Favorite Table Restaurants at the Disney Parks

Welcome to those of you joining me from Disney Babies Blog and those of you who have just hopped aboard.  I am the third stop on our Magical Blogorail, and today we're each talking about our favorite table restaurants inside the Disney Parks.

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This month's topic is an easy one to get behind because it's something near and dear to my heart, and my stomach; my favorite Disney Dining Experience.  What throws a little bit of a curve-ball into the ballgame, though, is my choice for favorite dining location.  I've eaten at some of the "best" restaurants at The Resort, such as Blue Bayou, Steakhouse 55, and even the most famous (or perhaps infamous) one of them all, Club 33.  The food at each is some of the best I've probably ever had in my life, but they still don't make my list as the favorite.  So what's the one spot in The Parks that's both tasty enough and fun enough to earn the "favorite" label from me?  It's a little spot tucked into my favorite area, New Orleans Square; this is Cafe Orleans.

My Disneyland Trips Aren't Complete Without...

Welcome to those of you joining me from "Disney Babies Blog" and those of you just hopping aboard. I am the 2nd stop on our Magical Blogorail.

I have a confession to make before we even get started. This month we've been charged with coming up with something (attraction, food, show, whatever) that, if left out of our Disney trips, leaves our time in The Parks feeling rather incomplete. For me, there's one little item in particular I feel this way about, and I've written about it before but it's been quite some time since I've done so. So, in the interest of time and getting it out there again, I've decided to redeliver it to you, our loyal readers, in a very slightly altered format. I think it's still good though, and worth a look-see. Phew! Now that that's out of the way...

Everyone seems to have something that they absolutely have to have anytime they are present inside a Disney Park. Fortunately, most people can relate to my article today because in my case, it involves something from the foodservice industry of Disney. For me, no trip inside Disneyland Park (since Disney California Adventure Park doesn't have them) is complete without a classic, the Mint Julep in New Orleans Square.

Typically, people fall into one of two categories when they think of the Mint Juleps at The Park:

1. The "They taste like glorified mouthwash" camp and
2. The "They're the best!" camp

So, originally, I wasn't really sure whether I initially wanted to try the little concoction or not.  But having done so I can proudly say, "They're the best!", with all the enthusiasm I can muster.

So first things first.  What exactly is the Mint Julep in should you so desire one?  The Park describes it as "A refreshing mint drink with a hint of lime flavor", which is actually what made me hesitant to try one in the first place, and is surely why many people fall into the "glorified mouthwash" camp.  I figured the mint would more than overpower the lime in the drink, and thus be exactly like drinking mouthwash.  But after having had several of my own, I tend to think it's more of "A refreshing lime drink with a hint of mint flavor".  In all of the ones I've had, I've never felt the mint was too overpowering; it's always been light and refreshing, which is just what I'm looking for, especially on a hot Southern California day. That said, I know it's probably still not for everyone (different people have different tastes and buds), but if you're on the fence because of the mint, I have to encourage to try it for yourself and see what you think.  It just may surprise you like it did me!

And you can see exactly how it's served up, complete with a lime, lemon, a few mint leaves, lots of ice, and a cherry on top!  Delicious!

Now that you know what the Mint Julep is, I suppose you might be wondering where exactly to go to get one.  Luckily for you, I know the answer!  One place you can find it should you get a hankering for one is Cafe Orleans in New Orleans Square.  If you're going to be eating at that restaurant, it will definitely compliment your meal and with free refills, you can't go wrong.  That said, my favorite place to grab one is at the Mint Julep Bar itself, also in New Orleans Square.  It's located right next to the dining patio for the French Market restaurant.  In fact, if you are taking the Disneyland Railroad from Main Street USA to New Orleans Square, you'll most likely see the bar as soon as you de-board.  It's practically right in front of you across from The Haunted Mansion.  The drink itself will run you only $2.99 (a steal!) and is well worth the money. Sometimes you pay an amount for a drink and feel ripped off a bit, but I've never felt that in this case, and I'll usually order one and either park myself at a nearby table, or wander off into Critter Country, happily sipping away.

Really wanna go nuts?  Feel free to polish it off with an order of Mickey-shaped beignets too and feel those sugar energies soar!  A 3-pack will run you $3.99 and a 6-pack will run you $6.99.  But who doesn't love little fried Mickey heads with confectioner's sugar on top?

And there you have the Julep!  Again, I know that a lot of people probably don't or wouldn't like these little beauties, but if you've never tried one, they come with my highest recommendation and are firmly at the top of the list where it comes to my favorite "In-Park" treats.

Thank you for joining me today. Your next stop on the Magical Blogorail Loop is "Ideally Disney".

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 ~ Disney Babies Blog
2nd Stop ~ Days in the Park
3rd Stop ~ Ideally Disney
4th Stop ~ A Disney Mom's Thoughts
Final Stop ~ Capturing Magical Memories

Days In The Park's Favorite Things: The Mint Julep

We've spent some time in the past talking about Amy's favorite things, and we've even spent some time talking about Chad's favorite things, or Mark's favorite things, but every so often something comes along that we can all get on behind, prompting a big "Favorite Things!" from all of us.  Such is the case with this little Park classic on the tips of so many people's tongues (literally and figuratively), the Mint Julep in New Orleans Square.

Typically, people fall into one of two categories when they think of the Mint Juleps at The Park:

1. The "They taste like glorified mouthwash" camp and
2. The "They're the best!" camp

So, other than Amy (because she's an old hat and they're relatively new to Chad and Mark), we weren't really sure whether we initially wanted to try the little concoction or not.  But having done so we can proudly say, "They're the best!", with all the enthusiasm we can muster.

So first things first.  What exactly is the Mint Julep in should you so desire one?  The Park describes it as "A refreshing mint drink with a hint of lime flavor", which is actually what made us hesitant to try one in the first place, and is surely why many people fall into the "glorified mouthwash" camp.  We figured the mint would more than overpower the lime in the drink, and thus be exactly like drinking mouthwash.  But after having had several of our own, we tend to think it's more of "A refreshing lime drink with a hint of mint flavor".  In all of the ones we've had, we've never felt the mint was too overpowering; it's always been light and refreshing, which is just what we're looking for.  That said, we know it's probably still not for everyone (different people have different tastes and buds), but if you're on the fence because of the mint, we have to encourage to try it for yourself and see what you think.  It just may surprise you like it did us!  Our friend Amanda at Disney Go To Girl described the Julep in one of her articles as a "mint-flavored lemonade", and we think that's pretty close to the mark, too.

And you can see exactly how it's served up, complete with a lime, lemon, a few mint leaves, lots of ice, and a cherry on top!  Just hits the spot perfectly on a hot day in July in The Park.

Now that you know what the Mint Julep is, we suppose you'd be wondering where exactly to go to get one.  Luckily for you, we know the answer!  One place you can find it should you get a hankering for one is Cafe Orleans in New Orleans Square.  If you're going to be eating at that restaurant, it will definitely compliment your meal and with free refills, you can't go wrong.  That said, our favorite place to grab one is at the Mint Julep Bar itself, also in New Orleans Square.  It's located right next to the dining patio for the French Market restaurant.  In fact, if you are taking the Disneyland Railroad from Main Street USA to New Orleans Square, you'll most likely see the bar as soon as you de-board.  It's practically right in front of you across from The Haunted Mansion.  The drink itself will run you only $2.99 (a steal!) and is well worth the money we think.  Sometimes you pay an amount for a drink and feel ripped off a bit, but we've never felt that in this case, and we'll usually order one and either park ourselves at some nearby tables, or wander off into Critter Country, happily sipping away.

Really wanna go nuts?  Feel free to polish it off with an order of Mickey-shaped beignets too and feel those sugar energies soar!  A 3-pack with run you $3.99 and a 6-pack will run you $6.99.  But who doesn't love little fried Mickey heads with confectioner's sugar on top?

And there you have the Julep!  Again, we know that a lot of people probably don't or wouldn't like these little beauties, but if you've never tried one, they come with our highest recommendations and are firmly at the top of the list where it comes to our favorite "In-Park" treats.  Try one for yourself and see if you like it!

What say you?  Have you tried the Julep yourself?  Let us know what you think!  And if you've never tried one, and you plan to, come on back and let us know if you liked it.  We'd love to hear from you!

Magical Blogorail Blue: Our Favorite Dining Experience

Welcome to those of you joining me from Pursuing The Magic and those of you who have just hopped aboard.  I am the third stop on our Magical Blogorail.

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This month's topic is an easy one to get behind because it's something near and dear to my heart, and my stomach; my favorite Disney Dining Experience.  What throws a little bit of a curve-ball into the ballgame, though, is my choice for favorite dining location.  I've eaten at some of the "best" restaurants at The Resort, such as Blue Bayou, Steakhouse 55, and even the most famous (or perhaps infamous) one of them all, Club 33.  The food at each is some of the best I've probably ever had in my life, but they still don't make my list as the favorite.  So what's the one spot in The Parks that's both tasty enough and fun enough to earn the "favorite" label from me?  It's a little spot tucked into my favorite area, New Orleans Square; this is Cafe Orleans. 

Cafe Orleans Entrance

Cafe Orleans is nestled in New Orleans Square at the entrance to the Rue Royale (directly across from the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction), which ironically also houses two of the other restaurants I mentioned earlier as competitors in my mind, Club 33 and Blue Bayou, making this possibly my favorite street on the entire planet.

The Cafe itself has both an interior dining room and an exterior dining patio (pictured here) for you to eat in, but for the purposes of this article, we've only pictured the patio since it's probably our favorite place (literally) to eat inside The Parks.  Many a night (especially during the "off" season) finds us grabbing a table on the patio just before the restaurant's closing time, enjoying a slow meal (being able to take our time and enjoy our meal is always a plus in my book), and experiencing the weekend fireworks show and later Fantasmic! taking place around us.  It's a spot with almost a magical feel to it, and I just love it!  I've eaten both inside and outside at Cafe Orleans, and given a choice, I will pick outside each and every time; it's that enjoyable.  Seating inside is a little more limited than out (making it arguably the popular choice with most people), but the outside patio is huge with plenty of seating.  We like being outside near the action anyways, and it's perfect for participating in quite possibly the greatest sport on the face of the earth, people watching!  I should note, however, that the inside of the restaurant is like so many other things in The Parks: beautiful.  The decor and atmosphere inside is fantastic, so even though I'm saying eat outside, you're urged to take a poke around inside as well and enjoy the feel of the place.

Cafe Orleans Patio Dining

Now that we've taken care of the seating arrangements, it's on to what makes this truly shine in our minds: the food!  In addition to being one of our favorite atmospheres in The Parks, Cafe Orleans is also home to our favorite meal in The Park, but we'll get to that in a minute.

As you can see from the menu (click for a larger photo if you'd like), Cafe Orleans is a veritable cornucopia of Creole-inspired dishes and foods, running in three courses: starters (or appetizers), entrees (main dishes), and even though not pictured here, there is a dessert menu as well.  We rarely come without blasting our way through all three.  That's how we roll. 

I have to be honest here and say that there are only a few items on the menu that we have actually tried.  I would have to guess, like so many other things at The Resort, that they're all quite tasty and well worth giving a try if you can.  But for us, it's never made it past three primary food groups on the menu: the Pomme Frites, the New Orleans Gumbo, and the Monte Cristo Sandwich.  And as ashamed as we are to admit we've never tried anything else, we're okay with that!

Cafe Orleans Menu

Bottom to top: New Orleans Gumbo, Remoulade Sauce (for frites), Kids Mac N Cheese, Pomme Frites, Pomegranate Lemonade and Mint Julep

We've taken the liberty (it was a wrench let me tell you) of dining inside Cafe Orleans, ordering our favorite foods, and taking pictures of said food just for the readers of this article.  We hope you're happy!  Okay, so that's not entirely true.  We just had them lying around; but it sounded magnanimous, right?

First, for the drinks, we always order ourselves (and hence suggest for you) either the Pomegranate Lemonade or a Mint Julep, which they will make here for you.  We're not sure, but it might be the only place inside The Park (aside from the Mint Julep Bar at French Market) where they do this.  We're sure someone will correct us if we are wrong on that.  You can get your regular beverages such as sodas of course, but you can get those anywhere so we always opt for something a little different and special.  The Lemonade is absolutely delicious, perfectly blended and is amazingly good, especially on those long, hot days of summer.  The Mint Julep ain't half bad, either.  We know a lot of people don't like them ("they taste like toothpaste", anyone?), but we think it's a perfect blend of lime and mint (basically a minty lemonade) and we highly recommend them.  But that's one you'll have to try and see for yourself on.

The Pomme Frites (pictured in the upper right) are a must!  They may look like your average run-of-the-mill everyday french fry, but if you call them that we might have to have a duel to the death.  Crusted in garlic, parmesan cheese, parsley, and served with a spicy Creole remoulade sauce on the side, these are what God surely must have intended when He created the french fry.  No meal of ours is complete here without these little beauties.  The only question we ever ask ourselves is whether we will be sharing an order, or eating an entire basket on our own ("Mine, Mine!").

What we choose as a main course always comes down to two items: the New Orleans Gumbo or the Monte Cristo Sandwich.  The Gumbo is a spicy Cajun-style gumbo with chicken, andouille sausage, and tasso ham served in "dirty rice".  You can order it in either a cup (small) or bowl (our preferred delivery system), and it's some of the tastiest food we think we've ever had.  It's extremely flavorful, has tons of rice and meat in it (no skimping which is always a good thing), and is just spicy enough to remind us we're eating a gumbo and not spicy enough to make us (and others) regret it later in the day.

When we're not dining on Gumbo, though, we opt for the Monte Cristo (pictured below).  And yes, it's just what it looks like: a deep fried ham, turkey, and swiss-cheese sandwich with powdered sugar on top.  The "doughnut of sandwiches" we call it.  I'd like to say that 10/10 dietitians recommend the Monte Cristo, but it just wouldn't be so.  But it is served with a side of fruit and berry puree for dipping so it can't be all bad, right?  We will say that even we order this, we don't always manage to make it all the way through.  Around the midway point we start to feel it.  It is very rich, so we often wind up sharing it amongst each other to polish it off.  But if you go to Cafe Orleans, and it's your first time there, we always suggest the Monte Cristo straight off.  Everyone needs to try it at least once.  We ourselves have "tried it once" on numerous occasions.

Monte Cristo and Mint Julep

And for dessert, no trip to the Cafe is complete without an order of Mickey-shaped beignets!  Well, maybe a trip where we've already killed a Monte Cristo is okay without, but if you wipe out your meal and still have a sweet-tooth and are looking for something to inject it with, the beignets are always a fantastic option.  Fried dough (like a doughnut of course), shaped like Mickey, and sprinkled with confectioner's sugar.  What's not to love?

And Mickey-shaped Beignets for dessert!

Now that I've made myself thoroughly miserable and hungry writing this, time to wrap it up!  Cafe Orleans is a favorite of mine (and ours) for a lot of great reasons: fantastic atmosphere, terrific food, and lots of options on the menu.  It's one of our favorites for a reason, and I'm glad I got the chance to share with you exactly why.  If there's only one restaurant in The Park we can suggest to someone who's never been to Disneyland before as a "must try", it is hands-down Cafe Orleans.  Just a few things to bear in mind.  They do close earlier than a lot of other restaurants in The Park, so check with a Cast Member when you arrive and find out when so you don't miss you opportunity, especially if you are wanting to try dinner there.  Also, they do take reservations for the Cafe so you can make sure you have a guaranteed seat.  We've never had to wait more than 15-20 minutes for a table, but if you prefer to be 100% sure, you can contact Disney Dining at 714-781-DINE for your own reservations.

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Thank you for joining me today.  Your next stop on the Magical Blogorail 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 ~ Meet the Magic

2nd Stop ~ Pursuing the Magic

4th Stop ~ The CanaDisney Blog

5th Stop ~ Disney Babies Blog

Final Stop ~ Cooking with Mickey

Star Tours: The Adventures Continue Opening Day!

It seems only fitting that we end our week's worth of Star Tours: The Adventures Continue and "Star Wars" articles with a piece on the very attraction that inspired us to do so in the first place.  We've literally been talking for months now about how excited we were for the new attraction to debut, and it officially opened for the very first time yesterday.  Even though we were lucky enough to have ridden it several times before it was officially opened to the public, we were nonetheless extremely excited to get to The Park and be a part of the insanity of seeing it open to everyone.  We haven't been blogging long now, and we've never been to another attraction's official opening day before, so when you put the two together we just knew we had to be there for this one!

Our plan had originally been to be inside The Park when rope-drop occurred, but we ultimately decided to take it easy in the morning and go into The Park a little bit later than planned.  If you read our "challenge" in our post earlier in the week, you'll remember it was also originally in the plans to basically just "run around the mulberry bush" all day long and ride Star Tours over and over again until we collapsed, either from exhaustion or heart attack.  Well, you know what they say about best-laid plans, but we'll get back to that in a minute.  We wound up getting to The Park around 9:30 in the morning to this...

Greeted with madness!

It might look like it's just a mass of people moving through The Hub near the Partners Statue, but we can assure you it was not.  When we arrived the line began at the back of the statue, wound around in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle a bit, weaved towards Pixie Hollow, back into The Hub, into Tomorrowland and down towards the entrance to Star Tours, back out into The Hub again, along the front of Plaza Inn, past the entrance to Star Tours and back near the Star Trader, back towards and into the overflow room, and finally into the Star Tours building itself.  Sound convoluted enough for you?  Yeah, we though pretty much the same thing.

Several things were already kind of working against us at this point.  First, the attraction wasn't set to open until 10:30 so a long line had already had time to form.  Second, the Fast Pass system for the attraction wasn't in operation yet.  We had kind of counted on that to get us a few extra rides during the day, so we pretty much knew immediately that the number of times we were going to be able to ride were going to be drastically reduced.  But, ever the intrepid adventurers and gluttons for punishment that we are, we jumped into line and prepared to wait.

Making our first pass by Star Tours

Amy had made it out to join us by this point so along with her and Chad's son Michael, the waiting commenced.  We wish we could candy coat it and make it sound like it was the most exciting thing we had ever done, but there's really not much to say.  We wound around the area for the next three and half hours before we were finally able to board.  We spent the time tweeting, blogging (some of which you may have read), talking with some people around us, engaging an awesome Cast Member named Sam who was running part of the line at the time, and just enjoying the atmosphere.  Even though we can't really say moving through the line was exciting, the atmosphere was very much so, if that makes sense.  We loved listening to people, chatting it up, and the excitement in the air was palpable.  Even though the line was huge and the wait was long, people were genuinely excited about riding Star Tours for the first time, and it was an awesome experience to be waiting alongside them, excited just like they were.

Some of our favorite art in the overflow room - The StarSpeeder 1000

Even now we long for a trip to Alderaan!

They promised Rex and delivered. Too bad the poor guy has been labeled "defective".

Mark, Amy and Michael get ready to board!

We didn't get to spend a whole lot of time in the queue taking pictures yesterday (once inside the line moved very quickly), but we did notice a few things we hadn't before.  Rex talked!  Well, sort of.  Since he had been labeled "defective" he kind of stuttered a lot and repeated himself over and over (just like a broken droid would), but it was definitely a nice touch!  We also got a big kick out of the droid in charge of checking the luggage on the left as you move through.  As the luggage moves along the conveyer, he inspects the inside of each piece with an x-ray machine and there's some pretty funny stuff going on in some of those bags.  We won't spoil it for you, but be sure to keep an eye out for it!  And there's a Hidden Mickey in this room as well!  We'll say more about it when our friends from FindingMickey.com have had a chance to see it for themselves, but it's really cool so keep an eye out.

We made it through, got our glasses, watched the pre-flight video and hopped aboard.  Amazing atmosphere in the cabin during that first ride.  People were obviously truly excited to be on board, and there was a ton of clapping, yelling, screaming, and laughing going on.  It was awesome to be a part of it all.  Unfortunately, other than seeing a different "Rebel" on this ride (we saw Admiral Ackbar finally), we didn't get to see any new planets or sequences.  Well, Amy did, but Chad and Mark have been stuck waiting to see Coruscant or Tattooine for a few rides now.  Ah well, another excuse to ride it lots in the future!

Once we were done with that first ride, we had a decision to make, though.  Were we going to see our own "challenge" through and hop right back in line again, or move on to greener pastures?  It was already around 2:30 at the time, and after weighing our options, and given the length of time the line still was (still 2 hours plus), and thinking about how many times we'd really be able to ride the rest of the day, we decided to move on and try to catch it again later in the night.  We talked about it some later and came to the conclusion that with food being a necessity, we really would only have been to ride it one, maybe two more times than we did, so we're pretty happy with the decision that we made.  We moved on to the Tomorrowland station, and railed it on over to New Orleans Square for lunch at Cafe Orleans.  We weren't in line for Star Tours, but we had an awesome time hanging out, enjoying some fantastic grub, and watching 8-year old Michael really put the moves on Amy in some "Kids Meal" competition.

Days In The Park gets all competitive, Kid's Meal style!

Gumbo, Pomme Frites and Mac at Cheese at the Cafe

Amy's Monte Cristo and Mint Julep

Splash Mountain awaits

After an awesome lunch, we met up with another friend of ours and hopped into line (it was day all about lines) for a ride on another of our favorite attractions, Splash Mountain.  We hadn't had a chance to ride it yet since it reopened on the 27th, so we waited the hour or so it took (seemed like a drop in the bucket compared to Star Tours) to ride and get soaked.  And we meant, we got soaked.  We've never been so drenched coming off of this ride, ever.  Even when we rode it around 5 times without leaving our boat, we weren't as wet as we got yesterday.  Amy swears (and she used to work at Splash Mountain) that she's never seen a wall of water as big as the one that nailed us yesterday, so we figure that's really saying something.  We remember seeing the water rise up and over Michael's head and just making it way back along the boat.  It was seriously frightening and fun at the same time.  If you get a chance to ride Splash soon, we recommend it big time.  They seem to have ramped the water up to an 11, and it's always a good time!

Before the soaking

Hoisting the R2 popcorn bucket - Michael was so happy!

We're happy to say that we did in fact ride Star Tours just one more time before we went home.  By this point, Amy had had to mosey on but we still had a nice little group going and we decided to ride it one more time.  We hopped back in line and waited another two and half hours to ride it once more.  Saw nothing new this time, either, but had a fantastic time yet again.  There was a huge group of "Star Wars" fans on our final flight of the night that were just loving being on board, and that made it all the more fun.  Plus, riding with friends who had never ridden it before (and their little 4-year old son) made it just that much more special for us.  We left The Park around 10:30 or so, only having ridden twice, but loving every minute of our day out.

Yeah, it was longer than that...

So there you have it, the official opening of Star Tours: The Adventures Continue from the Days In The Park view.  The Day didn't really pan out the way that we had originally envisioned, but that's okay!  We had a fantastic time (we really hope that came through), and that makes it all worthwhile.  We're definitely ones that understand the importance of going with the flow while you're in The Park, and not getting stressed out or locking yourself into one thing, so for us the Day went exactly the way it was supposed to.  No regrets, no sense of failure, just an overwhelming sense of "Yeah, that's what it's all about!". 

How about you guys?  Were any of our other readers in The Park yesterday?  How many times did you brave the lines to ride?  Let us know because as always we'd love to hear from you.  Thanks for coming along with us!

We went to Star Tours Opening Day and all we got was this AWESOME shirt!

"Almost" Wordless THURSDAY (?!): Random Wanderings

We missed yesterday's Wordless post because we were on board the Magical Blogorail, so we're making it up to ourselves (and you!) today!  We took these over a span of a couple of weekends at the end of April and beginning of May and realized we hadn't posted them yet. Here they are for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

Our absolute favorite meal to eat in The Park. No, really! We do it often!

We highly recommend watching 'Vegas Vacation' to understand this one. Greatest brick ever!

Awesome early morning shot of Paradise Pier

We'll never see THIS at a 0 minute wait again!

Just hanging out in Critter Country on a Sunday morning

Her back must be KILLING her!

Not sure why they're a tad purpley, but we're okay with it

LOVE 'Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln'. Always worth a view.

Trippin' With Days In The Park: Dining

We're trippin' again!

Anyone who has followed us for any length of time by this point knows what huge fans of Gowalla we are.  One of our favorite functions that we only recently discovered is the ability to create our own trips on their website so people can complete trips that we ourselves make, highlighting some of our favorite things to do in The Parks.

Trips on Gowalla are a lot of fun to do and are easy.  By checking in at predetermined locations (or spots) within the trip, and eventually checking in at all of them, you are awarded a nice shiny virtual pin for your efforts.

About a month ago we did one highlighting our favorite attractions in the two Parks, and this month we're doing another trip for you guys, this one highlighting some of the things we enjoy almost as much (if not more so) than the attractions: Dining locations!

We each (Mark, Amy and Chad) selected three spots we like to call our "favorites" in The Parks (and one honorable mention) and created a trip from them.  We thought we'd share it with you guys today.  Just a few of our favorites included:

• Big Thunder Ranch BBQ
• Steakhouse 55
• Whitewater Snacks
• Rancho del Zocalo 
• and more!

If you want to check out all of the spots for yourself (and why we chose them), you can check out the "Dining With Days In The Park" trip on Gowalla, and we'll be adding it to the top of our website here as well.

If you're interested in doing our trip, it's easy!  If you're friends with us on Gowalla, the trip should already be showing up in your own Gowalla app since we are friends.  It's done automatically so friends can do each other's trips easier.  If we're not friends (why aren't we?!), then you can visit our trip on the Gowalla website, bookmark it, and it will then show up in your app for you to do.

Hope you guys enjoy; next time you're out at The Park, give our little trip and look-see and if there's someplace you've never eaten before, give it a try.  It is, after all, Days In The Park recommended!

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