This WEEK at DAYS in the Park (1/23 - 1/28)

We had a great week here at Days in the Park!  We spent an absolutely wonderful day at Disneyland this past weekend where we took a few hours just to roam around and take pictures with the kiddies.  It's not often as of late that we've been so busy while at Disneyland, though!  We have so many things in the hopper that we're working on that our entire 6-hour jaunt was dedicated solely to our "tasks at hand".  But we had a lot of fun doing it, got a lot of great material to share on our blog (and some other blogs, too!), and we can't wait to get it out there!  Plus, this week was a good one on the blog, as well!  It's been quite some time since we had almost a  full week's worth of articles at the ready, but we did this week!  We hope that everyone enjoyed reading along with us, but in case you missed anything at all:

Monday, Chad ran off to play with our friend Beth at "Pursuing the Magic", with an article for her "In Pursuit of Pirates" series and a look at Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean attraction

On Tuesday, with Monday already taken, we were back with one our favorite weekly segments, "Where Are We? - Magical Mystery Mondays (Tuesday edition!) where we challenge our readers to guess, where, at Disneyland a particular picture was taken.  This weeks picture?  Fowler's Landing in Frontierland/New Orleans Square/Critter Country!

In this week's "Almost" Wordless Wednesday, we continue our "random ramblings" throughout the Disneyland Resort with pictures of King Triton's Carousel of the Sea, the Paradise Pier boardwalk, Disneyland mailboxes, Beaker, and more!

On Thursday, we introduced our brand new weekly segment where we're taking your questions (which we find from your Google searches), and answering them here on our blog in their own article.  This week's conundrum?  Are FASTPASSes good after their posted times?

And finally, on Friday, we're talking about our first foray into the world of RunDisney, and the beginning of our pursuit to participate in the Disneyland Half-Marathon during the final weekend in August

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Like we said earlier, we're really excited to have been able to produce almost a full week's worth of articles for our readers; it really has been quite some time since we've been able to do that.  Things just got so crazy over the holidays, and throw in a little flu/bronchitis, etc. for good measure and honestly, it's a wonder we published things as often as we did.  But we're back on schedule now, and enjoying every minute of it!

We have some really neat things coming up inside Disneyland that we're working on for the blog.  We talked about our RunDisney adventure this week (and will continue to do so often in the future), we're finally going to talk a little bit about the "One More Disney Day" program, we have another book review coming from Mark (and maybe even a giveaway too - teaser!), and of course, we'll have our regular articles ready to go like our "Magical Mystery Mondays", "Random Ramblings with Days in the Park", and our "Disneyland Tips & Tricks Thursdays" based on questions from your web searches.

If you haven't already, we definitely want to encourage you to listen to the latest episode of our podcast, the Days in the ParkCast which we plan on releasing sometime in the next couple of days.  We have our friend Beth (from "Pursuing the Magic" and "The Magical Blogorail") on the show and it was truly special for us.  She is one fantastic lady and we are so fortunate to have met her when we did and she means the world to us.  It really was a privilege to have her sit down with us (on the other side of the country, no less!) and talk some Disney Magic.  Plus, we hint at a pretty exciting bit during the show, and you just might be hearing a lot more from Beth in the future as well and with more regularity; have we said too much?  If you haven't taken the time to start listening to us yet, we'd love to have you give us a try!  You can subscribe to our show and listen to us in iTunes, or you can listen to our show on our "ParkCast" website: http://www.daysintheparkcast.com.  Give us a listen and let us know what you think!  We'd love to hear back from you!

We can't wait to see what the next few weeks, and months, will bring to "Days".  Thanks so much for stopping by!  It's going to be a great week, so come on back.  We love having you around!

This WEEK at DAYS in the Park (1/16 - 1/21)

The last few weeks have been pretty crazy around here at Days in the Park.  With the Christmas holidays in full swing, and a lot of illness going around, we just haven't been able to make it out to Disneyland for "blog fodder", or to write about our favorite place on the planet, as much as we would have liked.  We do apologize to all of our readers for the sporadic nature of things as of late.  However, we're slowly picking up steam again and put out a few items more regularly than as of late this week.  We can only hope it's a good sign of great things to come!  We truly appreciate our readers and feel that you guys deserve the best, and regular, that we can give.  We're trying so please bear with us as we continue to start rolling again!

On Tuesday, Amy was finally back with us after a fairly long hiatus (we've missed her!) to talk about another one of her "Favorite Things" from the Disneyland Resort: Flashback!

In this week's "Almost" Wordless Wednesday, we spent one last evening out on the final night of Holidays at the Disneyland Resort, our DROIDs in hand, capturing some shots to share with our readers of the random fun

And finally on Thursday, we teased a brand-new (as of yet unnamed!) segment where, weekly, we'll be answering one unknown reader's question about different topics from around the Disneyland Resort

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Like we said earlier, things have been pretty crazy around here lately, but we're finally experiencing some more normalcy in our routines and hopefully that will begin to show up in all of our articles.  We have some really neat things coming up inside Disneyland that we're working on doing (like the "One More Disney Day" and Half Marathon Weekend) that we're super-excited to begin talking about and you'll be hearing more about those (especially the marathon!) many times over the coming month/s.  And we couldn't be happier to see Amy back!  We've really missed her around here, so let her know you enjoyed seeing her back as well!  We're also really excited to have found another way to "give back" by answering your search engine questions and can't wait to begin rolling out this week.  We always see some interesting (and downright funny!) ones come up, so it should be a lot of fun all around.  Our Magical Mystery Monday games continue to do well, and there's no shortage of spots for those, so look for them to continue, and we have more than the lion's share of pictures just waiting to be rolled out in our "Almost" Wordless Wednesday offerings.  Should be loads of fun!

Our ParkCast (podcast) continues to grow and do well, which we're very happy about.  We're getting new downloads each and every day, so someone is listening!  We're very thankful for everyone that has!  We'll be working on a brand new episode this weekend to drop next week, and we have a very special guest along for the ride, so be sure to keep your eyes (and ears!) open for its release.  If you haven't taken the time to start listening to us yet, we'd love to have you give us a try!  You can listen to, or download, our show on our "ParkCast" website: http://www.daysintheparkcast.com, or you can subscribe to our show and listen to us in iTunes.  Give us a listen and let us know what you think!  We'd love to hear back from you!

We can't wait to see what the next few weeks, and months, will bring to "Days".  Thanks so much for stopping by!  It's going to be a great week, so come on back.  We love having you around!

Odds And Ends: Weekly Cap-Off (7/25-7/31)

It's been a busy week here at Days In The Park!  We're fully back in the groove of things now that our blog redesigns are done, and we only missed Tuesday this week!  Not sure how we did miss that one day, but we'll just have to assume something must have been going on and we'll have to make it up to you guys this week.  Just to recap:

On Monday, we challenged you with our weekly "Magical Mystery Mondays" to guess where in The Parks we were when we took a particular picture.  This week's came courtesy of the Greetings From California store in Disney California Adventure.  We have a lot of fun with these every week, so make sure you stop by each and every Monday to participate with us.  Guess correctly, and you'll find your name posted on our blog come Tuesday morning!

Wednesday,we celebrated a Park birthday for our "Almost" Wordless Wednesday when our very own M.J. turned "The Big 9"

On Thursday,we were back with our weekly article about our Vinylmation collecting with a "Vinylmation of the Week" piece; this week highlighting Janice from the Muppets Series #2

We were blog hopping on Friday with our friend at Magical Days With The Mouse, highlighting another fond Days In The Park memory; this week's featuring some of the Days In The Park Kiddies

And lastly, on Saturday, we spent some time talking about another one of our "Favorite Things" to partake of in The Parks, the Mint Julep

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It should be a really good week at Days In The Park!  We'll be recording Episode 7 of our Days In The Park podcast which we're really looking forward to.  Our show is doing really well these days with quite a few people listening in, and we think we have another great set of topics to talk about in this one.  We'll be recording and editing this week so we can get it out quickly, so be on the lookout for it.  We also have some pretty cool articles coming!  Mark is busy writing an article about one of our favorite Park treasures from the Main Street Candy Palace (and it's not candy!), and we have a new video coming we shot on one of our favorite little attractions we want to share.  Plus, we'll be back with our regular segments so be sure to tune in for our "Magical Mystery" Mondays, "Almost" Wordless Wednesdays, and come back to hop with us for our "Disney Flashback" Friday.

It's going to be a great week, so come on back.  We love having you around!

Odds And Ends: Weekly Cap-Off (6/20-6/26)

Visits to the Park this week:  1

Just one visit this week.  We're out at The Park today for Star Wars Day At Disneyland soaking up the sun and the fanboy goodness.  Summer is here and we're not spending nearly enough time at The Resort.  We're going to have to fix that!

Last Week on Days In The Park:

On Monday, Chad was invited to contribute to Disney Donna Kay's blog with a "Mentoring Mondays" article

Tuesday, we wrote about our recent excursion to the Walt Disney Studios for D23's "50 and Fabulous" screening of the classic Disney film, "The Parent Trap"

It was a ride on The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh on Wednesday for our "Almost" Wordless Wednesday

We got back to our usual Vinylmation fun on Thursday with a brand new "Vinyl of the Week" post: Runaway Brain Mickey

And lastly, on Friday, we released the latest episode of our podcast; Episode 5 of the Days In The Parkcast

Here At Days In The Park:

Probably the biggest thing coming in the near future to Days In The Park is a whole new look!  Chad and Stephanie are hard at work with an entirely new redesign for the blog that we hope will be done this week!  It would be nice to start off next week with a "fresh slate", so to speak.  It's not to say we don't enjoy our blog now, but we're trying to make it more "our own" and more fitting for our personalities.  We think it's looking great so far and we can't wait to debut it!

As always, we have tons of articles and ideas in the works.  We need more days in the week!  Lots of new original articles coming, and we can't wait for you guys to read them.  We'll also have our usual weekly articles like "Magical Mystery Mondays", "Almost Wordless Wednesday", and "Vinylmation Domination" all ready to go.

We hope that you'll keep coming by and spending an occasional Day with us.  We love having you around!

Odds and Ends: Weekly Cap-Off (6/6 - 6/12)

Visits to the Park this week:  1

It's been a down week for us!  After all the excitement of the new attractions opening up this week, only Chad made it into The Park this week on Thursday to ride a few attractions and take some pictures.

Still, any week with a visit is a good week, and we always enjoy our Days In The Park, whether they come in singles or great big batches!  

Last Week on Days In The Park:

On Monday, we treated you to a "Magical Mystery Monday" location featuring Innoventions

It was our usual Park picture randomness on Wednesday with our "Almost" Wordless Wednesday

Friday, we hopped back on board the Magical Blogorail Blue Line and gave you our "Must-Do" attraction if you are ever in The Park

And lastly on Saturday we gave your our weekly Vinlymation Domination article with not one but two Vinyl of the Week: Kevin Flynn

This Week At The Parks:

With "Soundsational Summer" already here and this month's big openings (Star Tours and The Little Mermaid) happening last weekend, the next couple of weeks are going to be the status quo around The Parks.  With summer finally officially here, and the last of the nation's schools finally closing down for the break, we expect the crowds to really start flying high.  And speaking of flying high, it's less than three weeks until the all new Paradise Pier opens up in Disney California Adventure.  We can't wait to see how it all shakes out with the new restaurants and park.  Two new restaurants, Boardwalk Pizza and Pasta and Paradise Garden Grill will be opening.  New food to sample is always a good thing to us.  Not only that, but the all-new Goofy's Sky School (where Mulholland Madness once resided) is set to open on the same day.  It should be another big one as the construction around this Park continues hurtling towards the debut of Cars Land, now officially set for Summer 2012. 

A couple of big announcements were also made this week regarding ElectTRONica.  The Resort announced this week that the weekend show that has proven so popular since last fall (when it opened to highlight and pump up interest in "TRON: Legacy") will remain open until Spring of 2012.  Also, one of its most popular denizens, Laserman, will have an all-new show debuting this Friday, June 17th.  His show has proven very popular up to this point, and it's awesome to see him bringing all new material to the party.

Video of the Week:
As noted on the Disney Parks Blog this week, World of Color, the nighttime show and extravaganza which has to this point had more than 700 performances and 3 million guests in attendance, turned one year old yesterday.

World of Color has been one of our favorites since the first time we saw it (we've seen it several times at this point, of course), and as such we felt it deserved a place in our Video of the Week segment this week.

We hope you enjoy this snippet as much as we did!

Here At Days In The Park:

We're always kicking around ideas here at our offices in suburban Rancho Cucamonga, and we think we have some pretty exciting and fun things lined up for all of our readers during the summer.  We can't blow the whistle on all of it (what would be the fun in that?), but we can tell you that we're working on a new "Pathing Around The Park" article for you, we plan on giving you a little Disneyland History lesson of sorts, and we ate at Tangaroa Terrace (one of the new eateries at the Disneyland Hotel) this week so we're anxious to report back on that.  We're also anxious to write our perspectives on both of the new attractions (The Little Mermaid and Star Tours) so those should be coming in the very near future, as well.

We'll also have our usual weekly articles like "Magical Mystery Mondays", "Almost Wordless Wednesday", and "Vinylmation Domination" all ready to go.

And no, we haven't forgotten that we also have a podcast here at Days In The Park!  We're also hard at work on a new Days In The Parkcast which we plan on recording at some point this week, so we all have that to look forward.  Some fun things to do and write about are coming, and we can't wait to share them all with you!

We hope that you'll keep coming by and spending an occasional Day with us.  We love having you around!

Odds And Ends: Weekly Cap-Off (5/30 - 6/5)

Visits to the Park this week:  2

Our streak of multiple-trip weeks continues!  We really should start keeping track of these.  It might be fun to see just how many we can string together in a row.

On Friday we were out for the Opening Day of Star Tours: The Adventures Continue at The Park, and this evening we will be making one of our world-class Banzai runs into The Park for some fun with friends.

Sounds like a great way to cap-off the week to us! 

Last Week on Days In The Park:

It was Star Tours/"Star Wars" Week here at Days In The Park, as every single one of our posts had something to do with the two in honor of the new attraction's official opening this past Friday.

On Monday, we introduced our Star Tours week to you

Tuesday, we let you know all about Star Wars Day At Disneyland 

We took you along with us for the Annual Passholder Preview of Star Tours in our "Almost" Wordless post on Wednesday

Thursday, it was Vinylmation Domination with our "Vinyl of the Week" from the Star Wars Series #1 set: Boba Fett

On Friday, we blogged several times from inside The Park as we stood in line waiting for our first "official" trip around the galaxy in the newly enhanced StarSpeeder 1000

And lastly, we gave you a recap of our entire Day In The Park as we attended Opening Day for Star Tours: The Adventures Continue as nothing more than the rabid "Star Wars" fans that we are

This Week At The Parks:

It's here!  "Soundsational Summer" has arrived!

Mickey's Soundsational Parade opened up in Disneyland Park last Friday on May 27th, The Little Mermaid and Star Tours opened up this past Friday on June 3rd, and the all new pool and restaurants Tangaroa Terrace and Trader Sam's at the Disneyland Hotel as well.

Sounds like the perfect time to be in The Parks to us! 

Video of the Week:
This video came out earlier in the week on the Disney Parks YouTube Channel and is just the perfect video to go along and cap off this week's theme.  It's been making the rounds a lot the last couple of days, and with good reason.  It's epic!

Without further ado, Darth Vader visits Disneyland!

Here At Days In The Park:

As much as we loved doing all of these "Star Wars" posts, next week we'll revert back to our normal state of things around the blog.  We have a few cool posts lined up to do, and we'll be at the ready again with our "Where Are We?", "Almost Wordless Wednesday", and "Vinylmation Domination" segments.

We promised a surprise as well for our Star Tours week; we haven't forgotten!  We're running a little bit behind on it, but we're getting everything ready to go with that and should be able to break it out this week!  We won't say exactly what we'll be doing, but does the word "giveaway" mean anything to anyone?  

We're also hard at work on a new podcast which we plan on recording at some point this week, so we all have that to look forward.  Some fun things to do and write about are coming, and we can't wait to share them all with you!

We hope that you'll keep coming by and spending an occasional Day with us.  We love having you around!

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!

Odds and Ends: Weekly Cap-Off (5/16 - 5/22)

Visits to the Park this week:  3
Multiple trips out this week.  We love those kind of weeks!  

We were out on Monday to get our first ride on Star Tours: The Adventure Continues thanks to some wonderful Cast Member friends we have made since we began blogging.  We were out again on Saturday to do the same, only this time we were blessed to have gotten a sneak peek at The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure.  We can't wait for everyone to be able to come out and ride these attractions; they were amazing and well worth the wait!  And on Sunday we were out for our DLRNetwork "Tweet-Up" in The Park with our little group of sites hanging out with some of our readers.

All in all a great week in The Parks! 

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 you a peek at the new Star Tours: The Adventure Continues commercial that dropped this week 

We hopped back on the Magical Blogorail on Wednesday and took you along and showed you some of our favorite shopping spots inside The Parks

Thursday, we made up our lack of an "Almost" Wordless post since we were riding the Blogorail on Wednesday

And lastly, we picked up where we left off on a previous post and began "Pathing Around The Park" again on Friday

This Week At The Parks:
The summer is almost here!  Although summer doesn't officially begin until the 21st of June, summer in The Parks is almost ready to blow!

The first of the new big summer attractions opens this week in The Parks as Mickey's Soundsational Parade debuts in Disneyland Park this Friday, May 27th.  If you have some time this weekend and can make it out, check out the Parade and let us know what you think of it.  We can't wait to see it for ourselves, and we're not even "parade people"!

Video of the Week:
For what are probably obvious reasons (if you read our blog at all) this week's featured video is all about Star Tours: The Adventure Continues.  The Disney Parks Blog ran a contest recently wherein 1,200 lucky readers were among the first to be able to ride this new attraction early this past Friday morning.  This is a video of that experience we're bringing on to share with you.  Think you'll enjoy it!



Here At Days In The Park:  
If all goes according to plan, it should be a pretty good week here on our little blog, and we have a lot of great articles we're planning on writing.  We're going to get back to our "Adventures In Vinyl" and we have a new Vinylmation segment we're going to be debuting as well.  In addition, we're going to give you an ultra-quick, ultra-generic (because we don't want to spoil it!) review of Star Tours: The Adventure Continues, which we got to ride earlier in the week.  And Chad can't wait to let you in (finally!) on how his AIDS Walk with FindingMickey.com went earlier in the month as well as letting you in on one of his "Favorite Things".

We'll also have our regular weekly "Magical Mystery" and "Almost Wordless" segments, of course. 

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

Odds and Ends: Weekly Cap-Off (5/09 - 5/15)

Visits to the Park this week:  1
Only one trip out this week.  Crazy, right?  I think that we were still trying to recuperate from our all-day "Pirates" Premiere extravaganza last week.  

However, we'll be back in The Park tonight celebrating some birthdays.  The core of Days In The Park bloggers (Chad, Mark and Amy) all have birthdays this month so we made a pact some time ago to celebrate with a dinner at Big Thunder Ranch BBQ.  Bring on the ribs, chicken, sausage, cornbread, baked beans and slaw, we say!   

Last Week on Days In The Park:
On Monday, Mark wrote about a special occasion he recently experienced in The Park when he got to meet Disneyland's first president, Jack Lindquist

For all of Tuesday and Wednesday, we took you along with us for the "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" World Premiere at The Park and showed you tons of pictures (lots of celebrities!) from the event

And Friday, we released the latest episode of our podcast, Episode 4 of the Days In The Parkcast: "Pirates of the Temple of Terror"

This Week At The Parks:
We know that it's technically not this week, but we couldn't help ourselves; 19 days and counting!  That's how long it will be until what we consider the biggest day of the summer, June 3rd and the arrival (at least to the general public) of Star Tours: The Adventure Continues and The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure.  We've been talking about them for months here and we simply cannot wait.  The walls around these attractions have already begun coming (or may have completely come) down at this point and the big picture this week was from Star Tours, where the sign out front was lit up.  We hear there was a line of people at various times this week just to take a picture of the sign!  We already know for a fact that we are going to get to ride them a bit earlier than the general public, but expect us to be there on June 3rd right along with everyone else, standing in line and waiting our turn!

The Disney Parks Blog posted a great video this week of a behind-the-scenes look at the construction still taking place (but moving forward fast!) at Disney's California Adventure as we creep closer to Cars Land which will be here in Summer 2012.  Check it out!



Here At Days In The Park:  
With some of the issues with Blogger this week (the site we use to write Days In The Park) we're running a little behind on some things.  Almost two full days of posts (posts we had already written) were lost and we'll have to make them up.  Chad still needs to sit down and write about the AIDS Walk OC 2011, we still need to get back to "Pathing" around The Park and show you how we enjoy moving to and fro, and we'll be jumping back on board The Magical Blogorail Blue this week with our favorite shopping spots around The Resort.  We'll also have our regular weekly "Magical Mystery" (it is back!) and "Almost Wordless" segments, of course. 

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

Odds and Ends: Weekly Cap-Off (5/02 - 5/08)

Visits to the Park this week:  2
We made a couple of great trips into The Park this week!  On Tuesday, Chad was able to take his entire family out for a few hours to celebrate his birthday.  It's the first time he's actually been in The Park on his birthday, and he has the pin to prove it!

And on Saturday, we braved the crowds for the world premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides... 

Last Week on Days In The Park:
On Monday we hit you with another Magical Mystery Monday spot and challenged you to guess where in The Parks we were

We gave you a quick rundown of all of the ways you can keep up with Days In The Park and Stephanie shanghaied the blog for Chad's birthday on Tuesday

We were "triple-stuft" on Wednesday!  We put out another batch of our random wanderings photos with our "Almost" Wordless Wednesday segment, Chad gave a huge thank you to everyone for their virtual birthday gifts, and we shared a fantastic "time-lapse" video of the construction of The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure with you

We took you along with us for a nighttime ride on the Matterhorn Bobsleds on Thursday

Friday we gave you the "details of an upcoming tweet-up" we are co-hosting with our family of sites on the DLRNetwork on May 22nd

And finally, on Saturday, we wrote several posts from inside The Park before and after the Pirates of the Caribbean world premiere. Check them out!

At The Parks:
This week looks to be one of the last fairly calm weeks in The Park before the proverbial storm called "summer" hits.

We're not really a "news outlet" ourselves, so we don't tend to report on things too far in advance, but expect this section to fill up over the next few weeks as new restaurants, attractions, and shows open up all over The Parks.  We can't wait!

Here At Days In The Park:  
Last Friday we sat down and recorded our latest podcast, the "Days In The Parkcast - Episode 4".  We'll be getting that out to you one day this week as soon as it's all edited, fresh-smelling and clean!

We've been busy the last couple of weeks inside The Parks, so we'll have lots to write about as well!  Mark will be on board to talk about meeting Jack Lindquist (if you don't know who he is, stay tuned!) last week, Chad will step up and give us the lowdown on the AIDS Walk OC 2011 he participated in last week, and we'll hopefully have some decent Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides world premiere information on deck for you.  We'll also have our regular weekly "Magical Mystery" and "Almost Wordless" segments, of course. 

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

Odds and Ends: Weekly Cap-Off (4/25 - 5/01)

Visits to the Park this week:  3
Any week when we get in multiple trips is a great one! We were invited by a Cast Member friend into the "employees only" 'Company D' store on Thursday to do a little bargain-basement shopping, Mark was able spend the entire day in The Park on Friday with his family, and we'll both be in The Parks on Sunday (albeit at different times) while Chad participates in the AIDS Walk OC 2011 and Mark tries to meet one Jack Lindquist and get a copy of In Service To The Mouse signed.

Next week promises to be another "multi-trip" week as well, and we can't wait to get back here and talk all about it, but we suppose we should get through this week first. So without further ado...

Last Week on Days In The Park:
On Monday we picked up where we left off a few weeks ago with another one of our popular (we love all of the participation!) "Magical Mystery Mondays"

Wednesday, we put out another batch of our random wanderings photos with our "Almost" Wordless Wednesday segment

We invited you to come on a stroll around The Park with us in a new segment called "Pathing Around The Park" on Thursday

Friday we picked up from where we left off a few months ago with our "Friday Fast Pass" where we talked about, you guessed it, Disney's Fastpass Service

And finally, on Saturday, we slowed it down with a "Saturday Slow-Down" segment where we talked about one of our favorite places to view Fantasmic!, and it's not right in front!

At The Parks:
There are a few fairly notable events happening at The Parks this week that we're going to do our best to go to and hopefully write about.

Like we mentioned earlier, there are couple of really good things happening today (Sunday). The 25th annual AIDS Walk OC (Orange County) is taking place at The Resort, and Chad will be participating with our friends at FindingMickey.com for the first time. We think that it's a great cause and it's an honor for us to participate in a small way. Also, Disney Legend (with the company since 1955 and former President of Disneyland) Jack Lindquist will be in The Park signing copies of his memoir In Service to the Mouse. Mark is going to try and pick up a copy early Sunday morning and be in line for an autograph in the afternoon. Here's hoping he can write about that more later in the week.

The biggest news this week though is, of course, the world premier of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides in Disneyland Park. New Orleans Square is being readied, the seating stands for the lucky attenders are going up, and the giant screen where the movie will be shown is being set up in the middle of Rivers of America. We plan on getting there bright and early on Saturday morning (for reference, Disneyland Park will be closing at 5pm Saturday for the showing) to stake out our claim for the red carpet (black in this case) event down Main Street, U.S.A. that the entire country will no doubt be attending. We're not a news outlet or anything like that (we're just fans and it's a day in The Park, so hey, why not go?) but here's hoping we can snap a few photos of some celebrities and maybe shake a hand or two; maybe even Johnny Depp. It sure would make Chad's wife Stephanie happy!

Here At Days In The Park:  
Next Sunday we sit down to record Episode 4 of the Days In The Parkcast (our monthly podcast) for you. Hard to believe we're already going to be doing our fourth episode! If you haven't had a chance to listen to our first three shows yet, we'd love to have you do so. You can find them here at the top of our website.

And we're going to be writing, too! We have a week's worth of wholesome goodness simmering and ready for you. We'll have our regular weekly "Magical Mystery" and "Almost Wordless" segments, of course. But we're also going to be talking about all the ways you can keep up with The Parkers, a nighttime ride on the Matterhorn Bobsleds, we'll be picking up where we left off on the west side of Sleeping Beauty Castle for another "Pathing Around The Park", and we'll hopefully have plenty to say about our activities from inside The Parks this week.

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

Odds and Ends: Weekly Cap-Off (4/18 - 4/24)

Visits to the Park this week:  0
No trips this week! The weekends are usually our time to play, but with the Easter holiday weekend upon us, for us, family and time at church are just way more important. We hope that all of our readers have a fantastic weekend and if you do celebrate it, Happy Easter to you!

Last Week on Days In The Park:
We were still riding the "vacation" wave during the first part of the week, but picked up the sword again on Thursday and started swinging.

We put out the third (can't believe we're at 3 already!) episode of the Days In The Parkcast (podcast) on Thursday

And on Friday, Chad got all sentimental and talked about one of his favorite things in The Park; his wife Stephanie

At The Parks:
Summer is coming!  Could we be more excited?!

They were filming the commercial for The Park's newest parade, Mickey's Soundsational Parade just yesterday.  We know a lot of people were there and from what we've heard, the floats that were present looked amazing.  We're not huge parade people usually, but we do like to see new things so we're pretty excited about this!  The Disney Parks Blog ran a video a while back (we think we might have even showed it before) giving a little preview and information on the creating of the show, so we thought we'd share it again!  In addition, our friend Sarah from Magical Days With The Mouse took a lot of great shots of the filming yesterday so be sure to check her out too!

We're also steadily moving closer and closer to June 3rd and the debut of The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure, Star Tours: The Adventure Continues and Goofy's Sky School.  It should be a red-letter day in The Parks.  We've entered the AP (Annual Passholder) sweepstakes to try and be one of the first to ride Star Tours (during the soft opening dates) so we're hoping we get picked; the drawing for the sweepstakes will be on May 16th, so there's plenty of time to enter if you haven't already.  There are several days to choose from, with two time slots (12 - 4pm and 4 - 8pm daily) each day to choose from as well.  The more days and slots you pick the better your chances of getting in.  If you haven't entered yet, what are you waiting for?  Check out the AP section of the official Disneyland website to enter yourself, and good luck!  The Parks Blog is also running a special Imagineer Meet-Up for The Little Mermaid, too.  If you're interested in signing up for a shot at the 150 spots available, check out the link for more details!

Next Sunday (May 1st) will also be the day of the 25th Annual AIDS Walk Orange County which is being held at The Resort.  Chad will be walking as part of Team Finding Mickey with our friends Neil and Rosemary from FindingMickey.com.  Having seen firsthand what AIDS can do to a nation (having living overseas as a teenager), we feel extremely blessed and excited that Chad has this opportunity.  Be thinking of him as he walks the 5K (3.2 miles) all over Disneyland Park, Disney California Adventure and Downtown Disney next Sunday, and for everyone who is participating in this important charity event.  

Here At Days In The Park: 
We just released Episode 3 of our Days In The ParkCast this week, and we've picked up some new listeners since then.  You guys are awesome!  If you haven't had a chance to listen to us yet, we'd love to have you guys do so and let us know you think.  You can listen to it on our website (we include all of our episodes at the top of the site), through whatever RSS reader you choose, or we're available in the iTunes store.  If you listen to us in iTunes, we'd really appreciate it if you would take the time to leave us a rating and even a review if you see fit.  Anything that will help more people find us and listen is okay by us!  Several people have now and we're very appreciative to all of you!  Heck, even if you don't listen to us in iTunes you can still check out our iTunes page and leave us a rating or a review. Every little bit helps. You can find the means to subscribe to us at the top of our website, in the right sidebar.

We're looking forward to slowly getting back and picking up the pace this week.  We're not sure what schedule we want to keep exactly, but we're thinking it's probably going to be more of a, "if we have something to say we'll say it", mentality in the future.  Knowing us, we'll have something to say every day, but if we don't, well, we've decided we'll be okay with that too.

We did take a look at the weekly segments we were doing and which ones performed well (and which didn't) so we could decide what we'd like to keep and what we'd like to maybe shunt for the time being.  Our newest, "Magical Mystery Mondays" continues to do really well as people try to guess where our pictures are taken (glad so many people are participating in them), as well as our "Almost Wordless Wednesday" posts (people love Park pictures).  Unfortunately, what didn't make the cut were our "KILT - Karacters I Love Thursday" posts.  They were really popular (by our standards anyways) and did well at first, but not so much anymore, so we've decided to shift our focus on Thursdays to something else, or maybe just use the day to write and plan some new articles; we'll have to see.  At any rate, it doesn't mean we won't take character pictures anymore (we love doing it), but we'll just include them in our regular articles in the future.  We know that not everything we try is going to work well, so we're okay with that.  Thanks for letting us try it out for a while!

And as always, we'll be sure to fill in any gaps we have with some of our thoughts, mischief, favorite things, videos and pictures, or anything else we can think of to share some of our favorite times with you.

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

Odds and Ends: Weekly Cap-Off (4/4 - 4/10)

Visits to the Park this week:  0
We took the week off!  No trips this week so we can reset ourselves and spend some time at home with the families.  Next week though, well that's a different matter entirely!

Last Week on Days In The Park:
For "Magical Mystery Monday" we challenged you to guess just where we were in The Parks (we wound up being in Engine-Ears Toys in Disney California Adventure)

Tuesday we took you along with us as we battled the evil Emperor Zurg in Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters

For our "Almost" Wordless Wednesday, we took some random photos around The Park, including Critter Country, The Disney Animation Building, and Fantasmic!

We gave you a look at one of our all-time favorites monsters Sully in Thursday's KILT

And finally, on Friday, we hopped about the Magical Blogorail Blue and gave you some ways we choose to bring The Park Magic home with us

At The Parks:
There were a couple of news items from inside The Parks that were of particular interest to us.  One we know we'll be able to do, and one we know there's just now way in heck we'll be able to.

First, what we can't do!  Like they did with "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End", The Park will be hosting the world premiere of the movie inside Disneyland Park.  This one is pretty special as it will be the world's first ever premiere, outdoors, in 3D.  Sounds pretty sweet!  The price unfortunately took it well outside of our "doable" range.  Individual tickets were priced at $1,000, and were available at piratespremiere.com.  We say "were" because they're already sold out, but it was for a good cause as well.  The entire amount earned from the event is going to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.  Still wanting to see the stars?  All is not completely lost!  The Park will be opening early that day (rise and shine bright and early at 7:00am) and closing early as well (5:00pm).  If you have a hankering to see your favorite stars from the film, there is a chance you will get to do so.  The red carpet (black in this event) will be on Main Street, USA, and there is a chance to see them there.  However, bear in mind the place will crowded; if it's something you want to try and do, better get there early and plan on camping for a long time.  Seating and viewing space will undoubtedly be very limited. The Parks Blog posted another great Pirates video this week we thought we'd share with you, too.

Second, what we can do!  Work continues on The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure, of course.  It seems like we're reporting on some new little item each and every week, which we suppose makes sense; we're less than two months away from its opening!  In this week's article, the Disney Parks Blog gave us a look the design for some of the Ariel audio-animatronics which will be inside the attraction.  We love sharing this kind of stuff, so we're passing it on to you guys for your own enjoyment.

Here At Days In The Park: 
We just released Episode 2 of our Days In The ParkCast last week, and we've picked up some new listeners since then.  You guys are awesome!  If you haven't had a chance to listen to us yet, we'd love to have you guys do so and let us know you think.  You can listen to it on our website (we include all of our episodes at the top of the site), through whatever RSS reader you choose, or we're available in the iTunes store.  If you listen to us in iTunes, we'd really appreciate it if you would take the time to leave us a rating and even a review if you see fit.  Anything that will help more people find us and listen is okay by us!  Heck, even if you don't listen to us in iTunes you can still check out our iTunes page and leave us a rating or a review. Every little bit helps. You can find the means to subscribe to us at the top of our website, in the right sidebar.

We have a few things we're working on getting out this week we're looking forward to.  We really enjoyed making a Gowalla trip and posting about that a few weeks ago (you can find said trip at the top of our site under "Gowalla Trips") and we've made another one we'll be talking about this week, featuring food.  And who doesn't like good food?!  So you can look forward to that.  We'll also be revisiting our "Saturday Slow Down" segment this week and talk about an evening we recently spent at the Hungry Bear Restaurant.  One of our favorite places in The Park to slow down.  

Our "Magical Mystery Mondays" segment continues to do well; we still have a lot of people guessing and participating so we're going to keep that up!  We enjoy getting our readers involved in any way that we can.  We'll also continue to throw some pictures out for our "Almost" Wordless Wednesday and KILT posts just like we always do.

And as always, we'll be sure to fill in any gaps we have with some of our thoughts, mischief, favorite things, videos and pictures, or anything else we can think of to share some of our favorite Days In The Parks with you.

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

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Odds and Ends: Weekly Cap-Off (3/28 - 4/3)

Visits to the Park this week:  1
It's the most wonderful night of the week!  Well, in truth, we try to make them all the best that we can, but we do enjoy our Sunday evenings running around The Parks, and that's exactly where Chad and Mark will be tonight.  If you're there also, let us know!  We'd love to say hi!

Last Week on Days In The Park:
For "Magical Mystery Monday" we challenged you to guess just where we were in The Parks (we wound up being at the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror)

Tuesday we had the latest in our "Adventures In Vinyl" and Chad gave you a look at how he chooses to store and display his own little collection of plastic

For our "Almost" Wordless Wednesday, we took some random photos around The Park, including Critter Country, The Hub, and Fantasmic!

We gave you a look at Donald and Daisy Duck during "Kickin' Country Weekend" on Thursday's KILT

Friday, we took you on another "First Time Fridays" and told you about our first trip to the brand new "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" 3D Sneak Peek in Frontierland

And finally, on Saturday, we released the second episode of our Days In The ParkCast podcast to the masses

At The Parks:
There were a couple of news items from inside The Parks that were of particular interest to us.

As we noted last week, Disneyland Park has begun showing a brand new, exclusive 3D Sneak Peek of the new "Pirates of the Caribbean:  On Stranger Tides" movie inside the Festival Arena.  Showings will run through May 30th (on weekends), and nightly beginning April 15 and running through May 1.  We were able to attend ourselves last weekend (you can read about our visit here), but cameras were a no-no inside the theater so we didn't get many pictures.  Luckily for all of us though, the Disney Parks Blog posted a quick video this week that will give you a good (albeit brief) look inside the show itself.  We're sharing it here for you to enjoy as well!


The second bit that grabbed our attention was news coming out concerning Star Tours:  The Adventure Continues.  The question everyone has been asking has finally been answered this week by the Disney Parks Blog who unveiled all of the possible destinations you can reach on the attraction:

• Tatooine
• Coruscant
• Kashyyyk
• Hoth
• and the Death Star above Geonosis

Seriously?  Kashyyyk?!  Awesome!  We think that they're all great choices, even if Alderaan is missing.  What do you guys think?  Any that are missing that you would have liked to have seen make an appearance?

Here At Days In The Park: 
We just released Episode 2 of our Days In The ParkCast - our monthly podcast - yesterday.  If you haven't had a chance to listen to us yet, we'd love to have you guys do so and let us know you think.  You can listen to it on our website, through whatever RSS reader you choose, or we're available in the iTunes store.  If you listen to us in iTunes, we'd really appreciate it if you would take the time to leave us a rating and even a review if you see fit.  Anything that will help more people find us and listen is okay by us!

People seemed to enjoy our little "Magical Mystery Mondays" segment last week (we had a lot of people guessing), so we plan on continuing to do that.  We'll also continue to throw some pictures out for our "Almost" Wordless Wednesday and KILT posts just like we always do.

And as always, we'll be sure to fill in any gaps we have with some of our thoughts, mischief, favorite things, videos and pictures, or anything else we can think of to share some of our favorite Days In The Parks with you.

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

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Odds and Ends: Weekly Cap-Off (3/21 - 3/27)

Visits to the Park this week:  3
Back to multiple visits!  Chad and Stephanie were in The Park for most of Monday, Amy was in Friday evening (and early Saturday morning apparently), and we all plan on spending our Sunday evening hanging out and seeing what we can get up to.  We do enjoy our Sunday evenings there!  One of our favorite days out of the entire week.

Last Week on Days In The Park:
On Monday  and Tuesday we took a slight break from things so Chad and Stephanie could enjoy a couple of Days of quality time In The Park

For our "Almost" Wordless Wednesday, we took a look at the Cave of Wonders as featured in Aladdin - A Musical Spectacular

We gave you a look at a "Goofy variant" as seen during Halloween Time on Thursday's KILT

Friday, we gave a peek at a new segment called "First Time Fridays" and told you about our first trip to the shooting range at the Frontierland Shooting Exposition

And finally, on Saturday, Amy gave us another of her "favorite things":  Scrump

At the Resort:
Lots of things beginning to happen at The Resort; mostly likely as a result of the fact that Spring is here!  As we slowly tick down the time between now and summer, we're going to have all kinds of exciting things going on around The Parks!

On Friday night of this week, Disneyland Park began showing a brand new, exclusive 3-D Sneak Peek of the new "Pirates of the Caribbean:  On Stranger Tides" movie inside the Festival Arena.  Showings will continue running through May 30th (on weekends), and nightly beginning April 15 and running through May 1.  Many of our friends were able to attend the opening night of this and we've heard nothing but good things back so far.  We're really excited about this!  The Disney Parks Blog posted a little video about it this week we thought we'd share as well!

The new marquee at the Disney Theater featuring Disney Junior - Live On Stage!

In addition, the Disney Theater in Disney California Adventure has reopened in the Hollywood Pictures Backlot and is now presenting the Disney Junior show for the wee ones, after transitioning and refurbing over from Playhouse Disney. We haven't had a chance to see this one yet, either, but as "Parkers" with a lot of little kiddies at our disposal we no doubt will, and very soon!  We were able to appreciate the old Playhouse Disney show and its many iterations over the years, and we're sure this new one will be no different.  So far the feedback and opinion we've seen on the show has been very positive, and we're sure with the popularity of the new Disney Junior programming on the Disney Channel that The Resort has another hit on its hands.  If you're still a bit curious about what exactly the show is about, check out this quick video from the Parks blog for more information!


And the videos and music are back!  For those who read us on a fairly frequent basis, you'll know that we love hanging out in the Disney Animation Building in Disney California Adventure.  One of our favorite parts of the building has been down a while now though as they've been revamping the various video clips and music they show in the lobby.  But as of Friday they're back, featuring all new movies (in some cases) and music.  We can't wait to get back in and see the new scenes cycle through.  We'll be sure to write about it sometime soon!

And those changes are here!

Here At Days In The Park: 
People seemed to enjoy our little "Where Am I?" segment last week, so we plan on continuing to do that (for fun) for the foreseeable future, although we have a new name for it now!  We'll be breaking that out tomorrow!  We'll also continue to throw some pictures out for our "Almost" Wordless Wednesday and KILT posts just like we always do.

Today, we sit down and begin work on Episode 2 of our Days In The ParkCast - our monthly podcast.  We'll be recording this afternoon, and editing this week, so you can start looking forward to that coming to you sometime around the beginning of April, hopefully.

And as always, we'll be sure to fill in any gaps we have with some of our thoughts, mischief, favorite things, videos and pictures, or anything else we can think of to share some of finer moments in The Parks with you.

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

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