I'm sure I have written about this topic before in this blog but now with 653 published posts, even I don't remember what I have written and too lazy to actually go and find out. My blog, my choices on what to write, for better or worse. Which brings us to one of Mrs. DisneylandTraveler and mine biggest little surprises in all our years going to Disneyland. Make no mistake, Disneyland surprises can be real gems and last for years to come.
Typically, we will leave for Disneyland early on a Sunday morning from our suburban Sacramento based location. Once on the road, we are not people who tend to doddle when it comes to going to Disneyland. A quick stop at a McDonalds (preferably one with a gas station attached) along with one other gas stop before going over the grapevine and we dead stopped in L.A. traffic before you know it. I try to maintain a safe driving speed but even I glance down at the dashboard once in awhile and see that 95 mph number. "Oh S***, I gotta slow down".
So we usually end up in Disneyland at our hotel between 1 and 2 o'clock, usually after about a 6 and a half hour trip. So someone out there is asking "why don't you guys just fly like normal people?" Well it goes like this. We usually stay a week at a time. We bring a lot of stuff and not just clothes. We bring oscillating fans, coffee makers, snacks, laundry detergent,fabric softener,assorted electronic devices, an extension cord and power strip, our own soaps and shampoos, paper towels....the list is endless. We have an SUV. We just load up the back and hope that our hotel parking spot is right in front of the front door of our room. Goodness knows I don't want to drag this crap up a flight of stairs. The other thing is rather packing her clothes, Mrs DLT rather lay them flat in the back of the SUV on hangers. No wrinkles I guess. Kind of like Seifeld episode.
If we can get into our room before check in time (usually about 50 -50) we can unpack in about an hour and head over to the park and be in the front gates by 3:00. And it just so happened in that in December 2008, quite by accident, we walked right into the start of the Christmas Fantasy Parade. Now admittedly, Mrs. DLT and I are not really Disneyland Parade people. Mrs. DLT is a Disneyland Shopper and I'm pretty much a Disneyland bench sitter. But on this particular day in December (probably around the 10th), we hit the timing of this parade exactly perfect. The found ample unobstructed views from the train station as the parade joyfully marched right on by us. It couldn't have been a more delightful surprise.
And did I mention the temperature was abut 75 degrees? So the parade went by and we were enraptured by the Christmas Fantasy Parade to the point that the sometimes questionable brain trust at Disney ever tried to remove this parade (and there has been that rumor for years, I'd be the first to sign the protest petition. (Apparently, they replaced the cute teddy bear with commercially disastrous Duffy the bear - that's bad enough).
So this was about 20 minutes of a joyful surprise and we just entered the main gates. There are other tales to tell of this December trip including REAL snow but I'll hold on to that for awhile. If you get a chance to see a Christmas Fantasy Parade which officially starts next weekend - DO IT!. It's a Christmas joy.
After the parade, we made it over to the Carnation Cafe and had a bowl of loaded baked potato soup. Is there a better way to begin a trip to Disneyland. When we leave for Disneyland in a couple of weeks, we are aiming for the exact same experience. Fingers crossed.....
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