Originally Posted By debtee Part 3 Christmas Day 2006! It was a gorgeous sunny day! Yipeeeeee it¡¦s Christmas! We decided to have a sleep in till 8am and Mickey awoke us with a phone call. There was no hurry today we had planned a relaxed care free day to just go where we felt like going.This was our forth trip to DL and we had been ride demons on our last trip and decided not to do that this time.We arrived to the concierge lounge for breakfast, it¡¦s a lovely place to have breakfast and the CM¡¦s are so welcoming! This morning was special as the children in the lounge were of course all happy with it being Christmas and little kids kept coming up to us to show us their new pressies which I thought was so cute! I don¡¦t know why but wherever we go, people always come and talk to me, especially children so I enjoyed sharing in their happiness, it made me not miss my nieces and nephews as much on Christmas! We decided to head over to the Disneyland Hotel to see the Christmas decorations there and visit the Fantasia hotel store which I like to go to! I have all my goodies shipping back to our room so I don¡¦t have to carry it around all day and I was pleased to find out they would ship it back to the Paradise Pier Hotel for us! Brilliant! We then strolled over to the monorail and decided to enter the park this way today. We got a FP for space and took some video footage of the Matterhorn climbers that were out climbing. We watched a little band at the castle with Mickey, Goofy, Donald, Chip & Dale, Pinocchio, we didn¡¦t know what it was called but it was cute. We found a photo pass photographer and got some pix of us in front of the castle, our card that was getting good use. Headed into fantasyland but kept on walking as far to busy for us! LOL Went to Small world and then into Toontown! I just love toontown, must be cause I¡¦m a TOON! Haha Wait for RR was 60 mins so we got a FP. Waved to Goofy Santa and took pix of the decorations and then played with all the sounds, doors, gags etc, as I think they are funny! Shopped at the gag store of course and shipped back to room. I Found some more presents that I was needing. Waved to my darling Pluto and he waved back! We have visited Mickey on each trip and the lines were too long this time so we didn¡¦t go into Mickey¡¦s house. I have a memory lapse of what happened next but we were in DL so it had to be good. Later on we went back to Main Street and spent some quality time there as in the past we power through and don¡¦t get to see what¡¦s actually there. We enjoyed not having a schedule to keep for once, just relaxing and looking and seeing new things it was great. We literally bumped into Chip & Dale coming around a corner so they had a photo with us and wiggled their tails as they left for the camera! Cute! In the afternoon we went into DCA, used the photopass again and got some more pix at the entrance to DCA with the bridge in the background. It was so sunny at this point that my face was all screwed up so we didn¡¦t buy that pix although it is funny and I¡¦m sure will be used against me at some point in the future, as we purchased the CD on out last day so ended up with it anyway! Lol We used our FP for soarin over California and it¡¦s such a cool ride but we have no idea where all the places are on it and would love one of you Californians to come on it with us one day and explain what we are looking at! Haha Barry bought an Ice cream and I got an Eeyore balloon in a Christmas tree shape as I¡¦m a big kid. I always get one, then use a straw to deflate it and then bring it home with me and get it refilled next Christmas! GRR had a 60 mins wait and everyone was coming off drenched! I took pix it was so funny watching there reactions! We remembered that Robbin had said there was a meet at GCH, so we called past the lounge to see if we could see anyone but we couldn¡¦t and I could not recall what time they were meeting, so we ordered a coffee/hot choc and relaxed before I hit one of my FAV shops Acorn gifts. My poor charge to the room card was literally falling to pieces it had been used so much and Barry was laughing as his had not been used once the entire trip! I reasoned that was because I had the list with everyone to buy for which included 19 children back home all waiting for something from DL! ƒº We wandered slowly back to our room to relax before dinner. We had booked Christmas Day dinner at the Napa Rose 60 days earlier. We had done this dinner Christmas 2003 and enjoyed it immensely. However¡K¡K¡K when we checked in to the PP they gave us a letter telling us that as a special one off they were offering a Christmas Day character dinner at the PCH grill. My darling Barry gave up the Napa Rose so that I could play with the Characters and I was squealing with delight! I can have fine dining at home here in Sydney but I can¡¦t have Character meals! LOL We cancelled our NR booking to give someone else a chance to dine there and we went off for fun fun fun with furry friends! It was really good. The chefs had prepared a special dinner and there was quite a large selection to choose from, it was all scrumptious. The dessert bar was full of choices, I posted a pix of the dessert buffet in my photos. We got to see all of the Characters and they spent a good deal of time with everyone in the restaurant and were wonderful to us, they came back around several times and I believe this restaurant leaves Goofy¡¦s behind in it¡¦s wake, I wish they would open it for dinner all the time. We have pix of us with Lilo & Stitch, Pluto, Donald, Daisy, Chip & Dale. Our original pix with Stitch did not come out as the CM moved the camera so I looked around to find her again to see if she could bring Stitch back to us and she was just lovely and did. I finally got a photo with Stitch! I gave her a little Koala bear keychain as a thank you and she was so pleased. It was a perfect way to spend Christmas Day dinner. After Dinner we then went into DL for the rest of the night and found a position in front of the castle to watch the fireworks, it was just stunning to be standing there in a massive crowd listening to the music and watching the fireworks on such a special day. When the snow fell onto us I¡¦m sure my eyes were glistening as I hugged Barry. Everyone around us all wished each other a Happy Christmas ( well maybe we said the happy part and they said merry ) it was just lovely! We stayed in the park until closing, walked back through DTD so didn¡¦t get back to our room until nearly 2am! Boxing Day to us, 26th December to you guys! We used Mickey once again to wake us up but we had a sleep-in. It was a lazy morning and we didn¡¦t hurry to breakfast. I think we were the last ones in the concierge lounge that morning, everyone else had left for the parks. This is not a Disney day but I thought I would let you know what we did! We had ordered a car to take us to our Friends Bruce & Shelly who live in Northridge CA. Bruce is our LA agent for our freight company and we have become good friends over the years. Bruce also ships all my shopping back to Sydney for us and he¡¦s such a darling and packages it all up for me so it arrives safe and sound! We had a challenge with the car we had booked a few days earlier and basically were stranded at the PPH. Our wonderful bell hop came to the rescue and found us a taxi van to take us. He was such an angel. Although I think the driver almost passed out when he saw the amount of bags he was taking with us! The driver was so funny, I don¡¦t think he took a breath between the PPH and Northridge, for the hour and a half journey he talked the entire way about the war in Iraq! Phew! I love going to Bruce and Shelly¡¦s house as they have 2 Chow dogs Cheyenne and Cameron that I can fuss over and they help ease my homesickness for our boys Woody & Toby! We had arranged for the boys to go one direction and us girls to go shopping! We all met up again for lunch at a Mexican restaurant called Los Toros in Chatsworth and we loved the food it was so good. Barry had this huge Burrito and I had chicken tacos. So much nicer then what we get here in Sydney! Later we returned to their house and talked and relaxed. We were joining them for dinner with another couple Craig and Shirley that are really lovely and work with Bruce. We went to an Italian restaurant called Alessio and the food there is divine! After a few bottles of wine were polished off we were glad we had not hired a car and were getting a taxi back to the resort. Around 10.30 we called a taxi and said goodbye to our friends and were again on our way back to the resort. This taxi driver said not a word the entire trip which we were grateful for and we were back at the PPH by midnight!
Originally Posted By SuzieQ Great report! I cracked up when Barry described your shopping day to me, LOL!
Originally Posted By debtee ^ haha well I only had two days to get all that shopping completed as I had to leave everything with Bruce! I couldn't bring it all back in my case! It all arrived here yesterday and OMG you should see how much there is I took a photo and will post it later! lol
Originally Posted By Ursula Okay so one question. How expensive was the taxi ride to Northridge??? Hokey smokes I bet that was expensive!!! I live closer to the DLR than Northrdige but it still takes me an hour to drive there myself!!! I bet you drove right by my house, too!
Originally Posted By debtee Actually Ursula we had a bit of an issue with getting to Northridge. The Beachcomer lounge had booked the car for us but what turned up was a stretch limo. Nice but far too expensive for what we wanted. The driver that turned up had our name backwards for a start and it went downhill from there. He wanted to charge us US$356 each way to Northridge after we had been quoted US$86 AND then wanted to charge US$80 per hour wait time as he was told we wanted him to wait 10 hours for us! No way were we going to pay those rates. We were sitting in front of the CM that booked it for us and that wasn't what she asked for. The driver would not budge on the price or the wait time so we had to let him go. The taxi was the only available option, we feel lucky the bell hop was so nice to us and wanted to help. It cost us US$140 there and US$160 on the way back as we believe the driver heard our accents and took the scenic route via Long beach and Santa Ana on the way home but we didn't say anything as we didn't want him to dump us on the freeway at 11pm at night! lol It all worked out in the end we had a fab day and got back to the hotel in one piece!
Originally Posted By Ursula Wow!! That is crazy. It's is amazing to me what some people will try to do for an extra bit of money. Long Beach, I can see if you took the 405 all the way from Northridge to Anaheim. Later on at night with no traffic, this can be faster. But Santa Ana? That's past the resort! Ah, well, good friends, good food, and good drink...it seems so worth it to me in the end!
Originally Posted By RAM1984 Sure sounds like you had a lovely time. I fully agree that a character meal beats fine dining anytime. So glad you got to do that. And the way you described your relaxing, laid back attitude. That, in a nutshell, is why it is great to go as often as possible. I doubt that I would love Disneyland as I do if everytime I went I felt I had to hit every ride or rush down Main Street. Maybe we will see you next year on Christmas.
