Thursday, November 5, 2009

Twas the Nightmare Before Christmas...



Hey guys! I'm finally doing the trip report that I've been meaning to get around to. Sorry if this post ends up being kind of long. There's just so much I could say about a trip to Disneyland!

Well, I won't waste time. Let's get to it!



My latest Disneyland trip was from October 13-15. Prior to this trip, I hadn't been to the resort since August 2008, and even though it was just over a year, let me tell you, it was too long! I'm so glad I had the opportunity to go when I did. I had never been to the parks before at Halloweentime, and I was anxiously looking forward to the offerings I would find, such as Haunted Mansion Holiday, Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy, and Halloween Screams. And let me tell you, I was not disappointed!

I was traveling with two of my sisters. We left on Sunday, October 11, with the intent of taking two days of travel time on our way to Anaheim. From where we live in Utah (near Salt Lake City) it takes about ten hours to drive to Los Angeles. Since we had the time, we figured we would take it slow and take the two days. We drove to Mesquite, NV the first day. For those of you who don't know where that is, it's about an hour-hour and a half out of Las Vegas. I've been there several times, both as a pit-stop to California and for my sister's softball tournaments, but I never thought it was so dead before. I don't know if it was the economy or the fact that it was Sunday or what, but it felt like a ghost town! Not to mention the casino in the lobby was full of elderly folks...once again, I don't know if that was just because it was Sunday, or if it is always like that. Well, I guess if they're still in business, people must be coming, right? We stayed at the Casablanca, which sadly is probably the nicest hotel in Mesquite, despite the fact that it wasn't the most posh hotel ever. There were, however, these very exciting palm tree lamps in the hotel room!



We made a trip out to Quizno's for dinner that night, then spent the rest of the evening just chilling in the hotel room. Footloose was on! Also, they had this really great channel that showed shows from the 80s like Alf and The Jeffersons! I seriously love the 80s, so I loved this channel. Sadly I can't remember what is was called, but I'm pretty sure they don't offer it where I live. Quite sad, but ah well.

The next day we stopped at Burger King to pick up a quick breakfast (gotta love those French Toast Sticks!) and then we headed out on the road. We took our time since we couldn't check into our hotel until 3:00. We stopped in Barstow for gas, but other than that we didn't take any breaks. We arrived in Anaheim sometime between three and four. It was overcast, but it hadn't rained yet. We passed the Anaheim Gardenwalk on our way in, which was the first time I had really taken notice where it was! Good to know for future reference.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn on Ball Rd behind the resort. It was a very nice hotel, and seemed to have been recently remodeled, which was nice. It was within short walking distance of the parks, and was very close to Downtown Disney especially. The only setbacks were that they did not have continental breakfast so we had to feed ourselves every morning. Also, since it's sort of behind the resort, there wasn't a lot of people traffic, which I know sounds like a weird complaint, but I felt like it took me out of "it" a little bit. I like staying on Harbor Blvd where you are constantly surrounded by people bustling between hotels and parks and where you can see the Matterhorn out of your hotel room window...but that's just me! I kind of like random little things like that.

Anyway, after we checked in, we went to Mimi's on Harbor for lunch/dinner (Dunch? Linner?) After that, we went to Downtown Disney to do some shopping and absorb some atmosphere. We stopped at the Lego Store, which was awesome! In case you don't know, I love Legos! It's kind of a 'spensive hobby, though, so I didn't buy any new sets. I wanted to save my money for Disney souvenirs I could only get in the parks. :)

They had the Indiana Jones sets too! But not the Temple of Doom, which is the coolest own. Which, by the way, I do not own, because like I said, Legos are an expensive hobby, and if I recall correctly the Temple of Doom set is around $80. Yeesh! Though I did drop $60 for the X-wing but...ahem...that's a different story.

I did get a chance to pose with Lego Darth Vader though!

On down Downtown Disney, we visited the World of Disney store!


Me with one of my favorite villains!

I've always wanted to buy one of these models, but they are horrendously expensive. Ah well. Someday!

After checking out the scope of merch in WoD, we headed back to our hotel. With promises of Disneyland magic on the horizon, we went to sleep!

Well, I'm going to wrap up this post here and continue in a new post since this is already so long. I don't want to overwhelm you...and the click 'n' drag pictures thing is already getting a little tedious. So that does it for days one and two! Stay tuned for the actual days in DISNEYLAND!

2 comments:

  1. Im soooo jealous. I want to ride the NMBC Haunted Mansion overlay so bad. And I heard the Ghost Galaxy was awesome too. Great Post!

    ReplyDelete