Originally Posted By Verna Well, we just got back from Disneyland and we had a great time. I want to thank you all for the help you gave me in planning my trip. We have not been on a trip in years. It was me, my husband Lou and our eight grandkids. Yes, eight grandkids. They are: Jerry, Jean, Jack, Jenny, Patty, Chris, Teresa and Cathy. My daughter thought it was cute to name all the kids names starting with the letter J. But by the time she was pregnant with the fifth one I guess she lost her imagination. The youngest kid is 5 and the oldest is 14. I listed them oldest to youngest in case you care. And believe it or not they all are from the same dad. Anyways, I should probably tell you that my daughter and her husband are out of the picture for awhile. Lou and I have custody of the grandkids for now. My daughter and her no good husband got themselves in trouble two years ago robbing a grocery store. They went in late one night and held up the store. There was only two people working there and one was in the back smoking a cigarette. Anyways they got away with $5000. The next day the local paper ran a story but the article said they stole $7000 dollars. My idiot son in law called up the paper and said the guy in the store was lying and must have taken the extra $2000 for himself. Stupid idiot. They traced the phone call back to him. And, once they searched the house they found the wigs they were wearing and the clothes to. So they got sent away for a few years and Lou and I got all the kids. Anyways, the trial and their mom and dad being in jail and everything has been kinda hard on them. And the kids don’t like working on the farm much and we all needed a vacation so Lou one day says lets all go to Disneyland. Jerry showed me LP on the internet and the two of us learned all about our trip. So here goes. We all piled in the van and drove. It took 17 hours to drive to Disneyland. It was something I never wanted to do again until I realized that we had to drive it again going home. Well we got there. We stayed at The HO JOs motel. It was real nice but awfully crowded. We had to save some money on this trip so I just got us a room with two beds and we brought sleeping bags for the oldest kids. But the younger ones started crying so it turns out the younger ones slept on the floor and the older ones in the bed. I packed lots of food because I know from LP it was going to be expensive to feed all the kids. We found out we couldn’t set up our hibachi on the patio though but that was okay. Lou went out and found a Walmart and bought a little microwave. We cleaned it up good when we were done and returned it to the store on our way out of town and got our money back. The refrigerator in the room is awfully small but we had an ice chest so that worked out okay. Since we didn’t get to The HOJOs until late at night we all went right to bed. It worked out good getting there late at night too seeing as we had to sneak several of the kids in. Anyway, it all worked out okay. We got up real early. Getting ten people ready with only one bathroom was tough but we did it. The toilet got clogged and so we hid some of the kids in the closet when the maintenance guy came to unclog it. Then wouldn’t you know not ten minutes later it got clogged again. I was kind afraid when the maintenance man came again because Jack was hiding in the closet the first time but the second time he traded with Patty. But the maintenance man didn’t notice and Lou asked if we could just keep the plunger and he said okay. We finished up and walked over to the park. It is not too long a walk. The kids of course all wanted to stop at Mcdonalds for cheeseburgers but Lou told them we could either stop at Mcdonalds or go to Disneyland it was there choice. Well they all picked Disneyland. We went in and bought our tickets for the day. Over $650 for all of our tickets for just one day! We cheated a little and told them some of the kids were littler than they really were but I think lots of people do that. Anyways, we went into Disneyland. It was just beautiful. There was music playing. All the kids eyes were so big. They all wanted to run off on their own but Lou said we had to stick together. He wanted to get the lay of the land before he let the older ones go off. We walked down the street and it was just beautiful. One of the little ones wanted to ride the wagon with the horse but the other ones didn’t want to do that (they have to clean the stalls at home and don’t want anything to do with horses away from the farm). So we just walked. We got up to the statue of Walt Disney. He certainly is a handsome man. I told Lou that I think I remembered reading on the LP that he is buried underneath that statue. Lou made up a story about how he went to school with him. The kids believed him. The little ones wanted to know if Lou had ever met Mickey Mouse. Walt said that he had and maybe he would be around today and he could introduce him. That surprised me cause Lou does not have much of an imagination and isn’t good at lying at all. Anyways, we had to go into the castle so we let the kids run up ahead. We went on all sorts of rides. Even Lou and I did. Except the elephants. Lou wouldn’t go on that one. Neither the merry-go-around either. But that’s okay. He laughed on everything else. They were all fun. The older kids wanted to go to Futureland real bad but Lou said no to that. You are going to think we are crazy. (You probably already do what with our having eight grandkids in the house.) But Lou was abducted about 25 years ago. I was selling Tupperware at the time and was the top seller in my county. I got to go to an expensive hotel in Boise for a special convention where I got a diamond pin and some other prizes. Anyway, I was gone for the night. It was the first time I had ever gone away from home since we were married and he went and got himself abducted by aliens. They kept him over night and probed him and did all sorts of experiments. He was a changed man after that. Always good to me but a changed man. Anyway, we go off to these meetings whenever they come to our state and have met other people who went through the same thing. So anyways, Lou did not want to go into Futureland. Too many bad memories of the abduction. So we went to that Small Worldland with all the little dolls. It takes about a half hour and they sing the same song over and over again. I was going to joke to Lou that I think I’d rather be abducted than to go on that ride again but he is sensitive about things like that and don’t think they’re funny so I kept my mouth shut. We then went to Toontownland. The little kids really enjoyed this. Even the big kids. We heard the train and Lou just loves trains so we all headed for the train. It goes all the way around the park. Takes about a half hour because it stops at all the Disneyland towns. The kids saw that racetrack thing with all the cars and wanted to ride it but Jerry said it was in Futureland so I just told them all that we didn’t have California drivers licenses and so we couldn’t drive the cars. At first we didn’t know the train went around the park. Lou thought maybe it went to the California Disneyland Adventure park but it doesn’t. Anyways we all liked it and a half hour later we were in Toontownland again. We started walking and found Big Mountain Thunder Railroad. Another train for Lou. Maybe this one goes to California Disneyland Adventure Park. But I didn’t think so. It was fun. It’s a roller coaster train. We liked it so much that we went on it a second time. After that we were hungry so we went down to the river where the big steam boat ship is. I had made sandwiches for lunch. The kids wanted to go swimming but I said I didn’t think they would let us do that and besides we didn’t bring swimsuits and there wasn’t anyone else swimming. After lunch we went on the river boat. It was just beautiful. It takes about a half hour to go around the river. All sorts of stuff to see. Then we went on the pirates ride. It was like nothing I have ever seen. All the pirates. Some of the little ones got scared, especially when our boat went over a waterfall but pretty soon it gets to be funny. The whole ride takes about a half hour. Jerry wanted to see if he could pick away at some of the gold that you float by but Lou said no to that. When we got off the pirates we were in a little town. We walked around and before you know it we were out by the water again. Disneyland is so funny like that. I heard someone say they were going to go to ride Winnie the Pooh bear ride and I thought the little ones would like that. But we didn’t know where Winnie the Poohland was so we asked the boy selling popcorn. He told us where to go. The kids thought we were buying popcorn and got excited so Lou bought two boxes for everyone to share. We walked by the haunted house but that was too scary for me so we didn’t go on that even though Jerry and Jeanny said it wouldn’t be scary. We went down found the Pooh bear ride and splash mountain. We rode the pooh bear ride first. It was just beautiful. So cute. We liked it so much that we rode it two more times. Then we went on the splash mountain. I didn’t like falling down the waterfall and getting wet but it’s real cute inside. I think they should just do a little show with all those singing animals that you could go in and sit down and watch. It would be real popular. Anyways, after I looked at my watch and told everyone that there was another park we had to go see before we had to go home. So we started to leave but we got lost. Turns out we were in Jungleland. The older kids went on the Indiana Jones ride while Lou and I took the little ones on the Jungle boat ride. In fact it was so much fun we took it a second time. Our boat driver was just so funny. He made everything a joke. There’s all sorts of animals along the way. They’re not real but the little kids think they are so that makes it fun. After we got off the older kids were waiting for us and they had fun on there ride too. We finally made it down the street and outside. California Disneyland is right across the way. You just walk right over. They have these big huge letters that spell out California Disneyland Adventureland Park and kids can play on them so we let ours for a while. Everyone liked the A and we almost had a fight but it all worked out. I really wish I had a camera because I missed out on a lot of pictures of the kids and their mom would have enjoyed seeing them but oh well. We went to the Hollywoodland. There was a show going on but the line was too long so we went down the street. The kids got excited because superman from the Incredibles movie was there. They all got to go up and shake his hand. I wanted to ask if he was the one who starred in the movie but I felt kind of silly so I just let the kids say hi to him. Jerry and Jean said we had to ride the tower of terror elevator. You go into this really old hotel. Lou thought maybe it was the original Disneyland hotel since we realized we didn’t see it at Disneyland but Jerry said no it was new. Well Lou didn’t understand why they would build an old hotel. I’ll have to go back and read the LP to see more about that. Anyways, you go into a room and watch the twilight zone movie. Your going to ride an elevator and it breaks down. I was scared but Jerry said he read about it and its not scary at all and that you wear a seat belt the whole time. So then we had to go to the elevators and the line is really long. Takes about a half hour to get to them. The elevator guy is really funny. He pretends to be real creepy but he ends up being funny. Well I tell you what. That is some kind of ride. I have never been so scared in my life and I don’t think Lou has either (accept for the abduction). I thought the little ones were going to cry but they liked it. Afterwards we got off and to get outside you have to go through the gift shop. It’s like this on all the rides and I don’t like it one bit. Have you ever had to herd a group of eight kids through a store when they want to buy everything and you don’t have the money to buy it. About the only thing I almost bought was a couple of dog leashes. We have dogs at home and didn’t bring them but the youngest ones Cathy and Teresa are all over the place looking at things and picking up things and asking “Grampa will you buy this for me.†I told Lou that maybe we should buy dog leashes and put them on the girls so we don’t lose them but they wanted too much money for them and what was I going to do with dog leashes after Disneyland? We live on a farm. All the dogs run around on there own. Okay so anyways we see people in line at another show place and the line isn’t long so we get in line. It was the Aladdin show. Just like the movie. It was real cute. Plus we all got to sit down. That was nice. The show was good to. Takes about a half hour. The geni from the lamp is all blue and he is so funny cracking jokes. They have this carpet that flys over your head and a huge snake. Just a beautiful show. After the show Jerry said we have to go on Soaring. Now this was fun. You get to fly up in the air on this plane. It’s all inside a building. They show a movie and your feet hang down and it feels like you are flying. It’s a long show too. Takes about a half hour and then you are on the ground. It wasn’t until it was all over that I realized we almost would have missed it if Lou had thought it was about a spaceship but it was all about airplanes so he was just fine. So we walked around some more and we found a river ride. You all get in a round tire raft and you go down a stream of water and your whirling around in circles and then you go down some rapids and water falls and you get soaking wet. Thank goodness it was a sun shiney day otherwise we would have all been wet all day. It was a lot of fun but felt like I was going to fall out so I wouldn’t go on it again. Lou liked it. He told the kids it reminded him of the time when he was a young boy and used to go down the river with his dad. So the next thing you know all the boys want grandpa to take them down the river when we get home. Okay so then we walk some more and find a little park for the kids to run around in. It’s real cute and has bear things and Indian things and the little ones really liked it a lot. I was surprised everyone wasn’t dead tired like I was but they just never run out of energy. So anyways, we keep on going and find all these rides and games. Theres a little roller coaster and a great big roller coaster and a ferris wheel and rides that go around and I think we rode every one of them. Except the big roller coaster. Only the big kids went on that one. Too scary for me. Then we found the bugland place. It is just cute for the little ones. Lou and I took them in and let them ride all the rides while the older kids went back to do the big kids rides. We even went to a bug show that was real cute. They have bugs that touch you and it makes you feel like they are real. We found the older kids then and found a place to sit down and eat dinner. I had made sandwiches again. The kids wanted hot dogs but what can you do. So we ate our dinner and then it was time for the electric parade. People were finding places all over so we found one for us and sat down on the ground. Well if you haven’t seen the electric parade you have to. It is just beautiful. Takes about a half hour and is so beautiful. There is music and everyone wears theses electric costumes and the floats light up. So pretty. After the parade we had to leave. It was so much fun but we were dead tired. So we walked back to The HOJOs motel and went to our room. I think everyone was dead quiet and sound asleep within ten minutes. Not a peep out of anyone until about 2:00 o’clock in the morning when Lou clogged the toilet up. We got up the next morning and drove back home. All in all it was a very nice trip. I wished we had a little more money to treat the kids. Maybe spend another day going to the park. But Lou said we can all go to the fair this summer so the kids are happy about that. Sorry this was so long.
Originally Posted By Lisann22 Boy Howdy Verna, what a vacation, if I didn't know better, I'd hardly believe it. Between bookmarkers and clogged toilets I'm starting to worry about ole' HoJo's. Glad to see the kids came outta the closet and you all have a great time. ;>
Originally Posted By Inspector 57 <<Sorry this was so long.>> Are you kidding, Verna?! Best. Trip. Report. EVER.
Originally Posted By quincytoo Bar none one of the best trip reports I have ever read...... Man I was so there hiding with your little ones in the closet..... I am going to have to come back and reread this again when I am not laughing so hard...I am frightening my golden....
Originally Posted By Inspector 57 Verna, I wanted to say thanks again for your wonderful report. I'm so glad you and Lou and the kids had the chance to go and that you had such a good time. I also wanted to say... Something has been really bothering me ever since I read your report this afternoon... It makes me SO angry that that grocery store clerk LIED about the amount of money. If it weren't for him, your grandkids would still be with their parents. Don't get me wrong -- I'm sure you and Lou are great with the grandkids. But it makes me so mad that that inconsiderate jerk is responsible for taking those kids away from their mom and dad. I hope he gets what's coming to him.
Originally Posted By morticiaadams Quite the amusing trip report .....but my burning questions is "when the heck is Bat day"? I agree with heinz 57 or whatever her name is.... WHat goes around comes around..that store keeper will get his in the end...thank god for the lack of gun control here in the states
Originally Posted By Captainess Thank you Verna for the funny trip report...brightened my day =D LOL about saying some of the kids were younger to get cheaper tickets...my family used to do that all the time. I think I will always be reminded of Lou's abduction everytime I go to Tomorrowland aka Futureland from now on...
Originally Posted By nevadarebel >>>is wiping the tears from laughing so hard.. Thanks for the great trip report, I can just see their faces in the closet.
Originally Posted By Inspector 57 Thank you for your support, morticiaadams, but FYI... Inspector 57 is a "he." 100% all-American beef.
Originally Posted By gaydsnywitch "But it makes me so mad that that inconsiderate jerk is responsible for taking those kids away from their mom and dad." OK, Inspector, I just have to ask: Are you serious? I mean if they hadn't robbed the store they would still be with their kids.
Originally Posted By Inspector 57 <<I mean if they hadn't robbed the store they would still be with their kids.>> *sigh* Of all people, gaydsnywitch, I wouldn't have expected you to be jumping on that "blame the victim" bandwagon.
Originally Posted By Inspector 57 **Don't read this post, Verna!** gaydsnywitch, yes, I was *totally* joking about the store clerk. And totally joking in post #18. It just seemed like the thing to say in this thread. (Actually, I think it's very cool that you challenged that point!)
