Tag Archives: Disneyland

Enjoying More Food and Wine Festival (or Enjoying A Hot Day At Disneyland)

Posted on April 12, 2018 | 1 comment

The last time I was at Disneyland, it was during the beginning of the Food and Wine Festival. I got the pass to be able to try different foods at the festival cheaper than they would be on their own because I figured I’d be going at least another time or two before the festival ended. But I forgot about spring break and how long that would block my pass from being good. So since the festival was ending this week my friends and I knew we needed to get to Disneyland. It had been pretty typical spring weather recently, but of course the day we planned on going it ended up being almost as hot as it gets in the summer. But that wasn’t going to stop us from having fun!

I had a few tickets left on my food pass and Dani and Michelle got a pass to split between the two of them. It ended up working pretty great for us each to get to try a few things. When we got to the park, we started with getting some lunch. I had the pork roast which had coleslaw on it and it was really flavorful!

And because it was so hot out, I also got the orange vanilla float. I haven’t had soda in several years so it felt a bit weird having soda in this. But it wasn’t really like drinking soda (more like an ice cream shake). It really was the perfect thing to have to try to feel more comfortable in the heat.

Later in the day I also had the tacos that I had the last time but totally forgot to take photos of it! It was still as good as the last time I had it.

Because of the heat, we had a pretty lazy day. When we got to the park, we had our food first and then started to do some rides. While we were at the California Adventure side we did Toy Story Mania, The Little Mermaid, Soarin’ Around The World, and Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout.

But we took our time getting from one ride to another. When we were going between The Little Mermaid and Soarin’, we walked through the path behind Grizzly River Run which we usually don’t do. It’s such a nice area back there and we really enjoyed spending a few minutes by the waterfall because the mist from it was cooling us down.

We also took advantage of the Photopass photographers. We found one by the Hyperion Theater that didn’t really have a line so we decided to go for it. The photographer was really fun and was helping us get some cute photos. And she also set it up so we could have a magical photo (where they add things into the photo to make it special) and I think our magical photo with the balloons was my favorite out of all the ones we got.

When we headed over to the Disneyland side, we took our time getting over to our first ride which was Space Mountain.

The ride didn’t break down so we didn’t get to be on it with the lights on, but I am hoping for that to happen now every time I’m on it since it was so cool when it happened! After that ride we were all starting to feel a bit tired so we ended our day at Disneyland with a quick ride on Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters.

I would have loved to have stayed later, but I think the heat really took it out of me. Even though I knew it was going to be a hot day, it really got to me and I probably should have prepared better. I also ended up being sunburnt even though I had sunscreen on and wore a hat. But the tiredness and sunburn was totally worth it because I always have a pretty amazing day when I’m at Disneyland.

It’s getting closer to when our passes are blacked out for the summer so I’m hoping my friends and I make it once or twice before we can’t go for a while. But being at the parks in the heat reminded me of why I don’t mind my pass not being good for the summer. While there are ways to cool down, it does get uncomfortable for me being that warm and I always have a risk of getting sunburned. But maybe for the next time that I’m there it will be a bit cooler so I can enjoy the last few times in the park before I can’t go back until August.

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An Easy Disney Day (or Another Eat All The Foods Adventure)

Posted on March 8, 2018 | 2 comments

I was at Disneyland pretty recently and didn’t really have plans for when I’d be back. But I knew I wanted to be back soon because the Food and Wine Festival was starting up again. So when I was randomly texting with my friend Michelle, I mentioned how we needed to go to have all the delicious foods again. And it turns out that we were both free on Monday (sadly our other Disney buddy Dani was not), so we made plans to have a fun day at the park.

We had our usual mid-day start and got to Disneyland around noon. And there wasn’t a line at the parking garage so we took that as a good sign. We ended up walking over to the park instead of taking the tram, but as soon as we were in California Adventure we immediately headed to a store to get our Sip and Savor Pass for the Food and Wine Festival.

The pass is a pretty great deal since it’s $45 and you get 8 food items for it. Most of the food is between $5-8, so you get your money’s worth. You can’t use it for alcohol, but since I’m not really drinking it’s not a big deal for me.

It was a really gorgeous day out and we were enjoying walking through the park to get to the food booths. And we noticed a PhotoPass photographer by the waterfall from the water ride and we decided to stop to get a photo. Since Michelle’s pass includes PhotoPass photos, we take advantage of these more often. We were both feeling a bit silly so we went with a silly pose.

When we got to the food booths, there were a few things we wanted to share and some things we each wanted. So we settled on us each getting one thing we wanted for ourselves and then 2 things we were going to share. We shared the caesar asparagus and grilled artichoke hearts. And I got the beef slider for myself and Michelle got the poke salad.

Everything was so delicious! I have had the slider before and I thought it was better this time than it was before. But I think my favorite thing we got was the asparagus. It was so good and not that heavy considering it was with a heavier dressing. I might start making caesar salads now with asparagus instead of lettuce occasionally!

After our lunch, we did a quick ride on the Little Mermaid ride since it was right there and then we headed over to Radiator Springs Racers. That’s one of my favorite rides but we hadn’t been on it for a while. So it was nice to get to go on it again!

We then went over to the Animation Academy to do some drawing and this time we were taught how to draw Zero from “Nightmare Before Christmas”. It ended up being the best character I’ve drawn so far and I think that both Michelle and I had drawings that looked pretty good.

Then it was time for our favorite ride at California Adventure: the Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout ride! We are still hoping to get a song on the ride that we haven’t had yet, but this time we weren’t lucky enough for that. But I’ve been experiencing something on that ride for a while that we finally have a photo of. I had my seatbelt on the ride on pretty tight (my friends can verify this). But somehow, when the ride drops I fly so high up! Michelle jokes that she can see me floating toward the ceiling each time. And in this photo, you finally see it. I know it looks like I’m standing up (especially when you compare me to the other people seated in the back row), but I swear I’m not. I’m just floating up while the ride drops.

Even though we had a lot of food to try earlier, since the food isn’t huge portions we were feeling ready for a little dinner and we each got the tacos which they have had in the past. Again, they seemed better this year and I love that this is considered theme park food!

We also saw a PhotoPass photographer by the big backdrop and decided to do more photos. We got some fun ones, but I think this one is my favorite because it makes me think of a buddy cop movie poster!

After that, we headed over to the Disneyland side where we did a lap on the train. I love the train and it gave us a chance to look at some of the Star Wars land construction. When we finished our ride, we headed toward Space Mountain and saw that there was a pretty nice sunset.

We then had our ride of Space Mountain which went off without any emergency stops. We were kind of hoping it would happen again because it was so amazing to see the ride with the lights on, but we also know that we were just lucky to get to experience that once. Unfortunately you can’t really see us that well in our ride photo, but it’s still a funny one. We are just so used to being in the front of the ride car.

The parks were starting to get a bit more crowded with the after-work crowd, but we were able to do quick rides on Buzz Lightyear and the Haunted Mansion before we were both feeling ready to head back to the car to go back home. We were at Disneyland for about 7 hours and considering we wanted it to be a lazy day we accomplished a lot!

The Food and Wine Festival is going on for another 5 weeks and I know I’ll be back for it at least once more. I’ve got 5 more things I can get with my Sip and Savor pass so I want to make sure that I try some other new things!

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Celebrating Villaintine’s Day (or Getting Something Checked Off My Disney Bucket List)

Posted on February 13, 2018 | 3 comments

This past Sunday at Disneyland was Villain’s Day. It was an unofficial Disney event but it was being shared online as a fun day to dress up as a villain and go around Disneyland. Even though I normally only go on Monday’s I couldn’t turn down a chance to have a fun themed day at the parks!

I really wanted to dress in a cute new villain themed shirt I got, but it wasn’t fitting correctly and I didn’t want to be super uncomfortable all day. I ended up wearing a Gaston’s Tavern shirt (which is a bit villain themed) with some Belle themed ears and figured that being comfortable was more important than being themed correctly for the day. I went with my friend Michelle and we were meeting some of her friends in the park that day. She was dressed in lots of cute Maleficent stuff so I figured she could represent for the theme for us both.

When we go to the parks and met up with the others, we noticed that there really weren’t that many people dressed for the theme. There are so many themed days like Dapper Day or Tiki Day, so it’s probably tough to get a new themed day started. We did see some cute outfits, but they were few and far between. But again, all of us decided to just have a fun day in the parks and enjoy the costumes we did see.

Our first stop was over at the Lunar New Year area of California Adventure. We hadn’t gone to the Annual Passholder section before so we stopped by there to first make a wish for the new year.

And we stopped by the photo spot to get a cute photo of us all in our villain attire.

We then went over to our one ride we did in California Adventure: Guardians Of The Galaxy. It’s seriously amazing every time I ride it. I was hoping that we’d have a new song on the ride because I want to hear them all, but we got one that we had heard already. But that doesn’t ruin the ride or anything. It was still as great as it always is!

Since all of us in the group are passholders, we were being a bit lazy with our day. After that ride, we decided to head over to the Disneyland side. As soon as we got over there we noticed Tiana right by the gates and there wasn’t any line to take photos. It’s pretty rare to see a character out without a photo line, so we took advantage of that.

After our quick photo we headed over to our first ride on the Disneyland side: Space Mountain. This is another favorite ride and something I pretty much go on every time I’m there. We got on the ride and everything seemed pretty normal at first. We headed up the hill and just as soon as we started the drop I noticed a weird voice coming from the center of the ride. Every time we got close to the middle of the ride we noticed a voice talking. It was so odd and we couldn’t figure out what was happening.

Then all of a sudden we came to a stop on the tracks before the end of the ride! If you are a Disney geek like me, you know that you love when a ride breaks down. Sometimes you get to be evacuated and get to see the behind the scenes area of the park. And it seems like one of the most coveted ride breakdowns is to get stuck on Space Mountain and have the lights come on. I had never experienced it and it was for sure something on my Disney bucket list.

We were stuck for a few minutes in the dark (but everyone was getting out their phones to use the flashlights to see everything around and then the lights came on!

As soon as the lights came on we all started cheering. Fortunately everyone in our ride car was just so excited to get to see the ride with the lights on and wanted to photograph everything around us.

Of course we wished that we had gotten stuck much higher up in the ride so we could have seen everything. But beggars can’t be choosers and we were just so excited to get this little bit of behind the scenes of the magic. And we could see a couple of fun things like the other cars higher up on the ride that were also stuck.

I’m not sure exactly how long we were stuck because honestly we were having a great time just checking out everything around us. And when it was time for the ride to start again the brakes were released on our car and the cast members had to push our car to start going again. So we finished the ride pretty slowly because we were only going down with gravity from that last section. Michelle was smart and took a video of this since it was such a special thing to get to do.

You don’t see it in the video, but when we got back to the station everyone waiting in line was cheering for us! It was pretty funny. We were given the chance to ride again since our ride was disrupted and of course we did that. And when we were done with the ride we went to look at our ride photo.

But we also learned that when we were slowly getting back to the ride station the photos were working and we got some funny ones from that ride too!

I’m sure I sound really silly, but I feel so lucky that I got stuck on Space Mountain and got to ride with the lights on. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do and it’s not something you can control when you could do it.

After the excitement on Space Mountain, we did a quick ride on Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters and then Star Tours before heading back to the car. It was getting a bit more crowded in the parks in the evening and we were all feeling a bit tired. But we still had been in the parks for about 5 1/2 hours which is a pretty decent time.

I just renewed my Disneyland pass (fortunately before the price increase!), so I’ve got another year of Disney fun ahead for me! And hopefully I’ll have some more fun random adventures and maybe I’ll be lucky and I’ll be able to accomplish a few more things from my Disney bucket list! Most of the things left are things that won’t be easy (like getting to walk off certain rides or getting to dine at Club 33), but you never know what is possible!

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Finally Back At Disneyland (or Enjoying An Average Day At The Parks)

Posted on January 31, 2018 | Comments Off on Finally Back At Disneyland (or Enjoying An Average Day At The Parks)

I finally made it back to Disneyland this week! It had been a while since I was there because of the holiday blackout and then being busy on my days off. I really had missed being at Disneyland and I was so happy to be back there! The only odd thing was that it was pretty hot that day (it would have been hot even if it was in the summer), but we didn’t let that bring us down.

We got to the parks a bit later than we normally would, so we headed straight to California Adventure to get some lunch first. They are celebrating the Lunar New Year right now in that park and have some fun and new food offerings. I got the sticky rice with pork and a sugar cane shrimp skewer. They were both pretty good and the perfect lunch before going on some rides!

After enjoying our lunch, we headed over to Guardians of the Galaxy to ride it. This is still one of my favorite rides and we always have a great time on it. While we didn’t plan on how to pose for our photos, I think we still got a pretty funny one!

Since it was hot out, we decided to go into some air conditioning next. We went to the Animation Academy to do some drawing where it listed the character we were drawing as “artist choice”. It ended up being Dante from “Coco” which I haven’t seen yet. So we were all a bit confused on what the finished product would look like until we were done. Mine looks a bit weird, but I think all of our photos look enough like the character.

We thought about if there were any other rides we wanted to go on at California Adventure, but we decided to head over to the Disneyland side for the rest of our day. And our first stop was Space Mountain where we tried to recreate our poses from the Guardian ride for this photo.

Then we headed toward Fantasyland to check out the Mickey and the Magical Map show. I had never seen this show completely through so I was excited to check it out. It was really cute and the performers were really good. We all had grabbed some snacks before the show and enjoyed a break in the shade while watching the show.

Last year, my friend Michelle and I had a year-long battle on Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters. We kept track of our scores whenever we rode it together over the entire year. This year the battle is going to be Michelle, Dani, and me and we are not going to just do the total score for the year (I only won last year because I had one really amazing game), but instead the average for the entire year. I’m glad we made that decision because on the first game Michelle and I both had laser guns that didn’t seem to work and Dani had the best game! It was so good that she ended up in 4th place for the entire day at Disneyland!

By this time, it had gotten dark and we have all discovered how much better it is to ride the Jungle Cruise at nighttime. It’s still silly, but it looks more interesting in the dark than it does when it’s light out. And the skipper we had this time had some pretty funny jokes that we hadn’t heard before. I love that they are getting more creative with the jokes and I hear new material more often.

Even though we were all a bit tired (and it still felt warm outside), we weren’t quite ready to end our Disney day. We went over to Indiana Jones to ride that because it had been a while since we had been on it and we ended our day with some Dole Whips and watching the show in the Enchanted Tiki Room.

While there was nothing too exceptional about this Disney day (except Dani and her crazy high score on Buzz Lightyear), it was still an amazing day. I just love getting to spend time with my friends at Disneyland and I love that we don’t have to make it into an event each time we are there. We can relax, take our time, and ride or not ride whatever we want. There is no stress to make it a special day and I realize how privileged I am to have that. I know that not everyone can have an average day at Disneyland and I love that that’s exactly what I had this week.

My pass is up for renewal in 2 weeks and I’ll be renewing it again for sure. It is not a cheap thing, but it’s so worth it to me. I would want to go to the parks as often as I do if I didn’t have a pass, and that would be so expensive. I easily get my money’s worth with my pass and it saves me so much money. I’ve been trying to budget for it all year and I think I should be fine with getting it. But if not, I will figure out a way to make it affordable for me.

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Another Disney Birthday (or Eating All The Foods Again)

Posted on December 6, 2017 | 3 comments

I love getting to celebrate my friend’s birthdays at Disneyland. I don’t really get to do it since my birthday is during the summer blackout for my annual pass. But celebrating someone else’s birthday at Disneyland makes me as happy as if it were my birthday. And this week, I was at Disneyland to celebrate my friend Dani’s birthday!

And not only was it an adventure to celebrate Dani’s birthday, we also wanted to go and try more of the foods at the Festival of Holidays at California Adventure. I had gotten to try several things the last time I was there, but there was so much that I wanted to try. And I still had a lot of tickets left of my Sip and Savor pass and this was possibly the last chance I would have to use it.

When we got to the parks, we immediately headed to the annual pass area for the Festival of Holidays so Dani could get her Sip and Savor pass. We all knew we’d be trying a bunch of food, and the pass really was the best option for us.

Over the time that we were in the parks, we all got to try a lot of food. I personally got the brisket, a eggnog macron, crab salad on polenta, a pretzel, and chocolate pot de creme. It was all delicious and the serving sizes were pretty good. I ate a bit too much, but I couldn’t help myself!

And between the eating, we did get some rides in. We let Dani pick the rides since it was her birthday. She wanted to check out California Screamin’ before it goes down for refurbishment.

And we went on Guardians of the Galaxy where we finally had a new song on the ride! I have now heard 4 of the 6 songs so I’ll hopefully complete that list soon.

And we went on Dani’s favorite ride, Toy Story Mania. It took 2 tries to get on that ride because it broke down right before we rode it, but we returned later that night and we were able to get on before we left.

We usually have a plan when we go to Disneyland, but this time we didn’t. So we ended up doing a lot of walking and going back and forth a lot. It was great because we all got a ton of steps in (we figured we walked about 7 miles that day), but I was feeling some pain.

But when we went over to the Disneyland side, I had a chance to rest. My friend Christopher was at Disneyland with his wife and kids. They were hanging out on a bench waiting to watch the castle light up at night. So we decided to join them and check out the castle. It was a very windy day so we knew the fireworks would be canceled, so this was our only chance for nighttime entertainment while we were there. It was awesome getting to catch up with a friend and we all loved seeing the castle change to the winter look. And while the castle was undergoing its transformation, fake snow was falling which just seemed magical!

The last ride that we went on at Disneyland was Small World Holiday. It’s always so pretty to see all the lights on the facade of the ride.

And the ride is fun during the holidays too. It’s different from the version during the rest of the year and I’m always happy to ride it. I don’t mind the regular version, but the holiday one is much better in my opinion. Maybe it’s all the extra lights that they add inside the ride!

After our ride, we decided to get a nice photo in front of the castle. Michelle’s annual pass includes Photopass photos now, so it’s nice to be able to take advantage of the photographers that Disneyland has. There was a line for the photos, but it went pretty quickly so we were able to get our nice group photo without too much of a wait.

By that point, we had walked back and forth quite a bit between the parks and it was starting to get cold. The temperature wasn’t too bad, but the wind made it feel much worse. We all decided that even though we would have loved to have gone on a few more rides that night, we were ready to head back (and to get into a nice warm car!).

My pass is good for part of next week and then I’m blacked out until the new year. I don’t think I’ll be making it next week but I know I’ll be back in January when my pass is good again. It’s almost time to renew my Disneyland pass and there is no question that I’ll be doing it. I get so much happiness out of my Disney days and I can’t imagine not having them anymore!

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Festival Of Holidays (or All The Food, Some Of The Rides)

Posted on November 15, 2017 | Comments Off on Festival Of Holidays (or All The Food, Some Of The Rides)

After my last adventure to Disneyland, my friends and I tried to plan out when we could go for the rest of 2017. We knew that our winter holiday blackouts were coming soon with our passes and we were limited in how many more days we would be able to go. We made some plans for December but we were also hoping to figure out when we could go in November too. We couldn’t figure out when all 3 of us could go, but Michelle and I were both able to go this week so we decided to go for a Disney day!

The timing was perfect because the holiday stuff just started at Disneyland. And at California Adventure they were doing the Festival Of Holidays which consists of about a dozen different food booths with different holiday themed food offerings. It’s similar to what they did during the Food and Wine Festival earlier this year and we were excited to check out what food we could get! And as Annual Passholders, we could get the Sip and Savor pass which allows you to get 8 items for $45. Since most things were more expensive than $6, it’s a pretty great deal!

Michelle got 4 things and I got 3 things throughout the day. And most of the time we split stuff between us so we could each try as many things as possible. I think the salmon and brisket were my favorites so far. But I’ll be in the park at least one more time before the Festival Of Holidays ends (plus I still have 5 more food items I can get with my pass) so I’ll be trying many more.

And our priority was to try all the amazing foods, we did go on some rides as well. We went on Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout twice in the hopes that we’d get a new song on the ride. There are 6 song choices and we had only had 3 before. But on the 2 rides we had, both times we had songs we had already heard before. Hopefully we will make it through all 6 songs one day!

We also went on California Screamin’ since that ride will be closing for a bit soon. They will be changing the theme of the ride (but keeping the ride the same) so it will be themed to “The Incredibles”. But we still wanted to make sure we got to go on it before it closed and changed.

And they will also be closing Mickey’s Fun Wheel to change the theme so we made a stop over there as well. We were about halfway up on the ferris wheel stopped because they were loading the cars below us. Michelle and I were focused on the fun view and looking at what food things we wanted to try next.

But we realized after a while that we had been at that spot for a while and when we looked down we realized that there was no longer a line for the ride. I don’t know what happened but it did break down so they had to move it so that each car could get off. But when they got our car down to the bottom it kept moving. It was weird and we thought maybe the ride was working again. But I guess they just made a mistake because it started going backwards so we could be let off. But they gave us a pass to use for another ride and we took that to go on Soarin Around The World.

We also got to see an incredible sunset while in the park. It kept changing colors as the sun was setting, but it looked amazing every time we looked at it.

After those rides and our food, we decided to go over to the Disneyland side. It was pretty crowded over there compared to California Adventure but it was still so pretty with all the holiday decorations up.

It felt so late but it wasn’t even 6pm! The time change really threw me off and I was already starting to feel tired. We tried to go look at the castle but they were filming the tv special that will be airing soon so the castle was blocked by various equipment. We kind of could see how pretty it looked, but I’m looking forward to seeing it another time when the view isn’t obstructed.

And we then had our final ride of the day which was Space Mountain. It’s back to the regular version of the ride, but that feels special since between Hyperspace Mountain and Ghost Galaxy it seems like I never ride the regular version.

We debated about trying to go on one more ride to wait out traffic, but we both were pretty close to being done. Even though we didn’t go on that many rides, we did a ton of walking. My Fitbit said I had done about 17,000 steps which is what we normally do in a full day of rides.

But even being tired while we were walking out, I couldn’t help but smile at how pretty Main Street looked with all the lights.

I’ll be back at Disneyland in a few weeks for sure, but there may be another adventure before that or right after before we are blacked out for the holidays. The holidays are so pretty at Disneyland and I want to make sure I experience it as much as possible before I have to wait a year for it to be back again!

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A Disney Birthday! (or Princesses and Awesome Ears)

Posted on November 2, 2017 | 3 comments

I love Disneyland and I love birthdays so when those get to be combined it’s so much fun! And this week, I had a fun Disney adventure that was to celebrate my friend Michelle’s birthday! We also wanted one more Disney outing to see the Halloween stuff before it switched over to Christmas decorations, so this was perfect timing.

Since we were going to celebrate Michelle’s birthday, Dani and I tried to do some fun planning. We got her some Peter Pan themed ears and told Michelle to make lunch reservations somewhere fun and festive. Michelle is going to wear the ears we got her another time because this time her outfit was Maleficent themed. We all tried to have cute outfits this day because Michelle had recently added MaxPass to her annual pass which includes Photopass so we can get all the cute photos from Disney photographers!

We had to take advantage of getting fun photos right away. When we got to the parks, we started on the Disneyland side and did a bit of shopping at first so Michelle could get some ears to match her outfit. And then we were over to get some photos with Star Wars characters. When we saw Kylo Ren, there wasn’t a Photopass photographer, but we still got a cute photo.

But there was a photographer when we got to Darth Vader and we got so many photos! I knew they took photos while we were posing, but they also took so many photos while we were interacting with the character. It was fun to look at those photos, but my favorites are still when we posed.

After our photos we went over to Tomorrowland to do Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters (Michelle and I still have our year-long competition with the points on that ride), and Star Tours.

I wish I had a photo from Star Tours too because Michelle ended up being the Rebel Spy that time! I’ve never gotten to be on the ride when someone in my group was the Rebel Spy and I’m sad I didn’t think to have my phone out to take a photo when she was on the screen. Oh well. Hopefully that will happen again and I’ll remember!

After those rides, we headed over to California Adventure since our lunch reservation was over there. We had some time before lunch so we went on Soarin’ Around The World and then walked over to Ariel’s Grotto. I had never had lunch there before (they also do breakfast) and I was impressed by the decor and the view when we got inside.

When you walk downstairs to the dining area, you first take a photo with Ariel. We thought we could use the Photopass for that photo, but it isn’t part of that and we didn’t want to spend $30 on the photo. But we did take advantage of all the princesses that walked around during lunch and got photos with them. The only negative was that there wasn’t a photographer walking with the princesses so most of our photos ended up being selfies.

The food at Ariel’s Grotto is a prix fixe meal. You get soup or salad, a choice of entrĂ©e, and then a dessert selection.

I went with the crab chowder and the tri-tip and those along with the dessert were really good!

And we made sure that they knew it was Michelle’s birthday so she also got a cupcake with a candle in it along with her desserts.

After so much food, we wanted our stomachs to settle a bit before riding anything too intense so we went on The Little Mermaid ride and then went to the Animation Academy to do some artwork (I’m finally getting better at drawing circles).

Then it was time to ride Guardians After Dark. Since this was a Halloween offering we wanted to make sure we got to ride it again, and Dani hadn’t had a chance to check it out yet. We didn’t get to do the Guardians ride during the day, but I’m sure we’ll do that next time we are there. But the nighttime Halloween version is fun so I’m glad we did it.

After that ride, California Adventure was closing and we were going to go back to the Disneyland side. But we were taking our time and did some shopping and discovered something amazing in one of the stores. Disneyland now sells ears that have changeable bows! So you can have one set of the ears headband but change up what character it represents! I loved that idea and so did Dani and Michelle. All of us ended up buying ears and a second bow. I kept mine with the original bow, but I liked it that way too!

We then headed back into Disneyland to ride the Jungle Cruise since it’s so much fun to ride that when it’s dark out. But as we walked over, it started to drizzle/mist rain. It was so weird and none of us thought it was going to rain that day. But fortunately, the boats on the Jungle Cruise have canvas on top so we were protected from the rain.

And after that ride, we all felt like we were done for the day. But we decided to try to get a cute photo of all of us with our new ears and there was no line for the Photopass photographer in front of the castle! There is always a big line there but maybe the rain scared people away? But within minutes we were taking a bunch of photos in front of the castle. And I love how the rain almost looks like glitter in the photo!

It was a nice full day at Disneyland and we didn’t feel rushed around at all. And some of the Christmas decorations were already up when we were there. But I know we’ll be back at least once or twice to see all of those holiday decorations. But I was just glad that we got to see all the Halloween stuff one more time and got to celebrate another birthday at Disneyland. I never get to celebrate my birthday there since it’s during my pass blackout, but now I’m thinking I should celebrate my half birthday there next year!

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“Beyond The Wisdom Of Walt” (or Another Amazing Giveaway!)

Posted on October 4, 2017 | 10 comments

You may remember that a little over 2 years ago I had a giveaway for the book “The Wisdom Of Walt”. I loved the book and it was amazing to get to meet the author Jeff Barnes. He truly is a Disney historian and there were stories in the book that I didn’t know before. And as a huge Disneyland geek, I love when I get to learn new things about the park I love so much!

“The Wisdom Of Walt” was all about leadership lessons that we could learn from Walt Disney and the story of Disneyland. While I don’t read a lot of leadership books, there were lessons I learned that I could totally apply to my life and I felt like it was such valuable reading for anyone. And I was so happy to see that many of my friends read it and found it just as great.

So when Jeff Barnes mentioned that he was writing another book, I couldn’t wait to read it! And he offered to send me a copy before it was released to check out. And I have to say that “Beyond The Wisdom Of Walt” might be even more incredible than the first book!

“Beyond The Wisdom Of Walt” is all about life lessons from Walt Disney and the Disney story. I love self-help and self-improvement books and this fit in perfectly with what I like to read. Each chapter had a very easy to read format and the lessons were clear and easy to understand (unlike some self-help books that almost make you hunt to learn what the chapter was about).

And each chapter had a lesson that really hit home for me. Some of the lessons were choosing to change, having to hustle, overcoming obstacles, and communicating clearly. These lessons are so relevant to multiple aspects of my life. I expected to find lessons that fit with my acting career, blogging, and my personal life. But there were lessons that connected with me with my work toward recovery from my eating disorder and I didn’t expect that at all!

I love when a book connects with me and speaks so clearly to me and that’s exactly what “Beyond The Wisdom Of Walt” did for me. I know that this is a book that I can read multiple times and get new lessons and experiences each time. It takes a special book to be able to create that and I feel so lucky that I have a book that I know will be something that I will continue to learn from.

And while it was awesome to learn more lessons about Walt Disney and the various Disney parks, it’s not necessarily a Disney book. You don’t have to be a Disney fan to love this book, although being a Disney fan may bring a little something extra to reading it. But learning lessons about creating something you are passionate about, dealing with setbacks, and being your own motivation is something that anyone can learn from no matter what.

“Beyond The Wisdom Of Walt” was released this week and you can get the book on Amazon, and I really do recommend doing it. You can also order an autographed copy from Jeff’s website. But you also have a chance to win an autographed copy here! Jeff has not only given me a copy to read, but he is going to give one of you a signed copy! You can enter below and there are multiple ways to earn entries. And you can tweet about it every day through Rafflecopter to earn extra entries!

The giveaway ends on the 11th and the winner will be chosen from random.org. I will be contacting the winner via email and Jeff will be sending your book directly to you.

Good luck to everyone and even if you don’t win I highly recommend checking out this incredible book! Everyone will gain some amazing insights from reading it and I know that I am a better person for learning the lessons that Jeff put in the book.

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It’s Halloweentime! (or Another Disney Afternoon)

Posted on September 29, 2017 | 1 comment

It seems like it has been forever since I was at Disneyland, but it was only about a month ago that I was there. But since that day was a short visit I felt due for another Disney day. This time, my friend Dani was out-of-town working so Michelle and I went just the two of us. It’s weird to be missing a member of our usual Disney group, but Dani understood that we wanted a Disney outing and didn’t mind that we went without her.

Michelle and I went after I had my Orangetheory workout that morning, which is the usual routine. But that also means that we get to the parks around 1pm. But that worked out well because we didn’t have a big plan for the day. We knew all the Halloween decorations were up and all the Halloween overlays were on rides, so that’s pretty much all we focused on doing.

Right when we got to the parks, we made a quick lunch stop for corn dogs and we found out that our friend Lauren was on her way to Disneyland too! So we waited there for her to meet us before we headed to our first ride of the day. Space Mountain is a favorite of mine in whatever form the ride is in. I love the classic ride, the Hyperspace Mountain version, and the Ghost Galaxy version that they have at Halloween. It was a perfect first ride for the day. We were trying to think of a funny ride photo pose, but I think we all missed what the others were saying. I thought we were going to pretend that we were in a shampoo commercial where someone seems way too happy to have their hair washed.

After that, we decided to go on something a bit slower. The Rivers Of America had opened up the last time we were there, but we rode the train around to see things. This time, we decided to go on the Mark Twain boat to see everything else that we missed. We found the perfect place to relax on the second level in the front and we got to admire what an amazing day it was.

And there were a lot of details around the river that we saw that you can’t see from the train. My favorite was this animatronic beaver that is under the bridge the train goes over. It’s chewed through one plank and is working through another.

I love that Disney adds all those cute details and it makes it so that there are always new things to discover. The ride around was the perfect way to relax before our next Halloweentime ride: Haunted Mansion Holiday.

This overlay is not just for Halloween, but I still think of it as a Halloween thing. They always do a great job for the ride and there are new things added each year. And I love to see what the gingerbread house looks like each year.

After that, we decided to walk over to California Adventure. There was a Halloween party on the Disneyland side and we wanted to switch to the other park before it got too crazy. And our first stop on the other side was our new favorite: Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout.

They also have a Halloween overlay, but they only do it at nighttime. But that was perfect for us since this ride is still so new to us that we wanted to ride it the normal way too. After the ride, we had a decent amount of time to wait before the nighttime version started. So we did some shopping and some artwork.

My Scrooge McDuck is the one in the middle that looks weird and cross-eyed. We then headed over to Starbucks to sit and relax and we ended up meeting up with my friend Christopher and his wife who were in the park that day too! Lauren ended up having to leave after that and Michelle and I headed back to Guardians of the Galaxy to ride the nighttime version.

This version reminded us both of the old Tower of Terror ride. The new ride doesn’t feel as much as a drop ride as Tower did. But the nighttime version was totally a drop ride again! Since it was totally new to us, we didn’t know what to expect. And when we were at the top where they take the photo, it took forever before it dropped so Michelle and I kept glancing at each other while we were in our photo pose.

We had gotten Fastpasses for the Guardians ride again and had some more time to wait. So we headed over to Cars Land to get some dinner and check out the new Halloween decorations they had in that area.

And then we were back at Guardians for another ride. The nighttime version only has 1 song (the daytime version has 6 songs each with their own ride pattern) so we were a bit more prepared for the ride. But being prepared and knowing what happens doesn’t make it any less fun for us. We both had a blast riding it!

And when we were done with the ride, the park had closed. We took our time walking out because it’s so fun looking at everything at nighttime. I loved the exterior of the Guardians ride and how it reminded me of the Tower of Terror.

And once we left, we got to check out the decoration at the gate too. We saw it during the day, but it’s much more impressive lit up at night.

Even though we didn’t do a ton of rides, it still felt like a full Disney day. We got all the rides in that we wanted to and we had a blast. I’m hoping to make it back to the parks sometime in October so that I can see all the Halloween stuff one more time, but if I don’t make it at least I got to see it this week!

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A Quick Disney Day (or Getting Back To The Parks And Onto The Train)

Posted on August 23, 2017 | 3 comments

It’s been a while since I’ve been to Disneyland. The summer blackout for my annual pass is only about 2 months, but when you are used to going to the parks once a month or so it feels so much longer! So when my friends and I looked at the blackout date calendar and saw that we were finally going to be able to go back to the parks, we put it on our calendars so we could make sure we got our Disney day in!

For a while, the train has been closed because of the work going on for the new Star Wars land. I love the train and it’s been sad that it’s been down for so long and I couldn’t wait to be able to get back on it. Plus, Dani had never been on the train at Disneyland! So knowing that the train was open again now made me even more excited to be going to the parks.

We knew it wasn’t going to be a normal Disney day when we arrived. Normally when we get there around lunchtime, there may be some cars lined up for the parking structure but we get parked pretty quickly. But this time, the lines were pretty far back for parking. It didn’t take too long, but we realized that it was going to be much more crowded than we expected. Maybe everyone else was just like us and was excited to finally be able to get back to the parks after the summer blackout?

No matter way, we were ready to have some fun as soon as we arrived. And the first stop was the train. There’s normally not a line for the trains, but everyone was so happy that it was back and they wanted to see the new stuff they added. So we were in line for a little while before we could get on the train. But that was ok because I was just so happy to see that the trains were running and was enjoying people watching everyone there. And when we got on a few trains later, I couldn’t wait to see all the new changes.

I didn’t take a ton of photos because I wanted to focus on enjoying the train, but I love the new views of the river that you get from the train. It’s so pretty and the landscaping looks so good!

They also did some fun work in the diorama section of the train. There are now more moving elements, especially on the background of the mural. I think it added some nice touches while still maintaining the classic look of the diorama that I love so much. I know my mom loves that part of the train too and I can’t wait until she can come with me to Disneyland again so she can see it herself!

After doing the full trip around the park on the train, we headed over to California Adventure to ride the Guardians of the Galaxy ride. We were hoping to get a new song (there are 7 songs and we’ve heard 2 of them already), but we ended up getting one of the same ones we had the last time we rode. But it was still such a fun ride and I don’t miss the old Tower of Terror ride. We were trying to think of a fun photo to do this time and we decide to try to do some sort of ninja/karate pose. You can’t really see it well, but because of where I was sitting I was able to kick my leg up and I got it up pretty high!

After the ride, we were feeling a bit overwhelmed from the heat and the crowds so we decided to take a break to get something to eat. We decided to go to the Trattoria and I didn’t realize that neither Michelle nor Dani had been there before! It’s one of the places I really like so I was excited to share it with them.

I decided to get the Osso Bucco and it was delicious. Maybe a bit too rich considering how the heat was affecting me, but it was so good!

After eating, we went back to Guardians of the Galaxy where there was a little show happening in front of the ride. It’s a dance off thing and it was cute to watch for a minute.

We decided to go back on the ride after that, but Dani wasn’t feeling up for it so she waited in the shade while Michelle and I went on it. Again, we were hoping for a new song but we ended up getting the other one we heard the first time we rode. I guess it wasn’t meant to be to hear the other songs and know what the other versions of the ride were like. We didn’t really have a fun photo and that’s probably for the best since the person in front of us kind of blocked us in the photo.

We were thinking about doing another ride after that, but I think all of us were feeling a bit done. I wanted to have a full day at Disneyland, but the heat was getting to me and I hadn’t slept too well over the weekend so I think that was catching up to me. We tried to take a bit of a break in the shade to relax, but we realized that we were all ready to go home.

Since we all have annual passes, it’s ok that we had a short day at Disneyland. We can go back soon to ride other things that we didn’t get a chance to ride this time. And hopefully when we go back it will be less crowded and we won’t feel as off as we did from the heat. But no matter how long we were in the parks, being at Disneyland makes me so happy and I’m so glad I was able to go back this week!

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