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!
Sounds so fun! I love that you guys are making it a tradition to stay at the Grand every year. That'll be where we stay on our next visit-- which more than likely will have Baby Will in tow! Also, glad to see you're getting more wear out of your vintage tiki dress. Can't wait to read about the rest of the weekend!
ReplyDeleteThe courtyard rooms are fun. We've only stayed in that part of the hotel once. I spent most of the time running to the window, with camera in hand, trying to take a picture every time the Monorail zoomed past. An impossible task!
ReplyDelete