Happy Anniversary Blogorail Blue - All Aboard for This Year's Best!

Welcome to the first stop aboard Magical Blogorail Blue. Today, we are celebrating the one year anniversary of our very first Magical Blogorail Loop by sharing our greatest Disney moment since joining the Magical Blogorail!

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It's our Magical Blogorail Blue anniversary today! I'd be remiss if I didn't say anything about that to begin.  Writing for the Blogorail, and being a part of its first line (the Blue Line) since its inception has been a huge honor for me.  I had only been blogging for about a month or so when I was asked to join up.  My writing still pretty much stank, and I was just getting my sea-legs under me, but our fearless leader Beth ("Pursuing the Magic") must have seen something in me to have asked, and the rest has been seen on a monthly basis over the course of the past year.  Not only that, but the entire concept has grown by leaps and bounds and now ecompasses 39 different Disney bloggers over a whopping 8 different lines.  It's just been an amazing experience, I've met so many amazing people (both online and in the real world) during the experience, and it's something I hope I get to do for a very long time to come.  Here's to Year Number 2!

But, on to today's article, which actually had its humble beginnings long before I began writing for The Magical Blogorail.  Most people probably already know that I've been hanging around the Disneyland Resort for much longer than I've been blogging about it.  I've been an Annual Passholder for quite some time now, but I was just never able to go as often as I wanted because the family didn't want to go that frequently.  Fiends, I know, but that's the way it was.  So I was left looking for other people to go and hang out with.  Solo trips are okay, but it's ever so much funner to have a friend along with you.  I've known Mark for years now (he grew up in our Youth Dept. at church), and one day I heard he had a hankering for the Magic Kingdom, too.  So, on a whim, I decided to ask him along one day.  We had such a great time it just started happening more and more frequently, and here we are today.

I owe a lot to Mark as far as my early "Disneyland development" goes.  He's always been a huge wealth of information about the place, so when I first started going, he taught me a lot.  He'd hopefully agree that now I can pretty much hold my own, and well, about the place, but back in the day, it was all about him showing me around and teaching me about all the cool little tidbits and secrets around Disneyland, including the biggest one of them all probably, Club 33.

Most people are probably familiar with Club 33 to some degree, but at its simplest back in the 60s Walt Disney decided he needed a special place in which to host dignitaries that were visiting Disneyland.  He chose 33 Royal Street in New Orleans Square as his location for his restaurant, but unfortunately died mere months before it opened.  Nowadays, people all over the world know about the restaurant, or Club if you will, but since its a "members only" restaurant, very few ever get to see the inside of the restaurant, let alone eat there, which is what makes it such a mysterious place, as well as such a "hot button topic" unfortunately.

But for Mark, as with many Disneyland-crazed fans, Club 33 was a dream to be wished about every chance you get.  Every time we would walk down Royal Street and see the 33 sign near the door to where the Club is (I remember thinking it so cool I even knew where the door was!), he would just mumble to me, "Someday... someday..."  But neither one of us really put much belief into it, I'm afraid.  Not knowing a member ourselves, our chances were somewhere between none and noner.
  

Definitely a popular photo spot...

But fast forward a few years and we're steadily blogging away.  Unfortunately, some of my "gifts" are loquaciousness and geekiness. So when we first began blogging, I was the one who created the Twitter account and, now armed with this high-tech means of spewing my nonsense, had quickly amassed a decent number of followers, and met some pretty darn cool people in the process.  In fact, some of the early followers I had (and started following back) are now considered some of my dearest friends in the world, and we hang out at Disneyland fairly often.  You guys know who you are.  I love ya!

Without writing a novel, it was one such friend who, having been invited to Club 33 by a member they met, invited me to come along.  And before I go any further I just want to say the biggest "Thank You" on the planet to both of you guys and you know exactly who you are.  Your generosity in inviting me enabled me to have my best Disney moment of the year in the past year, and heck, it will arguably go down as the Disney moment of a lifetime for me.   

Enjoying the nighttime at Disneyland from the Club 33 Balcony

Playing on the Club 33 Balcony and inside the phone booth from "The Happiest Millionaire"

But, here's the kicker. My greatest Disney moment over the past year wasn't in the fact that I got to dine at Club 33, but because of the fact that since I was invited to go, and told to bring others with me, I was able to invite Mark in to fulfill his biggest Disney Dream, and that's what it's all about.  Mark's been a great friend over the years, and after hearing him talk about Club 33 for so long, and with such gusto, there was simply no way I was going without him.  And, truth be told, if my invitation had only been for one, I would have gladly given my spot to Mark and let him go in my stead; it was that important to him.  I've never seen anyone smile for four hours straight before, and I always thought a person's face might stick like that, but he never stopped smiling the entire time, and he seems no worse the wear for it, so that's a good thing!  It was an evening I know he'll never forget, and I was glad that I was able to do my small part in helping it happen for him.  And that's my Disney moment for the past year - seeing my friend realize his own Disney dream.  If I could do that for other people all the time, no matter the dream, well that would just be okay with me.

All smiles...

I think that's one of the things that makes The Magical Blogorail so special, and one of the things that keeps us doing it, even when it's hard to come up with things to write, and topics to talk about.  In some small way, I think that each of us see it as a way of giving back to the community that continues to do so much for us.  At least, one can always hope.  Walt Disney once said that "Curiosity keeps leading us down new paths", and who am I to argue with greatness?  On to the next dream!

If you're interested in finding out more about Disneyland's Club 33, you can visit one one of our own DLRnetwork sites, Disneyland Club 33 for more information.
 

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Thank you for joining me today. Your next stop on the Magical Blogorail Loop is "The CanaDisney Blog".

Here is the map of our Magical Blogorail should you happen to have to make a stop along the way and want to reboard:
1st Stop ~ Days in the Park
2nd Stop ~ The CanaDisney Blog
3rd Stop ~ Disney Babies Blog
4th Stop ~ Cooking with Mickey
5th Stop ~ Meet the Magic
Final Stop ~ Pursuing the Magic