When I first started surfing the Web, the first site that I went to was Disney.com. Since that time, I’ve always found the Internet to be a fantastic source for learning about the latest happenings of the Walt Disney Company. I was fortunate enough to stumble upon LaughingPlace.com when it first launched in 1999. It’s a great portal into all things Disney and became a great community for Disneyphiles when it opened its discussion boards on January 30, 2000.

To celebrate the fifth anniversary of the opening of its boards, an “unofficial” meet had been planned for longtime posters at Club 33 for a special before-the-park-opens breakfast. For the uninitiated, Club 33 is a private, members-only establishment in Disneyland. Located at 33 Royal Street in New Orleans Square, the club takes up most of the second level of the buildings in the area. Membership costs many thousands of dollars and the waiting list to become a member is measured in years. As a non-member, getting to dine there is quite a treat.

As the event finally neared, Kathy and I decided that we didn’t want to risk getting a late start or hitting traffic on our way to Anaheim, so we decided to make a weekend of it and stay overnight at the Paradise Pier Hotel, the only Disneyland Resort hotel we had yet to stay in. I made reservations the week of the Club 33 meet and got a great Annual Passholder discounted rate.

Our room at the Paradise Pier Hotel. We were upgraded to a concierge-level room on the 15th floor. The room we originally reserved was with two queen beds, but we wound up with a room with a king-sized bed instead, which we actually preferred.

January 29 started out like most any other Saturday, with us getting breakfast and reading the newspaper. Afterward, we began to get our things together and I think we had more stuff for a one-night stay than we would bring for a week at Walt Disney World. After loading the dog and our luggage in the car, we stopped off for some sandwiches at a local sub place and headed to Kathy's parents' house. There we enjoyed our lunch, said goodbye to Musubi and left around 1 p.m.

Our first stop on our weekend alone was at the Disney's Character Warehouse in Fullerton. It had been about six months since we had last been so we thought we'd check it out again. I always feel like we should be buying more when we go there but there really never seems to be anything that I have to have. If I was a casual tourist and/or had kids, the place is perfect for souvenirs. I did find a white, short-sleeved T-shirt with the DCA logo that I'd wanted since before the park opened. Kathy got a nice fleece outfit to wear around the house. I also purchased a birthday present for my sister. We had a coupon for an additional 10 percent off our total, so that was nice too.

After shopping, it was time to check in to the hotel so we headed down Harbor towards the resort. We pulled into the self-park area off Disneyland Drive and found a spot on the second level of the parking structure. We decided just to bring the digital camera with us so that after checking in, we could take pictures of the room before bringing the rest of our stuff up.

There were only a couple of people checking in ahead of us so the process went quickly enough. We had reserved an upper theme park view room but were told at check in that we had been upgraded to a concierge-level room, which the host said was a little more roomy and therefore more comfortable. We got in the elevator and took it all the way to the 15th floor, top of the hotel. Our room was about half way down the corridor, overlooking Disney’s California Adventure.

The room was really great. It was not surprisingly decorated as a seaside resort. It was a little on the small side, so I was surprised that we were told this was "roomier" than the other rooms. We were originally supposed to have two queen beds and a pull-out sofa but this room had a king-sized bed instead with the sofa. Though we actually preferred this setup, I didn't request it and never told the reservationist that Kathy and I were a couple so they made a big assumption in giving us this room.

You could really see all of Anaheim from our room - Angels Stadium, the Arrowhead Pond, the Crystal Cathedral, DCA and the top of some Disneyland landmarks, such as Space Mountain, the Matterhorn, the top of the Viewliner and the top of Main Street Station.

A room with a view. From the top floor of the Paradise Pier Hotel, we could not only overlook Disney's California Adventure but most of Anaheim too.

After taking pictures and checking out the room, we brought up all of our stuff from the car before heading off to DCA to get some popcorn for Kathy. But finding popcorn was harder than we expected. Some of the usual cart locations were vacated and one machine wasn't running because they had run out of oil for it. Eventually, we found some.

I was able to get pictures of the remaining two official Mickey InspEARations statues that weren’t onstage during our previous visit -- Let's Party, which was roped off by a heavier velvet rope than the usual twiny rope they tend to use; and Family Tree, which was cracked throughout and looked like it was held together by bubble gum.

We'd eventually make our way to White Water Snacks at the Grand Californian Hotel for dinner. Kathy had a cheeseburger and I had a Coney dog (chili and cheese hot dog). It's still one of our favorite places to eat at the Disneyland Resort.

After eating, we went through the Grand Californian, stopping by Acorn's Gifts, and the World of Disney before heading into Disneyland. We got Kathy a penny press in Tomorrowland she was missing before stopping at the Candy Palace for Kathy to get a candied apple. We then headed back through Downtown Disney to get back to our room.

And when it was time, we dimmed the lights of our room and watched Disney's Electrical Parade come right down the performance corridor below us. I had heard that they piped the music into the rooms at the hotel, which I assumed meant that it was on a channel on the TV. But after not being able to find it anywhere, we decided to open the windows to the room. There may have been some speakers somewhere outside our room because we could hear it pretty good after opening them. Great view from there too!

The theme park-view room of the Paradise Pier Hotel gave us a great vantage point for watching Disney's Electrical Parade come down the Performance Corridor at DCA.

We thought about going back out but DCA was closed and it was quite a hike back to Disneyland from the hotel. I said that we should enjoy the room instead. Kathy got ready for bed and soon fell asleep. I logged in to the high-speed Internet access, which is included in our resort fee. After checking my email and posting the couple of pictures to the StartedByAMouse.com Discussion Boards, I went to bed myself.

I got up before dawn the next morning and was able to watch the sun rise over Anaheim, which was a pretty nice sight. We packed our stuff and got ready to go to breakfast. We wanted to come back and change afterward since we had dressed up for the occasion, so we left everything in the room and headed towards Disneyland's main gates.

We got there around 7:20 a.m. and were the first to arrive. There was no security check when we went through but they would later make us exit the area and get our bags checked. It was a pretty pointless exercise in my opinion because I could have easily stashed something in the bushes, trash cans or lockers and would have had easy access to it later on. But I digress.

I had been told ahead of time that we would be having a special guest and was asked if I saw this person before she was announced to not say anything to the others in order to preserve the surprise. I immediately recognized Margaret Kerry as she walked past me. I whispered to Kathy, "Tinker Bell." Ms. Kerry served as the live-action animation reference for the character’s appearance in Peter Pan. We had just met her at Walt's Barn's 5th anniversary a few months before.

I gave the two people who organized the meet hosting gifts and thanked them for doing this. I had a couple of coins from Disneyland's 35th Anniversary that I wrapped up for them. They were just small little tokens of appreciation.

The Club 33 hosts came down and we were allowed in to the park. We did a group photo in front of the floral Mickey (and the tarped Main Street Railroad Station). As we were walking to New Orleans Square, there were lots of service trucks out on Main Street, which people seemed fascinated with and were taking pictures of. I was trying to get a picture of the castle without anyone or anything in it but everyone else liked the trucks driving down the street.

Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle sans people before the park's opening.

We got to the Club and found a table towards the far side of the room. We were joined by a family of four and one other couple. There were pleasantries exchanged and our conversation was cordial. One guy was mentioning that it was disappointing that all we could see out of the window was a tarp since they are doing touch up work outside. I told everyone that it was actually special because it isn't often that you get to see the backside of tarp. Everyone laughed.

The Disney Room (formerly the Trophy Room) was closed off and we were in the other dining room. Tables were invited one by one to enjoy the breakfast buffet. Others who weren't yet eating began exploring the Club and looking at the merchandise on display that was offered to us for sale. It seemed that they were clearing out a lot of old clothing, which were all limited in sizes. But they knocked half price off of everything. I got a nice dark blue twill shirt. Most of the other things didn't appeal to me or were in sizes like XXL.

Our breakfast consisted of quiche, bacon, eggs, potatoes, waffles, fruit, cheeses, breads and cereal. It was pretty tasty though I was surprised that I only had one serving.

They had a raffle of some nice door prizes. Margaret Kerry was introduced to the delight of the crowd and she shared some stories of acting as Tinker Bell. She mentioned that she has a book coming out. She is also doing some consulting work with Disney on an upcoming Tinker Bell direct-to-video movie. Afterward, she was available for photographs and autographs.

Kathy and me in Club 33 with the "backside of tarp" behind us.

Kathy and I took as many pictures as we could, though we didn't get as many as I would have liked. With so many people, it was hard to get shots of the dining room especially.

We were supposed to be done at 10 and the time went incredibly quick. Though they needed to get the Club ready for the day's normal activities, nobody made any call for us to leave. I wanted to stay as long as I could but we had to check out of the hotel by 11. We were tied up waiting for my shirt to be brought out from the back. When it finally came, we said our goodbyes and headed back to the hotel.

We made it back in time and were able to change. Usually on check-out day, we don't stay and go to the parks. Sunday is always a hard day for us to do fun stuff like that. So we made our way home and ran our usual Sunday errands before eventually going over to Kathy's parents' house for dinner and to pick up Musubi. All in all, it was a very nice weekend.

- Story and Photos by Matthew Walker
Posted February 16, 2005

E-mail Matt at matt@startedbyamouse.com, discuss this article in the StartedByAMouse.com Disney Discussion Forums or use the Talkback feature below.

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