Thanks to Focused on the Magic for hosting this week's Disney Wordless Wednesday blog hop! This week's theme is Disney Friends, and the new Storyteller's statue at California Adventure is all about friends…
Tuesday morning turned out to be the perfect morning for a relaxing breakfast at the Storyteller's Cafe before heading into the Park. Storyteller's is one of our favorite indulgences and, thanks to a little customer service issue at the Disneyland Hotel, we had vouchers for a free breakfast!
Once in the Park we were happy to see that the crowds were at least a little lighter and we were able to cruise through Fantasyland, hitting all of our favorite attractions along the way. We also had a lovely lunch at Cafe Orleans and peacefully enjoyed watching the hustle and bustle of New Orleans Square while munching on the famous Monte Cristo.
The end of the day was a little bittersweet as we had to get everything packed up to check-out the next day, but we did get to watch the fireworks right from our room at the Disneyland Hotel! We were so pleased that even with a parking lot view, we had an absolutely perfect view of the fireworks. The hotel even has a tv channel dedicated to playing the music from Magical in sync with the show! What an awesome way to end the day! 🙂
Today was finally the big day… the all-new, re-imagineered California Adventure for the first time! We had a lot of trepidation about walking into this new park for the first time because we had been some of the few guests that really enjoyed the previous incarnation of DCA, but when we stepped onto Buena Vista Street for the first time, we were thrilled. Buena Vista Street really is a masterpiece that showcases the best of what Disney does so well with theming and detail. I really couldn't believe how amazing it was.
The rest of the day was equally amazing as each new element of the park was like turning back the pages on a wonderful book filled with rich and beautiful detail. Cars Land was amazing! The Carthay Circle Restaurant for lunch was incredible! Watching the neon light up in Radiator Springs was so much fun. And, once dusk had descended on the day, it was time to stake out a spot for my absolute favorite Disney show of all time… World of Color.
When the air had grown cooler and we were filled with a World of Color high, it was time to resolve to a 90-minute wait and get in line for Radiator Springs Racers. I definitely thought on more than one occasion throughout the line that this attraction better be worth the wait and it more than certainly was! Really this ride was so fun and I felt so happy that we got to close our day on this awesome note!
Day Three proved to be another phenomenal day! We started out bright and early, again, to get a good spot in the ballroom for the morning sessions. I was especially excited to see Andreas Deja and a whole panel on the Evolution of Tinker Bell during the first half of the day and neither panel disappointed me. Deja is an acclaimed Disney animator, known largely for his amazing Villain work on characters like Jafar and Scar. With the help of an overhead projector to showcase his hand movements, Deja taught the crowd how he makes his memorable characters come to life on the page.
The Tinker Bell panel was especially wonderful as well. It featured the author of a new Tink book to be released in 2013, in addition to the original live reference models for Tinker Bell's face and figure and the current voice of Tink, one of my favorites, Mae Whitman.
We weren't quite as concerned about where we sat for the afternoon sessions, so we allowed ourselves a slightly more leisurely lunch at Tangora Terrace. I had been really looking forward to trying this restaurant since the Disneyland Hotel refurb was completed, and it was really great for a quick service meal! I tried the fish and chips and was pleasantly surprised by how good they were!
Once back in the ballroom, most of the afternoon was really fascinating… however, the last panel of the conference, all about Snow White, proved to be a little on the sleepy side. All in all, though, it was an awesome afternoon to close the conference. As soon as the Snow White panel was over, just about the entire ballroom engaged in an all out sprint back to the queue to snag a place in line that would hopefully translate into a stellar ballroom seat for the weekend's crown jewel… An Evening with Alan Menken! We ended up with an absolutely perfect seat and the concert was one of the most amazing Disney experiences that I have been a part of.
What could come close to comparing to a two hour concert with the composer of some of the greatest Disney music of all time? An late-night, thrill-ride packed, jaunt through the Happiest Place on Earth with some of the greatest people I have met in a long time! 🙂 It was an absolutely perfect end to a spectacular weekend, and, perhaps, the best part of all was that we still had two and a half days left to spend in Disneyland!
This day was a great start to a great conference! It started EARLY… Or at least early if you had been schmoozing at Club 33 until midnight the night before. 😉 However, that was a predicament I was willing to accept, so, with Mickey Mouse Waffles from room service fresh in our bellies, we headed down to fight the throngs of rabid Disney fans at D23's Destination D!
Surprisingly, the lines this morning weren't as bad as we had thought they would be (don't worry, true to form, the lines were respectably crazy by the end of the first meal break 😀 ), and we got a pretty decent end seat about mid-way through the Disneyland Hotel Ballroom. In the morning we heard fun stories about Walt's Nine Old Men and Roy E. Disney from the people who worked with them and in the afternoon we got to see some awesome animation sneak peeks and hear from Imagineers about animating the Disney Parks.
At the end of the Imagineering panel, it was time to get right back in line to see Dick Van Dyke that evening, and he was well worth the wait! It was actually my second time seeing him and the Vantastix in concert and it was just as wonderful the second time around! Everything about it was just beautiful and I'm just so glad I got to see him again this year. The evening was capped off by watching fireworks right from our hotel room! Perfect! 🙂
This day was absolutely crazy!! It was a Mr. Toad kind of ride to the airport and we made it just moments before the cut off to check in for our flight! Not quite my style but we made it none the less. 🙂 Once we got in the air, though, it was smooth sailing from there and we were off! Everything went just perfectly from the time we landed in the OC and we were standing on Main Street taking in that breathtaking, tear-inducing, first peek into the park before I knew it. Per tradition, our first meal was at the Carnation Cafe and I was more than a little excited to see that they truly retained the integrity of the theme when they refurbed the restaurant. As if the day couldn't get any better, Oscar even stopped by our table and chatted, then Tony Baxter came in the door! It was definitely a sign that this was going to be one epic week!
Speaking of epic… I would never have dreamed in my wildest imaginings that one day I would walk through that nondescript New Orleans Square door and into Club 33 for dinner. Consider that one beautifully and wonderfully checked off the bucket list. 🙂 Honestly it could NOT have been more perfect. I was so nervous about meeting so many new people but they were all so wonderful and nice. I felt like I had been a part of this group for years. 🙂 Top the evening off with an amazing dinner, the most lovely tour guide you could imagine (read datable 😉 ), a Vantastix sighting, and a midnight stroll through an empty Disneyland Park, and you basically have a recipe for bliss.
When this summer was just a blossom on the calendar, it held the promise of being the best summer I've had in a long time… unfortunately, it didn't turn out quite that way, so now my upcoming trip to Disneyland sounds that much sweeter. It seems like the weeks have absolutely dragged leading up to this point, but, now, we'll be heading out to California in just a little over a week!
Between Cars Land, Buena Vista Street, Destination D, and some very special and unexpected surprises along the way, this promises to be the most amazing, bucket list fulfilling Disney trip I've ever had! I'm hoping to have some time, particularly while waiting in D23 lines, to post some great trip updates while I'm there. Regardless, check back in a few weeks for some fun-filled Trip Report Tuesdays!
This week's Disney Wordless Wednesday Blog Hop is brought to you by Focused on the Magic and the letter C!
Today's Disney Wordless Wednesday Blog Hop is hosted by Focused on the Magic. Today's theme is Disney Weenies… you know, those iconic structures that can be seen from a distance in the Parks, like those beautiful castles that stand as an icon in Parks around the world.
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