This, then, is another reason to always make sure we are staying in high end hotels with a suite or balcony. I am ALWAYS up many hours before she is (although she is getting up much earlier these days), and I need somewhere to go. Sometimes I can seek refuge in the bathroom and just sit in the bathtub and read, but this particular hotel has no light inside the area where the bath is - the light is outside, with the vanity, which has no door - so if I do that, I either sit in the bathtub in the dark, or turn on a light that will wake her up. Oh, the horror.
And, it happens, I move slightly in the bed and my poor wife wakes up. I think I made the mistake of scratching my balls or something.
We gotta get her some serious sleeping pills for our trips. Several months ago we bought a new bed - a huge, awesome King sized bed - and now, ANY other bed is lacking. I could play 9 holes of golf in our bed and she wouldn’t wake up, and now anywhere we go, the bed doesn’t measure up and I can’t move much or she wakes up. This bed is fine, and it’s also a King, so the size of the bed isn’t a problem, but she has become used to not feeling any movement at night (insert your own joke here). It will be interesting to see how she is at the Grand Californian, where they always have very comfortable beds....but I bet they still won’t compare to ours.
The wife gets up, in a pretty good mood given that I just woke up Sleepy Bear from hibernation prematurely, and begins The Process (TM). It doesn’t take quite as long these days - she claims she is no longer “High Maintenance” but only “Medium-High” - and while she takes care of that, I pack up our stuff and get ready for breakfast. It is included in the price of the hotel, of course, and it is one of those little breakfast rooms with waffles and sausages, the kind of thing you see in almost all of these moderate hotels these days. It is fine, and it will do until our flight takes off.
10:15 AM - We get through security with TSA PreChek in about 30 seconds, no exaggeration. The airport seems really busy today but there is hardly anyone at security right now. Timing was excellent. Tracey is carrying needles onto the plane for the first time, which she tells them about, but they gave exactly zero fucks, not even taking them out of the bag or examining the liquid in them at all. I guess that’s a good thing?? Not totally sure about that.
We spend an hour at Vino Volvo tasting 5 wines, ranging from “pretty good” to “very good” (I will report on them on my wine blog after we are home). Wine tasting at 10 AM? No judgement, we are on vacation!!! The guy working here says they open at 7 AM and get people drinking wine all day, so that’s good enough for me!
11:30 - Waiting at our gate for them to call us for boarding. They call ‘pre-board’ first of course, and they announce that is meant for those travelling with kids under 2......then they go and let everyone with a kid under 30 board anyway. Not that it really matters, but if you are going to
announce over the loudspeaker that you are boarding kids under 2, why not try to, I dunno, stick to that policy at least a little? I swear they boarded 1/3 of the flight under “pre-board”.
1:20 PM - Updating my blog from 35,000 feet and was just served a Chardonnay and a plate of warm, salty nuts. Fuck I love First Class....especially on a flight full of kids.
Shortly thereafter they serve us lunch, and Tracey and I get one of each of the two choices: a Protein plate, featuring eggs, nuts, veggies and pita bread, and a steak salad with a sensational Miso Ginger dressing. I will admit I could have used something a bit more hearty - by this time I am pretty hungry - but certainly no complaints about the quality of the food, which is universally excellent on Alaska. Love this airline.
We have a superb flight attendant taking care of us; she knows I want a refill on myddddd Chardonnay before even I know I do. If this keeps up I’m going to be too drunk to keep righting this glob. *HICCUP*
Oh, and while I am sitting here, I turn on a few of our air conditioners at home so that the kids get a bit of relief from the heat. That’s right, we are now a “Smart Home”. Partially, at least. It almost seems natural these days, but think about that for a minute - I am on a plane, 35,000 feet in the air over Northern California, and I just turned on the air conditioners in my house in Chilliwack, with the touch of a button. That really is pretty remarkable.
2:57 PM - We land, exactly one minute early, and taxi to the gate in about 3 minutes....one of the advantages of flying into a smaller airport (SNA). We are met at baggage claim by our limo driver and we are off to the Grand California Hotel! They have recently finished a total renovation of the hotel, so we are looking forward to the changes.
4:00 PM - We are at the hotel, checked in and up in the room. Given that this is the middle of summer, and we arrived right at check in time, I am stunned it went so quickly. As always, the staff is as friendly as they could possible be. Love this hotel.
Our room is gorgeous, they have done a nice job of updating the decor, modernizing it a bit, without losing the Disney charm.
No time to lose, we don’t even bother to unpack, it is time to hit the parks!! First I have to go to a ticket booth and pick up my Annual Pass, which takes no time at all, and we are into Disney’s California Adventure. We never start in this park, but we have dinner scheduled here tonight and there is so much new here, we are expecting to spend a ton of time here while trying to hit all the new stuff. We start off with a quick lunch, just a couple of hot dogs, to tide us over until our dinner which isn’t until 8:15.
They now have an app that allows you to book Fastpasses from anywhere in the park - no longer needing to go to a specific ride and get a paper Fastpass (although that option is still available). We pick up Fastpasses for the Incredicoaster, which is the new theming of what used to be called Screamin’, but since they aren’t redeemable for a couple of hours, we have some time to hit a few other rides.
We notice that the stand-by lineup for Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout is only 40 minutes, which in Disneyspeak is probably 30ish, so we head down there to see what it is like. This is the re-theming of the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. The basics of the ride are the same, up and down and up and JESUS CHRIST it is still going up and down and OH MY GOD this needs to end soon......
But it’s pretty cool. Beautifully re-themed with a cool little story and all of the Guardians make an appearance.
From there we headed to the brand new “Pixar Pier”, which has been totally redone in the theme of the many Pixar films. Brand new midway games, lots of new eateries, and re-theming of all of the major attractions (with more to come). While waiting for our time to come up for the Incredicoasted, we wander around, hit the Littie Mermaid ride (an underrated attraction which usually has a short lineup, and a bonus: it’s realllllly hot outside, and realllllly cool inside the ride!), and shop through all of the stores. As you would expect, they have done a fabulous job of capturing the spirit of Pixar. Can’t wait to see it when it is 100% done, sometime in 2019.
The Incredicoaster is a blast. Obviously the track is the same as it used to be, but they have added the story of the Incredibles and their baby boy, Jack-Jack: If you haven’t yet seen the Incredibles 2, I won’t go into too much detail, but it is a better ride than it used to be. Tons of fun.
8:15 PM - Time for dinner at the Lamplight Lounge, which used to be Ariel’s Grotto. They have taken a small menu and nice cocktail list and turned it into something special at a very (for Disney) reasonable price.
Neither of us is all that hungry, so we both order fairly small meals. Tracey orders a Chicken salad....and gets this:
That is a full grilled chicken breast, on a bed of grilled romaine lettuce, served with a Papiqullo-Pepper fueled hummus. She loved it.
My meal, simple Potato Skins, looks like this:
Ever seen Skins that look like that? The sauce on the left was a Brown Butter Caper Yogurt. On the right, Smoked Paprika Aioli. They are supposed to compliment each other, hence the “Yin and Yang” diagram on the plate. Ever seen anything like that for $14? Oh, and it was delicious too.
What a terrific meal, we will definitely be back here.
While we are eating, we are able to book Fastpasses for Soarin’ Around the World, which has replaced Soarin’ Over California. Another re-theming, and another home run. Terrific, so good that we are going to make sure we get on it at least one more time this trip.
10:00 PM - DCA has just closed and we walked across the promenade to Disneyland. We have entered these gates countless times, but I can’t remember the last time we did it in the dark. We immediately hop onto the Disneyland Railway, which has also undergone some significant changes. We will see all of those later this trip; for tonight, it is just a mode of transportation for us to get to Pirates of the Caribbean, our traditional first ride on all of our visits. We also have time to do some shopping and take our first darkness-filled ride on Big Thunder Mountain Railway, and then it is time to get out of Dodge before the crowds who are currently watching Fantasmic swarm the exit gates.
11:37 PM - Back in our room and I am updating this blog before bed. Yes, we really did go crazy today and we are going to pay for it tomorrow. By the time we got back to the room, Tracey was limping like she had been shot in the leg - both legs, in fact - several times. She never complained once. She is so incredibly strong. If I was in that much pain I would be lying in a corner whimpering, begging someone to shoot me and put me out of my misery.
Tomorrow we have fantastic dinner plans, but nothing before that, so we will sleep in and see where the day takes us. Today was long and tiring, but it was a fantastic day.
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