Character cavalcade at EPCOT

We stumbled on to a large character meet & greet at Walt Disney World's EPCOT Center this past spring near the American Pavilion.  There in one of the alleys the characters interact with guests before they start appearing at their usual locations. You never know who you might see, and on some occasions we have been by this spot and no one was appearing. Because it is unadvertised and out of the way it rarely has the long lines of the regularly scheduled character spots.

But this time it was a real character cavalcade! There must have been 10 characters all at once, there were so many we did not even meet them all.

With a couple of swingers...real jungle VIPs!

Mickey's favorite pooch : Pluto

The Goofster!

And a fun visit with Mr. Smee! We were so lucky to be walking by at just the right time! You never know who you might encounter!

Disneyland Hotel

Hotel sign inspired by the classic Disneyland marquee.

Earlier this year we stayed at California’s Disneyland Hotel.  It was  a wonderful experience and we hope to return again some day. The current theme of the hotel is classic Disneyland. The three towers are themed to Fantasyland, Frontierland, & Adventureland, while the pool area is themed to Tomorrowland.

Giant park map in lobby

Everywhere you look you will find Disneyland art and park memorabilia. We stayed in the Fantasy Tower, which is above the main lobby. The main lobby is anchored by a spectacular floor to ceiling guide map of Disneyland, the carpet has an It’s A Small World motif and there were teacup shaped seats in the lobby. It was all so magical.

Fantastic lobby art

Its A Small World carpet

More amazing lobby art

Our room was very comfortable, with room for 5 in 2 queen beds and a convertible sofa bed with a very generous bathroom. The centerpiece of the room is a full room length illuminated headboard with an image of Sleeping Beauty’s castle. The headboard had fireworks lighting and it played “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes”. There were wonderful touches throughout the room. Our view was of the pool courtyard and we could see the Monorail themed slides.

Trader Sam's in the distance and pool at center of courtyard

Spectacular headboard Castle mural

Agent P models the monogrammed bath robes next to a classic photo of Walt Disney behind Sleeping Beauty Castle

While at the hotel we dined at Trader Sam’s, the famous tiki bar inspired by the Jungle Cruise character. The ambiance was wonderful and the food was great. It looked like a miniature Polynesian Resort in the middle of the Disneyland Hotel courtyard. We also enjoyed shopping at the gift store and popping into the Small World themed sundries shop in the lobby.

Vintage Disneyland art everywhere

The location is within walking distance of the Downtown Disney Shopping District and a short walk from the Downtown Disney Monorail Station that will take you directly to Disneyland's Tomorrowland.  Parking is charged by the night but you are welcome to leave your car on your checkout day should you be spending the whole day at the parks.

Downtown Disney steps away from the hotel

We had stayed at the Disneyland Hotel quite a few years before the current remodel. It was still a magnificent hotel, with lots of Disney charm and theming but in a traditional style with lots of wood paneling, molding & chandeliers. The current style is more of a retro-contemporary-modern style. When we last stayed the rooms had a small balcony but they have since been enclosed making the rooms a little bit larger. One previous standout of those past rooms was a Tinkerbell wallpaper frieze that glowed in the dark when you turned out the lights at night...we were so delighted by that.

Souvenir ephemera from our room, nice to see so much Walt Disney

The Disneyland Hotel is nearly as old as Disneyland itself and has changed quite a bit over the years. What you see today dates from the mid 60’s but has been heavily remodeled and enlarged over the years. The original hotel was located between today’s towers and the Monorail station, but that was all removed to build the west end of Downtown Disney. Still there is a lot of history to experience at today’s Disneyland Hotel and we really want to stay there again.

When to go to Disney... or: why and when we go

We are very fortunate to be able to go to Disney Resorts as much as we do. When we lived in California we had Annual Passes and at one point only lived about a 15 minute (with no traffic) drive from Disneyland. We lived in a foothill area separating Orange County (where Disneyland is located) from the San Gabriel Valley (a suburban region east of downtown Los Angeles). Sometimes while crossing this hill we could catch the distant view of the nightly fireworks over Walt Disney’s original Magic Kingdom. So like a lot of Californians we felt a very strong  ownership over Disneyland.

When we relocated to the East Coast (originally to Washington, DC now Charlotte, NC) we got used to not going very often. In fact we went almost 6 years without visiting Disneyland. When we finally revisited Disneyland on a trip to California from North Carolina it awoke a very dormant Disney fandom! Opon returning to North Carolina we committed to finally making the trip down to Florida to visit Walt Disney World. That first trip for us to Walt Disney World was only 4 years ago. It was June 2015, our youngest son was on the way but would not be born until September so the trip was a swan song to our life as a family of 3. We figured we’d see what Disney World was like (while carrying a Disneyland chip on our shoulder) and probably not return for sometime, little did we know how much we would fall for Walt Disney World. Turned out we loved WDW and looked forward to returning. After our youngest son was born (around Labor Day 2015 how appropriate!) and once life returned somewhat to (our new) normal we started ruminating on returning to Disney World much sooner than we originally intended. Between work and school it can be tough to get all the way back to the West Coast for the holidays and since we don’t have family in North Carolina we ended up deciding to go to WDW for Thanksgiving 2015.  This ended up becoming the start of a tradition for us.

We associate Disneyland with California, that is to say with “home” so that when we can’t get back easily but we do have time for a road trip or a diversion then Walt Disney World in many ways feels like a bit of “home” here on the East Coast. Our feelings of ownership over Disneyland have expanded to include  WDW. We can not think of many other things as completely engaging for every member of our family than a visit to a Disney Resort.

There is a wonderful scene in the film “Pretty Woman” that comes to mind when thinking about Disney Parks Fandom. Richard Gere is talking about opera but the sentiment equally applies. The first exposure to (opera but for our purposes Disney-land/and or World) is very important, you either love it or you don’t, if you don’t you may learn to appreciate it, but it will never touch your soul. Needless to say we have always loved it and indeed it touches our souls. Often people with an intense passion for visiting the Disney Parks repeatedly can be asked why do you go so much and that seems as good an answer as any...because it touches the soul! So for us when is the time to go to, well we tend to go for birthdays, anniversaries, Thanksgiving, or whenever we get the chance!