Heading Home and Final Thoughts

The next morning we packed up and headed out to grab some breakfast. Our shuttle was coming at 12 to take us to the airport so we had some time to shop at Downtown Disney.
View from our room

Waiting for the elevator

We stopped at Ihop for breakfast. Jack and I split a breakfast platter, I ate the pancakes and he ate the bacon and eggs and some of the hash browns.






We spent a while shopping around. I told Jack he could get one thing, and it took forever for him to decide. He finally ended up with a Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster gun, which I felt was fitting since it was his favorite ride. I got a travel mug.

On the way out I saw these shirts which made me miss our cruise…


Then we headed to one of my favorite things about California!

And Jack experienced his first Jamba Juice!

Pretty soon it was time to head back to the hotel
We got our suitcases and waited in the lobby until the shuttle came.

We got to LAX and hung out for a bit. We ate at McDonald’s and got a present for my mom from See’s before heading to our gate which was tucked back in this tiny corner of the airport. It was really weird. I was hoping to charge Jack’s DVD player there, but no luck.

Soon we were heading home!

We made it back in one piece. Depressed, but in one piece.
Here are some of the souvenirs from our cruise:

One of the biggest reasons I wanted to take this trip was to find out what all the hype was about in regards to Disney Cruise Line. I had always heard about their cruises but I just couldn't understand why people would be willing to pay the rates when you can get cruises to the same places on other lines at much lower prices. I am a single mom and I am most definitely not made of money, so I really didn't think there would be a way for me to justify paying those prices. I got such a great deal on this sailing that I knew I had to take the opportunity. Now... I totally get the hype!

I have been on two other cruises with Jack in the past 2 years and this was by far our best experience ever. I have sailed on a 3 day Bahamas cruise with Norwegian and a 5 day Caribbean with Carnival. DCL one blew the others away in terms of service, atmosphere, food and entertainment, no questions asked. I know that because I am sailing with a child, the amount of fun Jack has on board weighs heavily in my comparisons, and despite not spending a whole ton of time in the Oceaneer's Club, Jack had a much better time on this cruise. The whole experience really is more magical, and I can say without a doubt I will be sailing with Disney whenever possible.

That being said, if there is a time when I don't have Jack with me, or when I have a more limited budget, I can see myself trying other lines as well. I had the luxury of renting a cabana on Carnival's private island, Half Moon Cay, and it was only $200 for the day compared to DCL's Castaway Cay and their $500 cabanas. There are some experiences I really wouldn't be able to afford with Disney and that will always play a part in my decision making (unless I find myself independently wealthy one of these days).

As I mentioned before I am booked on Disney's Dream for 2013 and I am most definitely counting down the days. The Wonder is an older ship, and while it's age is showing in some spots, it is still the most luxurious of the three ships I have been on. I can't wait to see the new innovative aspects of the Dream and her sister ship, Fantasy.

When it comes to the Disneyland portion of our trip, I am glad we did it, but it was the wrong decision to make. That one day alone cost as much as the entire cruise, if not more, and that was with staying off property and eating cheaply, not to mention minimal souvenir buying. I have had the pleasure of visiting Disneyland several times when I used to live in California, but I never really appreciated how much those trips cost until now. The park tickets alone set us back over $200. I do want to visit Disneyland again sometime after Carsland is finished and when we can spend more time (and $) and really enjoy ourselves.

I hope you all enjoyed our adventure. If you have the chance to take this cruise, I would highly recommend it! We both had a fantastic and magical time!

Our crazy last day!

Before this trip I debated long and hard about adding a day at Disneyland after the cruise. The way I saw it, it was my best opportunity to see Disneyland since we were already going to be in LA and I also had 2 more days off, so if we had gone home I would have just sat at home with nothing to do. Originally I had planned 2 Disneyland days, but when the reality of my budget set in, I scaled it back to one day. The plan was to leap off the ship and head right to the hotel and then to the parks.
The morning was a blur of activity. I decided we would haul our luggage off the ship ourselves to save time. We knew we couldn’t get off the ship until we were cleared so we decided to go ahead and do breakfast at our normal table, which was in Animator’s Palate. Whatever restaurant you were in the night before is where you went for breakfast. All of our table mates actually showed up as well!
I didn’t take any pictures, it was just too crazy! After breakfast we went back to our room and grabbed our stuff and joined the long line of people leaving. As we were leaving we saw that they were bringing out the Christmas decorations!! Finally we were through customs etc. and jumped in a cab.
Let me just say this was a HUGE mistake. I didn’t book a shuttle because I wanted to get off the ship as early as humanly possible. This was our only park day and I didn’t want to waste a minute of it! I figured the cost of a cab would be comparable to the shuttle anyways. I was WRONG! It was nice to be able to leave right away but the cab ride cost me over $100. That was a bit of a shock, but there was nothing I could do about it. I used the time to call home and check in. My parents were at a football game at home so we didn’t talk long.

Oh, I forgot to mention, it was raining. Yes, my one perfect park day, and it was cold and raining. I was a little stressed about it, but there was nothing we could do but hope for the best.
We made it to the hotel, the Fairfield Inn right across from the park, by 9:30 am. I was pretty pleased about that at least. We went to check in and store our luggage. I had paid the extra $$ for a Disney themed room, so we could at least feel like we were staying on property (for much cheaper). They had several different themes, and my only request was that we not have the princess themed one. She asked if I wanted Cars and I said sure, but then she said the Toy Story room was ready then so I went with that. I didn’t tell Jack what kind of room it was and he was so excited when we got in! We dropped off our stuff, used the bathroom, and headed right out to the parks!

It was still raining out so we stopped off in the little gift shop and bought Jack a poncho. It was about a 5 minute walk to the entrance to the property, past a couple other hotels. It was easy to find, we just followed all the other people!



The question was where to start… due to the weather, I wasn’t sure we would do both parks. If it stayed gross I knew we wouldn’t want to spend a whole day out in the rain so I went ahead and bought a one park ticket for each of us. The CM said we could just come back and upgrade if we decided we wanted a park hopper. So which park did we pick?

I had also asked about World of Color and was told it pretty much went on, rain or shine. Fantasmic however was canceled if it was too wet so the performers wouldn’t slip etc, so I figured DCA was the way to go. I was stoked to see that they had started decorating for the holidays!
They are doing a lot of work on DCA so it was a little weird with all the walls up. We found our way inside and headed to a ride Jack had never done before…
J
ack was saying he didn’t want to ride, but I told him he would love it and that it was grandma’s favorite ride. There was no line really and soon we were ready to take off!

After Soarin’ we headed over towards Paradise Pier. We stopped at this little spot to say hello to some of our friends

Carsland looks like it’s going to be awesome, I hope we get to go visit once it’s up and running!
Next Jack pointed out a ride he wanted to try. I was a little surprised by his choice but whatever!








It was pretty cool, and very well done.
We headed to Paradise Pier next to hit another favorite!

Do you see that little patch of blue? I did! It certainly gave me hope…



 

I think we waited maybe 15 minutes for this ride.




I asked Jack if he wanted to ride the Monsters Inc ride and he very emphatically said no. The weather was really clearing up so I decided to go back to the original plan and do both parks. We stopped on the way out to get World of Color fastpasses and headed out.


We went back , upgraded our tickets and headed into the Happiest Place on Earth!



Our first stop was the Blue Ribbon Bakery for a snack, it had been quite some time since breakfast, but it wasn’t lunchtime yet.
I got one of these

Jack had one of these!


We also got a bottle of water.
As we headed down Main Street I noticed the Castle was blocked off… they were taping for the Christmas parade!

We could have gotten in the crowd, but we were limited on time so we passed by and kept moving towards…

The Nemo submarines! I have the Touring Plans app on my phone so I was keeping a close eye on wait times. This was the longest line we waited in all day, about 25 minutes. The ride is pretty neat, but not something I would need to do again.



After Nemo Jack was dying to ride Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. We waited less than 10 minutes.
My score:

Jack’s:

I was pretty impressed!
When we were done with Buzz it was about 12:30. We decided to eat lunch at Red Rocket’s Pizza and California sticker shock set in. I can’t remember how much we paid exactly, but it was hefty. We got a kids meal
breadsticks and a slice of pizza (I still had water from earlier)


Jack ended up eating the slice of pizza and I ate the kids pizza. We each had a breadstick and neither of us ate the apples or carrots. I want to say we paid around $20. It’s hard to remember because we used our Disney Visa Rewards card for all of our food.
Next we headed to another first for Jack…



He loved it! We got fastpasses for later and they were good between 2 and 3 pm. It was also starting to get warmer out.

Next up was a favorite of mine- Haunted Mansion!! I love the Nightmare before Christmas overlay they do during that time of year! It’s so cool! Jack had recently seen Nightmare before Christmas so he knew who everyone was. It was about a five minute wait.





None of my inside pictures turned out well.
Next we headed to a Disneyland landmark


My goal was to only ride things Jack either hadn’t ridden before or were exclusive to Disneyland. Naturally Buzz didn’t fit in, but we did it because he really wanted to, and it’s his vacation too. I guess I can’t expect him to understand, lol.
After Matterhorn we headed into Fantasyland where we rode exactly one ride.

It was cute, but not life changing!



Jack kept asking to go back to Buzz so we did. This time we ended up waiting for 20 minutes and it broke down a few times while we were on it.




Then it was time to use our Big Thunder fast passes.

We got done just in time for the Soundsational parade. It was pretty neat, but I had to hold Jack on my shoulders so he could see so I was glad when it was over!






 

After the parade we were ready for a snack so we grabbed some popcorn and headed off into Toon Town!




Our first stop was Minnie’s house







Then we headed to Mickey’s





Then to Chip and Dale’s!

This one just has a slide or something in it. Jack went in and around a couple times before we headed to Gadget’s Go Coaster.

We had gotten to see a couple episodes of Rescue Rangers on the ship before bed times as well!
We headed out of Toon Town then to Adventureland (I wanted to make sure we saw at least one thing in each land)
Castle on the way…


We went to see the ORIGINAL Enchanted Tiki Room. It was nice to be inside as it was getting cold outside again. I think at this point it was only about 4 pm but it was getting dark already. Once we were done singing with the Tiki Gods we headed to Main Street and stopped in the Emporium. I just thought this was adorable:

With Disneyland marked off the list, we headed back over to DCA. I asked Jack if he wanted to ride Soarin’ again and he said no. We stopped to eat dinner at Taste Pilots Grill. We both had chicken nuggets and fries. Again I think it was around $20

Jack was getting whiny but there was no way we were leaving without seeing World of Color. That meant I got to drag a whiny boy around for a few more hours. He didn’t want to ride anything so we walked over to the Grand Californian to get a look in the lobby. Unfortunately they were cleaning it, and possible getting ready to set up the tree, so we only got to check out the gift shop. Jack got some gummies, and then we headed over to Paradise Pier. I wanted to look for World of Color merchandise. They had some cute stuff but I decided to wait until the next day when we went to World of Disney. I did get Jack a sweatshirt because it was getting colder and colder, and I had planned on buying him one there anyways. He was still whiny. We got some hot chocolate on our way to the viewing area. We ended up with a great spot for the show. The weather had kept a lot of people away. I wish there was seating though, I think we got there and started standing an hour before the show. Naturally about 20 minutes before the show Jack declares that he has to go potty. I was freaking out, I didn’t want to lose our spot, but this really nice group of women offered to hold our place for us. I was so relieved, Jack and I rushed to the bathroom and back. Then we chatted with them for the rest of the wait. Jack was telling them all about the cruise and everything.
Pictures of the Mickey Wheel


Soon the show started. I had to hold Jack for most of it because there is a wall that he couldn’t see over. My arms were so tired and for boring parts I put him down. I didn’t really take any pictures of the show, I just wanted to take it in!

For anyone who is not familiar with the show, in simple terms, they shoot up big walls of water and use lights and projectors to play scenes from movies. It’s really amazing and well worth a trip!
We left right after the show and dragged ourselves back to the hotel. We were back by 8:56 pm. I put Jack in the bath while I got stuff repacked. Here are some pictures of the room:



I wasn’t feeling very well so I took a shower after Jack was out of the bath. He wanted to watch TV but insisted on watching Bolt… in Spanish. He eventually fell asleep watching it.