Season of the Force - Star Wars Gets Disneyfied!

To continue with the Disneyland theme this week, and also in honor of Star Wars: The Force Awakens opening today, this post is about Season of the Force. Starting about a month ago, Disneyland transformed Tomorrowland into sort of a makeshift Star Wars Land. They've rethemed a lot of attractions throughout the land, and it's pretty awesome.

There's a lot of subtle but great touches throughout, like this Rebel Alliance symbol light projected onto the wall around Star Tours. I think I saw the Imperial Army symbol being projected as well.

Space Mountain has been rethemed to Hyperspace Mountain, and they've added projections throughout the ride (similar to the Ghost Galaxy retheming they have at Halloween) so that it seems like you're flying through space on the Millennium Falcon, being shot at by TIE fighters and so forth.

Star Tours has an additional scene added to it involving some new things from the new movie! It's nice that they put the scene onto all rides, rather than just randomly, like the rest of the ride, so you don't have to ride it a million times in hopes of seeing it!

They even have Stormtroopers just walking around! We ran into these guys while waiting to get into Innoventions!

Speaking of Innoventions, they've added a new area called Star Wars Launch Bay, which features tons of props and costumes from all the films, as well as statues and stuff for sale.

There's even mock cantina set!

Look at this level of detail!! This light is the head of one of the driods from Episodes 1-3!

The Magic Eye Theater is playing Path of the Jedi, which is basically a summary of all 6 movies. It's a great way to catch up on all the films if it's been a while since you've seen them. I mean, we watched all 6 movies in the last couple weeks, but whatever...

Various restaurants and kiosks are selling these awesome BB8 sippers and Chewbacca steins! Obviously I could not resist buying both of these. They also have TIE fighter popcorn buckets, but I never saw those for sale.

Season of the Force is a great idea to get people into the Star Wars mood before the new movie comes out, as well as tide everyone over until the actual Star Wars Land opens! I know I can't wait, for the movie AND for the new land!!

Holiday Time at Disneyland Tour

To continue from yesterday's post about Disneyland, this post is about the holiday tour we went on! This tour, called Holiday Time at Disneyland, is only offered for about 6 weeks between November and the end of December. Much like the Halloween tour, tickets sell out quickly, so you really have to be on the ball and make sure to purchase tickets for the day you want as soon as they go on sale.

The tour took us down Main Street to begin with, and pointed out various tidbits like the enormous Christmas tree, which is artificial, but used to be a real tree until one year, it caught on fire! We stopped at Candy Palace, where our guide told us about the delicious goodies they make for each holiday season, and then handed out chocolate covered marshmallows dipped in peppermint!! Yummm!

As is typical for every Disneyland tour, we got to go on several rides, straight to the front of the line! The first one we went on was Jingle Cruise, the holiday themed version of Jungle Cruise. I feel like it's much better than last year's version, and has lots of holiday ornaments scattered throughout the jungle, like on these elephants!

And decorating these rhinos!

Not to mention, Trader Sam, selling his wares!

I sat right up front next to the skipper, and took a picture of this etching at the front of the boat, a detail I'd never noticed before!

We also got to go on Haunted Mansion Holiday, which is a must-do for both Halloween and Christmas times!

The final ride was It's A Small World Holiday, which I absolutely love at Christmastime. 

Look at these decorations!!! Look at them!

I don't remember this before, but in the area with Ariel, the song switches to Jingle "Shells"! (Get it!!!)

The culmination of the tour is seeing the Christmas Fantasy parade! They set out chairs right in front!! It's pretty amazing. As if that weren't cool enough, we also got big gingerbread man cookies, and a collectible mug of hot cocoa!! And of course, the usual special tour pin!

Sunday also happened to be Dick Van Dyke's 90th birthday! In celebration, they had a special pre-parade cavalcade with Mary Poppins and Bert riding carousel ponies, dancing penguins, and Dick Van Dyke himself riding in the back of a car, waving to the crowds!

It was a pretty special event that we didn't anticipate at all, so that was a cool surprise!

The Christmas Fantasy parade is pretty great, and features pretty much all the big Disney characters. 

 Got a perfect shot of Mickey and Minnie kissing!

Aww, poor Eeyore has to tow his broken sled behind him while Pooh and Tigger ride theirs!

The rolling Christmas trees are my favorite. Just enormous trees, wheeling down the street by magic.

Gotta have Anna and Elsa, of course, plus a spinning Olaf.

Dancing gingerbread men!

Goofy and Pluto ride a gingerbread doghouse!

All the princesses and princes!

Is this a perfect shot or what?

Woody, followed by Buzz! I think Jessie was walking around too.

Another Christmas tree! And who's that in the background?

It's Santa, following some synchronized reindeer!

Overall, definitely a great tour and good value for the money. I learned a bit more about Christmas and Disneyland, and got to go on 3 rides, and get front row seats at a parade! 

Tune in tomorrow to hear more about Season of the Force at Disneyland!

Christmastime at Disneyland!

Christmastime at Disneyland is my favorite time of year! The park is decorated so beautifully, and they have so many wonderful Christmas themed things going on. We went to the park this weekend to soak it all in.

I love the ginormous Christmas tree at the entrance of Main Street. It's just one of many, many trees throughout the park!

Main Street looks so beautiful all decked out in lights! It's almost enough to distract you from how incredibly crowded it is!

After spending some time in Disneyland, we went over to California Adventure. Their tree looks a lot like Disneyland's!

Even Cars Land gets in on the holiday decorating!

Here's a tree made of traffic cones at the Cozy Cone Motel! There was another one made of tires as well.

That evening, my boyfriend treated me to a lovely fancy dinner at Carthay Circle for Christmas! <3 It was our first time having a meal there (we had drinks in the lounge one time, though).

We saw another Christmas tree in the lounge area while we were waiting to be seated!

We started off with a couple drinks, of course. For our first round we tried the Derby; after that, we switched to our usual Irish Mules.

There were lots of pictures of Walt Disney adorning the walls; all pictures, with him or without, included Oscars. Literally not one picture did not include someone holding an Oscar.

For dinner, I had the Trofie pasta with smoked chicken, and it was delicious!

For dessert, we took home a box of Diamond Celebration truffles!

The next day, we decided to do some exploring. We've never been to the Disneyland hotel, so we headed over there to check things out. Even the entry way was beautiful and holiday themed. Check out these gorgeous poinsettias with lights all around!

The ceiling had upside-down spiral Christmas trees over the lights that made spiral patterns on the floor!

Immediately upon entering, there's an enormous gingerbread house. It's so big, I couldn't get the whole thing in frame!

Some carolers were stationed in front to serenade you with carols at you as you walk in!

Check out this beautiful rug! I need one of these for the apartment.

Their pool has a mini monorail that I assume is some sort of slide or something!

They have all kinds of beautiful painting depicting scenes and areas throughout Disneyland. 

There's even a whole wall dedicated to Disney memorabilia from throughout the years. I recognized a few items from the recent collector's auctions from Van Eaton galleries.

The Disneyland Hotel has several restaurants. We tried to go to Trader Sam's, which I've heard was awesome, but it looks like everyone else has heard that too, because it was completely full! We went instead to Steakhouse 55's lounge area, which was super chill and empty!

From there, we went to Downtown Disney. They had several little Christmas-themed mini-house things with different kinds of gifts you could buy, like boxes of candy, personalized mini surfboards, jewelry, and other trinkets and stocking stuffers. 

There was also an Olaf skating rink! I don't remember seeing that in past years. It didn't seem very crowded, but there were several skaters making their way around a giant Christmas tree!

Continuing on our exploration,  we made our way to Paradise Pier. This is another hotel we've never been to. There, we found yet another Christmas tree, this one ocean themed.

Paradise Pier also featured a lot of artwork of various areas of California Adventure.

Continuing on our tour of Disney hotels, we hit up the Grand Californian next. We stayed there before, also during Christmas time, and the hotel was as beautiful as I remembered it. Their lobby is just magnificent. The Liberty Belles, an all-female a capella group, performed as we enjoyed a drink from the Hearthstone Lodge.

The next day, we were back at Disneyland. We took the Holidaytime at Disneyland tour, which I'll post about tomorrow!

We also had lunch at Big Thunder Ranch, which is closing very soon to make way for Star Wars land. Big Thunder Ranch offers all you can eat barbeque chicken and ribs, as well as cornbread and beans! We were able to eat a couple buckets worth; the guys next to us chickened out (get it?!) after just one. 

The animals housed there (horses, goats, and sheep) will be sent to new homes soon, so I said goodbye to those crazy kids (get it? kids are baby goats! get it???) and sheepy-beeps.

The Disney's not done yet! I'll be posting more about our Disneyland trip over the next couple days!