"You're Going to Disneyland? That's in Florida Right?" UPDATED 11/13 Final Chapter :D

[mom2cgj]

Hi, Mark!!!

I've been reading a long for a while, but hadn't chimed in yet. Then I realized that the Mark that was reading my TR was "THE" Mark from this thread!

 

[kastoney]

Lovin the character dining. Wish WDW had something where u could meet princesses and Mickey n company all at the same time. Also love the dichotomy of your plate vs your Moms. PB&J pizza vs. Salad....too funny.

 

[Lovethatmouse7]

Hey!! I was reading Jess' report and followed the link to yours! Can't wait to read more!

 

[Mjp935]

Chapter 19: Dining with Character pt. 3

So like I said, I was 3 plates in and my mom was 2! What were we going to do!?
We decided to respectfully pass on dessert& I am just kidding who does that at Disney????
But before we had dessert, we were visited by a small woodland creature named&.





DALE!!!
Does that give you a hint as to who the last character is??
Heres the selfie!!



Then it was time for dessert!
This was my moms plate:



The brownie on the left is actually a mini lava cake, in the middle we have some bread pudding and on the right that is a mint brownie!

My plate:



I also had the bread pudding and the lava cake, but I also had the strawberry cheesecake! I LOVE CHEESECAKE!!!!
Then because it was my birthday they brought me out a cupcake! I am not a big fan of the cupcake but it was really good!



We were almost done but WHERE IS CHIP!!!!!!!
After a few minutes of sitting he finally came up! It was great to see him!







Just remember that you always know its Chip because his nose is a chocolate chip!
From there we were beat, if you remember we woke up at 3:45 in the morning! So we headed back to the red lion!
We finally saw our room! It was super nice!







We had a big day in the morning heading to Disneyland Park!

Continued in Next Post​

 

[PlutosRHM55]

Wow, you met so many great characters already on your first day! I never even knew Clarice greeted in DCA. I always thought she was exclusive to Disneyland Paris. I'll definitely have to look out for her when I go there. And that's so awesome how you'll never know who may show up at the character dining experiences and that so many show up too! Love it!

Can't wait to read about your day in the original Disneyland!

 

[Orbitron]

Great trip report, found it today and I read it straight through. I love Disneyland and your pictures. By the way, the girl with the Jasmine costume at the D23 Expo is Traci Hines.

 

[Mjp935]

Chapter 20: “To all who come to this happy place… Welcome”

Good morning! And it is truly a good morning… we were heading to Disneyland!
Just like every other morning we got up pretty early… at 6:30 this time!
This time rather than the bus we opted to walk… It took less than 10 minutes…
When we got to the gates the lines were long, there was EMH that morning!
Luckily there was a line for Character Breakfasts!



The only problem was that our reservation wasn’t till 9 am… and it was 7 when the gates opened for EMH!

We talked to the cast member at the turnstiles and she wasn’t sure if she could let us in and told us to wait for the Dining person to come out!
We waited and a few minutes later the same cast member we talked to decided to let us in for the EMH! How amazing is that!? Talk about a magical moment!
I was suddenly on Main Street U.S.A., which is my favorite section of the park!













We decided to head to the restaurant to see if they might let us in early!
After we checked in I took some pictures!
Oh by the way we were eating at…







Which is the host of Minnie and Friend’s Breakfast!
They ended up taking us super early! Like an hour and a half early! I wasn’t complaining!

The restaurant was beautiful!!!













And there was sooooo many friends there!
Wanna know who??
Well that will be discussed in the next update!

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[j2thomason]

Hi Mark! I'm have followed you through Jess' CP thread & am SO glad you are doing a DL trip report! My daughter & I went to DLR for her first visit in May. We are WDW vets and HUGE Disney fans. This trip was what she wanted for her high school graduation gift. She wanted to visit "Walt's park". We had a blast! We stayed at Paradise Pier and had the 3 day meal plan which included 3 character meals. We went to Surf's Up at Paradise Pier, Storyteller's at the a Grand Californian, and our favorite was Minnie and Friends at the Plaza Inn. After looking at your pictures I wish we had done Goofy's Kitchen instead of Storytellers. We were really disappointed in the character meal experience at Storytellers. But, we absolutely LOVED Minnie and Friends!!! We had the verylast seating of the morning. A wonderful cast member, named Annie, made sure we saw every character....all 13 of them....yes, I said 13!!! The most wonderful thing about having the last seating was we got to get a group picture with 9 of the characters. My daughter and both said that Minnie and Friends was the most magical character meal experience we had ever had (we've done a LOT at WDW)!! It was worth the trip just for that meal. All of the characters were so friendly and not in any hurry to rush off to another table. Dale wrote a novel in my daughter's autograph book; she's 18 and still loves to get autographs.

Our other wonderful experience from that trip was the Walk in Walt's Disneyland Footsteps tour. What a great tour! We even got to go in Walt's apartment above the fire station and got a wonderful souvenir pin that you can only get on that tour.

If we ever get to do another DLR trip, Minnie and Friends and the Walk in Walt's Disneyland Footsteps tour will definitely be on our "must do" list. What a magical experience!!

I hope your trip was filled with magic, too! I can't wait to read the rest of your trip report!

 

[katt789]

Yay! I fell a little bit behind, but it’s all good, here now to catch up!!

That cinnamon roll looks delicious! Yay for Disney!! I’m excited to hear/see all about Carsland, it wasn’t opened when I was there, can’t wait to go back! Yay! Selfies! I can’t wait to meet Sofia! Aw man, the Mad T area looks awesome! Haven’t seen that either!

Yay for TSM, I love that the wait isn’t as long in DCA at all, love it!!

The dance party thing is totally awesome!! Love that they have all these entertainment things going on over summer. The downside of DLR is that they don’t have all that stuff all year round and only do their fireworks and stuff a couple times a week during non peak times. I don’t know how I missed all that stuff in the Animation building but it looks totally awesome!

Yay for character dining! Uhm…I need to try those pizza’s!! Goofy’s kitchen looks like a great time! I ate there like, a million years ago, haha, definitely gonna need to try that again!

Yay! More character dining, how awesome that they let you in early and took you in for breakfast early! Exciting!!

 

[Mjp935]

Chapter 21: To eat or not to eat!

So we have just sat down at our table at Plaza Inn for Breakfast with Minnie and Friends!
Our waitress said We put this card on your table so it tells the Hostess that table is taken! So get your food when ever you want!



And thats when it starts!
At every character meal the question is To Eat or Not To Eat
If you have done Character dining you know what that feeling when you think to yourself Well Minnie is right there& but I am really hungry& WHAT DO YOU DO???????
THERE WERE SO MANY CHARACTERS EVERYWHERE!!!





You think to yourself that you would love a sign from above to answer the question& then it happened!
Chip and Dale walked up to our table! Thank you Walt!





I didnt get selfies because I didnt want to take up their time, we got some last night& instead I opted for the picture of just them!



Then Winnie the Pooh came over!



The picture of Pooh and me didnt come out well& but I did get the selfie!



Then quickly after Captain Hook came up



Take that hook away from my neck I need that!!!



The selfie with my friend the captain!



And TIGGER bounced towards us!!!





Tigger is great!! Heres the selfie!!



Minnie also visited but we figured she had a lot of other tables to get to and we saw her last night so we let her move on!
Then we looked around and decided it was safe to eat!
The first place I ran was the MICKEY WAFFLES!!!!



OH MY GOSH I MISSED THEM SOOOOO MUCH!
I also had bacon, eggs, hash browns and a biscuit!



My mom had French toast and strawberries. She also had bacon and eggs but I figured one picture was enough!



These were the only pictures that came out of this dining excursion but its only because we basically ate the same stuff every time we got a plates!

Well there are more characters and more fun coming up!
I bet you cant wait, neither can I!!

Continued in Next Post​

 

[mmeb144]

You're right! I can't wait! More please! I'm am loving your take on DL. Love all the pics with you and your Mom. Thanks for doing this report, again! Like you don't hear that enough....

 

[chip68]

Good report Mark! Was reading up on Jess' report and came here to read yours.

 

[Mjp935]

Chapter 22: Plaza Inn Finale​

So Tigger hopped away and we were quickly visited by another magical character!
The Fairy Godmother from Cinderella walked up to our table!
I love to see the Fairy Godmother, I haven’t seen her since March 2013 in Epcot with my dad!



My mom has never met her before!



She was super sweet! I mean who would expect any less?
She was really surprised I had some magic of my own when I took the selfie!



Then I glanced over and saw Captain Hook checking himself out in the mirror!
I thought it was comical so I took a picture of this!!



Then Tigger and Pooh were playing right by our table! It was soo cute so I took a picture!



Then their other friend Eeyore visited us!





It’s a flashback to Crystal Palace!
He was so sad and it was so early in the morning!!
I hope this selfie cheered him up!



After that we had a little bit of time to eat!
Then we were visited by Rafiki!
He is great! I wish he held me over a cliff as a baby to show everyone I was born!





Gotta get the selfie!



We had one last character to meet! And he was late!
See what I did there? Well once you see what who it is you will understand!





And I got a selfie before he had to go back to the rabbit hole!



Well we met all the characters! But we had to get more food!
No pictures sorry!
Then I had an unexpected visitor!





Dale decided to sit down and eat with me!
It was really magical!
Then Tigger came up and poured salt on me… I am not a big Tigger fan but like is that a thing from the books or movies?? Because in the past at 1900 Park Fare he did that to me too!
He made up for it though…
He got the ketchup…



yeah that’s much better….
After we finished eating we headed out and it was just past 8 am which was the regular opening time!



Bye Plaza, I would definitely eat there again!

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[SmallWorld71]

Wow! I can't believe all the characters! I wish we had character meals like that at WDW!

 

[Mjp935]

Chapter 23: Fantasy Faire

So after our amazing breakfast we quickly went and got the iconic castle picture!



We even got the Partners statue in it!
Thats a nice picture!
Well after that it was time to go off to FANTASY FAIRE!







Isn't Figaro so cute??

For those of you who dont know what that is, Im sure you all do but just incase, it is the princess meet and greet area. Additionally there is the royal theater that has shows throughout the day. (We will get to that later)
We headed to the meet and greet which was at a 5-minute wait!
The princesses who were meeting were Cinderella, Aurora and Ariel!
First we came to Aurora!



I skipped the selfie because I already had one with her!
Next we swam over to Ariel!



Heres the selfie!!!



And finally we moved on to Cinderella!
I was excited to tell her that I spent more time in her kingdom!



And the selfie!



After Fantasy Faire we asked about where we could meet Peter Pan, the attendant told us that he runs around Fantasyland and he was hard to catch!
IS THAT A CHALLENGE???
Let the hunt begin!
But before that we decided to head to my second favorite part of the park Fantasyland! It was pretty dead so we headed to something I found interesting!
It was a walkthrough of Sleeping Beauty Castle!
It featured windows where you could look into the story of Sleeping Beauty!
Here are some pictures!



























There is Malificent lurking around the corner... spooky!



It was super cool!!

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[AwkwardTurtle]

I am usually way too awkward to comment on the trip reports I read, but Disneyland is my home park, and I'm so excited to see it getting some love over here! I'm especially glad you were able to do the Sleeping Beauty Castle walkthrough. I remember the first time I realized that I could just walk up into the castle - I basically freaked out. It may or may not have been very embarrassing to my husband......

It's such a little known attraction, but I just love it so much. Also, did you get to see Figaro trying to catch the little bluebird in the cage?? I due of cute every time.

 

[the_princess]

Ohhh Mark, I love your TR. I'm off to DL in December for the second time, so I'm so excited about reading about your trip!

 

[BelleLulu]

I'm especially glad you were able to do the Sleeping Beauty Castle walkthrough. I remember the first time I realized that I could just walk up into the castle - I basically freaked out. It may or may not have been very embarrassing to my husband......

It's such a little known attraction, but I just love it so much.

The walk through Sleeping Beauty Castle was always a first stop for me. As a young girl I felt so magical and like a princess walking into the castle and loved the story so much because of it.

I hope your husband recovered from his embarrassment, mine has gotten good at looking at something else while I freak out! He got halfway out a Epcot before he realized I had stopped for a picture with Daisy! I'm sure he heard me squeak and say I was getting my picture with her as he walked away.

 

[Mjp935]

Chapter 24: Pixie Hollow

After the walkthrough of Sleeping Beauty Castle we headed to see some of my favorite characters!
PIXIE HOLLOW!



I love the Tinkerbell movies. I believe that my love for those movies is a side effect of my unhealthy obsession with Peter Pan!
The queue was pretty cool!







Fairy houses and Fairy boats, wow so small!



Silvermist turned the water off for that day!



Iradessa, why is she in the shade??



Rosetta's garden!



Fawn in a birds nest!



Perry waiting for Tink by the winter woods!



Now I know that Tinkerbell was going to be there but what other friends would she have!?
I love Terence, I am actually being him for Halloween! So I was hoping it would be him!
The family behind us had reservations for Plaza Inn soon so we let them go in front of us so that they could make it! We didnt really have any time restrictions so it wasnt a big deal!
I guess it was a good decision because when we got in, look who the first person we saw was!







I WAS SOOOO HAPPY!
Here is the selfie!



The lock screen on my iPhone is a picture of me and Peter Pan!
Terence saw this and told me that Peter Pan throws acorns at him&
Thats not very nice seeing as Pixies and Fairies are smaller than acorns!
I also told him that I was going to be him for Halloween, he said that he would be me for Halloween!

We then moved on to Tinkerbell. She was super cute!
The photopass got some interesting shots!















and of course we needed to get the selfie!



That was great!
I also heard this great joke while I was there!
Ready for it&

Knock Knock
Whose there?
Tinkerbell
Tinkerbell who?
I tink your bell is broken thats why I knocked!

BAHAHA isnt that hilarious!
I crack myself up!

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[AwkwardTurtle]

The walk through Sleeping Beauty Castle was always a first stop for me. As a young girl I felt so magical and like a princess walking into the castle and loved the story so much because of it.

I hope your husband recovered from his embarrassment, mine has gotten good at looking at something else while I freak out! He got halfway out a Epcot before he realized I had stopped for a picture with Daisy! I'm sure he heard me squeak and say I was getting my picture with her as he walked away.

Haha, yeah he's used to it by now. He just kind of shakes his head. I think he's still mad about the time I wandered away in Princess Fantasy Faire and he didn't realize it. Ariel was telling stories! Where did he think I had gone??