We go cruising today! That's the first thought that entered my mind when I woke up at 7 am. Which is 4 am in LA time, but considering I fell asleep before the early bird specials were over the night before, I was feeling really good.
Except...I woke up to a voicemail from Costco Travel. Uh...okay. I listened to their urgent voicemail saying it was "imperative" that I call them back, so I did...except they weren't open yet. I started to panic at this point - because really, what's so imperative that Costco had to call me?
Once I booted up my laptop, I found out: our cruise had been delayed by a day. Costco had called me at 8:30 LA time the night before...you know, after I'd already fallen asleep. Princess Cruises had emailed me the notice the night before as well, after I was already asleep. REALLY??!! The ONE night I actually sleep early is when something crazy happens!
This is their email:
IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING YOUR CRUISE
Island Princess - Voyage 2737 - Booking Number GT7N9G
Dear Princess Guest:
We look forward to welcoming you aboard Island Princess for your upcoming cruise. As previously communicated, the arrival of Island Princess arrival into Port Everglades, Fort Lauderdale from her dry dock in Freeport, Bahamas has been delayed. As a result, we currently expect embarkation for your cruise to be one day later than scheduled and will occur on Thursday, December 7 from 11:00 AM to 2:30 PM.
Due to the delayed departure, we will no longer be able to call to Aruba on Saturday, December 9, but will maintain the rest of the itinerary and our Panama Canal transit. We are very sorry this has affected the start of your vacation and are grateful for your understanding given the circumstances.
As a result of the delayed departure, each guest will receive a one-day refund of the cruise fare paid as a refundable onboard credit. In light of the altered itinerary, as well as to offset ancillary expenses such as meals and transportation, each guest will receive an additional refundable credit of $150 per person applied to their onboard folio. To encourage you to come back and make new memories with us, each guest will also receive a Future Cruise Credit of 15% of the cruise fare paid, which can be used on any future Princess cruise booked before the end of 2018 or any existing booking not yet paid in full, and is non-refundable and non-transferable.
Guests with Princess EZair Guests with Princess EZair flights will keep their current air arrangements, and Princess will arrange for hotel accommodations for one night near Fort Lauderdale. You will receive these details upon your arrival in Fort Lauderdale. If you are already in Fort Lauderdale and have a hotel room, we recommend that you keep that room for another night and present your receipt for reimbursement on board.
Guests with Cruise Plus Pre-Cruise hotels Guests with Cruise Plus Pre-Cruise hotels will have their stay extended an additional night or, subject to hotel availability, will be transferred to another hotel. You will receive details regarding your arrangements upon arrival in Fort Lauderdale.
Out-of-town guests with independent air Out-of-town guests with independent air should either reschedule their flights, or arrange for accommodation for one night in the Fort Lauderdale area. We will reimburse air change fees or reasonable hotel expenses, and you will be able to submit this expense for reimbursement onboard.
If you are unable to secure a hotel room, we will have a large ballroom space at the convention center near the port where you will be able to store your luggage and explore the surrounding area, and tables and chairs where you can wait. The facilities will be limited, but our staff will make every effort to make you as comfortable as possible. Light refreshments will be available. We will facilitate your boarding as early as possible, but anticipate that it will not be until early morning on Thursday, December 7.
Local guests Please delay your arrival at the port until 11:00 AM on Thursday, December 7.
We will reach out to you should there be any additional changes to communicate. Please be sure you have your mobile phone number listed in your Cruise Personalizer. Changes may also be posted to princess.com/notices.
Thank you for your attention to this important message. The entire staff and crew of Island Princess look forward to welcoming you on board.
Sincerely, PrincessCruises
So...we didn't have a place to stay for the night, because we only booked one night! I ran downstairs to the lobby to see if we could extend our stay - but they were fully booked - which isn't a surprise since it was a timeshare. I ran back upstairs, told my mom to continue packing, and hopped on my laptop looking for a hotel for the night. I didn't want to splurge big, because Princess indicated they'd reimburse "reasonable" expenses, and I didn't know what their version of "reasonable" was since it's a subjective standard (let's just say my "reasonable" and my dad's "reasonable" mean very different things), so I didn't want to book anything too crazy in case we didn't get our money back (spoiler alert: they DID reimburse everything - even the resort fee and taxes). I looked at the Hyatt House, the Hyatt Place, Hilton, Hilton's friends, and all the places I had been checking out before I booked the BeachPlace Towers. All booked up. There was another cruise ship in town departing that day, AND over two thousand displaced Princess passengers looking for a hotel room for the night - so MOST of the places in Fort Lauderdale area was booked up. And what wasn't booked up was crazy expensive! The freaking Courtyard Fort Lauderdale was going for $380 a night! There were two more rooms at the Comfort Inn going for $280 each, but I didn't want to spend that money at Comfort Inn! So I found rooms at the Marriott Harbor Beach Resort for about $300 - which ended up being about $360 after taxes and fees. It was expensive for what it was, but I figured that even if Princess only reimbursed us $200 each, the out of pocket wouldn't kill me or give my dad an aneurysm. We packed up, checked out, and waited outside with our luggage for our Lyft.
While mom with Grace and Ed headed across the street to take photos at the beach, my dad and snapped a cheesy selfie while waiting with the luggage.
Our Lyft driver pulled up, looked at our luggage and LITERALLY SAID HE WOULDN'T TAKE THE FARE AND TOOK OFF. I don't know who the guy was, but he was a black guy in his 30's driving a Tahoe. I shake my fist at you Tahoe Man!
So after Lyft cleared me to request another car, I did, and this time the guy not only took us, but helped with our luggage. I know it was a weenie fare since it was literally a mile down the street, but I gave that guy a fat tip for being cool and not a dick to us.
Since it was about 10:30, our rooms weren't ready - but they gave us our towel cards (we've never stayed at a beach resort before...you need towel cards???), drink cards (yay for mojitos), and set us free to enjoy the pools and beach. Except well...I was wearing jeans. And it was hot outside. And humid. And jeans and heat and humidity are not friends - so after walking the grounds briefly, I wanted to go back in. I also hadn't had breakfast yet, so I went to their cheap(er) restaurant and got the brunch buffet for $29. My dad already had breakfast when I was feverishly trying to find us accommodations for the night, so he just ordered a cappuccino while I ate the world. My mom, Grace and Ed came into the restaurant later and we moved the nearby tables over to form a bigger table. They had already had breakfast, but decided to just eat again since we didn't want to leave the hotel to search out lunch without our rooms and luggage being settled. My dad was still being stubborn and refused to eat, claiming he wasn't hungry and he didn't like the food there. Personally, I think he was just being cheap, but whatever. I happily munched on croissants, bacon, parfaits, oatmeal, fruit, potatoes and made to order omelets. I was full 😄
one of the many croissants I had. Yum.
After we finished, we went back to the lobby because it was air conditioned (they were over the heat and humidity in jeans too) and there was wifi. By noon, I got a call that our rooms were ready - and we had our luggage delivered to our room so we could all change into shorts (yay!) and be able to relax.
We took a king room (there's no way my parents could both fit into a double bed) as the king room came with a sofa bed and Grace and Ed took the double room. I didn't spring for an ocean view room, and now I wished I would have since I know Princess would've paid for it (sobbing with regret). This is the view from our room:
They called this the "intercoastal view". Sure...
My parents were tired and wanted to nap - I wanted to go lay on the beach, so I changed into shorts and a tank, grabbed my kindle, and set off in my Rainbows in search of sand and sun (all in shade, of course). On the way, I stopped off at the Starbucks in the hotel, grabbed a "you are here" Miami mug for my friend Marci, and treated myself to an iced chai tea latte. I then meandered out to the beach, and grabbed a lounger in the shade.
this is the view on the way to the elevator. The view I wished I paid for.
I guess this was the off season, because it wasn't busy. I had my choice of loungers, and picked one set further back because I'm anti social. I also didn't intend to swim, so it didn't matter if I was close to the water.
as you can see, shade was important in my choice of loungers
awesomely awkward selfie!
I happily whiled away a few hours lazing around on the beach. I drank my tea, read my book, toodled around on the internet, took some photos of my feet, and read more. Around 4pm, the rest of my people came out to take a look at the ocean. I mean, if you're going to (potentially) pay for a hotel on the beach, you should enjoy the amenity that makes it cost 3 times more than it's actually worth, right?
They lounged around in the shade awhile and we debated where to have dinner.
hello cruise ship that's not ours!
I made the executive decision to have Italian as it's something my parents actually can tolerate, even like. The reviews for the Chinese food in the area were dismal, and I really didn't want Panda Express on vacation, so I won!
the view from our room as the sun was setting
We ended up using Lyft (and paying over $30! Stupid surge pricing during rush hour) to Luigi's Tuscan Grill, which had really good review on yelp. Because I was in charge of ordering food (as I would be for the duration of the trip), I ordered some appetizers too. We got calamari (which you really can't screw up) and broccoli rabe with sausage so we'd have some greens. The fact that it's cooked with sausage made it even better. We ended up with 4 platters of linguine vongole (because we're uncreative) except for Grace who got a mixed seafood pasta in tomato sauce.
They also gave us a platter of really good garlic bread. It was so good, I want to try to dupe it next time I make pasta at home.
look at that big honking pile of clam shells!
The food was good, but not great. The pasta was a little oilier than I liked (see the above photo), though the flavor was fine. My parents were okay with it - it wasn't as good as the food we had in Italy, but come on - we're in Florida.
After dinner we walked a few blocks to the 7-Eleven to pick up some bottled water for our rooms. we were on Las Olas - but the few blocks separating the restaurant from the 7-Eleven went from festive and buzzing to pretty sketchy. The parking lot of the 7-Eleven smelled like pee, and my dad was approached by an old guy asking for money. We purchased water along with breads and pastries for breakfast the next morning (because we cheap and lazy and want to eat cruise food we've already paid for) and stayed inside the 7-Eleven a long as we could waiting for the Lyft driver. WHO TOOK FOREVER. We ended up waiting outside for about five minutes - and I knew my mom and Grace were freaked out, but there were 5 of us in a lighted location just outside a store. If you're going to rob someone, it sure as hell wouldn't be FIVE someones standing right in front of a video camera with excellent lighting. But we were all relieved when our Lyft driver pulled up. Within 10 minutes, we were dropped off at our hotel.
We showered, I made up my sofa bed, and we slept. The next day, we go cruising for real!
It seems like for every vacation we are obligated to suffer before we get to enjoy days off of work. And the suffering is that we have to get up at 4 am - surely an ungodly hour that the good Lord did not intend for lazy city folk such as myself to be up. It's still dark! It's still the middle of the night!
I had stayed up late on Sunday trying to tie up as many loose ends (packing, mail stop, downloading shows for my mama to watch...) as possible, so I already entered Monday tired - and I worked all day. Well, by work all day it means I went to work, then uh, spent about two and a half hours getting my nails done (my boss said I could! Also...my manicures always clock in under an hour - who knew the new girl at my nail place would take almost 3 times as long????) then cleared off my desk, cleaned my office, set up my out of office emails and voicemail and ran away as fast as I could.
So the night before our trip, I was tired, but also wired and excited. I managed to sleep, but all too soon my alarm started blaring. If it was any other day, I would have sobbed, but being that it was the first day of vacation - I jumped out of bed...because hey, I can still sleep on the plane! Grace and Ed arrive at our place by 4:30 am, we have coffee and a simple breakfast of Chinese breads I had purchased the day before, and we're picked up at 5:15 by our driver Bryan, who I think had been waiting outside for us by 5 am.
Because we cheap, and because we lazy, we booked a direct flight from LAX to Fort Lauderdale on Jet Blue. Actually - Jet Blue was super nice! At least it was super nice as compared to oh...Swiss Air? I had plenty of leg room, the seats were comfortable, and there was lots of TV to watch :)
I had checked us all in the night before, so it was just a matter of printing the tags for our two checked bags (one for us, one for our friend Grace), and going through security. I have Global Entry, Grace and Ed both have TSA PreCheck, and my my parents don't have anything. To all stay together, I paid $20 for "even more speed" so they could use the PreCheck line with us. We were largely successful...my mama's backpack got pulled aside for extra checks. They saw our rice rolls in her backpack and didn't know what those were. Except...she also stuck a jar of fig jam in her carry on. She had a complete brain fart and figured hey, it fit in her TSA quart sized bag so it must be allowed, so she stuck my 4 oz jar of fig jam in her TSA bag and it got confiscated. It was a mostly full jar too (sobbing). Grace and Ed also had their bags checked, because with all the technology available to us now, a bag of rice rolls (sweet rice wrapped around a Chinese cruller - savory ones have some seasoned pork between the cruller and rice, sweet ones have a sugar/peanut powder combination) is what confounds these zillion dollar machine that stands between us and the terrorist. Really?
Anyhoo, we have almost an hour before our flight departs, so we head over to the gate to grab seats since our flight was really full. Because the flight was full, they made an announcement over the loudspeaker that to make space for everyone's bags on our super full flight, they were offering to gate check our bags for free. We jumped at the offer and checked our 3 remaining carry on sized suitcases. My dad was happy, because he felt like he just saved $50. I was happy because literally minutes before the announcement I was regretting being a cheap ass - I wished I had forked over the $25 so I didn't have to lug my (small) suitcase around AND carry a backpack too. Not just becuaes I'm a whiny baby, but because I was worried that we wouldn't be able to find space for all of our stuff on the plane - so the fact that we were able to gate check took a load off my mind - even though if we hadn't, we honestly would have had enough space...because we were boarding group 2 and there was still plenty of room in the overhead bins when we boarded the plane.
So…there was a moron sitting a few row back from us who somehow
got his overly large and overly heavy suitcase on board and then BROKE THE
OVERHEAD BIN jamming the suitcase in…I've decided I hate him. Hundreds of people on the
plane sat there while the staff tried to figure out how to fix the door latch
he broke forcing in his big assed suitcase.
Then we had to wait while maintenance was called, when maintenance spent
time trying to fix it, and when maintenance finally determined they couldn’t
repair it in any capacity in a limited period of time. I mean...Jet Blue offered free gate checking for all luggage and clearly his dumb ass didn't take advantage of it - and he ended up delaying and inconveniencing hundreds of passengers - and the crew. Who were probably pissed because they don't start getting paid until the plane backs away from the gate. I hope Jet Blue fined the crap outta
that guy.
Okay, rant over. But
it does still make me mad. Because this
guy broke the overhead bin’s latch, the contents of that bin and its
neighboring bin that could slide over were removed, all of it had to be
checked, and because the Captain thankfully made the call to just fly without
the bin instead of forcing us all to get off the plane, facilities had to tape
the bin shut. So not only did the whole
plane have to wait for this, the poor people who just happened to sit near him
got all their stuff checked against their will because of this guy.
Other than this inauspicious start, the rest of the flight
went by pretty quickly, probably because I ended up falling asleep for over an
hour. The
rest of the time was spent playing games on my phone and tablet, reading, and
eating our rice roll lunches and snacking on kettle corn chips the airline gave
us. For a 5 hour flight, it passed
pretty quickly, probably because we all fell asleep as none of us slept enough
the night before.
rice roll - the simple, simple thing that stumped the zillion dollar TSA machines
the inside of my sweet rice roll. I feel a compulsion to take photos of my half eaten food. Don't judge me
Getting off the plane was a slog like always, but get off we
did, and fortunately, all of our suitcases made it! We win! We then roll them over in between the
terminals to get picked up by Lyft. It
was close to 5 at this point, and on a Tuesday, rush hour was in full
swing. So the trip, ended up being close
to $40, which was still cheaper than booking a
limo service, and we had a guy who masterfully fit all of our luggage into his
Ford Explorer like an expert Tetris player.
He didn’t speak a lot of
English, but he found the place fine. I
had to convince him to go into the garage though – because the entrance to the
Vacation Club is from the grody garage, there’s no outdoor entrance L. The first ten minutes are free – and we told
him over and over again that it was free for 10 minutes before he was willing to
back up and drive into the garage.
Check in was smooth, and the guy working the desk was
polite, but he gave us a weenie room that overlooked the ugly parking
garage. The room itself was fine, but the view was kind of not awesoe. The 2nd bedroom
was also locked off, so we couldn’t get in. So I had to trudge down again, and he asked if I tried to open it from the outside. What? Clearly I've never been to a Marriott Vacation Club before, so I used my key, entered the 2nd bedroom from the outside (literally a door down) and unlocked it so we could sleep in it. I loved our room - but I didn't love the rest of the hotel. But I booked it for cheap through VRBO. Booking it through the Marriott website would have been about $500.
The view from our unit. What you don't see? The parking garage below us
The unit was itself was fantastic - it was fully stocked with glasses, mugs, big and
little plates, silverware, pots and even baking utensils. So...we did the MOST Chinese thing ever. We bought a roast duck from Sam Woo, froze it, and brought it with us to Fort Lauderdale for dinner. 😆 Yes, we did. We put it in tupperware, ziploc bagged the crap out of it (hoping and praying that the clothes in my mom's checked suitcase wouldn't be coated in delicious roast duck sauce), and also brought with us a bag of uncooked rice. Yeah...we're not type of Chinese people. We did it because 1) we're cheap 2) we didn't have a car, so we'd have to Lyft or Uber to dinner 3) my parents didn't like any of the food options near our hotel (somehow, Hooters just didn't appeal to them) and didn't want to go out just to eat more non-Chinese food they wouldn't love. So my mama literally came up with the idea of bring a duck with us about 2 days before our trip. Oh, we also brought some blanched potato vine leaves with a little tub of sauce. So we had meat, rice and vegetables. I swear my mama could create a full dinner in a tent with a match and a packet of cheetos.
The unit as we enter. The kitchen is to our left, with the living room ahead.
looking towards the kitchen/entrance of the unit
the fully stocked kitchen. I've never used an oven on vacation before!
We heated the roast
duck in the oven, my mom made a pot of rice on the stove, and we grubbed. Then we wandered down to the little shopping plaza
attached to the timeshare (it was not so awesome, though my mom got a pair of
sunglasses for $8 since she forgot hers at home), purchased some severely
overpriced water from the 24 hour CVS, and chilled in front of the TV’s (there
were 3!) for the rest of the night. I was tired from the lack of sleep over the last two nights, so I was ready to bed down super early. Keep in mind I'm usually a night owl, but multiple nights on 4 hours of sleep took its toll, and I didn't even pull out the sofa bed in our room (we took the lock off studio because there was a sofa bed in there while Grace and Ed took the master with its jacuzzi tub). I showered, threw a sheet OVER the couch, and slept on that. I was so tired I was asleep by 10pm...which was 7 pm in LA. Yeah...I'm an old lady. But I fell asleep thinking that the next day, I get to go cruising for two weeks!
master bedroom with the jacuzzi tub that Grace and Ed took
the studio lock off we took. There's the sofa bed I fell asleep on
the little kitchenette area in our studio - we had two coffeemakers!
the bathroom - it wasn't very big, but it was clean and functional and had enough big towels
After ___ years of being an über Disney fan (at my age, it starts getting embarrassing just throwing out numbers), it's a wonder that I've never done any hard ticketed items at any of the Disney parks on either coast. Well, it was going to change this year.
Why? Because I wanted it to. And because I was suffering from post-WDW withdrawal, and I haven't had an AP to Disneyland in years since I refuse to pay over a thousand dollars for what used to cost me $200 (okay, it was $200 in like, 2002) and I was missing Disney quite desperately. So Johanna decided that we were going to go for my birthday because she's awesome. It was super expensive - for a Friday night party, it was $105 per person - and they completely sold out! She purchased our tickets the day they came out - and all the party tickets sold out in a week or so. Nuts!!! My friend Elisa looking into going with us, but by then the tickets were sold out - fortunately, she is an AP, so she got to spend a few hours in DCA with us. Our main goal in DCA was to get on the Mission Breakout! ride that slaughtered our beloved Tower of Terror (sob!).
Because we are old, we decided to make a whole day of it rather than just taking off from work early and hitting the parks after working almost a full day. Johanna and I opted to take the entire day off of work - we slept in, and she picked me up at 9:30 for breakfast at Steakhouse 55 in the Disneyland Hotel. I LOVE their breakfasts there. They have fantastic options, and while they're not cheap - considering you're dining in a steakhouse that charges Mastro prices at night - it's pretty reasonable!
We had thought to wander Downtown Disney or catch a movie before the party (we can enter either park 3 hours before the party's official start, which on a Friday is 7 pm, so we had to kill some time before we could enter starting 4 pm), but as we are edging towards the elderly status, and knowing we had to power through the party until midnight - I opted to use a free Hyatt night at the Hyatt House down the street so we'd have a place to relax before the party and a place to crash afterwards. Yes, I live within a 10 minutes drive (literally, door to door), but we could park the car once - relax in an air conditioned room, walk to the park, walk back then sleep! So much easier! And I honestly think it's because we had a place to rest and relax that enabled us to stay for the whole party. It was tiring! I ended up walking about 20,000 steps that day and I slept like a rock!
For once I didn't take photos of food porn - but trust me, it was delicious. Johanna got the American Breakfast with all the things, and I got steak and eggs - a NY strip that was a phenomenal way to start the day. We wandered around DTD for awhile after breakfast to work it off, then headed over to Hyatt House.
I used my free night to book a standard room - which is a king bed with a sofa bed - no kitchen. When we arrived, he said it wasn't ready yet, but it was on the fifth floor. I didn't care what floor it was on because we weren't going to be looking out the window - I just wanted a room, so I asked if they would let me pay for an upgrade to a room with two beds. The guy said yes, and didn't even charge me! So we ended up being upgraded to a studio with 2 queens - a full kitchen, which was greatly appreciated but went unused and a living area! We ended up sprawled on the large sectional couch for hours watching Bones, the greatest procedural show evah!
Elisa ended being able to join us around 3 pm and spent $10 to park her car at the HH so we could walk over to Disneyland together. It's about a 10 minute walk, and going to and from Disneyland, we were always in a crowd of people since Harbor Blvd by the park is lined with hotels, motels and restaurants, so there are always people walking up and down the street, but not in a creepy way. We headed over and got through security - and Elisa went into DCA first to secure her fastpass for Mission Breakout! Johanna and I went to Starbucks first to grab something to drink to while away the time, and when it was about 3:48 pm, we got in the super long ass line to get into DCA. Because many many many partygoers had the same idea. I guess we're not geniuises? (Sob!)
currently the only one rocking mouse ears...that didn't last for long!
Poor Elisa waited for a million years (or like, 38 minutes) for us near the entrance. When we finally got into DCA, we opted to 1) buy Mickey ears (I already had my super awesome Haunted Mansion themed ears that Johanna got me to match my HM dress I decided to wear to the party instead of a real costume) and 2) get in line for my dearly departed ToT. Elisa cornered a CM when she got a FP to see when we could line up for the ride. Said CM was very confused and kept telling her that the ride shuts down at 4 to be reskinned to Monsters After Dark and the gates reopen at 3:30 for guests to line up and the ride is reopened at 5pm. Elisa had to keep asking when we could line up and she kept saying "well, as I said, 3:30" -_- 4:30 lady! 4:30!!
Anyhoo, we got the BEST EARS!!! Elisa got these super freaking awesome fascinator Mickey ears (I didn't know they made those!) and Johanna totally rocked the bling in her sequined silver ears that matched her nails! We swaggered through the park like we were made of awesomeness.
We managed to get in line just before 4:30 for the ride, and we ate all the chocolate coins that Johanna had bought - but once the ride opened, the line moved so fast!
Okay, I haven't even been on the regular version of the new ride yet, so story wise, I was a little lost (I looked it up on the internet AFTER I went on the ride) - but it was surprisingly fun! And dare I say...MORE fun than ToT????
The ride pattern was much different than ToT - which despite their millions of combinations, always felt kind of familiar - and the technology now is much better. Also...the ride was (or felt) much longer.
Here's someone's go pro video of the ride:
This was sooo much fun! I'd do it again...except for lining up for it again. There were too many people in line after us (and it got longer) and we had stuff to do! Like go see Cars Land that was all dressed up!
I was NOT on it with the photos! The place was ADORABLE, and total photo fodder, but my old brain totally was farting out, and I didn't manage to capture just how cute and detailed everything was. So here are some photos from the magical internets from people who can take much better photos than me:
I am SOOO dumb. I didn't realize these were spider webs (but I wasn't standing beneath where the pattern is this obvious). It wasn't until I passed by Flo's the THIRD time I realized the chains were actually webs. Doh!
By now, we were hungry. My old go-to place was Taste Pilot, right next to Soaring Over California. Well, this park has changed a lot in the last 4 or so years. Not only is it not Soaring Over California anymore, like WDW, it's Soaring Around the World (or something like that). And it's not Taste Pilot's with their tasty, tasty ribs anymore. It's called Smokejumpers Grill. What???
(below, more photos I borrowed from the internets)
goodbye old friend I didn't know went away
One of my favorite things about Taste Pilot's was the toppings bar. You could basically make yourself a side salad with all the delicious leafy lettuces, sliced tomatoes, onions, pickles, jalapenos, and sauces they make available. For real.
Fortunately, while they change the name, menu, prices (oh Lord they're so much higher now), and decor, my beloved toppings bar was still here to stay!
So...apparently, Condor Flats is no more (RIP) and this is now the aviation part of Grizzly Peak. Okay...sure...
the only picture I took inside. I didn't even take pictures of the food!
I ordered a bacon cheeseburger. At first, for $12.99, I was underwhelmed...however, once I turned around and reacquainted myself with my long lost beloved toppings bar, I perked up - because before me was a smorgasborg of deliciousness awaiting my sad little burger. Seriously, it came out pretty flat...but that's because they expect you to pick and choose your own toppings and customize it however you want. Is it pricey? Yup, but I really enjoyed it!
I loaded mine up with jalapenos and thousand island dressing and got a vat of ranch for my french fries. Bliss!!! There wasn't a lot of talking while we were eating because it was delicious (if messy) and we were hungry! We had to go and actually wash our hands in the bathroom later, because just wiping is insufficient when you've dripped dressing and burger juice everywhere.
Thus satiated, we decided to do the Racers, so we go into the single rider line as the regular line was NINETY MINUTES LONG. Dude. I don't wait 90 minutes for anything. Not even food. They told us the wait for single rider was about 35 minutes long, but I honestly think we waited shorter than that.
It was so much fun to look at everyone's costumes. I LOVED the family themed costumes. Some were simple, some were super crazy elaborate, but it's so cute how the parents worked hard to come up with something they could all do together.
As always the ride was fun - Johanna and I even ended up in the same car! Except upon exit, they diverted our car to the disabled area. Well, we didn't know that, so we stood around like lumps waiting for Elisa, who was literally a car or two behind us. She also didn't know we got diverted, so she also stood around the usual exit area like a lump. So the three of us just stood like dumb lumps, until we decided to head out AT THE SAME TIME and ran into each other on the ramp. And it was all, "where were you??!!" on all sides 😄😄😄😄 Seriously, Johanna and I stood there for probably close to 5 minutes before we realized there were wheelchairs all around us and there was a line of people in wheelchairs and scooters to get onto the ride and wondered if maybe this wasn't the standard exit for everyone. Hmm...
Anyhoo, it was about 7 now, so we bid adieu to Elisa (sob!) as she walked back to HH all by herself (double sob!) and Johanna and I got in line behind a super duper fobby family ALL dressed like Wonder Woman (a very popular costume this year), even the dad. Mom and dad were wearing WW red t-shirts, capes, and the wrist cuffs, while the little girl had the whole get up. Mom had the lasso of truth too. They were so excited, they couldn't stop taking photos of each other.
we didn't want to line up to take a photo with the giant pumpkin, so we ghetto selfied it
They gave us gold wristbands that said "5th" and September 29, 2017 on it - because we're the fifth party this year. I'm assuming that each party has a different colored wrist band, so it's easy to tell them apart. Everyone got the wristband on the left wrist so for the first hour or two, everywhere we went it was "wrists up!" to make sure that it was just party goers left at the park. Our first stop was Starbucks for a mug, then the lockers to store said mugs and other assorted goods we've purchased. Then we headed over to Tomorrowland for Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy...until we reached Star Tours and hopped on that first instead. It was right there! And there was no wait!
After Star Tours we wandered through Star Traders (probably my favorite store in Disneyland) and then hopped onto Space Mountain. The wait was about 15 minutes - but so much fun! And also, SOOOO much better than Orlando's lame jerky version of the ride. From there we did Matterhorn (when did they improve it?! The yeti was awesome!) and Small World. Because the Frightfully Fun Parade was starting from that side of the park when we got off of Small World, we hopped onto the train (which we almost never do) and watched the updated Grand Canyon and dinosaur diorama that was still fun and even more awesome. There was lightning! And lava!
Small World was all dark except for this part...which was cool, but weird.
The parade was making its way down Main Street when we got off the train station there - and though there were lots of people watching the parade, but you know what? We still easily got through the crowd towards the hub for where we wanted to watch the fireworks! Well, we didn't want to get too close so we could appreciate the scope, so we stopped just north of Coke Corner so we could see the castle projections but still get a good view of the fireworks. I've never seen Halloween Screams before, but I enjoyed it - I love Zero!
I didn't take any video or photos, but the internets has ALL the things!
The fireworks were on at 9:30, and the next parade and Headless Horseman was on starting on 10:20, so we had almost 50 minutes in between to do something - so we did! We hopped on Indiana Jones (the new effects!), were rebuffed by the lack of funnel cake at the Stage Door Cafe (sob!) and ended up sitting on a bench in a hub just by the VIP reserved section for people who bought dinner packages to catch the parade. The view was fantastic! And because we got there early, we got a bench to ourselves and could see the parade approach.
I took some horrible photos. But I don't care!
but first, an obligatory selfie while waiting on our bench. We spread out enough on our bench that none of the late people asked to sit with us. Maybe it was our resting bitch faces too?
The one thing I really wanted to see was the Headless Horseman. He didn't (or the horse didn't) gallop so much as meander up Main Street. The horse was just puttering along - and not in straight line. There's a guy by the horse who seems to be the one corralling him - but it was like the horse was just going for an evening stroll. Still, it was fun and different 😊
Considering we literally walked up and found a seat on an awesome bench, we got a pretty good view. It wasn't straight on but it was still a great vantage point to see the performers and the details of the various floats.
the puny red arrow = where we sat
the yellow line = reserved seating for people with dining packages
it's blurry Mickey!
it's the crazy mayor!
hello fuzzy Jack Skellington!
awesome Haunted Mansion ballroom dancers! so clever!
I think my favorite float is the Haunted Mansion one. They had the ballroom dancers, the grim grinning ghosts, and the groundskeeper. Also, the house was high tech! The windows kept changing and it was fun to watch. The only thing they were missing was the sad skinny dog.
The voodoo guy from The Princess and the Frog. Meh, not one of my favorite cartoons.
hello creepy Ursula!
The super villains float! They had almost all the things - the evil stepmother, the wicked stepsisters, Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook, and random bad guys from that crappy Notre Dame movie.
super fuzzy Cruella and Hades...love connection!
Snow White's mean stepmama
it's Murphy's little cousin!
Now I'm not a parade person. I usually skip them. But considering we were paying over $100 for the party and the parade is one of the big exclusive things about it - I felt obligated to watch. And I also wanted to see the Headless Horseman. But I liked it! It wasn't very long (a pro for me, but a con for others), the characters and floats were interesting and fun, and it was entertaining. So I'm glad I watched it.
We had about an hour after the parade was over to power through some rides before the park closed at midnight. The ONE thing I really wanted to do? Uh, Haunted Mansion. Duh. Do you see my awesome ears???!!! Also, I wanted to do Big Thunder Mountain Railroad because they added in some cool effects (the dynamite scene) that MK's version doesn't have yet.
From the hub we headed to Frontierland and hopped on BTMRR first (it was almost a walk on - it was like, a 7 minute wait), then headed over to Haunted Mansion. They had a posted 25 minute wait, but I think it was faster because the line never stopped moving. It also helped that there was no FP's issued during the party, so ALL the lines moved at a pretty quick clip.
scarily fuzzy and out of focus picture!
In the spirit of the season, I will scare all by inflicting my poorly focused and super fuzzy pictures on the internet!
We hit Pirates on the way out (NO WAIT AT ALL), but were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on the boats. I have no idea why as most of the boats were half empty. 😕
I loved all the mist they were pumping over the Rivers of America. It was so atmospheric, especially when the Cadaver Dans were performing on the barges. I wish we had time to just stay here for a bit and enjoy the ambiance, but there were so many things to do!
By the time we exited Pirates, it was 11:58 pm. We slowly followed the (not so big) crowd out and walked back to Hyatt House with a crowd of people. Old people, young people, kids, and strollers. Even though it was after midnight, we never felt unsafe. ON THE STREETS OF ANAHEIM YO!
Even though I didn't spend any money (thank you Johanna!), I think this party is totally worth it. It's only 8 hours in the park, but for 5 of those 8 hours all the lines are almost non-existent and you get to walk on the rides. There are shorter lines for food, drink, souvenirs, parades, and rides - and the fireworks crowd wasn't bad at all! Disney does the details well, with great ambiance, entertainment, and super nice and friendly staff. And bonus - adults get to dress up in costumes (not us though, we're lame) and it was so much fun to see the little kids in costume and the family costumes were awesome too. We liked it so much we decided we're doing this again next year. And because we are old lazy ladies - we can only do this if we get a room nearby to veg in and fall into a coma in after the party.
