Happy Place Hodgepodge - Downtown Disney, July 2014

It's been a long, hard summer! For one person who up to a few months ago almost always a Premium Annual Passholder (that's me!), it's been much harder than I thought it would be.

When I made the decision to lower my payments and save a little money every year by going to a Pass with July and half of August blacked out, I told myself that it would be easy because of "the heat", "the crowds", "*insert any excuse you want here*", but I learned very quickly... I missed being able to go in July and that first half of August!

But, glory be(!), my time of languishing without a way into my happy place is almost over! This coming Monday the blackout dates end (for the most part), and I'm already planning my first trip back with a full day at it this coming Tuesday. I can hardly wait!

But, with all of that said, I did manage to make it out to The Resort a few times this summer just to wander about and take pictures of things I don't normally take the time to since I'm usually partying it up inside The Park. A few weekends ago I spent a wonderful evening just strolling around Downtown Disney and its various haunts taking pictures, which make up the gist of this week's "hodgepodge".

I can't wait to get back next week with a ton of pictures from my first day back but in the meantime I hope these pictures will help tide you over the way they've helped tide me over. I always say there's magic to be found everywhere you look at The Park, and I think these do a great job of proving it. Even though I may not have been riding Space Mountain or Pirates of the Caribbean, I still had a wonderful time and I'm so thankful I got to go!

Enjoy!

Sometimes you need help remembering where you parked!

The gazebos around the Disneyland Hotel really do lend themselves to some amazing fairy-tale weddings

When Tinkerbell and Mickey's Sorcerer's Apprentice Hat greet you, you know that you're home

Buzz and Woody. LEGO form. Touche!

One of my favorite Hidden Mickeys from around The Resort. Can you spot it?

Late nights at the Disneyland Hotel with Starbucks; people-watching. Doesn't get much better!

Sold!

Even the carpets are magical!

If you see THIS coming at you...

Magical Carpet #2!

Who needs Autopia when you can sit in this actual car from the attraction for hours at the time?! Just beware of little kids telling you to "get out of the way, mister!"

If Mary Poppins flies out of the Disneyland Hotel, is this what she leaves behind?

Three different Goofy's in one picture; can you spot them all?

One day... I may actually go swimming here! In the meantime, this remains one of the coolest signs in all of The Resort!

And lastly, there may not be anything better than ending the night with a friend and a cocktail at Trader Sam's. Just about the perfect evening in every way!

Goofy's Kitchen Button Giveaway Winners!

Last week at Days we sponsored a quick, easy giveaway for our readers which included three winners walking away with buttons from Goofy's Kitchen at the Disneyland Hotel. Everyone seems to love Disney buttons of any kind (I have quite the collection myself), and we did indeed have several people enter for their chance to win one.

So without further ado our three winners were:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The winners of the Goofy's Kitchen Buttons were Becky Rosales, Mark Dunsmore, and Cindy Myers. If you are one of the winners, please send an email to me at chad@daysinthepark.com and we'll work out all the details to get your button to you, either via mail or hand delivery at The Park if you live close enough.

Thank you to everyone who entered and stay tuned - we have more fun giveaways in the coming weeks and an even bigger one next week!

Thanks again for reading and entering!

Welcome Back Wednesday: Button Giveaway!

Well, today's "Almost Wordless Wednesday" is a very special one. With our self-imposed break in recent months, it went completely unnoticed by yours truly that Days in the Park recently celebrated its third birthday! Fanfare, balloons, and confetti everywhere!! It seemed, since it's such a monumental occasion (hey, someone has to keep buying the domain), and we've recently begun the process of blogging again more regularly, that we should do something to celebrate and give something back to all of our readers, and yes, we still have some! I can't tell you the number of times just since Monday alone that someone has told me they're glad to see me back, and you know what? Doggone, it's good to be back! So, in the spirit of the Season, and the blog being back, and all that rot, for the remainder of December I'm going to be hosting what I'm calling (look at the top) "Welcome Back Wednesday"s, and I will be, you guessed it, doing a button giveaway each and every week from now through the end of the month. Why buttons, you may ask? Because they're cheap, cool, and they make awesome souvenirs!

The Magic of the Disney Parks: The Disneyland Hotel

People talk all the time about the magic of the Disney Parks. People on the outside of Disney fandom might not really know what that magic is all about, or whether it even exists or is just a fancy tagline to sell tickets, but for those of us who spend a lot of time in the Parks, we really believe in that magic.One of my favorite times of the year is the weekend that I actually get to spend a night at the Parks and one of the hotels that's actually on the Disneyland property. Since the entire family are annual passholders, we really have no need to stay in hotels in order to visit Disneyland. However, if we do decide to spend a weekend at the park, most of the time we just simply stay at a hotel off property. And I don't say it to be a slight against the pricing of the Disneyland Hotel properties, but for the most part they are just a little bit out of our normal price range, especially when we do pay for the annual passes each and every year. But one of the perks of having a wife who is a teacher, is that teachers and students go to conferences. And in this particular case, the conference takes place at the Disneyland Hotel so one night a year we get to stay there basically for free. Can you say score?

The Disneyland Hotel - That's Where We Were!

We're back on our regular schedule this week!  It's a novel concept, having our usual Monday segment actually on a Monday this week, but we're going to push ahead with it anyways.  Mondays are typically seen as the little brat of the week, which means that we enjoy starting out on a fun note and challenging you, our readers, to once again guess where at the Disneyland Resort we took this week's photo.  We took this picture quite some time ago, but thought it would make a good (and informative!) spot to challenge people with, even if it might not be as challenging as some.  So we had Mark do his best Vanna White and here we are!

If you're not familiar with our "Magical Mystery Mondays" concept yet, each and every week we come across loads of spots around Disneyland Resort we think would make great picture opportunities, and each and every week we challenge you, our readers, to attempt to guess just where at The Resort we were when we took our pictures.  And it could be anywhere at the Disneyland Resort; either of the two Parks, the Downtown Disney District, or the wonderful Disney Hotels that are on property.  Some are easy, some are hard (and some are smack dab in the middle!), but we think it's a great way for us to get you involved and commenting on our blog, and people seem to enjoy doing it.  We hope that this week's stacks up and that you guys all enjoy it!

So, do you know where this little beauty is located at the Disneyland Resort?

If you think you know where it is, let us know!  There are a few really easy ways to do so:

• Leave us a comment here! (probably the best way to do it) 
• Send us a Direct Message on our Twitter account @DaysInThePark 
• Drop us an email at daysinthepark@daysinthepark.com 

We try to keep your answers hidden as best that we can so that more people get a chance to guess, so if you'll help us along by submitting your answers "on the sly" (not a general comment where anyone can see the answer) we'd much appreciate it!  We like to keep it going as long as we can and give everyone a shot.

We'll continue to pop back in throughout the day as people begin sending in their guesses to give you slight nudges in the right direction, so hopefully by the end of the day we'll have a nice little collection of correct guesses in the hopper, and then tomorrow morning we'll be back to post up all the people who guessed correctly and give you the exact spot where this was taken.

Have fun, don't take it too seriously, and guess as often as you'd like!  As we said, we'll be back a couple of times throughout the day with hints to push you along in the right direction, so what have you got to lose?  Guess often and have fun!

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Well, now that our day is done we're back to let everyone in on where our little spot we chose for this week's game was!

We came across yesterday's spot almost a year ago while we were inside the Disneyland Hotel to eat at Steakhouse 55, which by the way, is one fantastic meal!  The location is quite near the ballrooms inside the hotel, and can be located on the left wall as you are walking towards both the ballrooms, and Steakhouse 55 and Goofy's Kitchen (if you're going to eat there). 

We know that a lot of people have probably never even set foot inside the hotels if they're not staying there, but we absolutely love checking them out, and although we've never actually stayed at any of them ourselves, we've been inside them many times and there are tons of fantastic things to see, which was the point of this particular photo!  So if you've never spent any time inside the hotels yourselves, we urge you to give it a try; even if you're not staying there, you're more than welcome inside to peruse and explore (within reason), and you never now what you might come across!

We had loads of correct guesses yesterday!  In point of fact, almost everyone who took a shot at it was right!  Always fun, but it just means to have to ramp up the difficulty in the coming weeks.  Just kidding... Maybe...

As always, we like to give a shout-out to everyone who came by and guessed, so here they in order of guess and name:

• infaMOUSEproject
• MottMike
• @ChristinaShaw76
• Courtney
• @canuckduck789
• Danielle D.
• @Robinpoppins
• It's All About the Tours
• P.T.
• @805Buckaroo

And there you have it, our correct guessers for this week!  Thanks to everyone who took a shot at it.  Even if you're not right, everyone should take a guess; you've got nothing to lose!

We'll be back next week with another brand-new spot for our readers to take a crack at!  In the meantime, if you have any suggestions for a spot you'd like for us to do, or a picture of your own that you would like to submit for us to use, drop us a line at daysinthepark@daysinthepark.com.  We love having reader submissions and would love to take a look at whatever spots you might have that you'd like to see here.

Until next week, keep those peepers open and be sure and take in all of the little details all over Disneyland; you never know what little details you might see that you never have before!

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Days In The Park Podcast Episode 7 - I Know What We're Going To Talk About Today!

Episode 7 of our podcast is up and ready for some listening!

In our latest episode we spend some time discussing the changes currently taking place inside (and outside!) Disney California Adventure Park as part of the current expansion going on at The Resort.  But we’re not all business!  We’re talking food again this month as we highlight one of the newer restaurants at The Resort, Tangaroa Terrace.  And we spend some time wittily bantering about possibly our favorite attraction (and one of its Hidden Mickeys) at The Parks, Splash Mountain.

Stop on by our podcast website and give us a listen. We'll be happy you did!

"Almost" Wordless Wednesday: A Little Bit Of This And A Little Bit Of That

Even the waiting rooms in Star Tours are pretty darn cool

The Mon Cal are charged with making sure everything runs smoothly in the Star Tours terminal

The coolest luggage inspector in the galaxy

This one kind of looks like a game show host to us

We managed to catch the bobsled as it flew through a hole in the bottom of the mountain. Sweet!

Wouldn't mind staying at the Disneyland Hotel just to go on the water slide

Saint Ariel!

Dole Whip Ariel!

Nothing like a pair of Chucks on Soarin'

Odds and Ends: Weekly Cap-Off (5/23 - 5/29)

Visits to the Park this week:  2
We're down from the norm, but we still made it out a couple of different times this week, ensuring that our Annual Passes continue to earn us dividends! 

We were out on Monday along with Amy for another Cast Member Preview ride on The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure (which is fantastic by the way!), and we will be out for an hour or two this morning along with our friends at Disney Day Trippers riding Star Tours: The Adventures Continue one last time before the attraction officially opens up on June 3rd.

They were short trips into The Parks this week, but awesome as always! 

Last Week on Days In The Park:
On Monday, we took you out for another "Magical Mystery Monday" and challenged you to guess where in The Parks we took the picture

Tuesday, we gave your a very early, spoiler-free review of Star Tours: The Adventures Continue 

We got back on track this week our usual "Almost" Wordless post on Wednesday

Thursday, we co-hosted a "Disney Blog Hop" with our friend Lisa from Babes In Disneyland!

On Friday, we posted not one, but two Vinylmation articles: Our Latest Vinylmation Adventure and a look at a new segment called Vinylmation Domination

And lastly, we slowed down on Saturday and decided to give back to the community as Chad participated in this year's AIDS Walk OC

This Week At The Parks:
It's here!  "Summer Soundsational" has arrived!

Mickey's Soundsational Parade opened up in Disneyland Park this past Friday, The Little Mermaid and Star Tours open up this week on June 3rd, and the all new pool and restaurants Tangaroa Terrace and Trader Sam's opened up at the Disneyland Hotel this past week as well.  Oh, and did we mention that Splash Mountain opened up this past Friday too?  We couldn't be more psyched!

June 3rd is the first official day of summer in The Park and we're tremendously excited about it.  Anyone else planning on being there this weekend?  Stop by and say hi!

Video Of The Week:
We just got through talking about!  This week's video features Mickey's Soundsational Parade footage which the Disney Parks Blog post this week.  We've said it here a few times before; we're not really parade people, but we're very excited about this one!

In addition, our friend Sarah from Magical Days With The Mouse was able to attend the parade this weekend and took some amazing pictures of it all. You can check it out here.

Here At Days In The Park:
It's Star Tours week at Days In The Park!  In honor of the attraction's "official" opening this coming weekend, and because we love "Star Wars" so much, we've decided to dedicate a whole week to "Star Wars" and Tours themed posts.  You can can never have too much of "a galaxy far, far away", right?  So keep your eyes peeled here for all kinds of articles dedicated to your favorite "Wars", lots of pics, and maybe even a surprise or two, you never know!  We can't wait for Monday to get here so we can start!

We hope you'll keep dropping by to spend a Day In The Park with us.  We enjoy having you around!

The Saturday Slow-Down: Watching Toons With A Goof

"Sometimes the BEST picture you can take is with the camera that God gave you in your own head." 

If you read our post on Wednesday (well, it was mostly just pictures but you get my meaning) you'll know that we spent some time last Sunday evening in the Disneyland Hotel.  We were there primarily to eat at Steakhouse 55 but as we have spent very little time in there in the past, we spent quite a bit of time looking around at things before and after.

As we were standing around waiting for our 6:30 reservations to come to us, we wandered around a little bit in the waiting area and spent some time looking into Goofy's Kitchen, which is right next door to the steakhouse.  Amy is the only one of us who has eaten at the kitchen before, but we know enough about it to know that it's known for two things primarily:  an awesome breakfast buffet and character dining, featuring (of course) a character based on its namesake, Chef Goofy.  We stood around a little bit watching beaming parents and their kids take pictures with Chef Goofy (something to remember the special moment by, no doubt) before we were called in to eat.  

Fast forward about two and a half hours and we were leaving the steakhouse with full bellies and a desire to poke around the Hotel some more.  I had my camera out to take pictures of whatever I might come across, and was preparing to enter full-blown camera mode (picture a robot walking just taking pictures of things back and forth without much thought); I get like that sometimes.  But as I was walking out of the restaurant I glanced over to my left and saw a little room with a TV placed in its wall playing classic Disney cartoons.  I hadn't noticed the room on our way in, and was just going to continue to keep walking when I felt a little prick that told me I should go back and take a closer look.  Thank God for the little voices that tell me to slow down sometimes, because when I went back and looked in the window, I noticed Chef Goofy sitting there, by himself, watching cartoons, still as a statue.  I quickly yelled at Amy and Mark to come back and check it out, which they did, and we all just kind of stood there smiling at each other and pointing; it was so unexpected seeing him in there like that.  Funnily enough, he was sitting so still that Amy kind of yelled out all of a sudden, "Is he real?!", which drew his attention and made him move, and made Amy squeal in surprise.  He gestured at all of us to come on in, so the three of us went in, grabbed our seats next to him and proceeded to spend the next five minutes or so watching cartoons with a Goof.

It really was a surreal moment.  You hear about Disney magic all the time, and we firmly believe this was one of those moments!  Of course, most of the times when you run into a character, it's in a line where you're just moving through, person by person to have your picture taken and very little interaction takes places.  Not so in this instance however.  We talked to him and asked him questions (he would nod yes or no), laughed along with him (well, as much as we could I suppose since he didn't actually talk, but he would cover his mouth up and the meaning was well taken), and we all just sat there beaming from ear to ear.  For a few minutes in time, we just sat there and watched cartoons with Goofy.  It was awesome, there's just no other word for it.

It wasn't too long until a Cast Member arrived to let him know he had "paying customers" waiting for their photo opportunity with him and he had to go.  It was a genuine laugh, though, watching Goofy pretend to not want to leave while the Cast Member struggled to pull him out of the room, and then he waved at us and he was gone.  

I kind of glanced down at my side at that point and realized that I had set my camera down and never once picked it up while we were in the room (other than a quick picture of the TV in the wall and the carpet right when we walked in and before I sat down).  Like a weird cosmic twist, right at the moment I realized I didn't take a picture of us with Goofy, Mark yelled out, "Did you get a picture?  Why not?  That would have been awesome!"  I had gotten so caught up in the interaction that I had completely forgotten!  But that was about all that was said of the matter, and I think I know why.

As we walked out I kind of bemoaned the fact that I didn't take a picture.  After all, isn't that how we choose to remember things more often than not?  With a picture?  But the more I thought about it, the more okay with it I was (I know some people just won't get that, but it's true).  Goofy didn't have to invite us in with him (he was on a break after all, let's get real about this) and if he hadn't, we very likely might have just walked away.  But he did, and we didn't, and now we have this wonderful memory that we'll carry with us from now on.  We may not have a physical picture of the memory to carry us through, but we've already relived it so many times since that the picture of it is indelibly burned into our minds.  It's not to say that pictures are bad (Lord knows we'll continue to take them by the droves) but I think we were taught a very valuable lesson in just letting our minds form the pictures it wants us to have from time to time.  And we think that sometimes, maybe those are the best kinds of pictures; the ones where you take the time to slow down, turn around and see what's behind you that you might have missed, and let the magic come to you.

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"Almost" Wordless Wednesday: A Hotel And A Steakhouse

Sometimes, just sometimes, we take leave of our senses and wish we lived out of state (or weren't Annual Passholders) so we'd have a better reason to come and stay at one of The Resort Hotels.  One of the great things though, is that even though we don't stay at them, we can still experience much of the wonder that they have to offer.  We spent quite a bit of time this past Sunday in the Disneyland Hotel and took pictures of many of the things we got to see and experience.  These are just a few of them.

Enjoy!

Yeah, it was THAT good...

Do we need to say anything?

Cartoon room where we watched some classic Disney Toons with Goofy (he was on a break)

REALLY enjoyed some of the angles in this picture

You note while Chad is taking pictures for the site Mark is playing around with an Autopia car

The Wall Of Fame (and lots of Disneyana)!

Mickey and Minnie flank this awesome mural in the Hotel lobby

Tink came out a little blurry, but we really liked this one

Goodnight!

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