tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59943640574178329022024-02-18T18:03:32.739-08:00An L.A. Mama on the Movebrunchinlahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00329986792726032628noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5994364057417832902.post-47252685794341003582018-04-11T10:49:00.000-07:002018-04-11T10:49:40.013-07:00Goofy's Kitchen Character Experience at The Disneyland Hotel<div>
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Anyone who knows me knows how much I love Goofy, so when I planned our trip to Disneyland over spring break, I had to include a visit to Goofy's Kitchen character dining experience at the Disneyland Hotel! <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">In a nutshell, Goofy's Kitchen is a fun, family friendly environment with a pretty good variety of buffet style food options. We came here for breakfast after our Magic Morning early park entry. I made our reservations in advance for an 11:15 seating on <a href="http://www.anlamama.com/2018/03/spring-break-2018-part-2-disneys.html">day 2 of our spring break adventure</a> so that once the park got crowded we were able to go sit down and eat outside the park in the Disneyland Hotel (i.e. refuel and recharge). You pay on arrival and they include gratuities in your total so everything's taken care of up front. No flagging down a server for your bill, calculating a tip, or waiting for your card. Excellent! </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Prior to being seated, we met the big guy himself, Goofy, for a photo op (I highly recommend purchasing a MaxPass for free photo downloads through the parks and at character experiences). Once inside, there were several stations serving up creative pizza options, fruit, traditional breakfast fare, a build your own omelette station, a salad bar, and a dessert bar. I opted for the omelette bar while my little guy tried just about everything else. Throughout the meal we were visited by several classic Disney characters who indulged us in photos and autographs. No lines and no chasing them down through Disney streets. Pretty cool. This character dining experience for my son and I came to just under $80 with gratuities yesterday. Well worth it!</span></span></div>
brunchinlahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00329986792726032628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5994364057417832902.post-67864601577306817222018-04-09T10:48:00.001-07:002018-04-09T10:50:14.365-07:00Spring Break 2018 at Disney's California Adventure<div style="text-align: justify;">
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Part two of our spring break adventure started with a Magic Morning at Disney's California Adventure. We woke up early and arrived to the park at 7:00 am, heading straight for Cars Land (my favorite part of the park) to ride Radiator Springs Racers with virtually no line! It was a fun, adrenaline-filled start to our morning that woke us right up. We stuck around and rode Luigi's Rolickin' Roadsters (formerly Luigi's Flying Tires ride), and got to meet Lightning McQueen for a PhotoPass photo op all before the park opened to the public. Once the park started to fill up, we headed back to our hotel to pack up and check out. </div>
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I booked a reservation at the <a href="http://www.anlamama.com/2018/03/goofys-kitchen.html">Goofy's Kitchen</a> character dining experience in the Disneyland Hotel a couple weeks in advance. I anticipated wanting a reprieve from the park by late morning, so I scheduled it for 11:30 am, just after checkout. This was timed perfectly. It was, indeed, nice to refuel and recharge without leaving any of the magic behind. </div>
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Once we filled our bellies, we made our way back to California Adventure with the specific goal of meeting T'Challa, King of Wakanda. The Black Panther. On this day, his Jeep wasn't running, so we missed the procession including an escort by the Dora Milaje, but we located the meet and greet location on the Hollywood Backlot. The wait was a little over an hour and it started to rain (thankfully I packed ponchos in our backpack) but it was well worth the wait! For Wakanda? Without question. </div>
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We rode the rides. We ate the foods. We had so much fun that we were exhausted and it was now time to bring our trip to a close. Before passing out on the car ride home, my son exclaimed that this was the best spring break every! Mission accomplished. </div>
brunchinlahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00329986792726032628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5994364057417832902.post-39530882401992135572018-04-07T21:54:00.003-07:002018-04-07T21:54:53.249-07:00Spring Break 2018: Disneyland<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Spring has sprung and I couldn't think of a better way to spend spring break with my little guy than at the happiest place on earth. I booked a stay at the <a href="https://disneyland.disney.go.com/hotels/paradise-pier-hotel/">Paradise Pier Hotel</a>, one of the Disneyland Resort properties, so that we could take a break from the action and recharge our batteries in middle of the day. One of the nice things about staying at a Disney property is that we got to visit the park an hour early on <a href="https://disneyland.disney.go.com/guest-services/magic-morning-early-admission/">Magic Mornings</a> even on our check in day- we just arrived to the hotel around 6:30 to complete preliminary check in, collected our room keys and tickets and we were off! This allowed us to get on some of our favorite rides with minimal lines before the park opened to the general public. </div>
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We only stayed at Paradise Pier for one night, visiting Disneyland on our arrival day and California Adventure on our departure day, so naturally we wanted to maximize our time. Enter <a href="https://disneyland.disney.go.com/guest-services/maxpass/">MaxPass</a> for $10 per person per day. It allowed me to secure a FASTPASS for popular rides from anywhere in the park instead of going to the ride itself to collect a FASTPASS. This was really helpful, but my favorite part about the MaxPass is it that it includes unlimited PhotoPass downloads from character interactions and photo spots throughout the park. These photos are taken by Disneyland photographers with cameras that far surpass the quality of those taken with my phone. This feature makes the MaxPass worth its weight in virtual gold. </div>
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I did have a specific agenda when planning this trip. As many times as I've visited the park, there are so many things that I've overlooked or simply haven't experienced throughout the years. I wanted to see and do as much as possible. Ever since I was a toddler I wanted to eat at the Blue Bayou Restaurant, adjacent to Pirates of the Carribean, so I made reservations about a month in advance. New Orleans Square is easily my favorite part of the park so I'm not sure why I'd never tried a Mickey shaped beignet, but I made sure I crossed that item off my list. I had also never ridden The Disneyland Railroad. We did this on the recommendation of Crystal, the concierge at Paradise Pier. She kept telling us how Disney was so great about creatively filling space and she was so right. I won't spoil the surprise, but if you never have then you really should. </div>
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My son's favorite part of the park is Toon Town, so I made certain we stopped by, using our MaxPass to avoid the line for Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin. While there we had to visit Mickey's house to meet the big guy himself and took advantage of our PhotoPass feature to preserve our memories. I could go on all day about how happy I am about this MasPass. Seriously. </div>
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I'd be remiss if I didn't mention some of the delicious treats we indulged in during out visit. For me, no trip to <a href="https://disneyland.disney.go.com/">Disneyland</a> is complete without these three things: a churro, a caramel apple, and hot chocolate in a souvenir mug. I make a point to try a different caramel apple each visit. This time I tried the Apple Pie Apple. It was absolute perfection! A fun spin on the churro is the sparkly Rose Gold Strawberry Churro available for a limited time for $5.25. We enjoyed our hot chocolate while watching Fantsasmic. What an incredible show! I'd never seen it. I'm so glad I made a point to get a FASTPASS early. It was a great way to end an amazing day! </div>
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Check out Part 2 of our Sping Break Adventure <a href="http://www.anlamama.com/2018/03/spring-break-2018-part-2-disneys.html">here</a>.</div>
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