Why I Oughta...

A couple of weeks back, I added a photo of the Holiday Season Disneyland Park map to the collection here on the blog and today, I'm adding the companion Christmas/Holiday Season Disney California Adventure Parks map.  You see Minnie and Mickey in their winter gear in from of a big Christmas tree in the cover photo.  The holiday decorations at DCA are fine, but they're not quite as special as the ones at Disney's Hollywood Studios.  The vintage tinsel-laden decor that they put up in Orlando is the best in any of the parks. The full series of posts showing off various Disney Parks maps including both Tokyo DisneySea and Tokyo Disneyland along with some seasonal/special holiday party maps from the Magic Kingdom can be found here .

Just to make things simple here for the record keeper at the 'official' coaster collection archives, I'm calling this just one coaster.  You can see a bunch of coasters in the photos of this post and one side of them are all different, but just to keep things simple here, let's call this one coaster. And that coaster is pretty neat:  it is from the new (at least kinda new) Lamplight Lounge at Disney California Adventure. As I've posted over time, we're lounge people when it comes to Disney parks and dining.  After taking some advice from Pam at the BoG Podcast, we've sought out more and more lounges.  They don't require ADRs and you can get pretty good food in an atmosphere that we can enjoy and the kids can tolerate. This place - the Lamplight Lounge - is called a 'lounge', but it also takes ADRs.  Or at least reservations via the Disneyland mobile app - which is a bit different than WDW ADRs.  But, you get it, right?  Also, the food is...

Add another 'streetmosphere' character to the list of folks that we've met at the Disney Parks over the years.  Today's post is about Donna Linn De Larria - one of the "Citizens of Buena Vista Street" in Disney California Adventure. She's a lot like the "Citizens of Hollywood" that greet guests at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Florida, but she's in California.  We met Donna and her dog Lady one morning on our recent visit.  MousePlanet has the full list and details of the Citizens of Buena Vista Street here .  From their notes about Donna , we find out that she's the 'unofficial mayor'.  From MousePlanet  and their post about all the 'Citizens ': Donna is the unofficial mayor of Buena Vista St.. You usually see her with her dog, Lady. The kids love to meet the dog and pet her of course. She is happy to give you directions to any attractions. She is also happy that women just got the vote and has no plans on...

Over the years, I've posted a few times on tilework done at Disney Parks.  It has been a source of inspiration and admiration both for us as we built our house and how we observe the world.  First, I covered the tilework in the Peter Pan queue in Fantasyland at Walt Disney World .  Then, I came across the tile in PizzaRizzo at Disney's Hollywood Studios .  Both served as inspiration for our vestibule tile work that we eventually incorporated into the house.  Today's post shows some tile that is the Ariel ride at Disney's California Adventure.  Turns out, this is, I think, called the San Felipe style of tile .  Think about the beating this tile is taking at Disney California Adventure.  Hundreds of thousands of people are walking across this every month.  And it looks great.  As we are beginning to think about our basement build-out, tile is something to think about and this struck some part of inspiration in me.  Now......

On our recent trip to Disney California Adventure at the Disneyland Resort, we had a dinner at the Carthay Circle Lounge.  NOT at the restaurant, but downstairs in the lounge that doesn't require reservations.  We waited in a short line, then were lead into the outer lounge space - that doubles as kind of the lobby - for the upstairs restaurant.  We were *just* outside of the formal lounge, but had nice plush chairs and a little table.  Nat had a cocktail, I had a beer flight and we ate a bunch of the small plates. But, none of that was the star.  Nope.  That's because right beside our table was a display case that had all these Donald Duck products in it.  And if you look closely, the consumer products are all in almost perfect mint condition.  There's Cheese Quackers from Nabisco that has a nice Donald Duck-tie-in.  But then there's just a bunch of random products that they appear to have slapped the Donald Duck name/brand on.  ...

Back last Summer, I posted a 'one that got away' about a vintage Disneyland drink tray that I came across .  It was white, but had the state of California and a bunch of characters.   I admired the tray, but quickly realized that I can appreciate it without actually having to own it.  Besides...there are really just a handful of times a year (for us) that we could actually use a tray like this one. But then....we stopped into the Blue Sky Cellar.  It is in Disney's California Adventure and included a bunch of models and Imagineering stuff.  There are interactive cards to fill out, a video to watch and artifacts to gaze over. They bill "Blue Sky" as the first step in the Imagineering process. In amongst the artifacts was that black Disneyland beverage tray that you see at the very top of this post.  I'm certain there were a bunch of iterations of the Disneyland tray, but now we know of at least two of them.  While my initial thought was...

Another day and another post on something we picked up at a Disney Park.  This continues the last few posts about items at Disneyland Resort.  Above is a Mickey Mouse "Honorary Aviator" sticker that they give out in the Soarin' line at Disney's California Adventure.  It is bigger than the normal "Mickey Stickers" that they hand out all over and is the size of the celebration buttons. This is a little different than the 'job role' stickers like the other WDW-related ones we've picked up including a  Honorary Custodian  or  WDW Monorail Pilot .  It is ride-related and includes Mickey, so not sure where exactly to put it. But, that doesn't matter.  Get it next time you ride Soarin' in DCA. Full list of items that are free from Disney Parks: This "Honorary Aviator" Mickey the Mouse sticker (that's the size of a button) from the Soarin' queue.   A cute set of  Lightning McQueen and Stanley Disney California Advent...

Everyone always talks about how much Disney park visits cost.  And they do, indeed, cost quite a bit.  But, there's value all around if you look for it.  Most of the time, that value comes from spending quality time with your family.  Some other times, that value comes from the little things that you can pick up/get/do around the parks. I've written about these various 'freebies' around the parks here on the blog.  Full list is below.  Today, is the second day in a row posting about one of these things and they're both transportation-related.  These in the photo at the top are from Disney's California Adventure and are available at Radiator Springs Racers in Carsland.  If you ask the cast member, you can choose between Lightning McQueen and Stanley.  With three kids, we were able to get both! The kids wore these (the boy on his hat, the girls on their lanyards) all day.  Disneyland Resort does NOT do pin trading like they do at Wa...