Februrary 2014 Characters

Take a look at all the characters I met in February.

January 2014 Characters

See all the characters that I met in January.

The end of the Celebrate A Dream Come True Parade

The Celebrate A Dream Come True Parade at Magic Kingdom ended yesterday after nearly a five year run. It debuted on January 23, 2009 and I was there for the first one too. There will be no afternoon parade at Magic Kingdom until the spring when the new Festival Of Fantasy Parade debuts. Yesterday, the Celebrate A Dream Come True Parade ran twice; at 12:30 and 3:30. I watched both of them. I watched the 12:30 one outside The Hall of Presidents. I started to get emotional when I saw Bert and he thanked me for coming. He then got Mary's attention, they posed for me, and Mary made the hand gesture for "I love you." It was so sweet. Then Drizella spotted me and waved. She came over to me, gave me a big hug, and told me that "This is it" since her family wasn't invited to be in the new parade. I will miss Drizella so much. She was always so much fun to photograph. She was full of life and her expressions were the greatest.

I thought about watching the second parade near the end of the route but it was over an hour until the parade started and the area was pretty full. I then decided to watch the last parade in my usual spot in Town Square across from the Confectionery. A few little touches were added to the last parade. The ribbon dancer was back in the beginning of the parade and I was very surprised to see her. Also, Jiminy Cricket had an umbrella, the Queen of Hearts had a flamingo, and Jafar had his staff.

I got emotional during the last parade too. It again started when I saw Bert. He and Mary waved and posed for me again. Mary also made the "I love you" hand gesture to me. They are two incredibly sweet people and I really appreciated it. Drizella came through and waved to me a bunch of times. Ariel was sweet, as always, and waved to me.

While I am very happy to see a new parade, it was sad to see this one go. It wasn't an amazing parade but for me, it was about who was in the parade. I have seen some of them for years and I am going to miss seeing their faces so much. I can only hope that many of them will be in the new parade.

New (to me) Characters I Met This Year

This year I was able to meet thirty-four characters that I have never met before. I really can't believe that I met that many. My favorite of all of them would have to be Lumiere. He was my number one character to meet and I really never thought I'd get the chance to meet him. I am looking forward to see what characters 2014 will bring.

In January, I met Lumiere, Cogsworth, Chip, Ludwig Von Drake, The Big Bad Wolf, Fifer Pig, Fiddler Pig, and Practical Pig.








I met Silvermist in April.

Christmas Day Parade Taping

The Christmas Day Parade was taped at Magic Kingdom on Saturday. I got to Magic Kingdom around 8:00 am and went to find a spot on Main Street to watch the taping. I was able to find a spot behind people. I stood there for over two hours and never saw a thing. The sun came out, it was hot, and I had to move. I decided to go to Town Square and just get pictures as the characters came out. I'm glad that I decided to move because it took five hours to tape the opening performance.

After they were done filming the opening performance, the parade floats came out. I watched in Town Square as they came around to go in. The biggest surprise was seeing Huey, Dewey, and Louie for the first time. I had my head down when their float first came into view and I looked up, saw them, and just stood there in shock. It took me a minute to actually pick my camera up to get pictures of them.

Doc McStuffins was also out. I saw her as she was going in and only got a picture of the side of her. I was hoping that she'd be in the parade but she wasn't.

October Characters

Take a look at all the characters that I met in October.

Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party

I attended Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party on Thursday night. It's one of my favorite events at Disney and I've been going since 2005. My main priorities for the night were to meet as many characters as possible and watch the parade twice. I was able to meet nineteen characters and I did watch the parade twice since it's my favorite.

I was actually in the park before the party started but I never left Town Square. I decided to leave the park and come back in since I wanted to get my MNSSHP exclusive Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom card first. I had to go out, go back through bag check, and then go back in. It was a pain but it was still easier than going into the park to find a wristband distribution place and then coming back to Town Square. I picked up my Sorcerer's card, had dinner, and then went to ask about lining up for the Princesses and Princes.










I was told that we could start lining up for the Princesses and Princes around 6:30. But, around 6:00, I decided to start a line for Rapunzel's room. I just stood outside the entrance and people immediately got on line behind me. A while later, Rapunzel's line was closed, and a CM walked us into the outside queue for us to wait. Around 6:50, we were let inside to wait and we were let into meet them at 7:00.

September Characters

Take a look at all the characters that I met in September.

Talk Like A Pirate Week

The Limited Time Magic for last week was 'Talk Like A Pirate Week'. There were meet and greets with Captain Hook, Jake, and Pirate Goofy. There was also a very cute pre-parade before the Celebrate A Dream Come True Parade.

Unleash the Villains

Friday the 13th, there was a Limited Time Magic event at Hollywood Studios called Unleash the Villains. Disney has been advertising this event ever since the Limited Time Magic campaign was announced. As soon as it was announced, I knew it was going to be a disaster and I was right. I don't know who was in charge of planning this event but they couldn't have done a worse job if they tried. It was by far the worst Limited Time Magic event that I attended.

I arrived at Hollywood Studios somewhere between 3:30 and 4:00. I took a few pictures, looked at the Villains area, and had a pretzel. A while later, I saw a lady wearing a Maleficent ears headband and I had to have it. I asked her where she got it and she told me it was at Villains in Vogue. I went there and it was a madhouse. I finally got inside, couldn't find the Maleficent ears, asked where they were, and they were sold out. I was so disappointed. Maleficent is my favorite villain and the ears were amazing. I really hope they bring them back.

I headed over to the villains area and met up with Jess, her boyfriend Pete, and a few other people. None of us had any idea which villains would be at each location. So, we all split up, and we planned on moving to the line of whoever got Oogie Boogie because that's who we all wanted to meet. Now, normally I would never go join people in line, but this was such a horribly organized event that it was our only shot of meeting Oogie Boogie.


So, we were all on lines around 6:00 and the villains were due to start meeting at 8:30. The queues were full long before 8:30. In fact, the entire area, including all the steps were full of people. There was a real lack of CM's in the area and it felt unsafe. I sat on the ground until some CM's came around and told us we weren't allowed to sit. I have no idea why though. The people sitting were all in the queue and had been there for almost two hours at that point. Finally, somewhere around 8:00 we were all told what characters we were getting. The line I was in was getting Jafar and Oogie Boogie. We were told three times that we would be getting Oogie Boogie first. The characters came out about twenty minutes late and the first character we got was Jafar. There were a group of people in front of us who were standing to the side so I asked them if they were waiting for Oogie Boogie and they told me yes. So, I, along with the other eight people I was waiting with decided that we were going to wait too since we were told that Oogie Boogie would be first. A CM came over and was trying to force us all to meet Jafar but we were not budging. I decided to speak up and told her that we were told three times that Oogie Boogie would be first and that we were going to wait for him. The CM then starts to yell at me, came over to me, and reached out her hand to grab me. I think she realized what she was doing at the last second and didn't touch me.

Finally, an amazing CM named Teresa came over and organized everything. She separated the queue into two lines; one for Jafar and one for Oogie Boogie. I thanked her for doing that and told her that we all appreciate it. She also made sure that we got autograph cards since they were almost out of them and we had been waiting. Oogie Boogie came out about thirty minutes later. When it was almost my turn to meet him, the CM that yelled at me came over and apologized. It felt like a sincere apology and I told her that I appreciated it.