Flew down to L.A. a couple of weeks ago and drove down to Disneyland with Eric, Teri, Rebecca, Sarah, baby Matthew and us of course. Stayed at the Crowne Plaza Resort on Harbor Blvd South, right across the street from a Target and approximately 1 mile away from Disneyland. It is a 5 star hotel, pretty expensive but we had the whole thing for $99 for 2 nights and 2 adult passes to Disneyland. The catch was that in order to receive our Disney passes, we were going to have to listen to a 90 minute timeshare presentation.
We arrived at the hotel around 6:30 PM on Friday evening. The traffic was horrible! Ever drive down the 5 from downtown L.A. to Anaheim on a Friday night? It’s not pleasant. We had Rebecca in our car which gave us a lot of time to talk and chat while moving around 5 miles an hour. Anyways, we got to the hotel a little worn out but ate dinner at a Thai restaurant down the street and then came back to rest for next morning. We had room 248 and Eric and Teri had room 247 across the way. Turns out that our room was right on top of one of the ballrooms used for a Christmas party. The music was vibrating and booming loud enough that pooch had me go down to complain. This was around 10:30 PM. I got down there and checked out the party. It was going strong with some Mexican Nortena band playing. The hotel staff was very accommodating. The woman at the front desk immediately assigned us to 813, far up and far away from any noise. That turned out to be a good move cause the view from 813 was better than looking at a Target sign from 247.
Next day bright and early, we all trooped downstairs to the lobby to wait for the timeshare presentation. This was nothing new to me. I knew these type of salespeople never take no for an answer and pile on the pressure to buy something that I have no interest in acquiring. After a breakfast of sour milk and a bagel, I was psyched up and ready for the session. We checked in and were led in by a woman who said we had to put the kids in a childcare during the presentation for obvious reasons. After checking in the pumpkin and Sarah and Rebecca, we asked the woman about Matthew who was only 10 months. This turned out to be our lucky ticket cause the childcare was only licensed to handle age 2 - 9 and that meant someone would have to take care of the little tyke while we were occupied. We all sat down and after reviewing the situation and speaking to her supervisor, the woman gifted all of us and we didn’t have to sit thru the sales pitch at all! This gave us a 1.5 hour headstart so of course we went straight to Disneyland via bus. Disneyland was as crowded as the 5 freeway was the previous day before. There were long lines to get in. Somehow we ended up in the line where all the strollers were going thru which was moving like a snail so we switched to another line that moved a lot faster. Finally inside it was a zoo everywhere. Every ride had long lines. We waited nearly an hour to ride the Peter Pan ride in fantasyland and then everyone was hungry so we walked around looking for a place to eat that wasn’t too packed. We walked into Frontierland and settled on a place that was called something like Southern Belle something or other. Another 45 minute wait to order a plate of BBQ chicken while the girls waited for an open table. After lunch strolled around and sat down in main street for the 3 PM main street parade. That was fun and pumpkin really liked seeing all the characters.By this time, all the kids were sleepy, including the pumpkin, despite me baobaoing her most of the time. It’s either daddy baobao or daddy, I want to be on top of you. We decided to head back to the hotel for a rest and then return to the park in the evening when we expected it would be less crowded. I insisted on walking back since that is the only real way to get to know South Harbor Blvd. Everyone else took the bus back.For some reason I had a ton of energy. I walked at high speed and in a short amount of time had visited a t-shirt place and made it back to the hotel within 1/2 hour. Opened up the room and pooch and pumpkin were both snoring loudly. Decided to do some exercise and went down to the weight room. The weight room had a few old treadmills and a couple of weight machines. I started on the treadmill to get a good sweat and noticed the air was stale as an armpit. Went outside and notified the front desk. The clerk said not to worry. Would call engineering. Engineering? All I need is someone to work the thermostat to get some air circulating. Went back to continue on the treadmill and after around 20 minutes still no one showed up. Again went out to the front desk and complained. Same answer. "Don’t worry, we will call engineering." Went back in and lifted some weights. Around that time, Rebecca came in and started running on another treadmill. Right after that, a woman that looked like a housekeeper, not an engineer, opened up the door, looked at me, looked at Rebecca, looked at me again, looked up at the ceiling and then closed the door. That was enough for me. I left and changed into a bathing suit and took a dip in the pool and sat in the jacuzzi. That was a lot more pleasant, except for the lady with the tree trunk legs with her boyfriend or husband smoking only 10 feet away. Finally, they left and I was alone in bliss in the hot tub.Went back upstairs and pumpkin and pooch were up and ready to eat. We all decided to eat at Cocos across the street.
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