Disneyland Trip Report - Day 1 - 9/6/06

Tammy and I are finally on our trip to Disneyland!!! We left Orlando this morning at 7:25 a.m. EDT on a Delta flight. It was a Song plane, so everyone had their own TV, which helped during the 5 hour trip. We landed at LAX at 9:30 a.m. PDT. We got our bags, then we caught the shuttle bus to the Disneyland Resort at 10:15 a.m.

We arrived at the Grand Californian Resort at 11:15 a.m. We checked in, but our room wasn't ready, so we checked our bags. We had tickets to the Orioles vs. Angles game at 12:30 p.m., but we were pretty tired from the traveling and we didn't feel like going through the hassle of getting to and from the stadium, so we decided to skip the game. We were pretty hungry, so we headed to White Water Snacks at the hotel to grab a bite to eat. I'm not going to detail everything we ate on this trip, but I must say that the nachos at this place were outstanding.

After eating, we decided to go to California Adventure. We entered through the hotel entrance and we went counterclockwise. The first attraction we came to that we wanted to see was "Golden Dreams." It's a movie about California's history. It was so-so. Then we headed to Paradise Pier to ride the Sun Wheel and California Screamin'. California Screamin' wasn't operating, so we kept walking through and headed to Hollywood Pictures Backlot.

Once we were at the Hollywood Pictures Backlot, we rode Monster's Inc. Both Tammy and I loved this ride. Very cute dark ride that follows the storyline of the movie. But, since we both love the movie, I guess it was a natural that we would like the ride. :-)

Finally, at 3 p.m., our hotel room was ready. We headed back to the hotel, got our luggage and freshened up a bit. We then returned to California Adventure. We headed back to Paradise Pier, and thankfully, California Screamin' was running, so we rode it. Not a bad coaster. I recorded it using Tammy's camera. After we got off, we rode the Sun Wheel on one of the non-swinging cars. We got a great view of the whole Disneyland Resort. We could even see mountains off to the northeast.

After getting off the Sun Wheel, we headed back towards the entrance and we did some shopping. We didn't get much since it's the first day. After shopping for a while, we headed back to Monsters, Inc. and rode it again. Yep, we still like the ride.

We had reservations for dinner at Hook's Pointe at the Disneyland Hotel at 6:40 p.m., so we came back to the hotel and got dressed and headed over to the Disneyland Hotel. We got there a few minutes early, but it wasn't crowded at all, so they seated us immediately. We had a great waiter and the meal was delicious. It was nice to have a grown-up meal for once. It's been a while. ;-)

Once we finished dinner, we walked around the Disneyland Hotel for a while. There were a few displays showing the history of the hotel and all the famous people that stayed there. Pretty interesting. We did a little more shopping, and then headed back to our hotel--the Grand Californian.

We're pretty wiped out, so we're going to call it an early night. Good night!

Trip to EPCOT Center - 8/11/06

Tonight Tammy, Megan and I loaded up the Jeep and headed out to EPCOT Center. We got there about 6:30 p.m. and we were hungry, so we ate at the Electric Umbrella. Same old WDW fast food. And it wasn't all that great.

After dinner, we started walking around. We headed over to Mission:Space, and I went on it. There's two lines now--Orange and Green. The Orange line is the original ride; the Green line is the non-spinning ride. I chose the Orange line (obviously). I took a few pictures in line. Since I was a single rider, I was put with three people I didn't know. The guy next to me had ridden it once before and it was his friends' first time. The were all nervous--even the guy who had gone on it before. He mentioned that he heard that some people had died on the ride and I think that was causing him to be a bit more scared than he would have been otherwise. Anyway, we got on the ride and it was a blast (get it? A "blast"). The three other people had a good time, but they weren't ready to go on it again anytime soon. I think the dizzyness got to them.

Tammy and Megan were waiting on me outside the gift shop. We then headed to World Showcase to stroll through the countries. We just walked around and I snapped a few pictures. We stopped in Germany to take a rest, and Megan found some ducks (she's getting pretty good at that). When we were rested, we continued our journey through World Showcase. We walked through Mouse Gears (the gift shop) mainly because it was air conditioned. We left the park about 8:45 p.m., so we beat the Illuminations traffic, which is a little perk.

It was nice to get out and do something tonight instead of just sitting at home.

You can see the pictures from tonight in the Photo Gallery.

Trip to Magic Kingdom - 8/4/06

I took the day off today so we headed out to the Magic Kingdom for a little fun. We got a late start to the day so we arrived at the MK around 1 p.m. Big mistake. It was scorching hot. I know, I know..."It's August in Central Florida; what did you expect?" Well, I wasn't expecting this kind of heat.

We ate at Columbia Harbour House shortly after we arrived, then we walked through Fantasyland towards Tomorrowland. We stopped at the Rose Garden walkway and I took a few pictures. Megan found some ducks near the old Swan Boat landing that were nearby and she stood and watched them for a while (it was nice to be in the shade). After that, we walked through Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, Liberty Square and stopped in Frontierland to cool off a bit. And, yes, we found more ducks which Megan loved.

After cooling off, we cut through to Adventureland near the Tiki Room. We wanted to ride Pirates of the Caribbean, but it was a 40 minute wait. We were so hot and tired and we were going to have to hold Megan for the whole 40 minutes, we decided against it. We'll catch it another time when it isn't so crowded.

After that, we headed towards the exit and walked through the shops on Main Street in order to keep cool.

We were hot and tired after the visit, but it still beats a day at work ;-)

Yes, I took some pictures, but no, none of them came out good, so I'm not posting any. However, check out the pictures on the home page of DizWiz.com and WelchHome.com. We took those on this trip. And yes, those are fireworks in the picture on WelchHome.com. It was taken as Cinderellabration was ending. Pretty nice, huh?

Welcome to the new DizWiz.com blog!

When this site was started in 2003, I intended to use it as a site where my wife and I would try to document our journey through Disney through a structured layout. We had a page for each theme park, the resorts, Downtown Disney, etc. We discovered that this was tough to do in this format, and as a result, the site seemed very unfinished.

So we recently looked at the site from a different perspective to see how we could improve it and repurpose it to how we really want to use it. What were we really doing with the site? We were posting our Disney pictures on it to share with family and friends back home in New Orleans.

We have done away with the structured layout of the site, simplified it and added this Blog. We will use the Blog to write trip reports and musings about everything Disney. We have also directly linked to the Photo Gallery so you can see all the pictures anytime you want to, in whatever order you want to.

As for documenting information and data about all things Disney, please see our WikiDisney site. This is the site that we will use to put facts and figures regarding Disney.

Thanks for being patient; we hope you enjoy the new DizWiz.com!