The 1200 Mile West Coast Adventure - August/September 2018: Day 15: You good?

[bambikate]

Day 15: You good?
Monday 3 September 2018

Breakfast with Mickey and friends at Storyteller’s Cafe at the Grand Californian and travelling home

Index

Our last day! We had an early morning reservation at Storyteller’s Cafe in the Grand Californian for Mickey’s Adventure Breakfast. This was a fairly new breakfast choice which replaced the “Critter Breakfast” they had there previously.

Our breakfast reservation was for 7:30am, so to allow more last minute packing time, we got an uber over which cost us about $5.

The Grand Californian didn’t look particularly “Grand” as it was having some refurbishment work done and there was lots of boards up at the entrance. I have to say, we did look in to staying here but it would have been literally over double the cost of the Courtyard by Marriott and I don’t remember it saying anything about the refurbishment works when we were doing a dummy booking and would have been pretty annoyed if we were staying here.





Inside was very pretty and cosy, you could tell it was the same architect as Wilderness Lodge; I imagine its beautiful at Christmas time.



Storyteller’s Cafe was gorgeous inside. We checked in and were seated within about 5 minutes.





We were given a booth and our server explained what characters would be coming to visit us. It was a great time to come as it wasn’t very busy and it meant the characters all came round in fairly quick succession and spent a little while at each table.

The food was actually a brunch so had a fab selection of breakfast and lunch items.

Agua fresca



Pastries



Granola and “Cereal milk” (milk which has had cereal put in it to flavour it which was bagged up individually) pretty random…





Meats,cheeses and salmon





Cereals



They also had french toast sticks with hazelnut butter sauce, which where incred



My breakfast selection!

Campfire potatoes, sausages, eggs, bacon, biscuits and gravy.



Our server kept us topped up with so much coffee and orange juice I thought we were going to pop!







She kept popping over and filling up our drinks and saying “you good?” literally every five minutes

She was really sweet but we couldn't stop giggling after she left as we had predicted she would say "you good?" again.

Our first character was Pluto





Sorry about the picture quality here, I’m not sure why its like that!



Poor Imogen was mid-mouthful when Minnie gatecrashed our breakfast!



Here’s Dale!









Aww Mickey’s teddy dressed as Mickey’s dog!





Then Chip came to say hi and Izzy took a cute selfie

[bambikate]

Pluto came round for a second time





And the main man



After a couple more "you good?"'s from our server, the characters did one of those parades around the restaurants, at first, the girls didn’t want to go round with them but they eventually did and enjoyed it.

Our total was $133.61 ($39 per adult and $23 per child)

When we left the restaurant there was tens of families checking in for breakfast and it was a bit manic!

The girls watched Mickey Shorts in the lobby whilst we waited for our Uber.





Back at the hotel, we finished packing the last things in our bags and weighed them all. I'd promised the girls I'd so them "special hair" so I sprayed the girls’ hair with some coloured hair spray I'd brought with us for fun then we made our way downstairs to check out and wait for our coach.



We checked out and left the hotel to get the coach to the airport.

We had the Disneyland shuttle booked for 10:45am which we were told would mean we would get to LAX at about 12pm, 3 hours before our flight.

We waited for the bus outside the Howard Johnson hotel which is right next door. It was right on time and it was a lovely comfy air conditioned bus with toilets.







The coach stopped at 3 more hotels en route then it was a 40 minute drive to the airport. I think the traffic must have been particularly light that day.





We were dropped off at the airport and we walked straight through to bag drop. The queue was short and all our bags were under the limit. Soon our bags were checked in and we were heading to security.

Security was very efficient and friendly. My bag needed a second check as I had all the pins and coins in a plastic bag inside my hand luggage which wasn't scanning well.

Now we were through security it was food time!

Luckily there was a little cluster of quick service restaurants together, which between them suited all of our tastes. Andy and I fancied Chinese food and the girls wanted pizza.

We wanted to get nice and full in anticipation of the rubbish airplane food.







It was no Panda Express but it wasn’t bad. The girls loved their pizza



Time seemed to go quite quickly when we were airside, and soon we were boarding.

There was a bit of a mix up with our seats on the flight, we had booked the same seats as on the way out but the other side of the plane. Again, the girls and I had extra leg room seats but unfortunately although the same row number as us, Andy’s was in the second row with no leg room at all.

A really rude couple in front (who were sat in the extra legroom seats we got muddled up with could've taken the right two seats and still had extra leg room and allowed us to sit together but they left an empty extra legroom seat the entire flight didn't offer to move. Andy was so cramped.

Dinner was chicken meatballs and mash. It was actually really nice! It came with crackers and cheese and a cake in a pot.







We were also given pretzels and I had a nice glass of red.





Immy wasn’t keen on her meal and would have been better choosing the chicken meatballs that I had suggested… I ended up sharing mine with her.



We tried our best to sleep but I always find it so hard on night flights. I didn’t like the fact our arms rests couldn’t go up so I couldn't get comfy to cuddle the girls. I also lost my pillow somehow!



I managed to watch two films before I tried to sleep. “I Feel Pretty” with Amy Schumer and “Life of the Party” with Melissa McCarthy. They were both quite fun movies and made the time pass by quickly.

[

After a very broken and uncomfortable nights sleep, we woke up for breakfast.



As usual, breakfast was dire. Plain greek yogurt, a “croissant cheese melt” which had been reheated and was so greasy (to be fair I kind of like it stodgy like that, kind of a guilty pleasure! ) Imogen thought it was OK, Izzy and Daddy didn’t like it and also didn’t like the cereal bar it came with. Oh dear! Izzy and Andy hardly ate a thing.



We managed to get off the plane (ahead of douchebag 1 and douchebag 2)

We walked super fast to the passport hall and got directed to the family line with no wait.

We went straight up to the passport officer who had a lovely cockney accent. He was joking with the girls and asking them who we were

Baggage claim was pretty quick and we loaded ourselves with 2 bags each. We walked to the car park and to the parking check in desk. I handed over our ticket and our car was there waiting. It was really easy.

When the girls saw our car they said “Awwww” the car looked so small compared to our monster truck we’d had in California!

We managed to squeeze all or bags back in to our little car and off we went!

We were all hungry from our terrible breakfast and there was only one thing that would do… McDonalds! After driving past 3 Burger King’s we we're starting to think maybe BK had the monopoly on burger restaurants on the M4?! We eventually gave up hope on McDonalds and settled for a BK, which ended up being really good.





We got home by 2pm. My Mum and Dad met us at home. We had ordered a Tesco delivery for the day before, which my Mum had gone over to ours for and waited for and unpacked.

The girls were so excited to see Grandma and Granddad and went straight with them for a sleepover. Andy and I unpacked all the bags and started on the wash loads.

A couple of hours later we were done. We showered and popped down to Sainsbury’s to get some easy food for tea as all of the food we'd ordered in was healthy and we weren't ready for that

Back at home we showered and got into PJs and had wine and pizza and chilled on the sofa, while we caught up with some TV shows.

Mum sent me a photo of the girls having a roast dinner with freshly washed hair and she had their uniforms ready for school the next day. A legend as always.



It was straight back to work the next day for both of us.

I turned up to work with a lovely desk covered in balloons and cards to congratulate me for qualifying and a bottle of gin, which was so lovely.



Overall, we loved our holiday and we are so glad we did it. We would do it again in a heartbeat. We’d love to try and fit in San Diego and Yosemite next time too.

Next year, we are going back home to Florida, we all miss it so much and are super excited to see all of the changes!

So now it's only Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo left at the top of our bucket list…. one day!

Thank you so much for reading my trip report, I hope you enjoyed!

I will be replying to all your lovely messages soon, I've been studying and not had time to get my report done as early as I'd have liked so now it's done I'm hoping I can find the time.

I am hoping to put together a video of this trip too but I fear it will be a little while off as I have some exams coming up over the next few months.

TFR xx

[BallisticJack]

Thanks for taking the time to do the trip report. Don't study too hard!

[florida girl]

Home safe and sound. Thank you for sharing your adventures always a pleasure to read.

[Cutiepie]

Another super holiday and report! I always enjoy reading them
Congratulations on passing your exams & good luck for the next ones.

[4fromsuffolk]

Love reading about your adventures, thank you for taking the time to write your trip reports. Well done on passing your exams.

[sheena330]

Really enjoyed your trip report, we were in California in July and did some similar things so it brought back lots of happy memories x

[Fireworks]

Thank you for sharing your fantastic trip, sounds like you all had an amazing time

[Seeley]

A great report have really enjoyed reading it. Thanks for sharing and congratulations on passing your exams.

[beswicky2k]

Loved reading your report! You have helped me make the decision to try Disney land in the next couple of years, it is something I have been thinking about for a while but love Florida so much I was worried we would be disappointed. I will wait until our September Disney world stay is over before telling my hubby
Congratulations on passing your exams