Koster family July 2008 vacation at Disneyland

With our trip report now complete from our Easter 2008 vacation at the Disneyland Resort, we’re now just a few days away from our next visit there!

This travel blog will now be about our July 2008 Disneyland Resort vacation, but you can read more about why we’re going back and our plans so far for it here on the Disney Echo in the “Koster Family July 2008 Trip to Disneyland” topic.

We’ll be staying at the Disneyland Hotel again, checking in mid-day on Monday, July 28th, with an early Saturday morning check-out before our flight home on Saturday, August 2nd. Carol still has a valid Premium Annual Pass to Disneyland, so she’ll use that for entry to the parks as well as discounts on merchandise and dining. I got Michael and me parkhopper passes to Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure that we’ll pick up at the Disneyland Hotel when we check in. Early Friday morning I’ll get our rental car from Alamo and we’ll use it for sightseeing in Los Angeles (including seeing WALL-E at the El Capitan Theatre) as well as using it to get us back to the airport Saturday morning.

Our dear friend Lisa (“Jiminy” on the Disney Echo) once again voluntEARed to meet us at the airport when we arrive and take us to Disneyland — and better still, she is able to spend time with us at Disneyland this time! Yay!

Other than that, we haven’t nailed down yet what we’ll be doing in the middle of the week. Still to do before Monday: decide with the family what days/times we want to eat at the restaurants we want to go to again/first time — then making the reservations for that. We have a mental list of where we want to eat, but haven’t picked out any days to do that yet, which we need to do before I call to make the reservations.

Here’s what I have planned for our last full day there (Friday).

Pay for the rental car at the Downtown Disney Alamo office.

I will go alone or with the others into Disneyland and DCA just briefly (taking everyone’s entry passes temporarily if they want to sleep in) and get FastPasses for as many attractions as I can, one for each of us, to be used later after we return from Los Angeles.

Having breakfast (undecided where)

All of us going in the rented car to see things like the Walt Disney Studios (from the outside), Imagineering (from the outside) and maybe the Walt Disney Concert Hall (also from the outside).

Getting to the parking garage across the street from the El Capitan Theatre early, then walking across Hollywood Boulevard to the Disney ice cream shop and having a relaxing lunch.

Walking next door to see WALL-E at the appropriate time for the 1:00 pm show.

After we’re done in the El Capitan, driving to Griffith park to meet up with the person who will let us in the Live Steamers area to see Ollie Johnston’s train station and our inscribed paving stone there.

Driving back to Disneyland for more park fun.

Packing up because we’ll be needing to check out and leave early in the morning to catch our early morning flight home.