The other day, when I was boasting of my great new, updated "Hotels..." post on page 1 of this thread, I completely overlooked the fact that I had neglected to add in a bit of important information to it!! I just remembered it this morning.
When I stayed at the PPH last year, I recall that in the daily information phone calls to my room (which detailed the special activities that were going on during that week at the 3 DLR hotels, labeled the "Magical Hotel Adventures"), there was something mentioned called the "Merriest Holiday Hunt." Also in the calls, the CM was referring to the "Happiest Hotel on Earth Tour" (of the Disneyland Hotel) as the "Merriest Hotel on Earth" tour, but that may not be anything more than just a clever name change as opposed to any real holiday content in the tour.
For some weird reason, I never followed up on finding out about the Merriest Holiday Hunt (nor did I follow up on the Merriest Hotel on Earth). I have no idea why. I was there. I was free and available to do what I wanted to do. I don't know why it didn't click with me that the Merriest Holiday Hunt was something I would want to do!??
(Let me remind you all -- as if you needed reminding -- that I am a huge fan of any and all holiday season activities, in or out of Disneyland Resort!)
When I was getting caught up on Jenny's (rentayenta's) December 2013 TR at one point, to my delight I saw that she posted a schedule of the Magical Hotel Adventures going on during the week she stayed onsite. Sure enough, the Merriest Holiday Hunt is listed on there -- as is the "Winter Ornament Workshop"!!!!
"Winter Ornament Workshop"?!!! What is that? You mean to tell me that I missed at least TWO holiday-specific activities while staying onsite?
What was wrong with me? Clearly I was not thinking straight on that trip. I got a lot done on the trip, but I would have surely made time to do a holiday hunt and an ornament workshop!
Anyway, I updated my "Hotels" post on page 1 to reflect the mentions of the Magical Hotel Adventures -- Here -- and I included a link to Jenny's TR post with the 2013 schedule in it, so that no future DLR hotel guests have to miss out on the extra seasonal fun!
That makes a lot of sense. If they wait until after they are losing almost an entire week of the season. It would be neat to wake up one morning to a huge tree! My DS# is turning 3 on the 26th so we just squeak in there. I think we will book Storytellers for a birthday breakfast.
I'm hoping for moderate crowds for the first few days since they are weekdays. We are currently waitlisted for the Monday night as well (in the villas).
dsneygirl --
I totally agree. It doesn't really serve the hotels well to hold off on getting the decorations up -- especially when they put up brand new things last year -- if they are going to wait until after Thanksgiving to do it.
I've never understood why the hotels were not fully decorated and in the spirit of the season when the holiday season officially begins -- even in years when Thanksgiving is not so late in November. Disneyland advertises the hotels as being part of the resort-wide holiday celebration, and a lot of people simply cannot visit DLR in December or over Thanksgiving weekend.
So the guests who visit in mid-November to be there when the season officially begins in the parks should not be deprived of hotel fun too. Okay, maybe Santa won't be at the hotels until Thanksgiving, but it can't hurt them to put up all of the hotel trees and assorted gingerbread creations (both real and fake) at the GCH and DLH!
In my mind, decorated hotels = more people escaping the parks to check out the hotels' décor = more people visiting the hotels' restaurants and bars = more money being spent!
I am hopeful that DLR is finally realizing the logic in getting the 3 hotels decorated as close to the season start date in November as possible, instead of resuming their old practice of the Thanksgiving and beyond set-up!
The birthday breakfast for your DS at Storytellers sounds wonderful! Many people really love the Critter Breakfast. Storytellers is a lovely, fairly quiet restaurant, and if they have the gingerbread house set up near the entrance the smell should waft through the air nicely!
Sherry,
We've gone twice for Halloween but never for Christmas. I tried to follow along a bit last year because I knew we'd be going this year. Our dates are November 15-22. Tried to pick a quieter time, although with the marathon now scheduled I'm sure our first couple days will be crazy busy. We are surprising our boys again, and are bringing my mom and dad along too. The best part is I convinced DH that we should buy annual passes so that we can come back next summer for the 60th anniversary festivities! I'm crossing my fingers that the onsite hotels will be decorated at least one day before we leave but I realize we are probably their just a few days too early. I'm also hoping to try the candy cane ice cream you so fondly talk about
planningjollyholiday --
Don't even get me started on that crazy Peppermint Wonderland ice cream! You may remember the fiasco of it all last year, when the ice cream was not being sold at any of the usual places such as Gibson Girl or Clarabelle's (when the season began in November), but then it mysteriously appeared at Ghirardelli (and I didn't find out about it until it was already gone from there!), at the BBQ in DL and at the Blue Bayou???
Then the ice cream magically appeared at Gibson Girl in time for Christmas week!
Outside of DLR, the ice cream was popping up at my local stores well after the time it would usually be long gone from the shelves -- I even saw cartons of Peppermint Wonderland in February! So it wasn't available at the DLR ice cream shops at any time when I was there, but it was in my stores in February!??
Your upcoming trip sounds like it will be amazing. I think the AP plan sounds like a great one, with the 60th anniversary festivities on the horizon (I can't wait to see what DLR has planned for 2015)! You definitely don't want to miss out on that. Plus, if you time it out right, you can get in another Halloween Time trip and maybe even another holiday trip in 2015!?
I have a strong feeling -- though, of course, we can never be sure -- that you will get at least one day (probably more) of hotel Christmas trees and décor during your trip. Thanksgiving is on 11/27, and your last day at DLR is only 5 days before that date. Since many people will be arriving on that pre-Thanksgiving weekend to spend the week and the holiday at DLR, I have to believe that DLR will get the hotels in the spirit by that pre-holiday weekend, especially considering that the hotels had their Christmas trees up 9 days before Thanksgiving in 2013.
If this were going to be an early Thanksgiving year instead of a late one, I might have doubts that DLR would get the decorations up early, but I think the late Thanksgiving is going to work to speed up the decorations process! Hopefully, in the future, this 'early decoration of the hotels' phenomenon will become a regular occurrence!
Happy Easter Loved the photos
Thank you,
Jade! Happy belated Easter to you as well!
Happy Easter Sherry! Great photos!
Thank you,
Janet! Happy belated Easter to you!
Thanks for the happy post Sherry! What a treat to open this up and see all the beautiful flowers and pictures from your recent jaunt to DL. Love the springtime roundup!
TK --
Thank you, and you're welcome!
I was not fond of the heat at DLR last week -- the spring and summer sun is so much harsher and harder on me than the fall and winter sun -- and it was odd being there without any pumpkins or Christmas trees lining the streets.
But, visually, I love the fresh, bright, cheery look of the springtime stuff. The flowers around DLR are particularly lovely. And I love that the Roundup takes on different personalities, details, themes and cotton candy colors throughout the year (though I will say that the Springtime version of the Roundup did not seem to be nearly as popular as the Halloween Carnival or even the Jingle Jangle Jamboree). Having the various Disney rabbits and the Easter Bunny at the Roundup, as well as the egg art, is a great use of that space. It was nice to see something different (for me) than the usual. There was even a choir of young students performing songs.
I guess that next the Roundup will take on a patriotic theme to carry through summer?
Lovely flowers Sherry. Hope you had a Happy Easter.
Thank you,
Jenny!
It was a nice day, but I didn't get out to run errands and take photos, as I had planned.
As you can see from my above comments in red, I gave you a shout out on page 1, in the "Hotels" post!
Especially loved the flower shots, Sherry! Our spring is blooming now, but daisies and roses are summer plants for us. Happy Easter to you!
Thank you so much,
lucysmom!
Belated Happy Easter to you as well!
That's 2 "candy holidays" down, and 2 more to go! I call Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween and Christmas the "candy holidays" because of the colorful, themed packaging of familiar products in the stores (themed M&M's, themed Oreos, themed pudding, etc.). We have now passed the two candy holidays anchoring the first part of the year, and we have the two best candy holidays (anchoring the last segment of the year) still to come!
To be honest, I am often surprised at the kinds of flowers that are around DLR in autumn or near-winter. Some of them look summery and spring-like (such as the Critter Country flowers I showed on the previous page, which were there in December 2012 and 2013!). Other times the flowers (and trees!) are perfectly themed and colored to the seasons.
The pink and white flowers I took photos of were discovered by me on a random street in my neighborhood -- they were in full boom in very early May of 2012. I don't know what it was about that particular street, but the flowers all up and down the block were beautiful and seemed to be thriving. I am thinking it must be a happy street full of happy people, and the flowers are picking up on that energy! In fact, when I went back down the block in summer of that same year, the flowers did not look so healthy anymore. Spring seemed to be when they were in full glory.
In any case, Downtown Disney info is 
