Hope you enjoy this pic from the New Orleans Square train station.  I have a quick Rays of Disneyland programming note… Trip Report Tuesday has been postponed until next week due to those pesky unforeseen circumstances outside of my control. 🙂

Looks sunny…

Things are looking brighter than ever here at Rays of Disneyland!  A huge thanks to all the new readers who have come here from NaBloWriMo.  Welcome… I hope you stay and play awhile. 🙂  NaBloWriMo really got the ball rolling here and November will continue with near daily updates.  Here’s the plan so far…

Mondays will alternate between a continuation of my Classic Disneyland Hotel series and a look at some of my other “vintage” memories from being a kid at Disneyland.

Tuesdays will continue with two more Trip Report Tuesdays, then I’ll focus on two particular experiences from my September trip.

Wednesday will still be Wordless, mostly because I like posting my pictures. 🙂

Thursdays are going to focus on some of my favorite ways to bring the Disneyland magic home with you after the vacation ends.

Fridays are still Fantasmic Five, which means I’ll be spouting out al kinds of random goodness from my life.

Saturdays and Sundays will probably only contain one post instead of two and it will be a Disney free-for-all.

So, I hope you stay tuned to Rays of Disneyland this month, it’s sure to be a magical month!  Look for this week’s Trip Report Tuesday either late tonight or before Wordless Wednesday gets posted tomorrow.

In the “spirit” of the holiday, I thought I would share some of my favorite spook-tacular photos from Disneyland… enjoy!

From Top Left to Bottom Right:

1. Looking through the Hub to Tomorrowland… Jack Skellington front and center.
2. The Haunted Dapper Dans.
3. Mickey above the turn-styles.
4. Ray Bradbury’s Halloween Tree in Frontierland.
5. A familiar figure in the Haunted Mansion Graveyard (2008).
6. A spooky Jack and Sally entertain guests in New Orleans Square.

Effects courtesy of Picnik.com

1. Well, I’m half-way done with my “mandatory vacation” and, just like regular vacation, it has gone entirely too fast.  I spent a lot of the week deciding if I could afford an impromptu visit to Disneyland next week, but, while I might have been able to swing it with a hefty credit card charge, I would have been paying almost as much for three days as I paid for nine days in September.  Curse the 1000 miles between me and Anaheim!
2. My precious pup – aptly named Tinker Bell – is scheduled to have leg surgery next week… while the procedure is fairly routine, there is a higher risk for her, as she has a collapsing trachea, which could make breathing in recovery a problem.  I trust that she is in good hands at my veterinarian, but we could still use lots of prayers and pixie dust next Tuesday!
3. The end of NaBloWriMo is almost here, and while I definitely didn’t make a post a day, I am very please with myself for having only missed about 10 days throughout the month.  NaBloWriMo was a lot of fun, and I have to give a big shout-out to my friend Aaron for challenging me to get in there and write!  Check out his blog, by the way… it’s always entertaining. 🙂
4. and 5. The fourth and fifth Fantasmic things this Friday have to be combined simply because they are quite the story… I leave you today with a quick “anecdote” from my week.  I had to go for a sleep study this week in an on-going effort to find the best treatment options for my Fibromyalgia.  I was extremely nervous for the study and tried to make comfort my first priority in planning for what to take with me for the night.  I decided matching wasn’t as important as comfort, and as long as I was warm and in soft, stretchy pjs, I was good to go.  Therefore, picture if you will, what you might look like first thing in the morning when all of your other pjs are in the dirty laundry, you have your mid-1990s glasses on (because you never wanted to spend the money to get new ones in the past 10 years), your hair is sloppily pulled back on your head, and you put on a few extra pounds that your softy pants and thermal top are doing nothing to hide.  Got that image?  Good, now multiply it by ten and that’s what I looked like when I walked in the door for my sleep study.  I got checked in and a nice lady came down to take another patient and me to the sleep lab.  “Great,” I thought, “Nothing to worry about, this lady is nice and comforting… this won’t be so bad.”  WRONG.  We got to the lab and nice lady number one passed me on to Andrew, my technician for the night.  Yep, Andrew… so remember that mental image of the girl that couldn’t possibly look worse?  Great, now picture the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen in real life and then multiply that by ten.  That image right there, that was Andrew.  Best of all, Andrew got to weigh me, watch me use my myriad of nasal sprays, and even fit a stretchy band around the circumference of my slightly “fluffy” stomach.  When he took my blood pressure and pulse he asked if I was a little nervous.  “Well, have you seen YOU,” I thought to myself, “Yeah, I’m a little nervous.”  Turns out my resting heart rate was 110. Yeah, I think it’s supposed to be like 60 or something, but that’s for someone who hasn’t seen Andrew, who was, of course, very nice and smart, and, well you get the idea.  So the moral of the story is that Murphy’s Law for medical procedures is this: The worse you look, the hotter the nurse will be… remember that.

The first time I went to Disneyland for my birthday was two years ago and happened during a really difficult time in my life.  I remember that my mom packed my suitcase for me because I just didn’t… it wasn’t that I couldn’t or even that I didn’t want to, I just didn’t have it in me at the time to try and think about packing.  God Bless my mom for getting everything ready for me and for still wanting to join me even in my “funk!” 🙂

The trip was really amazing and I had an incredible birthday.  In a lot of ways it was like a soothing balm to ease my scorched spirit.  A huge disappointment, however, was that the Haunted Mansion Holiday overlay wasn’t set to reopen until two days after we left.  I was likely a lot more upset about missing it than I should have been, but given the circumstances I was in, I just didn’t handle to news too well.  You see, sometimes I feel like I miss everything at Disneyland because I live too far away to hop in to Disneyland for a few hours just to see the special events, and the Haunted Mansion Nightmare Before Christmas overlay was one of those things that I had always wanted to see.  I did LOTS of research on the internet, checking loads of different forums to see if anyone had ever exerienced an early soft opening for the overlay, but the answers we unanimously negative.

Day after day for the duration of our vacation I would check the infamous “line board” just to make sure that they hadn’t posted a wait time for Haunted Mansion, indicating it was open.  But, day after day, the board said that it was closed for refurbishment.  I literally would drag my mom over to the Haunted Mansion everyday just to stare at it and make sure they weren’t opening it, just for me of course… did I mention this was a particuarly bad time in my life? 😉

On our last day I woke up SICK… not just sniffles sick, like crazy stomach virus of doom sick, but I was bound and determined to spend as much of our last day IN the park, NOT in the hotel room.  So, feeling pretty awful, I made the daily pilgrimage to the line board as soon as we entered the park.  “Wait,” I said to my mom, “The Haunted Mansion isn’t on the board anymore…”  We both knew this could only mean one of two things.  1) The attraction had miraculously opened just in time for our last day, or 2) They were close enough to the real opening that they decided to use that space on the board for another attraction for the next couple of days.  Full of hope, I grabbed my mom by the arm and took off at a pretty good clip toward New Orleans Square.

Now, if you are familiar with the layout of the park, you know that on a quiet Monday morning you can see the expanse of New Orleans Square – all the way down to the start of the Splash Mountain queue – from the bridge over Pirates of the Caribbean.  So, when we reached the point and looked down on the Haunted Mansion, the gates were wide open and Jack Skellington was perched atop, inviting us in… and, yes, we did, in fact, squeal with joy.  Quite loudly if I remember correctly, and we took off in a full sprint through New Orleans Square.  Attracting more than a few stares, and likely a few “slow downs” from Cast Members, we arrived at the mansion, tears in our eyes, smiles on our faces and we climbed in those Doom Buggies four times in a row!

Crying over the Haunted Mansion, you might say.  But, that is the magic of Disneyland.  At that moment in time, I forgot that nothing seemed to be going right back home, or that I had spent the past few weeks shut off from the world and drowning in myself.  I felt joy… pure, blissful, exciting joy, and it washed over me like a gift from Heaven, sent to heal my soul.  Of course, as can be expected, all the same stresses were waiting for me when I got home, but somehow every time I remembered the sight of those open gates, a little piece of me smiled.

The second day of D23’s Destination D started just as early as the day before, but we were a lot more mellow about racing over to the Disneyland Hotel to wait in line.  In fact, coffee and croissant in hand, we ended up in just about the same point in the giant line as we had been the day before.

The intro screen for Disneyland: Through the Eyes of Television

The first session of the day, Disneyland Through the Eye of Television, was led by Tim O’Day and Rob Klein, who throughout the convention proved to be two very entertaining guys!  This session in particular, however, was especially wonderful… O’Day led the crowd in reciting Walt’s Opening Day Speech – yes, the room full of Disney geeks knew it all by heart – and it gave me chills.  Honestly, that and singing the Mickey Mouse Club Alma Mater with the Mousketeers the day before were two of the most inspiring moments of the convention.  I think it is times like that, when Disney fans come together to celebrate the magic and wonder of Disney, that define who we are as Disney fans and remind us why we fell in love with the Disney in the first place.  Aside from that awe-inspring moment, the entire presentation was really spectacular, with loads of rare TV footage of Disneyland, including some hilarious segments like Sandy in Disneyland.

Dave Smith

Another major highlight of Day 2 was Disneyland: The Way We Were led by, now-retired, Chief Archivist Dave Smith.  I’ve long been a fan of Smith and was thrilled to see him in one of his last appearances before his retirement.  Smith was noticably nostalgic when he spoke about the park in its early years, as well as Walt’s love and even his own love for the park.  He had lots of vintage photographs from park construction, to park opening, and more.

When we got back from lunch, we were, again, given a Tim O’Day treat with his Disneyland: The Happiest Place in Pop Culture presentation.  As I mentioned before, we even got to here a snippet of one of my favorite Disney-related songs by Five for Fighting during the presentation.

The Disney Dance Crew

Last, but certainly not least, in the afternoon program was a message from Disneyland’s President, George Kalogridis.  Joined by ABC News’ Garth Kemp, Kalogridis talked about his history with the Disney company and his vision for the future of Disneyland.  While Kalogridis didn’t share any earth-shattering new news, he did give us all a sneak-peek of ElecTRONica and the Disney Dance Crew, both of which were entertaining, and he even hinted at a possible third theme park in Anaheim, as, “…we already own the land.”  Kalogridis seemed to have a genuine love for Disneyland and I was pleased to leave my happy place in his hands. 🙂

"Follow Me, Boys"

That evening, after a couple of hours for dinner, Tony Baxter and Ed Hobelman presented an encore of last year’s Wonderful World of Vintage Disneyland – In Color! and the Disneyland, U.S.A. screening panel.  Admittedly, we didn’t stay for the screening, just the first session, for a number of reasons, perhaps the most compelling being the gentleman sitting next to us who BELCHED about every 8 seconds and took his shoes off and scratched his sweaty, smelly feet in my mom’s face… trust me, I couldn’t make that up!  But, a particuarly wonderful part of this session came at the very end when Baxter and Hobelman introduced the last television appearance by Walt Disney before his death, which was recently discovered in the archives and hadn’t been shown publically since the premier screening of Follow Me, Boys.  The footage was very touching, especially followed by a few minutes of Follow Me, Boys that seemed to mimic the love and respect. we all hold for Walt.

D23’s Destination D proved to be everything I had hoped for and more.  It was a wonderful, nostalgic, touching look back into the history of Disneyland and the place it holds in our hearts now as “Walt’s Original.”

Next Tuesday… The D23 Great Disney Scavenger Hunt and saying our goodbyes to Disneyland.

I wanted to share a few more of my favorite pictures from Day One of the D23 Destination D convention… I hope you enjoy them!  In order from top left to bottom right:

1. From the Weird Disney presentation with Becky Cline and Paul Anderson, Walt with his grandson in matching Davy Crockett Hats.
2. Singing the Mickey Mouse Club Alma Mater with the Mousketeers and host, Disney Historian, Tim O’Day.
3. Nuggets from Disneyland souvenir from the Quirky to Collectible presentation with Stacia Martin, Paul Anderson, and Rob Klein.
4. The original simulator that inspired the Star Tours attraction vehicles, shown during the Star Tours presentation with Imagineer Tom Fitzgerald.
5. Imagineers Alice Davis, Marty Sklar, X Atencio, and Bob Gurr share a laugh during the Imagineering Panel.
6. Richard Sherman shares his vision for some of the most memorable Disney Theme Park songs during the E-Ticket Concert.

1. My boss made a bit of an “error” and miscalculated my remaining vacation time after my Disneyland trip… instead of no days, I actually have eight days.  So, I am having to take the next two weeks off with paid vacation.  Not a bad gig, but with a little advance notice I could have planned a lovely trip to Disneyland!
2. We decorated the house with a lovely assortment of Disney Halloween decorations this week… I love them, but now I’m yearning to get out the Disney Christmas Decorations!
3. I saw, and fell in love with ( 🙂 ) the “Disney Princess and Me” Tiana doll at Toys R Us this evening… a definite must for my doll collection., duly noted on my Christmas list.
4. I’m having a “Missing Disney Blues” kind of week this week, so I’ve been working hard on lots of vacation plans for next year.  It looks like my next trip probably won’t be until late next summer, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed for something a little sooner. 🙂
5. I would ask for your continued prayers and pixie dust for my wonderful Disney Store friends that are facing some serious health problems.  The lady with the autoimmune disorder is actually doing much better!  But my friend with the brain tumor is facing lots of rehabilitation and an inconclusive biopsy.  My Disney family definitely needs your support!

The first day of D23 Destination D dawned early… maybe even a little too early.  🙂  But, the Disney fan spirit can be squelched, so we were up and out – ready to brave the line that was sure to ensue – albeit a bit later than we had planned.  We were definitely right about the line… it stretched around the building housing the Disneyland Hotel convention area.  But, coffee in hand, we waited with the masses, filed somewhat orderly into the ballroom, and grabbed fairly decent seats considering we probably joined the line hours after those who snagged the front and center seats.

The highlights of the first morning and afternoon of the convention were definitely the Mousketeers 55th Anniversary and the Imagineering panel.  My mom was especially excited for the Mousketeers and I was so thrilled that she had this opportunity to see them, meet them, and even get their autographs.  It was a very special thing for me to witness, and I feel blessed to have had the experience.

Having missed the Imagineering panel at last year’s D23 Expo, I was especially excited that they were, essentially, repeating it for Destination D.  And, I wasn’t disappointed.  The panel was led by the incomparable Marty Sklar, who was joined by some true Disney Legends like Alice Davis, X Atencio, Don Iwerks, Tony Baxter, Bob Gurr, and more.  It was great to hear everyone talk about their crowning achievements at Disneyland… Pirates of the Caribbean, Nemo Subs, Carsland, the Monorail – all the greats! 🙂  The only part that was really sad and disheartening was to see that my legend, X Atencio, is suffering the symptoms of old age… he seemed unclear of what was going on and even had trouble answering Marty’s question about his favorite memories of Walt. 🙁

When the afternoon’s sessions were over, we had about two hours for dinner and had a lovely meal at La Brea Bakery.  Then, it was off to the races again, as we got back in the now familiar, winding line to snag a seat for that evening’s Disney Legends Celebration E-Ticket Concert.  The concert was nothing less than amazing.  From John Tartaglia to Ana Ortiz to D23’s own Jeffrey Epstein, there were lots of fun celebrities singing their favorite theme park songs, plus – the best part – Richard Sherman was on hand to play his hit songs, share his memories of early Disneyland and Walt, and even sing along with the D23 Mellow-Ds choir.  The evening was absolutely incredible.

Next  week, Trip Report Tuesday returns to its regularly scheduled Tuesday with Destination D Day 2…