Tomserwin's Aug '08 Trip Report

[tomserwin]

When hinges creak in doorless chambers... and strange and frightening sounds echo through the halls... whenever candle lights flicker where the air is deathly still, that is the time when tomserwin’s present, practicing his sillyness with childish delight.
Welcome, foolish mortals, to the Trip report. I am your host, your ‘post host.’ Kindly step all the way in please and make room for everyone. There’s no turning back now... Our tour begins here in this gallery...

...namely the gallery that is my cheap digital camera. Sorry, it's stormy outside and I couldn't resist the Haunted Mansion intro. Seriously though, I'm just hoping to show you guys some quick pics of my latest Disneyland trip. I took over seven hundred pictures on this last trip (which to Daddy B is child's play but to me is unheard of); however, as you read my trip report, you'll understand why I took so many. I have a lot of pics with family in it who don't want their faces all over the internet but that's ok because I have plenty more. None of the are on par with Daddy B but they should give you a rough idea of what my trip was like. So I hope you enjoy what I have for you guys. Thanks!!


Saturday, Aug 23rd.
A vingnette, placed precariously and awkwardly, however placed for a reason:
The morning started out early. I awoke at 5:30 to catch an early morning flight to Orange County. I ate breakfast at Paradise Bakery, of all places, and simmered over the concept of Miley Cyrus getting a birthday bash at DL (Yes, I do think about VF News even when not on VF). It really bothered me that Miley was almost more important than Walt. A lot of my personal beliefs about Disney all come back to Ol' Uncle Walt, and I value him highly. To a point, I felt like Disney was forgetting about him. Mixed with sadness over Walt and excitement about visiting Disneyland, I boarded the plane.

Ariving about an hour earlier to the park then we anticipated, we were completely jazzed about hitting DL with full force. However, I was surprised to see such long lines to get in the park at ten in the morning. A quick flick of an Annual Pass later and we were inside the park. Hello Main Street, goodbye Main Street. We B-lined it to Adventureland right off the bat.

We were pleasently surprised to find a realtively short line for the new Indy show. Too bad the Summer of Hidden Mysteries only lasts until the end of summer.



I snapped this picture while waiting. It's still one of my all time favorites.



Indy battles the villianess!! Shooting her would have been much easier, but I guess the kids wouldn't like that.




He may not be Harrison Ford, but this CM definately had the look. That's a total Indiana Jones look on his face.




Indy drove the kids wild and I must admit, I was rather excited myself. After all, Indy is my hero. Well, while Indy ran off to search for Mara, I went on a type of adventure myself...




An old friend was there to pick me up... she's a faithful friend for sure.




How many VFers do you think would jump at the chance to live here?




His mother in law...




Those must be gnew...








Where will tomserwin go next?! Will he get dreamed?! Will mint julips be on the menu?! All this and more on the next installment of Tomserwin's Aug. '08 Trip Report!!

[Wedbliss]

Great intro! "Post Host", that's funny! I LOL'd

Thanks for the pics. I love trip reports on VF. I'll be watching for more.

[princesschloe777]

Nice One!

I was anticipating, when you post your trip report. Its nice though, cuz. Good job! :)

[DLrules]

Nice trip report, I love reading trip reports, it makes me feel like Im there, especially when they have pictures!

[tomserwin]

Wow, I wasn't expecting replies yet. I've hardly started my trip report.



Yo ho, yo ho a pirtate's life for me... what kind of life is living as the undead?







My second favorite mode of transportation on the Rivers of America.





This is my favorite method of seeing the Rivers of America: The Sailing Ship Colombia.










Wasn't this on fire at one time?









Nothing says Old West quite like an abandoned mine train. Speaking of Old West, while in Frontierland I picked up quite a fun, and dare I say overlooked, item: A Sherrif Mickey badge. Those little brass badges are very awesome. I considered buying the "Bounty Hunter" until I found the best badge of all: "Cowpuncher." I wore my cowpuncher badge all over Disneyland for the rest of the trip. Fun stuff... just call me Tommy 'Cowpuncher' Erwin.




The castle!!! From multiple views.















Ah yes, the Disenyland that never was...










Time to say goodbye to the Fries Wagon. It's going for good. Frankly, I'll miss the wagon but I will not miss the smell or the food.




Sorry that I never answered those questions that I promised to... I didn't realize how much stuff I had to cut out just to get to this point. Plus, I have so much more on the way. So I'll post those questions again:


Where will Tommy Cowpuncher go next?! Will he get dreamed?! Will mint julips be on the menu?! All this and more (hopefully) on the next installment of Tomserwin's Aug. '08 Trip Report!!

[Jabberwock]

Looking forward to the next report! :D

[DLrules]

Nice, looking forward to the rest!

[tomserwin]

For the life of me I cannot remember this CM's name but he put on quite a show with his ragtime piano. Much to the happiness of a small Japanese lady, he played Beauty and the Beast at her request. Bert from Mary Poppins showed up to charm the young ladies at the Coke Corner so he played a medly of Mary Poppins music. Then, at my request, he played Alexander's Ragtime Band. It was a great experience.




After watching a little ragtime we headed deeper into Main Street to look around. I must admit, I was very interested in the new Olszewski items, especially the shadow boxes and the pocket pals. After shopping we ate a pleasent meal at the Carnation Cafe. The food was good but the service was exceptionally ssssslllllllllooooooowwww.... after getting our drinks other families had been seated, served, and left before we got our food.

After eating, we decided to head over to DCA. Toy Story Midway Mania was still #1 on my to-do list so dinner time seemed like the right time to hit TSMM. On the way to TSMM I saw a familiar face. At first I couldn't place him but I definately recongized him. As he approached, I realized it was Turk from the show Scrubs. I told him I was a huge fan of Scrubs and shook his hand. We chatted briefly and then went our seperate ways. That was pretty cool.

When we reached TSMM the line was at least a 50 minute wait. Depite my anticipation to ride it, I didn't want to wait nearly an hour. And then it sruck me: Single Rider Line! Thanks to the single rider line I was able to ride TSMM several times in that 50 minute time period.
















After a brief look around DCA, hitting some favorites like Screamin' and such, we felt like it was time to head back to DL. I was gald to be able to see the new Tinkerbell display.




We headed to Tomorrowland to ride Space Mountain. We found it closed down, which worried me. As it turned out, someone had literally pooped on the ground and they were cleaning it up. So we headed back to BLAB for a few more rides (We love that ride!) and then we went back to Space Mountain after they had cleaned up the dookie.



What is this?!




It's Remember... Dreams Come True.



















The fireworks were as spectacular as always. We headed towards Indy to use some precious Fastpasses we had been sitting on all day, effectively cutting down our wait time immensely.




A teenage girl was the "driver" of our transport. I sat directly behind her. While waiting to board the vehicle she was very chatty and told me it was her first time on Indy and she was super excited. She had a childlike energy that was very funny. She totally played up the "driver" role with pure silliness, creating one of those very few moments when a guest actually enhance a ride.

We headed back to Main Street and began looking around again. I re-examined my booty that I had collected over the course of the day: My cowpuncher badge, a cool Bug's Life pin, a Wall-E pin (Score!), and various assorted thing-a-ma-bobs picked up around various shops in DL.

And so ended a crazy day at Disneyland.




Sunday Aug 24.


We arrived bright and early the next morning, with a single aim: To hit Fantasyland hard. We didn't really have an opportunity to do anything in Fantasyland the day before. Since I was a kid Fantasyland was always a favorite. Those rides may be old but they are classics. On the way I snapped a few more pictures of the castle.







Fantasyland was pretty much empty so we hit Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, and the Matterhorn.












So we hopped on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride...






When we got off, the Dream Squad was waiting for us...

[DLrules]

Wow, Fantasyland looks like it was deserted or something!!

Great pictures of the fireworks!

Can't wait for more!

[BCC]

Dream squad? Grrr....

[tomserwin]

Ok, this is where my trip report becomes a lot more of a "report" instead of just a general picture slide show.


The Dream Squad was waiting where guests unload from the cars. The Dream Squad looked at the people unloading in front of us, looked at us, and then looked at the people behind us. One of the two-person Squad pulled out a digital camera and took a quick picture of us, shot from the hip. We had no idea what their dream prize was and we clearly saw that they weren't holding anything so we figured they weren't handing out prizes yet. I smiled at them and we walked away.

As we were leaving one called out, "Excuse me, could we ask you some questions?" We said sure, why not. They asked us if we had any family or friends who worked for Diseny or ABC and if we had a valid governement ID. Once that was out of the way they asked us to follow them to Main Street because we may have "potentially" won something. They took us here:



FYI: If the Dream Squad takes you to this building, go eagarly because it is probably a very good thing. You don't recieve guided tour here, you get dreamed. The Squad (named Renee and Debbie) then showed us a DVD announcing that we had won...

(*Drum Roll*)

A one night stay in the Disneyland Dream Suite!!


We were shocked! My mom started crying, then Debbie and Renee started crying, and I sat there quietly letting the reality of it soak in. We had to change our airline flight, our super shuttle reservations, and I had to call in sick to work before we officially said "Yes!" to the offer. Once the paper work was finished, Debbie asked us what we wanted to do. I suggested we try something we had never done before so she offered us something unique: A ride on the Lilly Belle. I couldn't refuse.



We headed to the Railroad station to hop aboard...




Inside the Lilly Belle was Walt's personal smoking jacket, still there after all these years.




The interior was decorated by Lillian Disney and still bore her affects.








After riding the Lilly Belle with some Club 33 members, and recieving a very nice history of the Lilly Belle from a Railroad conductor, we picked up a Mint Julip and hit the Mark Twain.












Here is my favorite CM. He's not friendly, he's not chatty, he doesn't really like his picture taken, he doesn't even really talk. He just sits and plays jazz in NOS. Sometimes he plays Disney song in very jazzy style to the point that the song is bearly recognizeable. But, for some goofy reason, I always love to see him play. Everytime I go to DL, I look for good ol' Ernie.




I took a quick pic of our new pad and then we took off to our hotel to pic up our luggage.




Michelle was at our hotel waiting for us with the Dream Limo.



She took us backstage and showed us things like Agriculture, the woodshop, and repair areas. She parked behind Splash Mountain, with Renee and Debbie waiting for us. They walked us to NOS while Michelle took our bags to the Suite. In front of the Suite, Queeny and her jazz band met us to welcome us to the Dream Suite.





As they played us off to the Suite, Michelle welcomed us into the Suite. She gave us a tour of the suite and gave us a thorough history of the Dream Suite. Almost the entire deisgn of the Suite was based off of concept art made for Walt by his favorite animators.

For some reason, I took pictures of the front veranda first. (Bear in mind that these pictures do not come in any rational order.)
















Ah ha, and now the actual suite... this is the entry.










The master bathroom.




































And that's just the bathroom!!


Stay tuned for more adventures with the Disneyland Dream Suite as Tommy 'Cowpuncher' Erwin shares more experiences and more pitures of the Disneyland Dream Suite!!

[Wedbliss]

Jackpot! I didn't see this coming when you started posting this report. We must see more....

[Disney Babe]

Oh, I'm so excited for you! Wonderful pictures (even before you got dreamed). I bet your mom was in heaven once you entered the suite. Yeah, I would say that's something worth calling in sick for! Of course, it's an "unavoidable delay"!

One question - is there only a shower, or is there a bath too?

[DLrules]

Thats awesome! You got to stay in the Dream Suite! I was hoping the whole time I was there that we would run into the Dream Squad but we never did, aw well!
You picked a GREAT time to go on Mr. Toads Wild Ride!!

Looking forward to more! This is a great report, it is almost suspensfull, lol!

[BCC]

I can't see any of the pics...dumb filter...