Sometime during the spring of 2003, we were sitting with the family discussing how my husband & I & our 2 kids (ages 1 & 5 at that time) were going to go to NYC for a couple weeks that summer for my half-sister Staci's sweet sixteen party. Now, let me first tell you that I am not an airplane person at all...never really have been. So, when my mom heard me say that we were going to New York, she said, "you're getting on an airplane?" I told her that my step-mom, Mindy, (may she rest in peace) convinced me to bring the kids out because we'd get to see everyone & Staci really would love us to be at her party. My mom right away said that we needed to go to Disneyland with the kids if I was willing to get on an airplane, to which I totally agreed! :)

So, she called her travel agent the very next day & booked a trip for us all to go down for President's Week. The travel agent booked everything for us. I wasn't involved in any of the planning at all, which is unbelievable to me now! There were 7 of us total. It was me, my husband, our 5 year old son, our 2 year old daughter, my mom, my step-dad, & my brother. We didn't have any dining reservations at all. All we knew was that we were staying at the Disneyland Hotel in connecting rooms that had a kitchenette & living room in between the bedrooms. We were flying into the John Wayne airport & had the Super Shuttle arranged to take us from the airport to the resort & back to the airport at the end of our trip.

We really didn't know much of anything about the resort or the park itself except for what we'd seen on the Disneyland website, which was nothing like it is today. We had a few questions for the travel agent here & there but she was not very helpful at all. It was rather interesting because she acted like she couldn't be bothered most of the time when we called. I was not really sure why this was the case but we were still excited nonetheless & pretty much had no idea of what to expect.

We had a rather interesting experience in dining without any reservations. It was practically impossible to get in to any sit down restaurant. Everywhere we went had a sign up that they were not taking walk-in diners. So, needless to say, we just did the best we could & ate whatever we could find until we stumbled upon Granville's Steak House (which is now Steakhouse 55) near the lobby of the Disneyland Hotel. We decided, on our 3rd day, that we needed to have breakfast at a restaurant instead of instant oatmeal in our room. Boy, are we glad we did that! Our server's name was Ashley & she was awesome. Not only was she a great server, but she gave us all sorts of tips about how to tour the parks. As soon as she figured out that we didn't have a clue about what we should be doing, she started telling us about fascinating things that you would never know about or even think to ask. It was so cool & we just loved it! We actually wanted her to just leave work & come spend the rest of our vacation with us. I could tell that she had a passion about her workplace like no one I'd ever known. We enjoyed a couple more meals there just so we could hang out with Ashley more & pick her brain! Oh yah, the food was amazing too & very reasonably priced! We really thought it would be cool to eat next door at Goofy's Kitchen so she helped us get a reservation for the following morning. We were very excited & the kids had a fabulous time!