Dapper Day: Part 3- Dapper Day at Disneyland

When we woke up on Dapper Day, I couldn't wait to get dressed and head into the park. After spending entirely too much time on my hair and makeup (really, I don't know how they did it in the 50's and 60's), we got dressed in our Sunday best and strolled into Disneyland to take some photos before my hair invariably lost its style. As in the last few years, the amount of dapper dressed visitors seemed to grow, and it was wonderful to see everyone dressed up with their friends and families.

All dressed up in our Dapper Best

At noon we headed back to the hotel to freshen up before our reservation for tea at Steakhouse 55. Staying on property was a godsend that day because I was able to touch up my hair periodically as to continue to look my best all day.

While I have had tea at the Disneyland Hotel (see my review here), Derek had not yet had the experience, and we had a wonderful time sampling all of the delicious goodies placed in front of us. After tea, we wandered back into the expo for a bit so I could drool all over the new Mary Blair Collection that would be available from Pinup Girl Clothing this Spring/Summer.

Delicious Tea

The Perfect Date

After tea, it was time to get back to the parks, and we spent the afternoon strolling around and riding rides, continuing to enjoy the Dapper Day festiveness.We sat for a silhouette cutting, which is a tradition in my family and something that Derek and I have done on a few special occasions in the last few years. Eventually we'll hopefully get around to framing all of our silhouettes!

Sitting for a Silhouette

The Final Product

One of my favorite parts of the 60th anniversary celebration this year was the introduction of the Paint the Night Parade. It captured my heart the first time that I saw it and because we are rarely at the parks after dark, it's a special treat every time I get to see it. I had told Derek that it was a priority for me during this trip, so we made sure to get to the parade route early enough to get a nice spot to sit. While we were waiting for the parade to start, Derek went off on an errand and came back holding one of the "Made with Magic" paintbrushes, which I had had my eye on for the past year. It was a wonderful treat!

The "Made with Magic" products are a wonderfully fun advancement in technology that allows the light-up ears, paintbrush, and wands to interact with each other and the nighttime spectacles at Disneyland, such as the World of Color and the Paint the Night Parade. It means that I can change the color or blinking pattern of my paintbrush, aim it at someone's ears, and with the push of a button, change their ears to match! It is definitely the most fun toy I've bought at Disneyland and offered many hours of entertainment that night and since.

 

After the parade, we were exhausted and more than ready to climb into our lovely comfy bed at the Grand before our last morning at the parks. We so enjoyed our Dapper Day, and as always, look forward to the next.

Dapper Day, Part 2: Napa Rose Chef's Counter

While planning our mini-moon at the Grand Californian last year, a friend suggested having a fancy celebratory meal at the Napa Rose, specifically the Chef's Counter. The Chef's Counter consists of three different counters built in to the sides of the kitchen, facing in so that the diners are able to watch the chefs prepare food. Diners have the option of either ordering off of the normal dinner menu, or choosing a 5 course meal that the chef prepares for you after finding out any likes, dislikes, or allergies.

We had the most amazing meal of our lives when we did the Chef's Counter for our mini-moon, and knew that we had to include it in our anniversary trip. Two things to know about eating at the Chef's Counter:

1. It's expensive. Chef's Counter, food only, will run you $100 per person. Add drinks onto that and you're looking at a pretty hefty bill. It is also one of only two restaurants on property (Club 33 being the second) that does not offer an AP discount. That being said, it's worth every penny.
2. You have to make reservations in advance. This may seem obvious, but I'm saying it anyway. There are two seating times: 5:30pm and 8:30pm. Both seat 14 people. You can book up to 90 days in advance, unlike the normal 60 days for other Disneyland Resort restaurants. You book by directly calling the Napa Rose.

Now to the fun part, our meal. When Derek and I arrived to the restaurant, we were seated fairly quickly and just happened to end up in the same seats that we had last time in the middle counter in between the entree and dessert stations (In my opinion the perfect place in the kitchen because you can see everything)! We each ordered a drink: I had the Moscow Mule (delicious!) and Derek had a sidecar. We were incredibly lucky to have the executive chef, Andrew Sutton in the kitchen that night, and we enjoyed chatting with him periodically before  the meal. 

Chef Gloria talked to us about any allergies or dislikes and then the magnificent meal began! I won't try to describe every course since, as they say, "A picture is worth a thousand words", and we took pictures of EVERYTHING.

Derek's first course

My first course- Salmon

Scallop (my favorite Napa Rose treat)

Chefs Andrew and Gloria

Main course- Short Rib

Dessert!

While we got wonderful photos of the food, for the second year in a row we absolutely failed at getting a good picture of us. So here's a medicore one to show off my wonderful vintage dress and matching jacket that my mom and I found at an antique store a few years ago. It was my first time actually getting to wear the jacket!

Dapper Day, Part 1

I look forward to Dapper Day at Disneyland all year. It's the perfect day to mix my love of dressing up with my nostalgia for the original decades of Disneyland that exist to me only in books and photographs.

For those of you unfamiliar with Dapper Day, it was created to honor the spirit of stepping out in style to the Disney parks. Inspired by concept artwork for Disneyland in the 1950’s and 60’s, it harkens back to the day where everyone dressed, well, a bit more dapper. There are currently Dapper Day events twice a year at Disneyland Resort, Disney World Resort, and Disneyland Paris.

Derek and I have become regulars at the Disneyland Dapper Day events, attending 4 in the past few years. This year, Disneyland's Dapper day was later in the Spring than usual, and since it fell in the same month as our first wedding anniversary, we decided to make a weekend of it and get a room at the Grand Californian (something that we decided to make a tradition when we stayed there for our "Mini-moon" after our wedding last May.

Since we would already be at the Grand and dressing fancy all weekend, we opted to make a reservation for the chef's counter at the Napa Rose for Saturday night, and enjoy tea at Steakhouse 55 the afternoon of Dapper Day.

The week leading up to our trip, I was rushing around to find everything that I needed to complete all of our Dapper outfits. I'm lucky that Derek enjoys dressing up as well and was excited to find a new suit and tie on one of our shopping excursions.

On Saturday morning, we drove to Orange County early to catch the Arsenal match at our favorite pub before heading over to the Disneyland Resort. We checked in early to the Grand Californian, changed into our first outfits for the weekend, and left our bags at the front desk to go kill time before our roomw as ready at 3pm.
We headed over to the Disneyland Hotel (more specifically Trader Sam's Enchanted Tiki Bar) to have a drink and a bite. We were lucky enough to find a spot at the bar inside and decided to go all out by ordering the Uh Oa! (and of course we had to keep the bowl that it was served in because who doesn't love a gigantic tiki bowl?) Our drink was served (on fire!) with a thunderstorm and chant to the tiki gods and we happily drank it while chowing down on our Hawaiian flatbread pizza.

My wonderful vintage Reef shift

Uh-Oa! Uh-Oa!

Vacation Time!

After drinks, we wandered through the Dapper Day expo at the Disneyland Hotel Convention Center. I restrained myself from coming home with an entirely new wardrobe, but I did pick up a pair of sunglasses. The expo definitely gets better every year, and this year was no exception. In addition to all of the vendors, they had hair stylists, a dance floor, a live band, several photo spots, and a bar! We could have easily spent hours browsing, but it was time to go see if our room was ready so that we could get ready for our early chef's counter reservation.

To our delight, when we got to our room we discovered that it had been upgraded to a courtyard view room and we had a lovely view of the trees and the monorail track (the monorail was sadly not running that weekend). We unpacked and got spruced up for our second event of the day, dining at the Chef's Counter at the Napa Rose!