Tenchi's Trip to Downtown Disney!

YAWN! Yawn and hello my lovely readers. I sense today might be spent in bed. Or at least at home. Although it might be a perfect day to go out in my town. We probably had 50 customers after 4:00 yesterday. Everyone must have fled to the beaches or theme parks. But in this post you will see that my fun funds have been dwindled down to nothing. Ah vacations. Makes you think money grows on trees and that vacation dollars are different than bill dollars.

I think I try to take this picture every time we venture down to the Disney area. XD

While I think which anime to catch up on first...one more trip post!!! XD I enjoy collecting things so maybe Downtown Disney and their overload of pins is a dangerous place for me to be. But this was a nice way to end our Anniversary Trip. XD Enjoy the amazingness that is Disney pins and Dinosaurs!

Our hotel was super close to Disney without technically being in Disney. I am surprised at the quality and price of the hotel seeing how close it was to major theme parks. In any event we got out of our hotel on time and traveled the short drive to Downtown Disney. At the Disney in Orland there is a super expensive balloon ride one can take in the middle of Downtown Disney. I believe it is $18 per adult. Too rich for my blood, why that is two pins right there! But it does make for pretty photo ops. I wonder if you can see all the parks from up there....

We arrived around 11:15. It was a Wednesday so we actually managed to find a parking space two rows from the entrance. It was a pretty manageable day. Later when we left around 8:30 there was a huge rush of people heading towards us. Some parks must have started closing and people were arriving by the bus loads. XD

Front of the "main" Disney store. While I love shopping I wish the shops had specific items only for that store. I know that Disney and their money making ways are assuming not everyone will visit each shop so they need to have some overlap. But having some items shop specific would be nice.

XO Look what I found on the ground while the husband ran off to the car. Right after I took Dumbos pictures on the World of Disney store I found this little guy on the ground. Ugly as sin but that means one more pin to trade yes? WOOHOO! What a good way to start off this day.

While waiting for my friend to arrive we went to the Pin Trading store first since I could probably spend hours and hundreds of dollars there. Well looking at these "art pieces" spending hundreds will be easy right?

Aliens? Real aliens? Erio was very impressed and tried to make friends.

Disney is one of the few places I can take all the nendoroid pictures that I want and no one gives me a dirty look. I am always on the look out for good picture taking places but am mindful of my surroundings. I also find that people will STOP and not walk in front of the pictures more if it is a nendoroid picture rather than a real person picture. If that makes sense. Does that make sense Buzz?

UP is one of the saddest Disney movies EVER! Bambi only lost his mother. There is so much real world stuff in this movie...oh Lord folks. That all being said it makes sense that UP has a display piece up in the Pin Trading store. It sorta goes along with the theme.

Yes Welcome indeed. Back in 2006 I bought a few Disney pins that I thought were cute and meant something (a few wedding ones and what not). I am not sure what happened between then and now but now pin trading is one of my favorite things about Disney!

For those who don't know pin trading is very popular at Disney with a group of people. You can buy single pins of certain characters you like or you can buy a start trading kit that contains 4 or more pins. Most of the time you won't like ALL the pins in the starter kids but that is the point. If you liked something you wouldn't trade it away right?

Around the Disney park and resort areas some cast members will be wearing lanyards or waist patches. They will have some pins on it and all will be available for trading. You can trade up to two pins per person and they have to accept whatever pin you give them as long as it is real pin. There are cast members who wear green lanyards and those are only available for children.

Now this might all seem a little silly. You could just buy all the pins you liked right and not worry about trading? Well you can't buy every single Disney pin. There are some pins that only cast members can buy (which...I doubt they would trade) and there are some pins that you can only get from cast member lanyards called Hidden Mickey pins. XD There are tons of Hidden Mickey pins and they are different from the Florida and California ones. So you have to hunt down those pins you can't buy or maybe you can find old ones not available anymore.

Here are all the pins I ended up with today. I bought some clearance ones at a Disney Discount store before the trip and spent enough money in the stores to get a cheaper pin trading set. I love trading pins but the pin board was almost ALWAYS closed when we went to the Trading Store today. And no one wanted to open it up each time we asked. BLEH! We got better pins from cast members anyway. But yes so many pins, so little time.

After spending lots of time waiting for the pin board to open (sorry friend!!!) we finally made it to other stores. We love going into the Disney Art store despite the fact we can't afford anything. Well I COULD but then I would have no pins. :( This was my favorite print in the entire store. Loves it. LOVES IT! Winning the lottery one day and going on a fabulous shopping spree.

It was time for noms. We let the friend picked and she decides on the T-Rex restaurant. It is like the Rainforest Cafe but with dinosaurs. There was no wait at all so in we went. They didn't seat anyone in the dinosaur section for some reason.

I think this is one of the coolest tables but if you are sitting there you won't see the dinosaur. XD

Last time we ate here we sat right next to a dinosaur. It was cool, having people come by and take your pictures. Like you are a celebrity..but it is really the dinosaur they are after.

This was the room we were seated in. We had seen in before....but sitting in it was not as fun as watching it. The constant color was blue with reds in between the meteor shower. Oh yes folks a meteor shower comes and kills all the dinosaurs XD. Then when the meteor shower hit the lights would flash back and forth.

In the midst of a meteor shower. XD Looks cool but I think my husband went blind. Poor husband. Who will drive me home now?

Our food came out fast as it was after lunch and the restaurant was half empty. But we still had time to take pictures all over the place while waiting. And I liked that it was half empty so we weren't bumping into people who were eating.

This thing is so ugly. I wish to step on its head.

Erio was glowing so weird in our section. I tried to take a picture of it but the camera didn't pick up on the glow.

Time for the lego store! Yes we just went to the theme park on Monday but my husband hadn't spent a dime yet. There were new displays set up all over the store for the new Avengers movie.

Don't Hulk Smash my new nendoroid! I haven't even taken her picture yet!

Everyone was in line for the Woody and Buzz statues in the store. More room for me to take pictures in other places.

I know the Avengers movie just came out and it made about 493847 trillion dollars...but there were other new legos too, Lord of the Rings being one set. But no displays for them. So sad and lonely.

After the husband spent all his money on one thing it was time for the World of Disney store. I think these pizza plates are so cute! But since our customers steal the plastic salt shakers I wouldn't serve these to them. XD

In addition to collecting Disney pins I have started collecting vinylmations. They are all statues shaped like Mickey but have tons of different patterns on them. Some of the boxes are blind but if you get a super ugly one there are places all over Disney where you can do blind trading with cast members. This is the one I got after a trade. Beautiful right....? :(

Stitch is one of my favorite Disney characters. Wish he had a better attraction at the park.

A brand new store opened up. Or maybe I walked by it the entire time and never saw it. It is called Arribas Brothers and we couldn't afford 99 percent of the items in the store. This was the most expensive piece in there. Even if I won the lottery I wouldn't buy this. I would have to post a bodyguard around it at all times. But isn't it pretty?

It

After being careful not to break the sparklies it was time for overpriced ice cream. Our last trip in February was the first time we had Ghirardelli ice cream. We always thought it was TOO expensive for us. But now that we see it isn't THAT expensive we will always have at least one treat there per visit. It is nice to spurge. This is the friend's ice cream cone...in a bowl. She asked for one scoop and think she got three.

My lovely ice cream. I finished the entire thing this time. Got my monies worth. So delicious, love the waffle bowl.

The husband's noms. He ate his rather fast, did he have time to taste it? There was no wait this time and I believe we ate around 5 or 6? Guess when everyone else was eating dinner. The restaurant itself is worth walking by just to smell it. XD

I had never been in Mickey's Pantry before but look how cute the window display is?! We had to go in after seeing all that lovely Alice in Wonderland merchandise. See how making lovely window displays can attract new customers. Want all the tea sets!

The Once Upon a Toy store had Brave displays all around it. I would post more...but you can see me in all of them. This was the only store that had any Brave presence. Inside the store there were some plushies for the movie...and I believe they SPOILED part of the movie. I won't say how but...X__X yeah it looked pretty obvious. But they should sell Brave hairbrushes because homegirl needs one.

Last picture! When I first went to Disney on my 7th birthday I can't remember if I got any ears. So the bridal ones I got in 2006 might be my first pair of Disney ears. Now I have two! My friend found a display with all these fancy Minnie ears. Black and white ones, a parade one, purples ones, steam punk ones...it went on and on. They were so many to pick from. I had to narrow it down from the parade one to this one...and this one won obviously. I love it. Kira does not love it on my head but likes the feathers. So fancy...almost like I am not a tourist wearing a hat. So my fancy ears concludes our lovely 4 night, three day adventures into spending lots of money and enjoying our anniversary. Hoped you enjoyed all my pictures and maybe I got you addicted to Disney pins? That was actually my goal all along. XD