Disneyland at Halloween with Friends - October 2024: Day 1

Friday - 

• Better night sleep; easier getting ready later than 4:00am; forgot a couple things; Grady attitude; made it to the airport; met a very nice guy on bus who is a UMKC recruiter; got to see airport open and in daylight, love the airport; got on plane and saw Michael Lorenzen (Royals pitcher) on plane; good flight, kids did great
• Our flight was at noon, which meant we had time in the morning to finish packing and get ready to go.  I think I am going to look for later flights in the future because I was actually able to sleep soundly and not worry as much about the next day.  We were able to get most of our stuff packed the night before and finish packing in the morning.  I did end up forgetting a couple things, but nothing major.  
• Grady has a little attitude if he doesn’t eat, and this was no exception.  We tried to wait to eat at the airport and that was an issue.  We parked at the Parking Spot with no issues and talked to a very nice college sports recruiter on the bus.  He was a UMKC recruiter, but used to be a recruiter for Texas Tech.  He said he knew Patrick Mahomes from his time at Tech and that they are very nice people.  
• We got to the airport and through security without issues.  We walked toward the gate and stopped to get breakfast food.  We got a couple of coffees and breakfast burritos.  This helped Grady tremendously.  Our group was all there, except Paula, Alli’s mom.  She got to the gate just in time to get on the plane.  Phew!
• When we were waiting to get on the plane, there was a guy and his family who boarded with us in the family boarding.  They sat in front of us.  He looked familiar, but not super familiar.  Lisa asked me if he was a baseball player.  I told her he kind of looked like Michael Lorenzen, who was a pitcher for the Royals.  The Royals had made it to the playoffs and the elimination game was the previous night.  Lisa did some social media digging and found that it was Michael Lorenzen.  We didn’t talk to him, but he was sure in a hurry to get out of KC.
• Flight was great, no issues.  It is so much more enjoyable to travel with older kids who can entertain themselves during the flight.

• Weird Long Beach airport; met the shuttle and had the same driver as last time
• We landed in Long Beach and got to exit the plane from either the front or the back.  Since this airport exits on to ladders and down to the tarmac rather than a stationary walkway.  It was a gorgeous day in sunny California.
• We got through the airport and found the luggage pickup, which is also partially outside.  After we got our bags, we looked for the van to pick us up.  We used Anaheim Town Car service again.  I called for an update and they said the driver would call me.  Almost immediately, I got a call from the driver, who happened to be the same guys from our last trip, Raj.  He was a very nice guy and it looked like we had the same vehicle.  In the Halloween spirit, he had Nightmare Before Christmas playing when we got on.  What a great service!

• Got checked in at hotel. Room is nice but small with no storage
• No issues at check in other than we had to check in a second time later in the trip because we booked part of the stay on points.  No big deal.
• The elevator was kind of a pain, it was slow and small.  Later we found another set of elevators closer to our room, which worked much better.
• The room was nice, but quite small.  I was expecting the rooms to be bigger since it is an older hotel.  It served it’s purpose.

• Paula got a scooter
• Alli’s mom, Paula, has issues walking long distances so we had discussed getting her a scooter for the trip.  Thankfully, they reserved one which was delivered to the hotel.  She picked it up and was able to use it the entire time we were at the hotel.  Worked great both from mobility and logistics.

• Walked through downtown Disney - ate at Jazz Kitchen; delicious, good shrimp and grits, Grady starving and ate steak and shrimp: bananas foster beignets were delicious 
• We walked around the big block to Downtown Disney.  We walked through and found some new additions.  Din Tai Fung was the first new addition we saw (coming from the Disneyland Hotel side).  We tried to eat there, but it was a very long wait.  The Lego store was closed for refurb.  There was a park area open with a bandstand that was nice.  We ended up eating at the new Jazz Kitchen.  It was delicious.  The shrimp and grits were yummy.  Grady got steak, which he ate all of and then ate some of my shrimp.  The portions were huge.  We also got beignets.  One flavor was bananas foster.  They were filled with bananas foster.  So good!

• Shopped at World of Disney and then went back to bed
• After dinner we walked through World of Disney and did some shopping.  Ellie did most of her shopping the first day.  She had the money, found what she wanted and was ready to go.
• It was a good, less stressful travel day.  I think we will do this more often rather than trying to do too much the first day.

Long Beach Airport, Anaheim Town Car Service and flight

Sheraton Park Hotel

Disneyland at Halloween with Friends - October 2024: Planning

 

    We had a great time with all of the Holk’s in January 2024.  One of our best.  We did not plan on going again for a while because we had been so often and we wanted to start going to other places with our kids.  With that said, our good friends said they were planning a trip to Disneyland and the beach in October 2024.  They were asking for help planning their trip and we half jokingly asked if we could go with them and they said yes.  So the planning began.

Time of Year and Hotel

    Our friends wanted to go in October, which worked great for us because that was season we wanted to visit Disneyland.  Our friends had already set their dates, and they were planning on renting a beach house in the San Diego area after going to Disneyland.  We decided we didn’t want to interrupt their entire family vacation and we were short on work time off so we would only going during the Disneyland portion.  We did decide to stay one day longer for an extra park day after they left for the beach.

    We tried to find DVC rental hotels, but there was no availability.  We did find some inexpensive deals on hotels in the area.  One that interested me was the Sheraton Park hotel.  This is one I had wanted to try and we were able to book it for less than $200 per night with Lisa’s HCA discount.

Transportation and Length of Stay

    When we were talking to our friends about the trip, we looked at airfare and Southwest HAPPENED to have a sale going on.  Airafare was not only a great deal, but we were able to use points for about half of our airfare.  For ground transportation to the airport and back, I booked the same company we used in January, Anaheim Town Car Service.  They were great and had reasonable prices.

    Our friends were planning on going to Disneyland for 3 park days.  We had originally thought that would be ok, but then we found we could add a hotel night for free with Marriott points so we decided to stay an extra night for an extra day in the parks.  Our plan was to go to the Halloween party one day so we wanted 3 additional regular park days.   

Park Tickets and Entertainment

   Park tickets were a little different this trip.  We were not sure how many days we were going to the parks because our plan was to go to Oogie Boogie Bash one night.  This was not guaranteed because we needed to get tickets the day they went on sale.  Thankfully we were able to get tickets for the Halloween party.  That was a story in itself because Lisa, Ryan and I were all online when tickets went on sale, but for whatever reason, I was the only one that could get in to buy the tickets.  Thankfully I was able to buy them for our entire group.  Our friends decided to do 2 additional park days and we did 3 (we had a couple of planning gatherings to figure out what we wanted to do).  They had used Genie+ in Disney World and really enjoyed it so we added Lightning Lane Multi Pass for all of our days.  We also added Park Hopper to maximize our time in the parks since we would only have 3 full regular park days and our friends would only have 2.  We were able to find slightly discounted tickets through Lisa’s work so we saved a little to offset some of the additional cost.

    We found out before we left for the trip that several rides might be closed on our trip.  Thankfully Jungle Cruise, Indiana Jones and Haunted Mansion will all be open.  Unfortunately, Small World and World of Color will be closed.  We were pretty bummed to hear about Small World because we love it and our friends have small kids so it would have been a good one for them.

Dining

With this being a different group, we weren’t sure how to attack dining.  We were still in the planning process when we got to 60 days out so we made a couple of reservations for just the 4 of us.  We got a Lamplight lunch and a Cafe Orleans dinner.  There are so may fantastic quick serve dining options we don’t really need the fancy dining at Disneyland.  We have found that it is a nice forced break, but it is significantly more expensive.  

Final Thoughts

Planning this trip was a little different because we had not traveled with another family to Disneyland.  They had not been before so we had to rethink how to plan and how to tour.  Normally we plan trips to Disneyland with my family and we are all Disney people.  This was a little different.  We were very excited for the trip and excited to have fun and share the experience with our friends and their kids.  We’re going to Disneyland!!