A Disney Parks Around the World Journey: Day 18 – Back to the Future!

“Roads. Where we’re going we don’t need roads.” – Doc Brown

Today we traveled back in time to January 4th as we crossed the International Dateline so this is January 4th take two! I did not wake up at all today, as for some reason I just could not sleep on our flight. I think it may be because they never truly dimmed the lights in the cabin the whole way and that may have contributed to me staying up. I’ve never had a cabin in which the lights were kept nearly full brightness on a red eye flight. Kendall and Lucy slept pretty much the entire flight so at least 2/3 of our crew was able to get some sleep.

In keeping with the theme of Japanese toilets, I was impressed that even the toilets on the plane comes with a bidet function.

The Zipair flight was quick and uneventful. I would be totally content to fly them again for the price. The service is exactly what you’d expect as in there is no service so there is no surprise there. They were very attentive to help me get the WiFi working on my phone so I could order some bottled waters. EVERYTHING is done via WiFi, and if you can’t connect then they will bring an iPad to you to help you order. I did miss the service of a true business class, but for the price you really can’t ask for much more. The main goal was to make sure we could get some sleep.

We landed 50 minutes early and thus had a 4 hour layover. Anytime we go international for a couple weeks I always have a mild feeling of relief washes over me when we touch back down on US soil.

There is nothing that can replace the feeling of being back on your home turf. We disembark and are one of the first in the immigration line but it was somewhat confusing as the immigration officers were half hazardly taking people from the Global Entry line and the Mobile Passport Control line seemingly at random and no one knew when it was there turn to walk up to an officer. This obviously created some chaos and some heated disputes of whose turn it was next.

We use Mobile Passport Control, which is nearly if not just as fast as Global Entry most of the time and also free. We’ve wanted to get Global Entry as it comes included with our credit cards, but scheduling an interview is a real barrier in that you have to go to a specific location for that and the nearest for us is in 2.5 hours away in Cincinatti. You can do it on reentry into the US but our connections are always tight and we don’t want to risk not having enough time for a connection to do an interview.

From the time we exited the plane to the time we were through immigration and customs was 22 minutes. It really doesn’t get much better than that.

For some reason Alaska Airlines would not let me check in online and it said to go to the ticket counter. We’ve had some traumatic experiences at ticket counters lately, but I feel very confident this will not be an issue simply because we are in the US and there is zero reason for us to be denied boarding within the United States. They check us in with no problems and the security line is nonexistent so we breeze through and head to the lounge.

The lounge of the day is The Club at SFO which is a Priority Pass lounge.

This lounge is very new just opening 7 months ago. From the online reviews it is one of the best Priority Pass lounges in the US and at a quick glance I would have to agree. We arrive and there is no wait to get in.

After taking the elevator to the lounge, we take a quick look around, and they have multiple drink stations, a bar, a small food selection, a peloton room, some rooms with what I think is some light therapy, and some showers.

We were definitely looking forward to taking a shower. Unfortunately, the showers cost $25 a person. We’d normally wait another 6 hours till we get to the hotel and save the cash, but we are meeting some of my online trivia friends today right when we get to Anaheim, and I’d prefer not to smell and look like a disheveled rat when we see them. We have three hours to burn right now so we suck it up and pay the fee. They at least cut us a break with Lucy and don’t charge us for her.

The showers are very clean and modern and has some decent water pressure so at least for $25 USD the shower is decent.. We then get some food as we hadn’t eaten a meal since the lounge in Tokyo. They have some beef teriyaki which was pretty good and we all enjoyed it.

Lucy used to put socks on her hands as a baby, and she’d go “Sock hands!” Today she has a pillow and she’s going “Pillow Hands!”

We then head to the gate for our flight and on the way we spot a British Airways A380.

It makes me sad that these planes are slowly going extinct. Lucy keeps bugging me to fly on one, and the irony is she has flown on one when she was 3 years old when we flew Qantas to Australia. She of course does not remember that.

We arrive at the gate and wait to board. Lucy is ready to go.

We are flying Alaska Air in Domestic First class this time on an Embraer 175. This is yet another new carrier for us which makes it 7 new carriers in a row as we’ve never before flown Virgin, Vueling, Air France, Cathay Pacific, China Eastern, Zipair, and Alaska. We used our Capital One travel credit to pay for this flight.

The seat was again more than wide enough for me and the legroom plentiful.

I unfortunately lack the leg length to accurately evaluate airline seats.

The flight was a brief 1 hour and 30 minutes. Once we arrive we exit the terminal in less than 2 minutes. Due to where our gate was located, it literally took about the same amount of time to get off the plane and out of the airport as it would take me in Huntington Tri-State Airport, our small local airport with just 2 gates. After flying into and out of some very large airports over the last several weeks this a truly unexpected convenience.

It takes us just 2 minutes to get to the ride share pickup and another 8 minutes for our Uber to arrive.

It is just a short 15 minute ride to the one and only original Disneyland Hotel. After staying at the other 4 Disneyland hotels this vacation and a total of 7 other Disney hotels it was super exciting to stay at the VERY FIRST Disney hotel.

The first thing you see when you walk in is a huge map of Disneyland from many years ago. After circling the globe it’s just kinda neat to be where it all started.

Lucy is fast to spot a tea cup. Sadly, to Lucy’s dismay this one does not spin.

We then start to walk toward our room and pass by the pool on the way. The resort just looks beautiful at night.

We had booked this stay using rented DVC points which saved us a substantial amount of money. Because we are staying with DVC points, we are staying in the brand new Discovery Tower part of the Disneyland Hotel, which is the DVC portion.

We are staying in a Standard Villa room for this stay. It is gorgeous and very modern.

The room is themed to The Princess and the Frog, and like all Disney rooms pays a great deal of attention to details and this one is no different.

Lucy is always trying to find random places to sleep and she tries out the ottoman for a bit. She says the Murphy bed is more comfortable.

We all quickly freshen up and meet my online trivia friends, Dave and Nicole, for dinner at the Pixar Place Hotel which is just a short walk from the Disneyland Hotel.

Most of you are not aware, but I became part of an online trivia community during covid and made some amazing friends via this community. Today was a special day as after about three and a half years I finally got to meet two of my online friends in person, Dave and Nicole.

We go to the Great Maple for dinner which serves like fancier diner food. It’s been two weeks since we’ve had a proper taste of home, so I had some breakfast for dinner and got some eggs, bacon and toast. It was great to get some diner food after two weeks away.

Unfortunately, Dave’s wife, Nathalie, could not make it tonight, but we will meet up with her and Dave tomorrow when we enter the park. Nathalie is using her cast member benefit to allow us to enter the park for free as her guests. We set up a meeting time at 10:00AM to hopefully let us sleep in some, albeit that has rarely worked this vacation due to the jet lag.

We finish up and say goodbye, and head back to the room and get ready for bed. It takes no effort for us to crash out as we prep for our final park day of the vacation in which we complete our goal of visiting all 12 parks in one trip.

Day 18, January 4th, 2025 Step Count – 7,946 Steps

Total Step Count – 289,929

Read about the next day here.

Read about the previous day here.