TR: And now for something completely different - a WDW Family did DLR *(new - 4/15: HK Disneyland)*

[Volunteer]

We eventually decided we needed to get going for our dinner reservation (don't worry, wasn't a third brunch).

How disappointing.

We then walked by the Lion enclosure and I must say the number of lions they have and the level or movement they did (at least while we were there) puts the lions on the Safar at Animal Kingdom to shame. Plus you just felt a lot closer to them, as you can tell from the one photo with Olivia in the foreground:

When I went to San Diego we checked out the zoo but not the Safari Park. Sounds like a lot of fun and well worth a visit!

 

[Dugette]

Looks like a fun time at the safari park. Glad you had a good meal and brewery visits!

 

[NJlauren]

Looks like a great day! A little annoying that everything seemed to be extra at the safari park but still looked really fun!

Love that you make sure to do some Mom and Dad friendly activities!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

The San Diego Safari Park looked like it was worth the visit. Now I know what an amorous tiger sounds like! Thanks, Phil!

My daughter used to call a late lunch, early dinner "dunch." Yours looked pretty tasty. That's great that your kids will sample your food. I like when kids are adventurous eaters.

Wow! You really know your beer! I'm not a big beer drinker, but I wouldn't mind sampling the Fatham with orange and vanilla. I do much better at wineries!

Looking forward to reading about DL.

Thanks - this TR aims to be educational about nature if nothing else!

Our kids are occasionally adventurous. Usually once we can get them to try something they will like things - so we generally have a rule that you at least have to try it. If you don't like it after trying it, then so be it. Though sometimes even when we know they like something they claim they don't

I've found that Ballast Point is a good place to start if you aren't that into beer as they do well mixing in other flavors. Especially fruits Their Grapefruit Sculpin is generally a crowd pleaser

Getting to DL soon!

Holy crap. They can have it.

You clearly know your audience.
Well, I assumed that much for the Lions and the gazelles.

I've never really thought about it, but it makes sense. I can't recall having seen them lying down.

Livin' the life.

Cool! I'm glad you got such an up close and active look at the tigers.

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

He just wants a taste!

Sounds like a win to me!

All in all, a nice day. And your late lunch/brewery tour looks like it was well worth re-scheduling a few times.

Yeah, figured this was a crowd that appreciates sophisticated humor

he really was, just kinda chillin' while the rest of the gorillas were running around

Yeah, we've found whenever he does get his finger into one of my beers and tries it Peter actually really like beer. So yeah, there's that

Definitely a great day and things worked out quite well at Stone - both food and beverage wise

Great pictures from the tram!

Love the gorilla gifs, and you got some great picures of the tigers.

Sounds like a great time at Stone, I'm glad you all enjoyed it! And nice that you were able to sneak in a trip to a second brewery

Thanks! I tried to take video as well to mixed results.

Thanks - the young gorilla was really fun to watch

Always time to sneak in a trip to a second brewery ... and third brewery is coming up next post

I'm one of those weird people that doesn't get excited about zoo's. (Animal Kingdom is my least favorite Disney park.) The St. Louis zoo is consistently rated in one of the top few zoo's in the nation, and I've been there more times than I can count, so I usually don't get excited about them elsewhere. However, I had fun looking at your photos! I especially loved the one with the kids on the metal rhinoceros. That one's a keeper! (And I love Peter's hair. Funny to see that he kept them in so long!)

I like the Gorilla gifs too. I've often visited the St. Louis zoo just to visit the primates. The young ones are indeed a lot of fun to watch.

Thanks for sharing the story behind Stone. Sounds like a cool place! Too funny about the warning for the ""parental units".

Great photos of the food! I just finished lunch, but I'm wanting one of those lamb pita's. Looks really good! The garden outside looks fun, and beer samples after the tour? This just gets better and better! And I just got my hopes up for a second.... I'm heading to LA/Palm Springs this weekend. I just checked their locations in SoCal, and unfortunately the one in LA will be too far north from where we'll be. Darn!!!

The Ballast Point brewery looks interesting too.

Sounds like your second full San Diego day was a lot of fun! Looking forward to reading about your DL experiences!

I think that is one thing I liked about the Safari Park - it didn't feel like just a "zoo" there were other exhibits and areas around. Definitely enjoyed it more than I thought we would.

yeah, the young gorilla was really fun to watch run around and climb on things.

The stop at Stone was definitely a highlight. Always find beer production places interesting and the stories behind them - and the food at Stone was definitely top notch!

DL coming up soon!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

How disappointing.

When I went to San Diego we checked out the zoo but not the Safari Park. Sounds like a lot of fun and well worth a visit!

We were debating the regular zoo but thought the Safari Park would be something a little more "different" - and then when we found the deals on living social it kinda sealed the deal for us

Looks like a fun time at the safari park. Glad you had a good meal and brewery visits!

Definitely had fun at the Safari Park, probably more than we expected. Definitely a good time hitting up the breweries!

Looks like a great day! A little annoying that everything seemed to be extra at the safari park but still looked really fun!

Love that you make sure to do some Mom and Dad friendly activities!

Yeah, when planning the visit to the safari park I was a little bummed how some of the cool things cost extra, but since it was our first time there was more than enough to do without the extras - but if we were local definitely would be fun to try some of them out.

Gotta fit in a few things for us

 

[khertz]

Finally had a chance to get all caught up!

First, gotta say I love that Peter was rocking those pigtails for most of the day. So so cute!!!

I have San Diego on my bucket list. The beaches you visited look great! I would really love to spend like 2 or 3 weeks just visiting all over California and getting a taste of all the different areas.

The Safari Park looks like a lot of fun! Neat comparisons to AK to give you an idea of size & scope too, so thanks for that.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Finally had a chance to get all caught up!

First, gotta say I love that Peter was rocking those pigtails for most of the day. So so cute!!!

I have San Diego on my bucket list. The beaches you visited look great! I would really love to spend like 2 or 3 weeks just visiting all over California and getting a taste of all the different areas.

The Safari Park looks like a lot of fun! Neat comparisons to AK to give you an idea of size & scope too, so thanks for that.

He actually wore them a few days and then at times after we got home ... and then another day he's done a mini-braid/hawk thing. I don't know - he seems happy with it all

That first beach we went to we really liked - I am sure there are a bunch that are great in the area and throughout California

The Safari park was a lot of fun - we really enjoyed it! Especially liked all the play areas they had!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Chapter 15 - San Diego Day 3/Travel/Disneyland - Part 1
October 13th
San Clemente and Pizza Port​

We awoke on our last day in San Diego and packed up the room. We again had the free breakfast - which was pretty much the same as the previous day, although I put my omelet onto an English Muffin to make a bit of a breakfast sandwich

After checking out and packing up the car, we head north towards Anaheim. The plan was to stop about mid-way for lunch in a town called San Clemente, however we actually got there earlier than expected - so early that the restaurant we planned to go to wasn't open yet. So we looked up things to do and found this bike/running trail that was down by the ocean and next to a train line and went to check that out.

We parked the car and headed down the stairs to the path and started our walk/push of the stroller. There was a bit of a playground on the other side of the tracks (wait, that probably reads bad ... but it literally was on the other side of the tracks) - but you had to walk through sand to get to it so that wasn't going to happen given we were half way through a long drive.

There were some crossings every so often and I went across one to see what I could see (you can see me across the tracks in the picture below):

And then this picture is what I could see:

To Pete's delight we did get to see one train come by while we were walking:

Eventually we came to a bit of a boardwalk:

and Olivia wasn't really feeling pictures:

We walked about 20 minutes or so out and then headed back to get to the car and get to our destination ... which was Pizza Port Brewing Company!

This place was pretty cool - lots of good food and good beer (both their's and from other breweries) - what was cool was that they were brewing the beer basically right where you order:

Judi started with a Whit beer and I started with an Octoberfest. Peter got a hold of the camera, these are some of his best shots:

And of course the shot of Olivia through the beer:

As you may have been able to tell, we sat outside - another family joined us which was fun. We had a pretty good view:

We got one of their specialty pizzas - the San Clemente (figured it was appropriate) - which had Black bean sauce, tomatoes, olives, red onions, topped with cheddar, mozzarella, Spanish spices and fresh cilantro. This was seriously so good! Obviously not a typical pizza but we really, really enjoyed it and would definitely get it again:

Also got a slide of Pepperoni as part of the lunch deal that came with a side salad and a beer - the pepperoni were really good:

The kids had some of these pizza and also some Mac Cheese Bites - that they definitely enjoyed:

I did get a second beer, which was their pumpkin beer which was on cask:

This was pretty good - though a bit too much of the flavorings

Overall we really enjoyed stopping here, and we really enjoyed San Clemente as a whole. Just had a cool and pretty chill vibe and wish we had more time to explore it further.

We got back in the car and next stop would be Anaheim and Disneyland!

Coming up - video from the San Diego portion of the trip

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Chapter 16 - San Diego Day 3/Travel/Disneyland - Part 2
October 13th
San Diego Video​

Before I post the video, I'd like to point out the new addition to my signature here which is a ticker for our next trip! We are planning to head down to Orlando next July 22-29, and just did locked in a week at Bonnet Creek using our time share exchange program - we are pretty excited to stay there. The time we are there is when there should be a DIS mega-meet being set up in honor of the DIS unplugged 10th anniversary, so that should be fun too.

I am planning to take 2+ weeks off of work for this and then we will road trip it down, stopping a few places on the way down and the way back - If anyone has thoughts on places we definitely should stop that are somewhat between New York and Orlando, please let us know. I am already researching the best breweries to stop on on the way

Ok, without further ado, here is the video I put together for the San Diego portion of the trip - I'll have a separate video for the Disneyland portion. Enjoy!

TTFN

 

[Dugette]

Looks like you found a really nice place to stop on the way. That walk looks really scenic, not to mention the bonus of a train!

Lunch looks great - I think I'd like that pizza.

Loved the video! It did a nice job capturing the fun times in San Diego (and you can't go wrong w/Ron Burgundy).

I have to admit that I cannot wait for you to start the Disneyland portion of the trip report. I spent last night working on plans/research because our trip is only 2 months out and we finally got cleared to book airfare from Dug's work. My planning consisted almost entirely of re-reading your PTR and taking notes on all the suggestions (mostly dining), so I'm interested to hear how things panned out for you.

Oh - and for your road trip next summer, I have no suggestions, but I know I've read a handful of reports where they road-tripped down from your general vicinity - it doesn't sound like too bad of a drive (at least vs. from here!)

 

[azarine]

Loving your TR!

 

[annie170]

That was a beautiful walk along the ocean. Definitely a good find, there.

The San Clemente pizza sounds delicious! I like that your trip reports are filled with cool places to eat, as opposed to fast food.

Hey, Peter is quite the little photographer! He's better than a lot of people I know!

Your video came out great. How long does it take to put one of those together?

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Looks like you found a really nice place to stop on the way. That walk looks really scenic, not to mention the bonus of a train!

Lunch looks great - I think I'd like that pizza.

Loved the video! It did a nice job capturing the fun times in San Diego (and you can't go wrong w/Ron Burgundy).

I have to admit that I cannot wait for you to start the Disneyland portion of the trip report. I spent last night working on plans/research because our trip is only 2 months out and we finally got cleared to book airfare from Dug's work. My planning consisted almost entirely of re-reading your PTR and taking notes on all the suggestions (mostly dining), so I'm interested to hear how things panned out for you.

Oh - and for your road trip next summer, I have no suggestions, but I know I've read a handful of reports where they road-tripped down from your general vicinity - it doesn't sound like too bad of a drive (at least vs. from here!)

Yeah, we kept debating what to do but pretty happy with what we wound up doing. Seemed a pretty popular trail - lots of people with strollers but also a lot of people with dogs and some that were more serious about running/biking. Definitely glad a train came by when we were there!

Thanks! I couldn't imagine doing a video focused on San Diego and not including at least a little Ron Burgundy

and I have to admit that I didn't think it would take me this long to get through the San Diego portion of the trip. I thought it would just be a handful of updates, but I guess we did more than I thought we did .... or I am really poor at summarizing

Knowing that you are heavy in planning now I thought I might share a few spoilers of things we liked/didn't at Disneyland and any tips/suggestions I can think of:

• First off, it was way more crowded than we thought it would be. Perhaps it won't be as bad when you go but from what I have heard/read form others it does seem like attendance is noticeably up during the 60th anniversary celebration period ... so just something to keep in mind. Due to this it just took longer to get through things and even just to walk across the park.
  • Example, even with Fastpass, some things like Indiana Jones would take 1/2 hour to get through. With having to trade off as not all the kids could do everything, that's a good hour to do one thing that we had fastpass for. Longer than I would have thought
• The bag check is before you get into the esplanade between Disneyland and California Adventure. We didn't realize this so the first night when we just wanted to walk across to Downtown Disney we had to go through bag check both getting there and coming back
• First time you use your tickets they take your picture at the turnstyle. This process took longer than I thought it would so just be aware of that and also if you are behind people in line using their tickets for the first time it will take them longer than you might think
• We really liked Blue Bayou. We booked it for lunch for the first seating (11:30am) and got there early, and they actually sat us around 11:15 or so and we were about the third table sat and got right by the water. So if you are thinking of eating there (and I do recommend it - we liked the food and it is something unique to Disneyland) you might want to try that timing - and definitely not matter when you book, check in early and request a waterside table. Olivia loved waving to the people on Pirates
• The best place to view Celebrate the Magic (the fireworks and projection show) is from Main St, but if you want to be there, be prepared to line up ~2 hours before Pain the Night Starts as crowds really get there early. We didn't do that and lucked out a bit at finding a spot where we could see the projections on It's a Small World. There is this raised platform on the right side of the road right before the bend that goes by It's a Small World, a little up from the Tea Cups. It is where Alice and the Mad Hatter meet during the day. We got there only about 15 minutes before Pain the Night started and while not the best view, we saw the parade fine and could see the projections on It's a Small World really really and the fireworks that shot off behind the park. Something to think of if you don't want to wait as long or as a back up if other areas are more crowded than you expected
• We did lunch at Ariel's Grotto and were pretty happy with the food there (better than expected) and the princess interaction was pretty good
• You can definitely have a "runner" go over to the other park to collect Fastpasses. We did this the first day as after breakfast in Disneyland, Judi ran over to California Adventure to collect fastpasses for both Radiator Springs Racers and the Anna and Elsa meet. While she did this we waited on line and in the area where we thought lines would form for the character meets at the base of Main St.
• The A&E fastpasses are disconnected from the other rides so you can get both at the same time. Also, the only way to meet A&E is with Fastpass (no standby line) and also, apparently you aren't guaranteed to meet both. By the time we got to the front of the line only Elsa was meeting and nothing you can really do as you have to have the fastpass and only good for the time it is for. That was one thing that happened we weren't a fan of
• The character meets are definitely a lot different as not an exact set spot - the characters just come out and people swarm them a bit but usually a handler tries to get them to a spot and then arranges people in a line. But the spot isn't always the exact same (we were waiting for Goofy and the line was cut off so we waited around for the next session but they brought him out about 20 yards from where he met before. Also, something we weren't a huge fan of. While overly regimented at WDW at times, it was often a bit more chaotic and confusing at Disneyland.
• Minnie's breakfast at the Plaza in - we had mixed feelings about this. There are a ton of characters, so if you are into that it is awesome - seriously probably the best we have ever had from that standpoint. BUT there were almost too many and often came one on top of the other that it was hard to eat. I overall enjoyed it but I think Judi found it a bit too stressful.
• I enjoyed both of the day time parades (Soundsational at Disneyland and the Pixar one at California Adventure) - they are both fun and have some uniqueness too them compared to WDW. Not sure if I would call them both "must dos" but if you can fit them in I would
• World of Color is really cool, but my goodness the crowds. We had the special dining seating and got there 45 mins early and were still towards the back. So if you can do a dining package that helps some but still get there at least an hour early, probably more like 1.5 hours. Also, afterwards everyone is basically heading the same way and it is just jammed! Kinda stressful but just try to deal with it as best you can
• Trader Sam's is really cool but it is very small and very dark - not really room for a stroller or anything. We wound up sitting outside where they can bring you the drinks and food and took turns going inside to see the effects (you have to go inside for the bathroom so you can just linger a bit and wait for someone to order a special drink. I think it would be more fun as just adults/date night - but still fun to go to as a family and the food and drinks were good.
• Oh, I think you mentioned you liked seeing Disney merchandise and memorabilia from the past. In the lobby of the Disneyland Hotel, near where the entrances to Steakhouse 55 and Goofy's Kitchen are, they have these large scale shadowboxes (for lack of a better term) with each one dedicated to a different decade and they are full of pictures of the hotel and tons of Disney merchandise from that given decade. They were pretty cool

Alright, that is what I got off the top of my head, but if you have any other specific questions, do not hesitate to ask!

Thanks for the tip about other TR's having a road trip element to them - I will check that out!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Loving your TR!

Thank you so much! Glad you are enjoying it!

That was a beautiful walk along the ocean. Definitely a good find, there.

The San Clemente pizza sounds delicious! I like that your trip reports are filled with cool places to eat, as opposed to fast food.

Hey, Peter is quite the little photographer! He's better than a lot of people I know!

Your video came out great. How long does it take to put one of those together?

We definitely enjoyed the walk. It was a tad hot for my liking, but overall enjoyed it.

We try to find places that are unique to the location ... so places like this but also things like In-n-Out which are a chain, but new to us. Plus, if it is a brewery, bonus points!

Well, those were 2 out of like 50 that he took, but yeah, those came out pretty good!

Thanks for that! I got the video done in an afternoon, about 3-4 hours or something. Mostly just go through the videos I have and clip out good parts and then put it together. The Disneyland one will probably be about 3 times as long so that will take me longer.

 

[afwdwfan]

There was a bit of a playground on the other side of the tracks (wait, that probably reads bad ... but it literally was on the other side of the tracks) - but you had to walk through sand to get to it so that wasn't going to happen given we were half way through a long drive.

You can see their agony in the picture... so close, yet so far away.

To Pete's delight we did get to see one train come by while we were walking:

Awesome! Trains area always a hit.

Overall we really enjoyed stopping here, and we really enjoyed San Clemente as a whole. Just had a cool and pretty chill vibe and wish we had more time to explore it further.

I'm glad you enjoyed your brief stop there. The pizza looks good. I think you chose well on a place to stop along the drive.

Before I post the video, I'd like to point out the new addition to my signature here which is a ticker for our next trip! We are planning to head down to Orlando next July 22-29, and just did locked in a week at Bonnet Creek using our time share exchange program - we are pretty excited to stay there. The time we are there is when there should be a DIS mega-meet being set up in honor of the DIS unplugged 10th anniversary, so that should be fun too.

Congrats on the new ticker! That should be a lot of fun.

Very hot.

But a lot of fun.

 

[missangelalexis]

Looks like such a nice time at San Clemente! Those shots Peter took of you two actually came out pretty good!!

LOVE the trip video, great job!

Congrats on having a trip lined up! Taking 2 weeks off sounds nice

 

[horse11]

Great pictures of all the animals at the Safari Park! I especially love how you captured the tongues of the Giraffes!!! Who would have known their tongues were that long!!!

Once again you had me memorized by your food pics lol!!! I could really use a bowl of that garlic cheese soup!!! YUM!!! The mac and cheese looks amazing!!!

Speaking of food I have to say the pizza from Pizza Port looks scrumptious!!! I LOVE Cilantro!!!

Judy looks amazing!!! Would love to know her secret after getting into such great shape!!

Speaking of picture love the one of Peter in front of the Gorilla with his hands stretched out! Way too CUTE!!!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

You can see their agony in the picture... so close, yet so far away.

Awesome! Trains area always a hit.

I'm glad you enjoyed your brief stop there. The pizza looks good. I think you chose well on a place to stop along the drive.

Congrats on the new ticker! That should be a lot of fun.

Very hot.

But a lot of fun.

I do think the fact we were heading to Disneyland helped minimize the disappointment of not going to the playground .... and the train helped!

We've done August so hopefully July won't be too much worse, plus the crowds, etc. - but I guess with the kids being school aged we are going to have to get more used to this. I think going in knowing it will be hot and crowded will force us to plan to do less and just take things a bit easier. Does seem like there will be a lot of new stuff ready by the time we get there so that will be the focus!

Looks like such a nice time at San Clemente! Those shots Peter took of you two actually came out pretty good!!

LOVE the trip video, great job!

Congrats on having a trip lined up! Taking 2 weeks off sounds nice

We definitely enjoyed San Clemente and yeah, Peter did ok! (though I was going through pictures for the next update and found a ton that Peter took that were unusable )

Thank you! I've enjoyed making the videos and fun to have on file and look back on over time as well. Bit of a modern-day photo album

Thank you! I don't often take more than a week off at a time, but will have the days next year and we didn't really do anything big this past summer so I think it is time!

Great pictures of all the animals at the Safari Park! I especially love how you captured the tongues of the Giraffes!!! Who would have known their tongues were that long!!!

Once again you had me memorized by your food pics lol!!! I could really use a bowl of that garlic cheese soup!!! YUM!!! The mac and cheese looks amazing!!!

Speaking of food I have to say the pizza from Pizza Port looks scrumptious!!! I LOVE Cilantro!!!

Judy looks amazing!!! Would love to know her secret after getting into such great shape!!

Speaking of picture love the one of Peter in front of the Gorilla with his hands stretched out! Way too CUTE!!!

Definitely enjoyed watching the animals at the Safari park! They had a bunch of giraffes that were fun to watch

Food is definitely a big part of vacation for us - so have to capture the highlights

Judi's secret is that her gym has a nursery so her motivation to go is that she gets a 2 hour break from the kids Plus she has a good group of friends that go and are big into Zoomba and stuff (her Zoomba instructor was just voted the best one in our area and her whole class got their picture in a magazine)

I thought that Gorilla diagram was a neat idea

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Chapter 17 - San Diego Day 3/Travel/Disneyland - Part 2​

October 14th​

We have arrived!​

Following our most excellent lunch, we headed strait to Anaheim and to the hotel we would be staying at - the Howard Johnson Anaheim Hotel and Water Playground. I was driving so unable to get photos of the approach, but the way our GPS had us go was a bit into the back entrance of the hotel so we didn't go down the main drag past the parks, but you could see some elements peaking out between the buildings.

In fact, the first picture I got was after we parked the car and saw this (yeah, I think we can consider our hotel "close enough"):

We also got our first glimpse of how close the two parks are to each other as if we looked to the left of the above view we were able to see the Tower of Terror:

(OK, definitely missing those palm trees today as it was 37 degrees when I got in my car this morning)

I went and checked in and even though we were early (it was about 1:30 and check-in time wasn't until 4pm) our room was ready!

We had booked a two-room family suite with pirate theme and bunkbeds for the kids - and the room did not disappoint. First, the room Judi and I would have:

Definitely big enough for us and a couple of (smallish) closets were plenty of room for us.

We had kept the bunk beds a secret from the kids and they were pretty excited about it. There roo,:

I loved all the pictures related to the Pirates of the Caribbean attractions that were in the rooms:

We had some time before our evening plans, so we decided to hit up the Water Playground - but first another climb on the bunk beds in your Jake and the Neverland Pirate swimsuit and pirate hat they had at the check-in desk:

The Water Playground was pretty darn cool! Not overly huge as regards square footage, but plenty of different things for kids (and adults to do) and stuff for different ages as well, as even stuff for Emma including a wading pool with zero entry

Some smaller slides:

and then a bigger slide (this was Olivia using the GoPro):

That was off the edge of the big Pirate Ship. The bucket on top would fill up with water and then dump it down on those below - pretty fun!

Spray garden for the little ones:

And here Olivia discovered her love for hot tubs (later in the trip she would have all her new friends come in with her and was like a party in there):

We stayed for close to an hour and then headed back to the room to change and rest a bit before heading out again

next up: How many collectable mugs is too many?

TTFN

 

[PerfessorZ]

I came for the trip report, but had to post because you live in my town! Small world & all that.

Now I have to go back and re-read to figure out why you flew out of Dulles.