Originally Posted By YumaJohn Back in 1996, I had just moved out of my parents house and relocated about 100 miles away to Tacoma WA. My girlfriend and I were living it up finally being that far away from the folks and living together. One Thursday night during the usual house party that the new place had become I said "I'm bored. Let's go to Disneyland." My girlfriend looked at me like I was crazy, but I could tell she was thinking about it. I said "everyone who wants to go to Disneyland, get in the car. Everyone else needs to go home." Only one person got in the car with my girl and I. We left at exactly Midnight after picking up some "supplies" for the trip. We drove straight through, arriving in LA early the next evening. We drove to Anaheim and checked into the Best Western at the backside of Disneyland. The next morning (Saturday) we got up in time for the park opening and spent the whole day from open to close. We could NOT believe we were actually in DL. The next morning we got up very early and went to Magic Mountain. Spent the day there and at closing drove straight back to Tacoma. We arrived back in time to go to school monday morning. We had a blast and the trip only cost 197 dollars for each person. That included gas, lodging, food, and admission to two parks. The trip was such a whirlwind that I hardly remember all the details. Looking back it seems like a lifetime ago but to this day whenever I am bored I always think... Hmmm maybe Disneyland? And yes I married the girlfriend two years later and where did we spend our honeymoon? A whole WEEK at DL. Any of you have similarly crazy stories? I know you do
Originally Posted By mickeymeg My story is not quite as spectacular. I decided after the last day of class of a particularly busy semester at school that I needed a break from real life. I happened to wander past a discount travel agent and there was a Disneyland sale on, but the catch was that you had to be able to travel by their date which was in about 4 days. So I quickly rearranged some work schedules called a friend and talked her into coming with me and off we went for 3 days of Disneyland fun.
Originally Posted By Terminus Yeah, mine won't be near as exciting... More like: I woke up on Saturday morning and said, "Should I take the kid to Disneyland?" ... So we got dressed and drove 15 minutes and spent half the day there. Yeah, not as glamourous...
Originally Posted By Mickeymouseclub Really want to be spontaneous right now! It is thursday and the weekend is almost here. I am frequently known to disappear but my family seems to always "know" what I am up to!
Originally Posted By tashajilek Wow sounded like an exciting trip you had!! My brother called me up and said hey were going to DL this week do you want to come? I had to convince my boyfriend to get time off of work and figure out how we could afford to go. We decided we were goign to do it and we had to drive from Vancouver B.C to get there. In Redding there was the worst rain/thunderstorm we had to drive in. We managed to get to DL in one piece. We were there in november 08 which had been my first time returning in 12 year!! Ever since then i cant stop going.
Originally Posted By wonderingalice Back in the late '70s, a friend I worked with had to cancel a weekend trip she was taking with her husband to So. Cal. via Southwest Airlines. She offered the tickets to me on a Tuesday or Wednesday. I called up a girlfriend to see if she wanted to fly to Anaheim with me on Friday night for Disneyland on Saturday. She accepted and we went. We were both under 21, but needed to rent a car when we got there. Thankfully, I had a paystub and a credit card, so the company made an exception. We rented a cherry red Camaro... Cool! Got directions to the Disneyland area, but got lost. Suddenly, Harbor Blvd. was the cross street, so I took it... We drove and drove and drove...LOL We arrived without a hotel/motel reservation and ended up at a truly ratty place, I think it was called "Tahiti Motel." The mirror in the bathroom had been physically ripped from the wall - nothing but battered-up paint where it should have been. Drove to Disneyland the next day and parked in that big, ol' parking lot. Had an absolute blast that day! Came out and found that someone had backed into the front of the Camaro. Ouch. Damage wasn't horrible, but it was obvious. Rental company never said a word nor billed me. Yes, kids... Airlines didn't give a crud who used their tickets after purchase in those days... I flew as my work friend Judy's husband. LOL!
Originally Posted By JThad We were at the beach with our 3-year-old daughter back in 1998. After a half-day there, we decided to go to Disneyland without telling her. She kept asking where we were going, and we told her it was a shortcut back to our home in Lancaster. So we get there and she is really excited. We park the car, get on the tram, get to the entry gates, present our regular annual passes, and find out that it is a blackout date for regular AP holders. (Stupid grad nights.) How's that for fun and spontaneous? (We ended up going over to the hotel and looking at the koi fish, looking at the waterfalls, and having dinner there. It turned out to still be a good trip, but we definitely owed our daughter, so we went the next week.)
Originally Posted By CuriouserConstance This thread is an obsessive planners absolute nightmare! I plan for months for my trips, lol. But this is fun, none the less
Originally Posted By tashajilek "This thread is an obsessive planners absolute nightmare! I plan for months for my trips, lol. But this is fun, none the less " Thats because planning helps to get you excited for your next trip. If you had an oppertunity to back up tomorrow im sure you would cc!
Originally Posted By utahjosh A couple of years ago, a couple friends of mine called me and my wife and said, "We're going to California (from Utah) today and going to Disneyland. Wanna come?" This was around 11 am. I was at work, my wife was in school. They were leaving a 4pm that day. We had a great trip!
Originally Posted By wonderingalice CC... That's exactly what I do now, too. I love having a planned vacation to look forward to!
Originally Posted By Roger Rabbit I don't have a spur of the moment DL trip cus it seems like I'm always there!! LOL!! But I do have a spur of the moment WDW trip. I usually plan my trips to WDW at least 3 or 4 months ahead of time. But one trip in mid-December 2007 was planned right after Thanksgiving. I had no intention of going to WDW for the holiday season, but my best friend invited me for something going on there that I said sure. I had to make arrangements at both of my jobs and then it was off to WDW. It's one of my favorite trips ever!!
Originally Posted By csgoofygirl In 1996 or 1997, we had a small airline based out of our hometown that offered "Mystery Trips" in October for really cheap. About 3 days before you left they told you where you were going. We got Los Angeles, so DH and I planned our very first multiple day trip to Disneyland. We had never been for more than a day trip before. We had such a great time that the whole family visited again when each of our kids graduated from high school. Since then our son has moved to the LA area and now as Colorado Residents we have Deluxe APs!
Originally Posted By Princessjenn5795 In July 2007 my (now) husband and I had been together about a year and we were going down to CA for a wedding. My DH and I had both been to DL as kids a couple of times but we never really talked about it. He was looking at a map of where the wedding was and found it was only about 45 minutes from DL so he asked if I wanted to go there. He was nervous because he thought that I (like his ex wife) would think it was a dumb idea. I disabused of that notion by jumping up and down and clapping my hands like a 4 year old Since he had the idea a week before the trip we lucked out because there was a room available at Paradise Pier over 4th of July weekend, which is when we were there. We just changed our plane reservations and got the grandparents to agree to watch the kiddos for extra time (it didn't take much convincing) and headed down there 3 days early. Since then we have gone once or twice a year; sometimes with the kids, sometimes without. Only now they are usually planned for months in advance.
Originally Posted By Terminus Do the kids know where you are going when you go without them? Just curious...
Originally Posted By LuLu These are great stories! I'm not very spontaneous, still I did decide once when staying in Palm Springs for New Years, to visit DL instead of going home. I did book a hotel before we left PS tho. And that was the year we had an insane heat wave, it was over 100 in Anaheim on Jan 3!
Originally Posted By CuriouserConstance "Thats because planning helps to get you excited for your next trip. If you had an oppertunity to back up tomorrow im sure you would cc!" You know me so well! lol
Originally Posted By GMLSKIS Great story !!! My most spontaneous trip to Disneyland was only planning one month in advance instead of two or more.
Originally Posted By Princessjenn5795 "Do the kids know where you are going when you go without them? Just curious..." Yes, we are honest with them. We just tell them we love Disneyland so much that sometimes we like to go there and do grown up things. Since they know very well that they will get to go again before too awfully long they are fine with it. Plus, we always bring them back a little something and that helps too. At this point, it just part of how our family works. I think it would be worse for them if we lied about it and they saw pictures or something and found out we lied.
Originally Posted By lesmisfan Mine was last St. Patricks day and i had a friend come down from texas to plan her wedding that was this past summer. anyway we hadn't seen each other for a few years so i picked her up and asked her what we should do. We were thinking like a park or botanical garden to walk through. then we started talking about her trip to New Orleans and begnets which furthered the discussion of princess and frog and talks of begnets at disneyland and we just sort of looked at each other and decided to go down to downtown disney to get some at ralphs jazz kitchen but ended up going into the parks and eating in new orleans square but forgetting to order begnets. well later that night we went to raplhs jazz kitchen for dinner and got our begnets.
