Yo Ho Yo Ho A Pirate's Life for We Halloween *2012* PTR has begun!

[kaoden39]

Joining in

So sorry to hear about your bad experience at Goofy's...it's always been one of our favorites.

Why was it moved from its normal location to the ballroom??

Hopefully your other character meals made up for this one

That is what I was thinking. I was thinking because of the holiday they need more space.

 

[TheColtonsMom]

Joining in

So sorry to hear about your bad experience at Goofy's...it's always been one of our favorites.

Why was it moved from its normal location to the ballroom??

Hopefully your other character meals made up for this one

The move was due to the DLH construction. He is supposed to be back in his kitchen in February.

 

[amamax2]

Death Star instructions, though this I believe is and older model.

http://freelegoinstructions.com/instructions/10188/

Thanks!!

 

[TheColtonsMom]

Death Star instructions, though this I believe is and older model.

http://freelegoinstructions.com/instructions/10188/

Oh Matt they are going to LOVE you!

 

[TheColtonsMom]

Sorry guys no trip report today...some drama with a couple of the horses sapped all the energy I had shouldn't have even been outside as sick as I am. I am headed for bed. However I did get all the pics for the next 2 episodes loaded to photobucket this morning so maybe there will be 2 tomorrow? We shall see how I am feeling.

 

[TheColtonsMom]

So where were we? Ah yes headed back to the hotel after World of Disney (Again I just love that store) If I lived in the area this would be such a dangerous place for me I would be there all the time!

So If I didn't mention it before while we were at Goofy's the California skies had opened up and it was pouring rain. Once back at the hotel we hung all the wet things up. Colton's tennis shoes were soaked through luckily being a DLR vet none of us had come with only 1 pair of shoes. Those Tennis shoes by the way were still soaked when we arrived home 6 days later! They went straight in the dryer first thing LOL.

So with all the plans of being in bed by 1030 so we could do our MM the next day by the time we got settled it was more like midnight but we still set the alarm for 530am since our plans had MM followed by our breakfast with Minnie & Friends at the Plaza since it made sense to us to do the "in park" character meal on our MM.
We were all 3 asleep before our heads even hit the pillows.

About 330am Colton had a nightmare and woke Brant & I he was crying and saying "no don't make me go on it". He never woke up but it took about an hour to settle him down so we could go back to sleep. We agreed to change the alarm to 7am and skip MM for today and just head for rope drop. We briefly discussed what ride might have been the subject of the dream...before leaving the only one he adamantly said no to was Mickey's wheel of death which neither of us were that enthused with anyway so we had agreed that it was not on our agenda. He had briefly taked about the abominable snow monster on the Matterhorn being scary so we thought maybe that was it. Anyway back to sleep we went.

Alarm at 7 and got ready to go it was sunshiny outside already and everything looked fresh and clean from the rain the night before. Here are some pics of Colton before we left the hotel. Please note my son loves to be "silly" when the camera points at him so our deal this trip was one nice one for mom then one silly one for him. I love the Mickey ears he picked out although I did have to hear butthead jokes from both of my guys but they thought they were hilarious. Plus we did not see anyone else sporting these ears during our trip which he continually kept mentioning "mine are special".

By the time we got through the gates it was already 8 so we did not make it to rope drop no big deal we had many days to catch that. I stopped to read the sign over the left tunnel and smiled. Since Colton has just started learning to read he was standing next to me looking at the sign too and asked me what it said, I crouched down next to him and read it to him. Something about reading it out loud (I don't think I have ever done this before) really choked me up and the first of many happy tears welled up in my eyes.

We stopped at City Hall to get Colton's first visit and Birthday buttons. The fab 5 were near the tree having pics done but the lines were long and we knew we wanted to get Colton on at least one ride before breakfast at 830am so we headed for the hub. As we strolled down main street Colton started to sing "we're headed right down the middle of main st USA" from his sing along songs video.Brant and I sang along.

 

[amamax2]

Are you feeling better this morning?

 

[TheColtonsMom]

Are you feeling better this morning?

Much Much better . Still not 100% by any stretch of the imagination but I have already done more today than I have since we got home which is a good sign
It no longer hurts just to move my head and I can actually take a deep breath.

 

[amamax2]

&

 

[TheColtonsMom]

So first a little relavant info on this my youngest and last child...I knew this first Disneyland visit was going to be different from all the others due to this boy. He seems to carry all the best traits of my older children. Even they think he is the best boy ever. (remember I have Granddaughters so they don't even have to be disloyal to their own kids when they say best boy.) I am a proud mom but these are things I have heard from other moms, teachers, the ladies at the grocery store & bank etc

Colton is Unique. Amazing. Intelligent. Crazy. Annoying. Loud. Adventurous. Friendly. Caring. Exhausting. Spoiled but not rotten. Dirty. Flirtatious. In short a boy any parent could love. He never bullies younger kids, in fact goes out of his way to help them, Doesn't annoy the older kids in fact he has friends on our high school football team. Their practice field is at the end of our street and he often watches them practice they gave him his own ball and have been teaching him to throw..he can throw hard...they tell him the Mustangs are counting on him when he gets to high school. When he gets in trouble at school it is generally for getting over enthusiastic or too loud.

BUT by far his most amazing quality is his IMAGINATION and need to learn new things. He has gone days in character as Spiderman, Handy Manny (lots of loose nails & screws were taken care of this week), James Bond (with the british accent) and it goes on & on. He has written a song about a poor puppy who lives in Arizona and has no snow for Christmas. He plays the guitar (no parents with musical ability he approached some local musicians at a Jam session they got him a guitar, taught him to tune it, and taught him to play it) He has several telescopes obtained in various ways and on clear nights the end of our days are usually spent stargazing. Up here in Montana where we are so far north and the sky is so big you can see them move across the sky. This wealth of imagination and need & ability to learn any new thing he wants to are the traits that were about to make this one of the most amazing Disney trips in my lifetime.

When we reached the hub we walked over to the partners statue and I tried to find the words to pass on my love for this man who had been gone so long but was so alive in my heart to my child. And I had my eureka moment. Imagination was a revered word to this boy. I pointed to Walt and said "That is Mr Walt Disney everything you see at Disneyland is here because he used his imagination and made it happen for every little girl or boy who would ever visit here." The only answer I got right then was an awed look and a soft "wow" but later on I found that the impression of the man that I wanted to pass on was set inside my amazing boy.

OK on to less serious matters we had 15 minutes to get this kid on a ride before breakfast....so we headed for the Astro Orbiter located at the entrance to Tomorrowland and right next to the Plaza perfect but closed. Turned my head and saw BLAB with only a 10 minute wait SO that was to be his first ever ride in a Disney park! Brant & I had spent hours talking about this very thing what should be FIRST and we had decided on Peter Pan but with our MM not working day one that could not be pulled off before breakfast. I have been a huge fan of the Toy Story movies from the beginning so this was OK by me and none of the family have ever ridden it before and Colton had been playing it online (which he now says is much harder than on the ride) so into the line we went...It went so fast I was kind of disappointed we didn't get much time to check out all the things in the line but hey we would probably be back right?

Dad rode by himself this time

Colton & I rode together

Daddy Won and he is the only one that never played online! We all had fun and were laughing as we exited. We stopped in the store and picked up our free lanyards & pins and headed for breakfast with high hopes that this character meal would live up to expectations.

 

[TheColtonsMom]

All Day 1s pics are in photo bucket so I may do one or two more pieces today it is only 4 pm here...anybody need more to read today?

 

[kaoden39]

All Day 1s pics are in photo bucket so I may do one or two more pieces today it is only 4 pm here...anybody need more to read today?

Just so you know, I am always ready to share a trip with someone whether it be theirs or mine.

 

[amamax2]

We always want more! We are insatiable!

 

[TheColtonsMom]

OK you ask I listen...

So we headed over to the Plaza Inn with high hopes...Look a smiling CM looks our names up in the PS book "Please go right in have a great day" Smiling Phototographer on the porch with Minnie. Smiling lady at the cash register. Smiling lady giving out Minnie's breakfast souvineer buttons. Smiling Grandmotherly lady who explains where everything is and how the breakfast works since we were first timers. Everybody here was beyond happy to be here and to welcome us being here with them. Wow we were smiling too!
This had already started out better than our last dining experience where no one seemed happy and they almost looked as though they were just waiting for everyone to be disappointed. I was wowed before we even got to our table.
We could see characters mingling with guests both inside & out on the porch..there were alot of characters! So we got seated and right away before we were all even sitting down we had a visitor so Daddy whipped out the camera and took this shot...Anyone know her name? I know she is from Cinderella but I can only remember Jasper & Gus-Gus? Colton really wants to know and since we couldn't locate the pen fast enough we didn't get her autograph.

Colton & I went to get food, and here was the only scary/character moment my son had all week, as we came around the corner of the buffet coming around the other direction was Pinocchio and Colton went backwards FAST. I think this was about the surprise of almost bumping into him partly but it was over quick. We got food headed back to our table and we had missed a visit from Eeyore! He had promised to come back though.

Our next visitor was Max and Colton was happy to see him as Max is Goofy's son and Goofy is his favorite. You will note my little man makes weird faces when the characters are behind him I don't think he really likes them out of sight, like what are they doing back there?

Next was Benny from Mary Poppins one of Colton's faves.

Rafiki who Colton was not that sure of until he saw the blue backside as he was leaving our table then he thought Rafiki was funny.

Capt Hook

And my personal favorite Tigger

Then Minnie came by this is when Colton figured out that if he stood up they could be next to him instead of behind him.

Pinocchio came by and he remembered the incident at the buffet because he was with us a bit longer than most tables, apeing with me showing where his ride was on the map. until Colton would at least get in a pic if I was in the middle

Eeyore came back by, this is my Mother's favorite character so we also snapped a photo on the cell and sent her a "look who we are having breakfast with" message.

Dale came by, the first but not last sighting we would have of this guy

Then Gepetto. For some reason Colton was very fascinated with his feet and called him Pinocchios Dad.

In all we saw 12 characters at this breakfast. there are only pics of 11 as Cinderella's fairy Godmother was leaving just as we entered and just stopped to wave.

Our review of Minnie & Friends breakfast at The Plaza Inn

Food was good, not great, but good, fruit was fresh and plentiful banana bread was moist, bacon was crispy, they had Mickey waffles which made Colton happy as these were his first, Brant had the made to order omelet with everything and was happy with that too. The CMs all were obviously very happy to be there or did a good imitation LOL. The characters were plentiful more of them than at any other breakfast we did this week. AND they were all still there when we left! We got a button as a souvineer! At this point we were wondering why was Goofy's (at the ballroom) being priced as a "premium" character meal? This was by far worth more money than what we got last night Food or entertainment! We left this breakfast feeling like Minnie's was getting the short end of the stick. We had a wonderful time!

#1 thing about Minnie's? Sheer # of characters. If tons of pics is what your aim is in a character meal this is the place for you.

All around at this point in time we thought Minnie's was amazing. We thought there was no way we could be wowed more. We thought this would be our "favorite" character meal of the week. Did this prove to be true? Stay tuned and find out.

 

[amamax2]

Wow - I cannot believe ALL those characters! That is awesome, especially after the Goofy's fiasco. I do have to agree with Colton, though, that Pinocchio is a little scary looking. Not quite sure why.....

 

[kaoden39]

What a wonderful improvement on the character meals for you. I have heard great things about The Plaza Inn meal and I see now that they are true. Yay!!

 

[TheColtonsMom]

Wow - I cannot believe ALL those characters! That is awesome, especially after the Goofy's fiasco. I do have to agree with Colton, though, that Pinocchio is a little scary looking. Not quite sure why.....

He is a little scary, I'm not exactly sure why either but for Colton I think it was the "sneak" around the buffet and the shock of seeing something so big coming at him suddenly, could have happened to just about any character that day I guess. LOL

What a wonderful improvement on the character meals for you. I have heard great things about The Plaza Inn meal and I see now that they are true. Yay!!

I have to give Minnie's credit they started our 1st park day off with a really nice "bang" we practically skipped out of there right at our 90 minute cut off.

 

[debdebdebby13]

That sounds like the kind of character meal we should expect from Disney. Glad it was better. I think I might add that one to our list of meals. Is it just a character breakfast or do they have characters at the other meals. Where is the Plaza Inn located?

 

[TheColtonsMom]

By the way...due to the fact that I couldn't take my eyes off of Colton for a minute...His reactions to everything were fascinating to me. I couldn't possibly as much as I love photography experience this trip "through the lens" so to speak. DH who is the family "video guy" (we own our own small film company) took over the stills which is not exactly a passion for him. He started out quite focused on the boy but as the trip moved on he found some "quest photos" and "food porn" were fun and since flowers have been gone so long up here in Montana he found himself distracted by flora & fauna a couple of times. When asked by a CM at Carnation Cafe why he was photographing our food he said he was doing the pics for his wife's online food review LOL. So other trips we take may have many more DL detail pics, More quests more food porn more everything. The pics from this trip are unique in that the family photographer gets caught by the camera much more than I will probably ever be on another trip.

 

[TheColtonsMom]

That sounds like the kind of character meal we should expect from Disney. Glad it was better. I think I might add that one to our list of meals. Is it just a character breakfast or do they have characters at the other meals. Where is the Plaza Inn located?

Plaza Inn only does characters at breakfast. ( I believe Goofy's is the only character meal with brunch/lunch or dinner) It is the only character meal inside DL and is located on the hub to the right of the entrance to Tomorrowland. Your little birthday girl will love it! They all fawned all over Colton and his birthday button too so don't forget to pick that up before you go! But remember this review was from the point of view of being only our 2nd of 4 character meals this trip so stay tuned there are 2 more to come!