Happy Place Hodgepodge - May and June 2014

As much as I've hesitated to say it, I suppose the truth must come out. Right now I, Days in the Park, Chad if you prefer, am basically without an Annual Pass. Well, that's not entirely true. I have a Pass, it's just blacked out right now until the middle of August so, for all intents and purposes, I'm a Pass-less Annual Pass-holding blogger. Say that five times really fast!

That being the case, pictures and trips out to Disneyland have been few and far between over the last couple of months, which has left me scrounging a mite for things to write about and digging for pictures to put up for you loyal readers!

I was going through things last week and stumbled across a few that I had trapped in the bowels of my phone which I realized I had never posted! Hooray for old age and forgetfulness!! And with that, another "Happy Place Hodgepodge" is born! These were taken over the course of several visits during the end of May and middle of June when I made my last trip to The Parks before my blackouts began.

I also managed to spend some time in Downtown Disney earlier this week and took another load of pictures to share with everyone, and those will make up another hodgepodge for later in the week, so if you're enjoying these posts, keep checking back and I promise another one really soon.

I hope that you enjoy them as much as I enjoy taking them. The Park is so full of wonder and things to see and experience that sometimes you just never feel like you can do enough. But maybe, if I keep trying and putting these up, I'll manage to fill the same hole in someone else that looking through them again fills in me while I can't go myself.

Enjoy!

One of my absolute FAVORITE things to do every trip is just to ride the Disneyland Railroad. Grand Circle tour of Walt's Magic Kingdom, anyone?

The Mighty Ducks WERE a Disney-owned team at one point; what else would I be rocking on Main Street?!

Even trains need a little water sometimes - Disneyland Railroad, New Orleans Square Station

Pioneer Chili Cheeseburger - Hungry Bear Restaurant, Critter Country

"Honey, I'm home!" - The Haunted Mansion, New Orleans Square

Look everyone, it's Amy! Four years of friendship and still going strong! #DisneylandFriendsAreTheBestFriends

I get a chance to spend time with some amazing people at Disneyland, and my friend Brittany is one of them! If you see her (and she'll probably be at the Mad T Party), tell her I said hi!

Because what else are you going to chant at 3am in the morning when you're high on Mickey Mouse Chicken and Waffles?!

See?

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The Saturday Slow-Down: A Fantasmic(!) Hungry Bear

Much like our "Fast Pass" segment which we began again yesterday after quite a hiatus, we realized that we hadn't done a "Saturday Slow-Down" recently, either. But just like it's important to have a good tip to share every now and then, we think it's important to take advantage of whatever opportunities you have inside The Parks to take a breather and just soak it all in. One such place to do that is at the Hungry Bear Restaurant at one very special time of day.

It never fails! Fantasmic! is such a popular show with the Park guests that on any given day, but especially the weekends, fans begin lining up (or sitting up if you prefer) as early as 4 or 5 in the afternoon to see it, when the show doesn't even begin until after 9! Now that's commitment and love! But for us, it's just a little bit too much; we like to catch the second showing anyway when you can pretty much just walk right up front scant minutes before the show starts. We definitely admire guests' tenacity, but we've discovered a way to slow down and enjoy the show from a much different perspective.

We like to watch, or experience if you will, the first showing of Fantasmic! from Critter Country. Of course, you'd be right in your assessment if you were to ask, "But how can you see or hear the show from there?" And yes, it's true that we don't get to see the show in its proper form (or hear it all for that matter) but for us, we enjoy getting to see something else even more: the behind-the-scenes magic. We absolutely love watching the goings-on on the Rivers of America from the upper level of the restaurant. We can watch the floats coming down the river after their part in the show, we can watch the Cast Members running around Tom Sawyer Island and changing as they get ready for their portion of the show, and we love watching the Columbia Sailing Ship come by after the Peter Pan segment in the show. Oh, and did we mention the neon monkeys?! From time to time we also enjoy just strolling down the river just before and during the show. Last time we did this it earned us a very special wave from Ariel herself!

The thing we love the most about "experiencing" the show from the restaurant though, is when the Mark Twain Riverboat comes by, and you can probably tell why just from the pictures: character interaction! For us, it is absolutely awesome to sit at our table, watch the boat go by, and yell and wave at all of the characters. We don't know if the characters get as much of a kick out of it as we do really, but yelling out at Goofy and watching him break into a dance when he hears you is truly something to behold! Yelling at Woody as the back end of the boat swings by and getting into a faux "fast-draw" contest with him (yes, it did happen) are things you just can't put a price-tag on, and it's something that unfortunately a lot of people will just never be able to experience for themselves because they won't know about it or think to do it.

A friend of ours recently (teasingly) told us we were cheating by watching the show from back here, and asked us if we thought that all the interaction and watching the "behind the scenes" stuff stole some of the magic away from everything. We guess we can see where some people might feel that way, but for us, it truly adds to the magic.

We've said it before, and we'll say it until the day we quit blogging about our adventures in The Park. Sometimes you just have to slow down and let the magic come to you. The truth is, the first time we saw the show from the Hungry Bear, we were all set to run back to New Orleans Square and watch the show from The Haunted Mansion. It wouldn't have been a very good view and we wouldn't have been able to see much, but that was the plan, and for whatever reason, we didn't do it. We got lazy and just decided to slow down, stop, and catch the second show instead. We mark it down as one of the best decisions we ever made, because not only did we have fantastic near front row seats for the second show, but we got something else out of the deal we never bargained for: another strong dose of Disney Magic delivered right to our table. And we think that's worth slowing down for.

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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"Almost" Wordless Wednesday:

Well, we do call this "almost" Wordless.  We've spent quite a bit of time the last couple of weeks just wandering The Parks and taking pictures.  These are some of the nearly 300 we took this past weekend.  We're only too happy to share.  Hope you enjoy them!

You can smell spring in the air

Loving the new animation loop in the Disney Animation Building

"Why, yes we are!"

"Yes, I'll have one diabetic coma, please."

Tale as old as time...

"Oh, I'm sorry.  Were you talking to me?"

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Days In The ParkCast - Episode 2

Show Notes:
Originally recorded: 3/27/2011
Final editing done: 3/30/2011
Hosted by: Chad Elliott & Mark Treiger

Intro featuring music by George Thorogood and the Destroyers “Any Town USA” – (music from music.mevio.com; Music Alley)
Park construction and attraction updates
- The new Disney California Adventure entrance
- Sunshine Plaza and the Carthay Circle Theater
- Disney Junior
- Disney Animation Building
- Ursula comes home to The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Undersea Adventure
- Goofy’s Sky School has an opening date!
- The reopening of Critter Country
- The reopening and a new menu at the Hungry Bear Restaurant
Steakhouse 55!
Hidden Mickey segment
Soarin’ Over California
Outro featuring music by Bowling For Soup “Friends Chicks Guitars” – (music from music.mevio.com; Music Alley

Listen Now:

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

One thing we've enjoyed doing lately is snapping off random shots with our cell phone. These are some shots from our visit last Sunday.

Enjoy!

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