July 22-25: Our Trip to Disneyland Resort *photo heavy*

My boyfriend, Martin, and I have been planning this trip since May. But between school and work, a lot of weekends were blocked out for us. We settled on the weekend of July 22 through the 25th, after tossing schedules back and forth. lol

So, let's begin!

Martin had actually come down Wednesday night, versus early Thursday morning. He lives some 100 miles away from me, and it was just easier for him to spend the night so that we could get an early start on Thursday without having to wait for him.

On Thursday morning, we woke up at 7:30am. We packed the cars, and I said good bye to my brothers. We left my house around 8:05am, but we stopped by Mcdonald's for some breakfast to go so we didn't officially hit the freeway until about 8:20ish or so.

The drive down Hwys 152 and 5 were alright. Can't really say much about it since we drove for about 5 hours. We didn't have many plans on Thursday, so we decided to stop in Long Beach to visit my cousin.

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(I don't know what building this is, but I took this shot as we were driving into Long Beach looking for my cousin's place.)

When we finally arrived at her place around 2p, she asked if we wanted to go out to eat. So we went to this Thai restuarant about 5 minutes away called, Star of Siam.

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I only got a picture of our appetizers, which were spring rolls. We were so hungry that we didn't really get pictures of our dishes themselves. Oh well.

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After lunch, we dropped my cousin back off at her place, and we headed to our hotel. We stayed at the Howard Johnson in Stanton (which, at the time of booking was super, duper cheap for us since we are broke college students. lol). The hotel was about a 10 minute drive to the Resort, but we didn't mind, mainly cause we weren't planning to be up at opening time for the two days we were going to go to the parks. We checked in, and unloaded the car.

Martin and I napped until about 6pm, when we decided to go to Downtown Disney to watch "Despicable Me." (Cutest movie ever, BTW!) Our movie didn't start until 8:20pm, so we just wandered around the shops until then.

After the movie, Martin and I split for a minute, he went to go grab a table at ESPN Zone and I met my cousin on the Esplanade so she can give us the park tickets she bought for us. When I got to the ESPN Zone, we'd ordered some appetizers.

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Cheese fries for me. DELICIOUS.

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Pizza for Martin.

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We got back to the hotel around midnight, and went straight to bed since Friday we'd be going to the parks!

We weren't exactly up bright and early on Friday, but that's okay. We probably got there around 9am or so. We wanted to hit Indiana Jones first, but the line was filling up quickly so we ended up grabbing FPs and then hitting the Jungle Cruise.

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After the Jungle Cruise, we went on Pirates and Haunted Mansion.

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We didn't really have a plan of what to do after each ride, so we just wandered around most of the time and making last-minute choices. On our way to Fantasyland, we stopped for a ride on BTMRR.

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In line for BTMRR

When we got to Fantasyland, the only ride I really wanted to ride was Peter Pan's Flight, since I hadn't ridden it in a long time!

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It was only a 30 or so minute wait, but it was worth it. [=

After PPF, we walked around the Carousel to take some pictures of the flowers, and out of the many shots, this one is my favorite:

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We got in line for Finding Nemo.

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We also watched Captain EO, and that was amazing! Also, somewhere in between we rode on Indiana Jones… lol I forgot when we did that though.

Then, we decided to head over to California Adventure, and on the way out, we saw Goofy in front of City Hall.

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We also went to go find my family's brick outside the gates! I think it's pretty neat to have a brick at the DLR. hehe

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The first thing we did at California Adventure was go into the Animation Studios. I'd never been there before so I was in awe with everything! Here's a series of photos that I'd taken throughout…

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After hanging out in the Animation Studios, we went on our way to California Screamin' and Toy Story.

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We had a CM take our picture. [=

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Martin is on the left/blue, and I'm on the right/red.

We went on Tower of Terror after Toy Story.

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We're on the top left corner. lol

After ToT, we decided to go back into Downtown Disney and see how long the wait was for the Rainforest Cafe. It was only about a 45-minute wait, so we asked them to put our names on the list, and we went to go sit around and relax. They were having the skateboarders out on the skatepark they'd set up near AMC, so we watched that for a bit.

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Waiting for our dinner at Rainforest Cafe.

We finally got seated around 7:30pm, and we ordered drinks and our food.

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This was on the ceiling, it's so pretty!

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His and hers - cameras. lol

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Martin's food

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My food.

After dinner, we headed back to Disneyland to catch the fireworks. I only took a few since I really just wanted to enjoy the fireworks rather than worry about getting great shots.

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After fireworks, we went on Space Mountain and Splash Mountain.

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I only got Space Mountain. heh

The rest of the evening was spent doing some nightshots around the park. Martin needed to take some shots for his Photography final, I was just shooting for fun.

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Martin hanging out on the Esplanade taking pictures.

So that concludes Day One at the Disneyland Resort! Whew.

Saturday was more of a chill/low-key day. We didn't ride very many rides, and we were more interested in taking photos and whatnot.

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Matterhorn was one of the few rides we did…
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We did ride It's a Small World…
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We have a couple of shots near BTMRR.

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Then we went over to California Adventure… We ended up getting FPs for World of Color for the three of us (my cousin, Martin, and I) and then Martin and I continued our lazy day throughout the parks taking pictures.

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For Lunch we had the WoC picnics, which were good. I didn't know my cousin wanted to watch WoC with us at the time I ordered the picnics. So we had 5 WoC tickets, 3 for red and 2 for blue. But since we didn't want my cousin to watch WoC by herself, we just let her give the tickets to her Lead at the Emporium to hand out to two lucky people.

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Veggie picnic was mine.

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Martin's was the European Antipasta.

After lunch, we rode Toy Story, where I beat Martin again! :D

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He's on the left/yellow, and I'm on the right/green.

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Yay!

We went back to the Animation Studios, where Martin ended up napping…

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Mulan came into the studios, and so I went to get a picture with her. [=

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My cousin got off work around 5p, so we waited for her on the Esplanade.

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The three of us went back into Disneyland.

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My cousin got a corndog. lol

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And then we rode Star Tours for the last time.

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We went into California Adventure afterwards to wait for the 9PM World of Color show!

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World of Color was AMAZING. I loved it!

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My cousin left after World of Color since she was tired after a day working on Main Street. So Martin and I went to check out the Glowfest! Which was pretty neat. Like a child-friendly rave like party thing. lol

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After checking that out, we hopped back to Disneyland and rode Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, where I lost miserably to Martin.

So that is Day Two.

Sunday Morning we went out to brunch in Long Beach with my cousin and her boyfriend.

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We stopped by the beach… Yay!

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Then we backtracked to Downtown Disney to do some shopping before heading back up to the Bay Area. We got back to my place around 9:45pm. Long drive, but it was fun. The weekend was so awesome, and we're already planning our next trip down. haha!

I hope you guys enjoyed the TR. I had a lot of fun writing it and remembering the weekend! :)

-Lianna

That was a great Trip Report! Thanks for sharing it (: The pictures are amazing.

Nicely done, thanks for sharing! :clap:

Very nice, pretty pictures...Looks like you guys had an awesome time!!

Thank you, everyone! [=

I'm glad you are enjoying the pictures! :D

San Jose represent

Amazing shots! Love the Tomorrowland night shots especially!

Thanks for sharing!

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Originally Posted by 006TOE

San Jose represent

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Heck yes! :)

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Originally Posted by royaldisneyfan

Amazing shots! Love the Tomorrowland night shots especially!

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Thanks! :)

great trip report! :D

Wonderful trip report...beautiful pictures:thumbup:

Thanks for showing the bricks...I heard about them but have never seen them and since I have considered buying one I am glad to have seen what they look like...thanks again.

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Originally Posted by Dlandclub33

great trip report! :D

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Thank you!

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Originally Posted by loveforfamily

Wonderful trip report...beautiful pictures:thumbup:

Thanks for showing the bricks...I heard about them but have never seen them and since I have considered buying one I am glad to have seen what they look like...thanks again.

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No problem with the brick pictures! [= My parents had purchased a brick for our family as a Christmas gift for us last year, and I was so excited to finally see it in person. (They had ordered it in January, and it was installed in May)

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Originally Posted by hyperlitehunny

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(I don't know what building this is, but I took this shot as we were driving into Long Beach looking for my cousin's place.)

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That is the Villa Riviera building. It has some really cool gargoyles at the top. Anyway, great trip report!!

Very nice trip report and pictures! Looks like you guys had fun!

Aww, a Nikon and Canon couple. You guys rock sporting your DSLR's together.

Great pictures!

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Originally Posted by SpaceJesus

That is the Villa Riviera building. It has some really cool gargoyles at the top. Anyway, great trip report!!

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Thanks for the info about the building. We didn't really get to check out Long Beach too much but I'm definitely interested in going back there.

Thanks! :)

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Originally Posted by DisneyIndy7

Very nice trip report and pictures! Looks like you guys had fun!

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Thank you! And yes, we did have fun. It wasn't too crowded and the weather was nice.

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Originally Posted by orbitalpunk

Aww, a Nikon and Canon couple. You guys rock sporting your DSLR's together.

Great pictures!

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Thanks!

When we were making our way towards Screamin', we asked a Cast Member to take a picture of us for our PhotoPass, and she saw us with Nikon and Canon and she was like, "*GASP* Nikon and Canon?! How can you two even date?!" It was pretty funny! :)