Magical Day

This is the second in a series of blogs about Disney and Disneyland.

Can you believe I'm writing another blog so soon after the last one? I decided I want to blog a little more often. In fact, I finally added a counter to my blog so I can actually see if people are reading this... Or if I'm only writing for my own cathartic benefit.

In my last blog I wrote about some of the magic I've experienced at Disneyland. I said my next post would be about my most magical day at the DLR. Since I had already thought up my next topic, I figured that now is as good a time as any to write it.

In July of 2008 I went to a convention in Los Angeles. Marie and the kids came with me and spent the week at Disneyland while I went to the convention. After the convention ended we stayed in LA a few extra days so I could also go to Disneyland. This was Disney's "Year of a Million Dreams," and Disney lived up to the claim.

We decided to start our day with a character breakfast, this was under the advice of one of my good friends. We did the research and decided that The Storyteller's Cafe inside the Grand Californian hotel was the best bang for our buck. It's missing some of the more popular characters like Mickey and Donald. However, it is rated as the best food among the different character breakfast options; it's also the least expensive breakfast.

We made our reservations for the first available time in the day, we didn't want to cut in to our time in the parks. This meant we had to be there really early. In fact we arrived before the restaurant opened. This worked out to our advantage.

This was our first time in the Grand Californian hotel, and Marie and I were awed by the beauty and detail there. Since we were there early, we did a little exploring. The hotel pool is right across from the entrance to the restaurant. We walked away from the door to the restaurant to look at the pool.

I don't mean to sound like a bad parent, but I was so awed by the hotel that I wasn't keeping an eye on my kids. So imagine my surprise when I turn around and see my son being walked towards us by a Disney security guard. All kinds of things went through my mind at that point, mostly I was thinking that this guy was going to chastise us for walking a little bit away from the kids.

But he didn't. In fact, he asked if Ryan could help him to open the restaurant. Of course we said yes. So Ryan and he walked over to the doors, stuck the key in the lock and opened the door. Ryan got to be the first one in the restaurant, and as a thank you they gave Ryan a bunch of balloons and a few autographed pictures of Mickey and friends. Ryan was so happy he was bouncing with excitement.

Needless to say the food was amazing! I still look forward to the omelettes made to order, the fresh fruit, and the carmelized French toast. The characters were fun; Chip & Dale, Meeko, Turk, and Keenai & Koda... All the woodland characters. During breakfast the kids in the restaurant all got up and played follow the leader, singing and dancing. All that and great service too.

After breakfast, and a suitable amount of time hanging around in the lobby of the Grand Californian Hotel, it was time to go into Disneyland. We had to repark the car (move it from the hotel to the Disneyland parking lot). Marie suggested that I take the kids into the park while she parked the cars.

While we were waiting I made my way into Frontierland... They have a pin trading store that I thought would be a good place to wait. I started chatting with a cast member in front of the store. When Marie arrived the castmember asked us if we had ever seen the show at the Gokden Horseshoe. We hadn't. The lady gave us a ticket that gave us reserved seats at a table on the front row. We were able to show up just minutes before the start of the show and have some of the best seats in the house.

I think at this point i should mention that i really enjoy Disney Pin Trading. Several cast members at the resort will wear pin lanyards and you can walk up to them and trade one of your pins for one of theirs. In fact, at times I can be very aggressive about looking for cast members with pins. It's the souvenirs we look for when we go to Disneyland.

So after we left Frontierland we started heading towards Critter Country to ride the Pooh ride. Along the way I spotted a cast member who seemed to be in a bit of a hurry as she walked past us. I didn't let that stop me. I literally cut off her path with the stroller (did I mention I'm aggressive when it comes to finding pin traders?).

In the process of trading with her... Marie mentioned she was looking for a specific pin. The woman smiled and told us she knew right where it is. She then walked us over to a pin store in New Orleans Square. She showed Marie where to fins the pin, then offered to buy it using her cast member discount. Marie, trying to be discreet, stood outside during the purchase got some cash out to give to the lady. When she came out of the store she gave Marie the pin and refused to take any money for it. She said it was a gift. She also gave a pin to Ryan.

Throughout the day we kept having great and magical experiences. It was a great way to end a trip, and even though Marie and the kids had survived an entire week at Disneyland (including an actual earthquake), nothing could dim the magic we felt that day.

These are the experiences that keep bringing me back to Disneyland. It's funny that I had to grow up to appreciate the magic of Disneyland... As a kid I always chose to go to Magic Mountain. As an adult I recognize that Disney is not only set up better for the family experience, but it's just a well planned and run park.

To be honest I don't remember all the rides we did that day. I don't remember all the characters we met. What I remember is feeling like after all the time we had already spent at Disneyland, the park could still surprise me; and that's saying something.

- Posted using my iPhone

Snapshots of Magic

A lot of people have asked me how I can keep going back to Disneyland so often. My answer is simple: It's the magic!

I thought I would take the opportunity of an 11 hour drive to write a little about it. I just hope I can give a peek at the fun I've had.

A while back my friend told me that I have to do a character breakfast as part of my Disney experience. We combined that advice with a desire to see Disney's Grand Californian Hotel and went to breakfast at the Storytellers Cafe.







My friend was right. We had an amazing experience. In fact that breakfast was just the start of a very magical day at Disneyland. Maybe my next blog will be about that day. It's a great example of what I'm talking about, but I promised snapshots, not a long story.

We enjoyed our breakfast so much that we've been back four times since. The Grand Californian didn't disappoint either... Every time we go there I am awed by it's beauty and it's attention to detail. It's my goal to stay there for a few nights someday... But it's pretty expensive, so it probably won't be any time to soon.









Obviously these aren't the best quality pictures. I just wanted to show a little bit of the beauty if the lobby and lobby floor.
The thing about the breakfast at the Storytellers cafe is that the characters aren't the most exciting. It's Chip & Dale along with some of their woodland friends. No Mickey, no Minnie, no Donald. The upside is that it's some of the best food in the resort and it's the least expensive character breakfast.

Having eaten there so often we have made a few discoveries. Of the four times we've eaten there it has only come close to disappointing us once; this trip actually. This trip we started our breakfast a 7:50 am, later than we ever have before. What we found out is that it gets really busy the later into the day you arrive.

The crowd wasn't too bad when we arrived. But people kept arriving throughout breakfast. This meant that the characters didn't really have enough time to interact with us. It also meant that the food had to be prepared faster to keep up with the demand. It was still good, but not totally amazing.

Lesson learned: go to breakfast early. It avoids the rush, the characters have more time for each of the kids, the food is better, and you have plenty of time before the parks open.

We have been to Disneyland on crowded days and on slow days. It seems obvious that it's better to go when the parks are not crowded. It's important to have a plan for dealing with the crowds. It's possible to have fun on a crowded day, but it means you have to compromise on your to-do list.

Yesterday was as busy as I've ever seen it. It turns out there was a huge charity event at the park yesterday morning, and the park was full of the participants. It was so bad that we couldn't even park at the Mickey and Friends lot; nope, we had to park off-site at the Garden Walk mall.

If you're at Disneyland for several days, one crowded day isn't that bad. If you're only there for one day you need to reassess what you consider most important to do while at Disneyland. For us it meant that we had to ignore most of the rides at Disneyland. We also spent more time at California Adventure.

Lesson learned: It's better to go for multiple days, one day makes it difficult to get everything done, especially with kids.

California Adventure is smaller than Disneyland, but it's also less crowded. It's a great way to escape the crowds at the bigger park. It also has some if my favorite rides; Soarin' Over California and Toy Story Midway Mania are both amazing rides.







California Adventure is marketed as a park for older guests. It is smaller than Disneyland, but Disney is pouring millions of dollars into improving the park.

They are adding a whole new area to the park based in the Pixar movie 'Cars'.

They are creating a whole new nightime spectacular to compete with Fantasmic, and they are redoing the entire Pacific Wharf area. Below is a picture of the empty lagoon and all the equipment they will need fir the new show "World of Color". Sorry about the quality of the picture but I had to take it from the cage on the Fun Wheel.







Speaking of the Fun Wheel... If the newly remade Mickey's Fun Wheel is any indication... It's working!













The other great thing about California Adventure is that there are always interesting things to discover. Between the Aladin stage musical at the Hyperion Theater, the future of the park at the Blue Sky Cellar, or learning how to create "magic" at the Animators Workshop. There are plenty of things to see that have little or nothing to do with rides.







This time the Animators Workshop had a really cool display on zoetropes, the turn table would spin fast, it didn't really seem to make much of a difference until they started flashing a strobe. All of a sudden the spinning table came alive with the different characters being animated by your mind processing the spinning images. How COOL is that?!

Going back to Disneyland I feel like I should point out what Disney does right. The magic of Disney is found in the details. They believe in taking care of the guests... But that's just a small part of it. They try to take care of the small details. Even the ones that guests aren't likely to see or notice.







Candy corn stalks






Candy corn grapes






Sign on the Monsters Inc ride







The little details make it fun to keep coming back to see what you can find this time. Disney makes you want to come back to find that next hidden Mickey, or to meet that next character you've been trying to find, or to see what little changes they have made. It's even worth going on the Jungle Cruis over and over agan to see what new corny jokes gave been added to the tour.

Sometimes that level of detail can be overwhelming. That was the mistake we made yesterday. We wanted to see and do everything, but we were spread to thin and ended up robbing ourselves of time by trying to do it all without a real plan.

Lesson learned: plan your time. Don't try to do all of both parks in one day, you'll run out of time. Focus on what you really want to accomplish. You might be able to do a few things in both parks. But trying to hit all the highlights of both parks can make it hard to really experience either park. Although I do admit that a well planned approach would help you to do more than we did. It's very inefficient to walk back and forth "Willie-Nillie".

The highlight of the trip yesterday was absolutely the Halloween Screams fireworks show.



















It was probably the best fireworks show I've ever seen. They devoted different parts of the show to different villians. There were new fireworks I hadn't seen, lasers and projections that were cool, a flying ghost dog (Zero), and flame jets shooting 20 - 30 feet tall.

Anyway, this has been a long blog to not really talk about our trip. I fear I didn't accomplish my goal. I guess my next blog will have tell the story of our most magical day at the Disneyland resort.

For now I'll end with one last but of magic. After the first time we took Ryan to Disneyland when he was about 21 months old we asked him if he had fun. He couldn't say much, but he nodded his head very enthusiastically and said, "Again... Please!!" The look on his face will stay with me forever. You can't tell me that's not real magic!