If you look closely at the shirt I wore to Disneyland, it says “Chasing the Fun.” Turkey and Bunny said it should have read “Chasing the Characters,” because apparently that’s what I do best when we go to theme parks!
Here’s a round-up of the characters we met or saw up close at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure (plus Goofy’s Kitchen)….my personal highlights were meeting Donald Duck, and also getting to see Goofy in his snazzy green suit! Also, since I was wearing a birthday celebration pin, many of the characters either said “Happy Birthday!” to me (like Lightning McQueen), or pantomimed it in some way (like Minnie Mouse).
Not pictured, but also seen by us include Peter Pan and Wendy, Captain Hook, the other chipmunk, Mirabel, Pinocchio and Geppetto, Sadness and Joy, Snow White, the Evil Queen, Ant-Man, Thor, Merida, Mr. and Mrs. Incredible, the Dora Milaje, Mary and Bert, Chewbacca, Rey, Mulan, and Clarabelle Cow. I think that’s pretty impressive for just two days in the parks!
When we were at Disney World last year, I briefly touched on our experience getting Ronto Wraps from Ronto Roasters at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Hollywood Studios, and I’ve even made Ronto Wraps at home…today, I’m going to take a closer look at the Disneyland restaurant itself, because it’s a really fun place to grab a bite to eat!
Can you think of any other place in the galaxy where you can have a droid roast your dinner for you?
I’m still not entirely clear on what a Ronto actually is, but it appears to be a fairly large animal, and is certainly delicious!
Here’s a look at the counter where you order:
And the finished product, exactly as we had it at Disney World, minus the plantain chips, which was a shame, because we’ve discovered we really like them!
This is such a fun and different restaurant, and the food is absolutely amazing…I’m already looking forward to the next time I make Ronto Wraps at home!
We saved Disneyland for our second (and final) theme park…seeing the train station for the first time was just as much of a thrill as it was at Disney World!
We got to watch the welcome show that is held on the steps leading up to the station when the park opens. The characters (minus Donald and Daisy, sadly), were all were their beautiful Disney 100 costumes!
We decided to take care of two things at once, and rode the Disneyland Railroad (something I really wanted to do since its Disney World counterpart was closed last summer) to the back of the park (where we wanted to get coffee).
What I didn’t realize is that station was practically on top of “It’s a Small World!” So we rode that first thing, and I loved it (of course)!
We then made our way to the Alice in Wonderland area, where not only do they have the teacups (a different experience because in California, they’re fully out in the open), but a second Alice-themed ride as well. And we ran into Alice herself, plus, the Mad Hatter!
We also visited New Orleans, home of the Haunted Mansion and beignets, and also Princess Tiana!
We wanted to make sure we saw the Sword in the Stone and the Wishing Well, since we missed both of those things at Disney World. Sadly, none of us was worthy to remove the sword, but we did all get to make a wish!
We were lucky that the “Star Wars Month” events were still going on while we were, and Turkey and Bunny got to ride “Hyperspace Mountain.” While they did that, I walked around and took some pictures of the castle (and let a Disney photographer take a photo of me!). Not as grand as the Cinderella Castle, but still lovely!
We walked back to the castle when they were done, and I found someone to take our picture:
The Disney photographers also got some nice pictures of the three of us:
And then we headed over to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. I’m pretty sure there are some minor differences, but it felt pretty much the same as the Disney World version! We got to have ronto wraps for lunch, and do some shopping and sightseeing.
One of the things Turkey and Bunny were most looking forward to, though, was having another lightsaber building experience at Savi’s Workshop (especially since they updated the parts since last summer). It was pretty cool to just get to be an observer this time, and watch other people do the work!
We didn’t see the Mandalorian and The Child, but we did get to meet Boba Fett!
We didn’t get to go on Rise of the Resistance because it was either shut down or the line was two hours long or it closed early (that was probably the biggest regret of the whole trip), but we did go on Smuggler’s Run…I got to blow things up!
After that, we walked through Downtown Disney on our way to dinner. Of course we had to stop at the Lego Store and admire their creations:
I really like this beautiful floral display:
And then we went to the Disneyland hotel to have dinner at Goofy’s Kitchen…it was so much fun! (Full details to come…)
After our meal, we hopped on the monorail to get back to the park:
We rode Star Tours (always a fun experience), and then went in search of Dole Whips:
We were barely able to find a place to view the fireworks…the crowd was massive!
The park is open for a couple of hours after the fireworks, so we had time for a few more things. We were three minutes late for Rise of the Resistance, so we headed toward Runaway Railway, instead. I love how the line is set up like a museum dedicated to Mickey Mouse!
After that, Turkey and Bunny decided to ride the Matterhorn while I took care of what was left of our shopping, and took some more pictures:
We rode the teacups one more time, and even managed to get on Dumbo the Flying Elephant.
We shut the park down (which I would somewhat regret the next day), and didn’t get back to our hotel until about 12:30. It was really hard to get to sleep after all that excitement and knowing we had a full day of travel ahead of us!
For the last few months, I’ve been sharing all of the Disney Dinners I’ve made…here’s a look at each dish we tried from either a Disney cookbook, or an online resource with copycat Disney recipes:
We also tried quite a few thing while we were at the Disney parks (my favorite was the Dole Whip!):
This wraps our summer of fun Disney dinners, but I’m looking forward to trying (and retrying) recipes from our Disney cookbooks in the future, and I’ve already pre-ordered The Official Disney Parks Cookbook, which is scheduled to come out next February, so we’ll have even more new recipes to try!
Our ninth Disney Dinner was A Big Deal, because I tried to recapture the magic of something we tried at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Hollywood Studios…but first, something new and something a little scary, the Sarjenn Snowcap, a cola slushy topped with sweetened, condensed milk. I wasn’t really sure how it would taste, but in the end it was very similar to a cola float, and very good.
The star of the meal was Batuuan Ronto Wraps, a popular item at Hollywood Studios. We shared a Ronto Wrap our first day at the park, and Turkey liked it so much, he bought his own for dinner the second day we were there. The Galaxy’s Edge version has both sliced pork and a sausage, but we had ours with just the sausage, and it really wasn’t missing much.
For dessert, we had Cavaellin Spice Creams, which were pretty much gingerbread cookie whoopee pies filled with orange cream cheese frosting.
It was fun to really have a little bit of Disney at home!
It’s time for the blog post I’ve both been looking forward to and dreading…the one focused on our time at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in Hollywood Studios at Disney World!
I like Star Wars, but I never get the words right. I’m the one who famously asked “Why does that guy have Luke Skywalker’s haircut?” at the end of The Mandalorian, season two. So I’m not really sure what I’m going to screw up looking back at our adventures at the Black Spire Outpost on Batuu (I hope I at least got that part right!), but I’m still excited to share the details of this amazing section of the park!
If you are looking for an immersive experience, one that puts you right into the universe of Star Wars, this is the place for you…it’s actually like being in a whole other world!
Our first stop was Dok-Ondar’s Den of Antiquities, because we had an unbelievably long list of lightsabers we wanted to buy before any of them sold out for the day (14 total, if you’re keeping track). I especially like that Dok-Ondar is an Ithorian, one of my very favorite species in Star Wars due to their humorous necks!
At Ronto Roasters, you can see a pitmaster droid hard at work turning a side of Ronto on the spit:
We stopped by the Creature Stall, where we saw an adorable sleeping Loth-cat:
We went on “Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run,” where we took the Falcon on a smuggling run to Corellia for Hondo Ohnaka. I don’t want to brag, but as one of the pilots, I got to engage the hyperdrive!
One of the big highlights of the day was going to Savi’s Workshop to build lightsabers (if you’re keeping track, this brought our total up to 21 lightsabers purchased or built in one day!). This was an amazing experience…I had no idea what to expect, but I found it strangely moving, especially when Yoda spoke to us from the Force.
If you’re wondering how it works, after you’re admitted to the assembly room, you choose your Kyber Crystal (mine is, of course, purple). They then bring you a tray of lightsaber parts based on the style you chose before entering the building (I picked Protection and Defense). The staff there is great, both at telling the story and at helping with the assembly…some of the pieces can be a little challenging to put together (or at least they were for me, but I wasn’t too proud to ask for help!). Once they check to make sure your lightsaber hilt is complete, they have you put it into a slot in the table, and that’s where the connection to the blade is made. The moment everyone turns their lightsaber on in the darkened room is really special, and we all loved it.
Here’s a look at our family’s collection…no two are exactly the same!
We had to be aware of our surroundings, because there are Stormtroopers wandering around looking for trouble…I mean Jedi…no, maybe I mean trouble!
The details in every part of the design of the park are excellent:
We also went to the Droid Depot to build our very own droids. There are tons of options in a great selection of colors, with the base models being based on R units, BB units, and C units. You can make your droid look like it’s from one of the movies, or you can make it look completely unique (I based mine on Roald, my favorite Animal Crossing character). The building process goes like this…after looking at the day’s available options, you go to a conveyor belt and pick the pieces you need based on the droid series you chose (they give you a card that shows what you’re looking for). After you have everything in your basket, you head to a droid-building station, where they walk you through putting it together, then activate it and teach you how to control it. They’re quite talkative, and interact with other droids nearby!
This is a sample of the eight total droids our family built:
We had to wait until our last day at the parks to finally ride “Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance” (apparently it breaks down a lot). This was probably the longest line we stood in on our trip, but it was worth it…like everything else in the park, it was completely immersive, and you really felt like you were in trouble with the First Order officers who were gathering people for interrogation. There were familiar faces in this ride, including an appearance by BB-8, and we also met a new R5 unit who aided us in our escape.
It was a really cool ride, and not too scary (not even for me, the thrill ride coward), and there were so many great details…we even got to go under a walker!
Everything about the experience at the Black Spire Outpost is awesome!
I loved our time at Galaxy’s Edge, and I’d love to go back someday!
We finally made it to Hollywood Studios, the park everyone was most excited to visit…you’ll see why in a minute! I loved the mid-century feel of the gates:
It really did feel like being in Hollywood (well, as far as I can imagine, anyway)!
One of the best parts of our trip to Disney was sharing the experience with a friend! I’m so happy the children got to make so many memories with their godfather!
We were most excited about exploring Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. It really feels like you’re in one of the movies!
Where else can you see the Millennium Falcon?!?
I won’t even try to describe it all now…I’ll save that for a full post later. But we built lightsabers at Savi’s:
And we built droids at the Droid Depot:
Plus we picked up a job flying the Millennium Falcon to Corellia for Hondo Ohnaka (I was a pilot, which was probably a bad idea, but I got to engage the hyperdrive!).
We also got to see Muppet Vision 3D and explore that area of the park:
And we checked out the hand and footprints by the Chinese Theatre:
Before lunch, we spent some time relaxing and taking in the sights around Echo Lake:
Our other big event for the day was our one fancy meal on vacation…lunch at The Hollywood Brown Derby. It was just like I remembered it from my childhood, and one of the best meals I’ve ever had (full details to come):
We didn’t go on any of the rides in Toy Story Land, but we did enjoy walking through it and seeing everything!
We did have a fun ride on Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railroad…and we were very happy to see that Goofy was recognized as Employee of the Month!
Another evening, another lights and fireworks show:
And a night photo of the Fab Five with their lightsabers lit up:
