So like all good stories, let’s start at the very beginning and the very beginning for me means a park day!
The game plan for today was to make rope drop at Disneyland, ride a ride or 2, head over to Napa Rose for the
Cigna blogger meet up
, hit the expo, and then back to the parks to enjoy some rides and watch the parade and fireworks! This was not a day for quitters it was a go, go, go day!
It’s time to Disneyland!!! #Disneyland60 #DisneylandHalf
A photo posted by Katherine Pease (@kpease128) on Sep 4, 2015 at 9:04am PDT
We were at the parks right before 9am and made our way over to Starbucks for some coffee. Our late night arrival was dragging us down a bit, so some Joe was just what the doctor ordered! We then made our way over to Fantasyland hoping to hop on Peter Pan but the line was already really long so we opted for Alice and Wonderland (all the effects were working)!
After that it was time for me to head to the Cigna Blogger Event (which I’ll recap separately later since I want to share so much!) and enjoyed meeting other bloggers, learning about how to cook healthier and in season and then enjoy a delicious lunch of all the food that we made.
Chef Chris!
I can not say enough good things about this event and I hope to get invited to more in the future!
Once that was done, it was time to head over to packet pick-up! I dashed over, grabbed my bib, grabbed my shirts, swung by the Sparle Athletic for a new skirt and ran into everyone’s favorite race announcer Rudy trying on a beautiful green skirt. He was nervous that it my his booty look big, but I assured him it looked just perfect!
I stopped by my second favorite vendor, RawThreads, to grab a new race top and I was moving fast! I looked over at the official merchandise area and the line was out the door and doing switchbacks in the lobby. I decided to skip it since I really wanted to get back to the parks for some fun!
We rode some more rides, including the Matterhorn with the new Yetis. The Matterhorn updates looked great and the new effects definitely add to the attraction! We grabbed some food at the Village Haus and then it was time to focus on the main event – Paint the Night and Disneyland Forever Fireworks!
I can not say enough good things about these nighttime entertainment additions! The parade is amazing, so bright, and just fun! The fireworks fully envelop you in the experience and I feel like I need to watch it 4 more times just to catch all the elements!
Your diamond anniversary outfit is timeless beautiful!
I went to the 10th anniversary party. Attendees received free 10th anniversary sling bags when picking up the tickets at the expo, which turned out to be a convenient item to carry stuff around all weekend. The Disneyland Forever fireworks were cancelled that night "due to technical difficulties", but I was able to see it later in the weekend. Amazing! It was so cool to see Tinker Bell fly around instead of just ziplining from the castle like Wishes. There was so much to see at times that I didn't know which direction to look.
My favorite part was Paint the Night. So much that I didn't see it once or twice, but FOUR times throughout the weekend! Including twice in one night. Crazy, right? I'd never seen Paint the Night before this trip. Since 5K runs at Disney are run in the dark, it's inspired me to look into wiring up my next 5k costume with LED lights. It might even give new life to a previously worn costume, although I still have some unworn running costumes in my backlog. I've been making costumes faster than entering Disney races (shrug).
I saw World of Color for the first time, but I also enjoyed standing in the middle of Cars Land at 7:13 pm when the speakers started blaring, "Life could be a dream, sh-boom, if I could take you up in paradise up above, sh-boom", and the neon lights came on in sequence. Then I got in line for the Radiator Springs Racers before staking my place for World of Color.
That's awesome you went to the 10th Anniversary party, those bags looked nice! Agreed the fireworks and parade were amazing. So jealous you got to see the lights come on in Carsland, this was on my list of things but had to make the tough choice to go ride some rides!
LEDs on costumes would be awesome! I've thought about doing some stuff like that too but haven't gotten my act together, maybe next race!