rabbit, Peter Pan, Aladdin, Grizzly Peak, Tower of Terror, Monsters, Inc. and Toy Story.
And now I’ll leave you with a pic of one of my favorite spots at WDW: the Boardwalk/World Showcase area.
Hawaii Part 12: The Good-Bye Luau
Okay, so maybe luaus aren’t for everybody. They are certainly touristy, and I’ve been to a few. But it had been 11 years since we had been in Hawaii and it was my idea that a luau might be fun to reconnect with the whole pig in the ground, Hawaiian music, singers and dancers thing. The problem is the Grand Hyatt doesn’t have a beach luau and those are really the best. Weather permitting, the luau is held in a grassy area not on the beachside of the resort. And should it rain, the luau is moved inside.
The last time we were here, we had the inside luau but the entertainment was in a covered, outside area, giving the feeling of being outside. We were hoping for an outside luau, but, alas, it was not meant to be. The disappointment was – not only had prices shot up – the indoor setup wasn’t as nice this time. Some things should not be revisited, but left to the memory of the past.
One thing I should mention is that the last time we were at the Grand Hyatt, we enjoyed lighting of the tiki torches and Hawaiian dancing and singing outside on the Seaview Terrace. This trip, entertainment varied throughout the week and that show was only on Saturday and Tuesday. We weren’t there on a Saturday and on Tuesday we were having Rich’s birthday dinner at Tidepools during that time so we missed this entirely. So the luau would allow us to experience some of that.
What can I say? By this time we were tired, and ready to go home. We spent the afternoon packing, and if we hadn’t already paid for the luau, we would have skipped it. It would have been better to schedule this earlier in the trip but the only other choice would have been the day we arrived, and we were exhausted then, too. So the good news was, the Mai Tais were free flowing, and the food was delicious. We stayed for some of the entertainment and then called it a night. We had a flight to Honolulu the next morning, and then a long flight to Las Vegas from there (long flight to us – don’t know how some of you do even longer or more flights).
One thing we forgot to mention is that we were able to check in for our flights 24 hours ahead from a kiosk at the Grand Hyatt. And, blessings of all blessings, we were able to change our assigned seats from those middle row seats like we had coming out – to the 2-seat side with window and aisle. WOO HOOOOOOOO!!!! The flight didn’t seem nearly as daunting now. And believe me, it made a huge difference on the flight back – not bad at all!
I should also mention that we spent some time walking the property and taking pictures. Here are some of the beautiful tropical birds in the open-air atrium of the resort. They each had their name posted, and Rich personally addressed each one.
The next day we ate our final Grand Hyatt Kauai breakfast buffet at Ilima Terrace, returned the rental car, flew to Honolulu, and then flew to Las Vegas via San Francisco from the sky. It was cool to see the San Francisco Bay Area again – our home for 20 years or so – even if from the air. And if we had to give up tropical beaches and the ocean and return to the harsh reality of the desert, well, there was no better time to fly into Las Vegas than at night where we landed around midnight – flight time an hour less going west – woo hoo!
The dry temperature was still warm (app. 80 degrees) but refreshing at that time of night, the neon lights were electrifying, and the pulse of such an exciting city welcoming. We were glad to be back home, and the vacation and birthday celebration had done what it was supposed to do.
Thanks, all, for sharing in our journey. We hope you enjoyed it, too.
