....OK as I write this I have no idea if there will actually be any Zin at dinner tonight, but we are eating at the Chef’s Table at Napa Rose, and there will be wine pairings with dinner, so I figure there is a pretty good chance.
7:15 AM - That’s a decent sleep-in for me...of course it was probably around 1 AM before I fell asleep, but whatever. Thankfully my body didn’t force me up at 5 AM like it does so often.
But now, the problem of getting up and out without waking the wife.
In my mind, I’m hearing the theme from Mission: Impossible.
“Your’re mission, if you choose to accept it, is to get out of bed, get to the bathroom, pee, wash your hands, go to the fridge and grab a tasty beverage and somehow open the patio door, all of this without waking up Exhausted Bear. Should you choose to accept this mission and fail, the consequences will undoubtedly be the appearance of Grumpy Bear, and quite possibly even Bitchy Bear, so choose wisely”
Clearly the smart thing would be to lie here, and not move a muscle, for another 3 to 4 hours. But nobody ever said I was smart.
7:30 AM - I manage to succeed in my mission and let me tell you, finding a way to get out to the patio without opening the curtains and letting in the bright California morning sun was quite a challenge. Out on the patio with my Diet Coke and enjoying my morning of Zen. Admittedly there is slightly less Zen than there usually is as I sit here overlooking Downtown Disney, as there is a ton of construction going on as they make several significant changes to the shopping district. Even at this hour, the silent tranquility that usually exists here is replaced by construction workers on the roofs of the buildings directly across from me. They are completely renovating the pizza joint right across the “street”, and adding a famous craft beer location called Ballast Point next to it. Our favourite ice cream place, Haagen Daaz is closed as well, being replaced by a different ice cream joint later this year. Several changes have already been made, including the addition of a Splitsville Luxury Lanes bowling alley and eatery, and a Disney Home store. Looking forward to checking those out over the next couple of days.
Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, construction on their fourth Hotel, a Four-Diamond property, starts this year and should be completed in 2021. Given what we pay for rooms at the Grand Californian, I cannot even imagine what those rooms will go for. What I do know, however, is that I guarantee we will pay whatever it is. Staying on property is a must, at any price.
At this point in my story I.....how can I put this delicately......I notice an “impending intestinal requirement”, as George Costanza would put it, that is going to require another mission. I manage to leave the patio, satisfy my requirement (in TOTAL DARKNESS) and get back to the patio without waking up any member of the Bear family. This is, honestly, one of the great accomplishments of my life.
8:23 AM - The patio door starts to open. I immediately grab a patio chair to fight off this obvious intruder, who must have already fought his or her way through the family of bears to get to me.
Wait, it’s the wife. Good thing the patio chair was too heavy for me to pick up and swing. She is up wayyyyyyyy earlier than anticipated. She looks a bit tired, but says that she had a good sleep and is ready to start our day. We still don’t know exactly what today will look like, but I guess we will start with breakfast and go from there. So much to do still, so much to see, so much merchandise to buy, and so little time.
Off to the parks! We use the special entrance for hotel guests and are into DCA where we sit down for a couple of minutes to get our Fastpasses for whatever is available. It is already incredibly hot, so we figure we might as well start with Splash Mountain because if we get soaked, we will dry off almost instantly. On our way to Disneyland we stop at a little cafe which turns out to be a fucking Starbucks to grab a simple breakfast. I have a couple of breakfast sandwiches, and they are the best thing I have ever had from Starblows. One of them is good and the other one is excellent. As we exit through the main DCA gate we notice an INSANE lineup to get into Disneyland. Wow, the longest line I have ever seen. We have about 45 minutes to get into the park and over to Splash Mountain, and Ifeel like there is a reasonable chance we might not make it, but I am wrong. The lineup really doesn’t take that long and we get to the ride in plenty of time to redeem our Fastpass. As always, a terrific ride, and we get damp, not soaked. It is pretty random, because the young girls in the front of our log get absolutely drenched.
We hit a couple more rides, have some ice cream and do some shopping, and at this point I am tired and need to rest a bit.....so it is time to leave the park and head back to the room. Tracey mocks me as I am supposed to be the one that can Disney all day and night, and here I am needing to hear back to the room. The mocking is probably fair.
2:00 PM - Back to the room and we need to have a little lunch, so we order a couple of sandwiches from room service. We are both tired and I suspect there may be a nap coming up but we have to eat first, we can’t make it to our dinner at 8 PM on two breakfast sandwiches and 2 scoops of ice cream.
5:55 PM - Awake from my nap and enjoying a tasty beverage on the patio while the wife catches a bit more sleep. I made the mistake of trying to wake her up to get ready for dinner and was harshly rebuffed by Fuck You Bear.
It seems as if I was snoring pretty good during my nap, making her attempt at a nap less than successful. My wife is a treasure, but I will never understand how she can sleep through a fire alarm, twice (TRUE FUCKING STORY!!!!), but the sound of my snoring makes it impossible to sleep.
I will let her sleep for a few minutes but she has to be up soon to begin “The Process - Fancy Dinner Edition TM” for our dinner at Napa Rose.
8:00 PM - So excited to arrive at Napa Rose. They are less excited to see us because it turns out our reservation is actually for tomorrow. Clearly, I am an idiot. Anyhoo.....since we already have reservations for dinner at Cathay Circle tomorrow, we are going to have to get creative. We are certainly not missing THIS dinner, so we stop by the front desk and get them to cancel the Carthay Circle dinner for now, and we head into Downtown Disney to have tonight’s dinner at Catal, our favourite DD restaurant.
Everything happens for a reason. And THANK CHRIST this happened, because Tracey’s medication is making her nauseous while we are eating dinner, and she eventually has to high-tail it back to the room. Thank GOD we aren’t sitting at our awesome dinner at Napa Rose while this happened. She will be feeling better tomorrow so this turned out to be a really positive development. Her medication doesn’t usually make her nauseous, but it did today. We dodged a bullet here.
While sitting at Catal, I book lunch for tomorrow at Carthay Circle so that we don’t totally miss out on one of our favourite restaurants. We are determined to make sure we don’t miss anything this trip, even if we have to adjust on the fly.
We get back to the room just in time to watch the new fireworks show, dedicated to Pixar. It is a great show and this is one of the reasons we pay to stay in these rooms.....pretty awesome to get to watch the show from the comfort of our patio.
Time for bed and tomorrow we have the two meals planned and nothing else. Hopefully the wife feels better, and we will have another great day!
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