Disneyland Gay Days/Halloween 2010 Trip Report

[zeitzeuge]

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Thursday September 30th.:

The trip was starting off to have some troubles. First off, American Airlines got rid of our returning flight seat assignments on a full flight and wouldn't/couldn't fix it. Our Hotel didn't have our reservation down for two beds for 3 people. Not a good sign. Luckily, once we arrived by 8pm, everything worked itself out. We stayed at the Super 8 on Katella. Nothing fancy by far, but for 37 a night, it was clean and a decent place if all you want to do is sleep and shower. No bugs to carry off your belongings. Everyone kept telling me how sweet I was to book them at the Ritz. My partner kept reminding me how wonderful of a hubby I was to treat him so well as to book the Super 8. It was a big joke all weekend.

I will say that we won't probably stay there again, despite the price and cleanliness. When you did want to go back to the hotel to change, freshen up or take a break, it was a little bit more of a walk than we wanted. Despite wearing crocs (hush! Like a fellow DIS'er says, "They're like crack for feet"), walking back and forth took it's toll. Especially when it was midnight. I kept trying to get people to carry me back to the hotel, but oddly enough no one took me up on my offer. The nerve!

Friday, October 1st, Mickey's Halloween Party!

We were at the parks by 7:30am. We had purchased Haunted Mansion ears online a few months ago, so we were decked in our HM ears and our Disneydork shirts and our lanyard full of pins. There was a small line which was nice for a change. Our friends that we brought thought we were crazy for getting up Dawn's Buttcrack. They still hadn't learned about the level of our Disneydorkness.

MHP didn't start until 7pm, so we spent most of the day hopping between DL and DCA, aka Disney Construction Adventure, a Sea of Walls. We immediately went to Space Mountain (Ghost Galaxy) and walked right on. We LOVED the holiday overlay. We then headed to Nemo Subs and Buzz to knock a few rides out that usually have long wait times later in the day. Already our two Disney Newbies were feeling the Disney magic, looking around with mouths open and saying "Wow" a lot. It was so cute.

After that we headed back to Mainstreet since we ran through there like a bat out of hell to get to Tomorrowland. We spent time taking pictures, enjoying the decorations, having coffee and going into a sugar coma after eating a cinnamon roll and taking advantage of the photopass locations. The park looked great. This was our first Halloween, so it was a nice first experience.

I should interject that we both felt like Julie the Cruise Director from the Love Boat. We were constantly pointing things out, giving them little bits of history here and there, showing them hidden mickeys, etc. They didn't have looks of irritation on their faces, so we kept it up all weekend long.

We then headed to Matterhorn, followed by our traditional riding of Storybook Land and Casey Jr. We love doing this combo a number of times during our trips. They added a great addition of the rabbit hole from Alice in Wonderland.

By this time our friends were really understanding our love of all things Disney and were embracing the Disneydork shirts we made for them to wear. They finally "got it". Mission accomplished.

What made our day was what happened with a CM. While waiting in line for Storybook, an older CM who mentioned she had worked for Disneyland for over 40 years, pulled us over and grabbed both our hands and said, "I just wanted to personally thank you both for keeping the magic alive. It's people like who in your ears, pins and wonderful shirts that is what Disneyland is all about". Then she gave us a hug. Best moment of the entire weekend.

We headed to NOS and ate at Cafe Orleans for some Gumbo and Pomme Frittes, then headed straight for HM. One of our friends is a HUGE Jack nut so she was just giddy with excitement. We then headed to Pirates. By this time, they were in awe of all the attractions so far and understood the difference that is a Disney attraction.

We then headed over to DCA to ride Screamin', Mickey's Fun Wheel of Death, Grizzy's River Run Bath Time, Monsters Inc, Muppet Vision 3D and did a little bit of shopping. We had never ridden Mickey's Fun Wheel since neither my partner nor I are that crazy about heights. After being called a sissy for an hour, we finally caved in. I'm still a sissy. Not crazy about it, but we tackled our fear. LOL

We headed back for MHP. Loved the lighting and fog all over the park and the Castle lighting was great. We walked around taking everything in, being amazed at everyone who wou ld stand in line for hours for a piece of candy. We bypassed the candy lines. We rode POTC, HM and SM again, then watched Halloween Screams fireworks. One of the best fireworks show! We ended the night by walking around some more, then headed home around midnight.

Exhausted.

Here are some photo highlights:

Our HM ears that everyone kept asking about all day. They were sold out throughout the park. Glad we got them early:

Pumpkin Mickey!

Park really is beautiful this time of year

Took a few non halloween related shots that turned out good:

HM overlay

Mainstreet at Dusk

Halloween Tree

An spooky Columbia

HM at night. The only decent one I could get to come out

Sleeping Beauty's Castle

A few of us being Disneydorks

My partner Steven and his idol

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

Yay! You may not be glad to be home, but I am glad you are home. Sounds like a terrific trip!

 

[zeitzeuge]

Yay! You may not be glad to be home, but I am glad you are home. Sounds like a terrific trip!

Thanks hon. It's sad leaving like it always is, but such is life, right? It always takes a couple days to shake off the Disney blues after a trip.

 

[jjjmranch]

Awesome photos. We always go to WDW in May, I'm really thinking October would be cool too!

 

[zeitzeuge]

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Saturday, October 2nd - Gay Days at DL

Not only was Halloween at DL a first time experience, so was Gay Days. We killed two birds with one stone on this trip. I have to say that seeing the sea of red shirts while standing in line to get in, was a great site to see. Made us feel all warm and fuzzy. It was great having total strangers say Hi in passing or stop and strike up conversations.

We ended up doing a lot of things that day that were our first time since we had two Newbies with us. We had breakfast at Carnation Cafe, which is a first. Had a great waitress who got onto me for not eating all of my cinnamon roll french toast. Have you SEEN the size of it?

We wore our Disneydork tshirts both days, which seemed to be a huge hit with people we ran into. We had two versions, one the classic Disney lettering and the other was the vintage colored boxes version. Here's one:

It didn't take one of our newbies to get into the magic of Disney. He's never been to a park before. He refused to buy or wear ears, but didnt' take him long to get a pin lanyard and put a Dale hat on his head. And he thinks we're dorks.....

Since the morning was pretty quiet in Fantasyland, we rode Mr Toads, Snow White and Peter Pan. Steven and I had never rode on Dumbo before due to the monstrous lines that form early on, but the lines were short so we rode that and tea cups for the first time. Steven gets sick on anything that goes in circles, but he braved Dumbo. He passsed on Tea Cups. Our poor friend had to ride on Dumbo by himself. He's behind us.

We headed for It's a Small World so we could get the song stuck in our brains all day and drive us crazy. I think 5 hours later I was whistling the tune and got yelled at to stop.

Toontown really isn't our thing, but we always like to walk through and check it out. Saw Goofy while there so stopped to take a pic. I don't know what it is about me and Goofy, but the 3 times I've had my picture with him, I get teased and lots of hugs. This time was no exceptioin.

We made it just in time for the Gay Days Mark Twain group ride. There were a sea of red shirts and the crowd was very excited it seemed with lots of laughter. The trip around was great. We talked to so many people and had the best time. There were 4 other ship fulls that went around. It was hilarious when the captain had to tell some of us to move to the other side of the ship to balance things out. It seems we were tilting pretty bad on the outward side, due to everyone waving at our adoring fans.

Around noon, we headed to DCA to ride Tower of Terror. We kept it a secret as to what the attraction was all about. Needless to say they were asking a LOT of questions and were.....um, quite surprised when the elevator dropped.

Wearing the Dale hat backwards was kind of creepy....

Around 3pm, we headed back to the hotel to freshen up and get ready for dinner at Club 33. Reservation was 5:30, which is the first of the evening. When we got there, there were a number of groups waiting to get in. It took a while since they only take up one table group at a time. Sucked that the elevator was broken. But we had an amazing time.

We couldn't pass up Club 33 Mickey Ears. They never have them we hear, so when we saw them in the curio cabinet we snatched them up.

Enjoying some time out on the balcony overlooking NOS. Fantasmic was getting ready to start so we got out of there and headed to the Hub for Remember Dreams Come True fireworks. We've missed that show, so it was good to see it again.

Before the start of the show. Had a great spot to watch.

After the fireworks we hightailed it to NOS to watch the late showing of Fantasmic. I forgot to tell Steven that the animatronic Dragon snapped his neck a few weeks ago so he was so disappointed, especially after telling our friends about it. We did though get front and center which was luck of the draw since it was only 10 minutes before the start.

Said goodbye to Mickey on our way out and back to the hotel around midnight.

 

[Kayla's Mom]

Loving your report! Great pics as usual!

That is so cool you got the Club 33 ears!

 

[zeitzeuge]

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Sunday, October 3rd

We were at DL bright and early, with our friends starting to complain just a tad about how early they have to get up, how late they have to stay, how much their feet hurt. So we had to let them know that not everyone does the parks like we do, so that if they wanted to come later, leave early or just not participate in everything that we do, that it was ok. Still, they stuck by us the entire time for the most part. Bless their hearts, they were just miserable at times. Like I've always said, if you can't hang with the big dogs, get off the front porch.

One of the cutest pictures of the weekend. While getting coffee ready in the morning, he was peeking at me behind the window sign. Scared the crap out of me when I looked up.

We weren't in DL very long since we had to head over to DCA around 9am to get fast passes for World of Color that evening. Once we got our fast passes, we came back to finish up attractions we had missed. We road the railroad from Mainstreet to Tomorrowland, then hopped on the Monorail for a trip around the resort after that. Got some great pics of DL from up above. We then went to see Captain EO, which I loved since I never got a chance to see it.

Notice the other Disneydork tshirt version.

In line ready for Captain EO. If this isn't the silliest picture, I don't know what is.

It was around this point that someone commented on us. They told us that our "halloween costumes" were some of the best they've seen all weekend. Um, ok. Number one, it wasn't MHP, so no one was in costume. Number two, we wear ears, Disneydork shirts and pins every day on our trips. They weren't costumes, but what we actually wear to the parks. Yeah.....talk about feeling like a total goofball. We never thought that ANYONE would mistake us for wearing halloween costumes. But they did......

Above on the Monorail:

I just love DL's new monorails. I could ride them over and over.

We then walked back to the Hub since our friends wanted to see the castle up close, do the Sleeping Beauty Castle walk through and visit Snow Whites wishing well.

We made some wishes.....

And as every trip, reaffirm our commitment to one another and hell, throw in a wish or two.

We hadn't rode Splash Mountain or Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, so we headed over to get them out of the way before time ran out and we forgot.

Yeah, thats us screaming.

After heading to the hotel to rest, we came back in time to get in line at DCA for World of Color. We've been so excited to see this new show and let me tell you that we didn't leave disappointed. There a moments in the show that literally left me with my mouth open in amazement. Just sad we only got to see it once.

We had Tigger for our section during the preshow. It's kind of silly, but it at least got the crowd pumped for the show.

The actual show didn't photograph well for us, but luckily we got a video.

By the time the show ended, our friends were done. We always stay as late as possible on our last night, to enjoy every last minute. They headed back to DL with us to ride POTC and Tiki Room. Then Steven and I headed to World of Disney to do our shopping. Once finished, we headed into DL to ride POTC and HMH one last time, just two of us. It's a relaxing way to end our trip. We also get a little sad the last evening, knowing that all this is coming to an end.

Before walking out the door, we went to Great Moments with Lincoln and then checked out the gallery quickly, since they were closing down. It was a long walk back to IHOP. We ate pretty much in silence, thinking about the weekends trip. Whats worse was the walk back to the hotel. Seemed like an eternity.

It truly was an amazing trip and we're counting down the days until the next one.

Hope you enjoyed the TR!

 

[zeitzeuge]

Loving your report! Great pics as usual!

That is so cool you got the Club 33 ears!

Thank you!

We had a great time at Club 33. It was funny. When we walked in, our waitress looked at us and said, "I think I know you guys." Yeah, she was our waitress on our first visit. We snagged those ears once we saw them. Now our collection is complete.

 

[barefootmomma]

Love your trip report! You got some really great photos too. I just wanted to mention that I saw you guys near Pooh Corner on Sunday! The t-shirts caught my eye and I thought I recognized your faces from some of the posts around the Halloween threads. I was trying to feed a cookie and caramel apple to a 3 year-old or I'd have jumped up and said hello. Those shirts were pretty awesome by the way.

 

[wehttamrd]

Awesome awesome pictures! Thanks for posting! Glad you guys had a great trip!!

 

[zeitzeuge]

Love your trip report! You got some really great photos too. I just wanted to mention that I saw you guys near Pooh Corner on Sunday! The t-shirts caught my eye and I thought I recognized your faces from some of the posts around the Halloween threads. I was trying to feed a cookie and caramel apple to a 3 year-old or I'd have jumped up and said hello. Those shirts were pretty awesome by the way.

Thanks! We got a lot of comments about them, especially people asking where we bought them. We made them ourselves and if I had a dollar for each time someone wanted one.....

 

[Kayla's Mom]

Thank you!

We had a great time at Club 33. It was funny. When we walked in, our waitress looked at us and said, "I think I know you guys." Yeah, she was our waitress on our first visit. We snagged those ears once we saw them. Now our collection is complete.

That is too funny that she remembered you! Forgot to mention -- LOVE your shirts! The one with the classic Disney lettering is my favorite!

 

[zeitzeuge]

Awesome awesome pictures! Thanks for posting! Glad you guys had a great trip!!

Thank you! I'm still weeding out the not so good pics. We took over 700 and I've gotten it down to about 590. LOL

That is too funny that she remembered you! Forgot to mention -- LOVE your shirts! The one with the classic Disney lettering is my favorite!

Yeah she's great. So attentive and really makes it a special experience. And thanks about our shirts. Thats our favorite one too.

 

[OrlandoMike]

Great TR! Makes me want to visit Walts park!

 

[zeitzeuge]

Great TR! Makes me want to visit Walts park!

Thanks Mike! I think you're about due for one aren't you?

Tonight I need to work on uploading all of the video's and also create a fun montage. Thats if I'm motivated enough. LOL

 

[Sphyrna]

WoW Z!! Great TR!!! It has me REALLY wanting to go to DL!! I didn't realize how different they are. You're naming off places and attractions and I'm sitting here wondering what that is. Maybe next year!

I loved the pic of all the red shirts on the MT!! That's what I love about going to Gay Days at WDW, seeing the sea of red! I get the same warm and fuzzy feeling you got!!

 

[mikelan6]

It was nice to meet you, albeit for a brief moment.

 

[JH87]

What made our day was what happened with a CM. While waiting in line for Storybook, an older CM who mentioned she had worked for Disneyland for over 40 years, pulled us over and grabbed both our hands and said, "I just wanted to personally thank you both for keeping the magic alive. It's people like who in your ears, pins and wonderful shirts that is what Disneyland is all about". Then she gave us a hug. Best moment of the entire weekend.

awwww i love that!!!
Your pictures are really good....love the main street at dusk photos!

And how exciting that you got to eat at Club 33! It sounds like you had an amazing trip!! I loved reading your TR and seeing all your photos.
thanks for sharing!

oh, by the way, i LOVE your shirts and ears! The picture with the 3D glasses is so adorable!

 

[zeitzeuge]

WoW Z!! Great TR!!! It has me REALLY wanting to go to DL!! I didn't realize how different they are. You're naming off places and attractions and I'm sitting here wondering what that is. Maybe next year!

I loved the pic of all the red shirts on the MT!! That's what I love about going to Gay Days at WDW, seeing the sea of red! I get the same warm and fuzzy feeling you got!!

Thanks, I appreciate it! You'll have to go and give it a shot. The park is very different and has a totally different feel to it.

It was nice to meet you, albeit for a brief moment.

It was great meeting you too Mike. Sorry we didn't have longer to visit. It was a crazy weekend. lol

awwww i love that!!!
Your pictures are really good....love the main street at dusk photos!

And how exciting that you got to eat at Club 33! It sounds like you had an amazing trip!! I loved reading your TR and seeing all your photos.
thanks for sharing!

oh, by the way, i LOVE your shirts and ears! The picture with the 3D glasses is so adorable!

Thanks so much. Club 33 was the highlight of course. It was an amazing time. Our shirts were a big hit and yes, that photo with the 3D glasses had to be the funniest pic I think we've taken. lol

 

[skiingfast]

Where do your disneydork shirts come from? Did you make them yourself or have them printed? Curious since it uses Disney imagery if it is from Disney itself but they are so unique. Awesome you had red ones for this trip.