February 25
You know? It started out to be a great day, this the 7th birthday of my DS, Riley. We couldn’t wait to go try Goofy’s Kitchen for our character breakfast. It’s at the famous and gorgeous
Disneyland Hotel. I had heard it was a lot like Chef Mickey’s at the Contemporary Hotel in Walt Disney World. I wanted to compare the two of course and, dang it, I was hungry!
I woke up nice and early and very happy. Got myself ready first, then woke and bathed each child, followed by dressing, teeth brushing and hair do-ing for each child. Birds were singing and we were chirping as we happily piled into the Suburban to go to our very fun (and very expensive without FREE dining) and highly recommended character breakfast that is the
Goofy’s Kitchen.
We valet parked, and joyfully skipped to the restaurant. At least I did in my mind.
Now, I sometimes MAY have my expectations a tad high about how my children should behave in public. They started out delightful, really. Norman Rockwell would have loved to paint our portrait and put it on the month of February in his next calendar.
With that being said, we got our pictures taken with Pluto (think the “place setting” at Chef Mickey’s) and had one separate with just Riley for his birthday. We even shelled out tens of dollars for the professionally matted souvenir version.
The adults (DH and I) took turns taking one or two children at a time to the buffet to fill our rainbow colored stoneware plates to their massive capacity.
One delectable little item in the buffet was this: Muffin Tops!
Now, I know “muffin tops” to be the roll of fat that spills over one’s waste band on one's pants. The lower the rise, the bigger the muffin top. So, when I saw these little morsels , I took their picture. "Say Cheese, my precious Seinfeldian Muffin Tops!” It was the last laugh I had before things got ugly.
I returned to our table and set my plate down on the alleged table….and it promptly fell on the floor! See, there’s a nice rectangular piece of butcher paper on the ROUND table we were at, and I put my plate on the piece of paper that extended beyond the table. OOOps! I cleaned up most of the damage and a bus boy helped me with the rest. I apologized more than was necessary went back to the buffet to re do my plate. Sigh.
When I got back, Aladin came to visit us! Oh boy, was he cute! Why yes, you can take us for a ride on your magic carpet! Then Balou!!!! Yay! “Hi Ballou!” …he went to the 2 other tables in our room first and then LEFT! Whuuuut??? That was very strange. He was not “
in character”, I noticed, as they sometimes can be. BUT, mama paid big $$$ for him to interact with her babys so “get your big blue bum back (bbb) in here and INTERACT with them!” I screamed (in my head). Duh! It’s my kid’s 7th birthday! Don’t they know that? Don’t they know who I am???? Evidently, the staff and characters of Goofy’s kitchen do not “DIS”.
(sorry, did that sound braggish???)
Then it came time for merriment and frolicking in the form of the macarena with Belle and Goofy. Oh YA! We know how to Par-tay! We also banged on germy plastic pots and pans with spoons too , but I forgot the pot-banging-appropriate song. Oh boy! What fun!!!! (SIKE!)
Did I mention my boys were fighting and behaving horribly?
I know I hinted, but they were getting on each other’s nerves and often failing to use their “restaurant voices.” They were not even using their “in public voices”. They were, in fact, using their screaming-banchee voices. A few times they even used their extra loud “rabid-howler-monkey-voices", which REALLY bugs. This tends to push my mama buttons.
When those buttons are pushed too often and in rapid succession, I tend to become the “mean mama”. Maybe you know her? She likes to grab the backs of cute little necks and hissper words like, “Knock it the #@^%&*! off right now or I will gladly go to prison for life for what I am about to do to you in front of all these witnesses. I can guarantee it will hurt reeeeally badly…” or something regretful like that. She did a bang-up job raising Cinderella all those years…and it takes A LOT for me to become her, being the sweet thing I am.
So, after a bucket full of pixie dust and all of Aladin’s 3 wishes, my boys shaped up, magically!
I noticed several other patron’s being sung the Happy Birthday song and receiving balloons and cupcakes and being showered with characters. But NOT us. OUR birthday boy was songless, cupcakeless, and balloonless. I mentioned, again, to our hostess that it’s our son’s birthday, and we’re almost done eating and almost are ready to leave yet only 2 characters have visited us in the HOUR since our arrival… and there’s MANY more characters to make the rounds. She was very polite and said, “Yes we KNOW it’s his birthday, stupid Utahan!” To which I may have something like, “Well? Maybe you can kick up the party just a notch?” And I MAY have complained to the manager just a little. Not minutes later, this arrived!!!!
Look at Rileys’ face! All was good! Finally the magic! We suddenly had a visit from the rest of the characters. It was just very odd. They came around right after each other. I guess Mr. Manager gave them the heads-up on our forgotten table? Maybe the characters only come to good-boy-tables (I may have told my boys this once or ten times).
But, it ended up being great. The food was just delicious, especially the egg’s benedict and the peanut butter and jelly pizza. I think it’s on a great big sugar cookie for “pizza”, but boy was that a treat!
We walked out and headed to the Disneyland hotel gift shop when we realized Riley’s lanyard with all his pins and Stitch weight was GONE!!!
Oh NOOOOO! We back-tracked to the restaurant and looked around everywhere he had been. Nope! We asked if it had been turned in. Nope. We looked at the little necks of the other children dining….Nope. We left our cell phone # at the front desk in case anyone turned it in. We went to the hotel’s lost and found…Nope. We double checked all our digital pictures just barely taken. Yes, he had the pin lanyard up through the macarana with Belle and Goofy. Had it fallen off? Did he take it off somewhere? We still don’t know. No one knows. (except perhaps the child who found it on the floor and thought it was his lucky day?). We just have a pictoral history of the approximate time it was missing. Note: its ON in the Pluto picture …and off in the cupcake picture. Hmmmmmm!
We ended up at “Guest Services” in case someone turned it in there. Nope. BUT. The managers we talked to took off some of their pins and found some special cast member one’s in their desk drawers and gave him a coupon to take to the gift shop to get a lanyard of his choice! No Kidding!!! His eyes went from utter devastation
to lit up glee
in 2 seconds! *Note, DH and I refused the coupon at first, but they insisted.So pleas dont think we are dis-opportunists!
We thanked them for their kindness and Riley picked out a cool new lanyard at the gift shop. He also picked out the Fantasmic Mickey lanyard weight too. Armed with his new pins to trade, he made a few trades before leaving the hotel. Gotta love his style! He just points at the cast member’s pin he wants and hands them a trader pin. All without saying a word! It works every time for him! He does quietly say “thank you” after he’s made his trade. He’s an expert on scoring the more valuable pins, which may be a hint at his business future! I imagine him in 20 years, buying and trading stocks with the simple point of a finger...
Here is a sneak peak of next time...
I'm glad he got his birthday cake and characters! It is wierd that no one was coming around. Sorry to hear about his lanyard
Did Riley like his new lanyard better than his old one anyway? 
! That was so nice that the CM's helped make losing his lanyard a little easier for him, you definately had some pixie dust comin your way then. BTW, I assume Norah was feeling better? Can't wait for the next installment!
