Originally Posted By dzy76 Dzy76 (dizy4disney) – 44 Matt – 14 Tuesday July 25 - Wednesday July 26 Drove to Portland and checked in at La Quinta Airport. Very nice place, comfortable beds. Spent the rest of the afternoon walking around, ate at Shari’s for dinner and time spent at the pool. Up early the next morning and had complimentary breakfast (yummy waffles) and took the airport shuttle to PDX at 9:30am. Check-in was smooth. Matt shopped at the Nike store (big soccer nut). Passed time waiting by watching the first part of Pirates of the Carribean on the portable DVD player. Finally boarded and took off around 11:30am. Flight uneventful, watched the rest of Pirates. Landed in Orange County at little before 3pm. Took a taxi and was at the Candy Cane Inn by 3:45pm. Check-in to the CCI was very efficient. Very nice staff. Very pretty grounds. Our room was to the left of the main building, room 120. Our door was really hard to open, kind of like suctioned shut! But we got in and laughed every time we opened that door the rest of the trip. The room was lovely. Overstuffed pillows and comforters on the beds. The two queen size beds were more than enough for the two of us. The room was well decorated. Plenty of sink space outside the tub, toilet area. Coffee maker (we never used), iron and ironing board were in place. As well as wall-mounted hair dryer. Lovely cabinet with mini fridge and tv inside. Overall a great space, a little small if you had more than 3 guests. We unpacked and headed off to Disneyland. We had 5-day park hoppers and wanted to get started right away! It was a quick 5-6 minute walk. Nice landscaping and didn’t feel too close to the main road at all. We entered through the right tunnel and stopped to just absorb our surroundings. Ahhhhh….. We’re finally here. Everything seems so colorful and in great shape on Main Street! We went to City Hall and got a list of the 50th anniversary hidden Mickey’s. We had a blast finding these through the whole trip and Matt took pictures of all that we could find. Anyway, we walked down Main Street with Matt holding my hand the whole way in awe of where we are. Into the castle we went to Fantasyland. We have a tradition of riding Peter Pan first, so into line we went. We had about a 20 minute wait. And it was a hot and muggy wait. But tradition is tradition. We thought of grandpa Chuck on Peter Pan (my dad) as he asked us to remember him on our first flight through Neverland. Next we walked around the back way to Frontierland and onto New Orlean’s Square. Waited about 15 minutes for Pirates of the Carribean. We loved the new animatronics and sounds. I love that they have a little of the movie music in the pirate ship scene. The mist screen was really cool. We spent a lot of time with a Pirates theme on this trip. We actually rode Pirates everyday at least once, sometimes twice! Next we walked over to get fast passes at Big Thunder Railroad. We went back to the Gallery in NOS and really enjoyed the Pirates 2 movie stuff. As we had yet to see the movie (of which we saved seeing until our trip) we didn’t fully appreciate some of the movie pieces until later in our trip. We then walked over to Café Orleans and checked in for our ps’s. We decided to sit inside (it was so hot out) and had a nice little table. We ordered the pomme frites (fries), I had the three cheese monty cristo and Matt had the chicken gumbo crepes. It was all delicious. And the Mint Juleps made my day! We were too full for dessert sadly to say. Overall it was our favorite meal and we really enjoyed our dinner. A nice way to start our trip. We went next to Haunted Mansion. I love HM, it’s been a favorite since I was a kid. So spooky, yet fun! Loved the attic scene. Matt however did not like the bride. He thought she looked “hoakyâ€. Oh well. So over to BTMRR next but it was closed. So we looked around the shops in Frontierland and the Bazaar in Adventureland. We do love to shop! Then noticed that BTMRR was now open and walked right on (didn’t need that FP after all). The line was so short after the reopen that we rode twice and that is always fun! We walked over to the hub and found a place right in front of the castle to watch the fireworks. Waited about 45 minutes. You can sit down on the street until about 10 minutes before the show and then they have everyone stand. It was a perfect spot and we LOVED the fireworks. It made me so emotional, I was crying through the whole thing! They really outdid themselves for the 50th with this show. I loved the stuff projected onto the castle during the fireworks and Tinkerbell was visible through a lot of the show – how fun! We then walked through Tomorrowland taking in the sights and sounds and over to the Toon Town train station. Rode the train to Main Street. The park closed at 11pm most nights we were there (except Fri-Sat nights) so we head out and over to DownTown Disney. We checked on movie times for Pirates 2 for the next day and then walked back to CCI. We went next door to ABC market and bought bottled water and some snacks for the room. After getting back to our room we watched tv for a little bit and then being exhausted but happy in that “I’m at Disneyland†kind of way fell to sleep smiling. Favorite thing - Being here!!!
