Thursday, October 28, 2010

Disneyland - CHOC Walk In The Park

This year, my wife and eldest daughter participated in the annual Children's Hospital of Orange County ("CHOC") "Walk In The Park," which is a fund raising event that takes participants on a walking tour through Disneyland, some of its back areas, and into California Adventure.

It must have been something, because they both came home very happy.
Perhaps they were happiest about the fact that: "We got to do something at Disneyland that YOU'VE NEVER DONE!"
Hmmm.
They had a point.
Though they forgot to bring their camera (argh), I was able to debrief them and discover a little bit about the walking route they took during this event, which happens in the early morning hours before the Park opens.
They started out on Main Street, marched up Matterhorn Way toward Small World and Toontown. Then they went into the backstage area north of the Park by the TDA building and the steam train building. (Thanks to DRSEANG who posted the above photo and these over at MiceChat.com).

They came back out by the Small World gate, passed between the Matterhorn and Sub Lagoon and ended up in the backstage area behind East Main Street before funneling back out the Main Entrance and over to California Adventure.

Literally thousands of people and Disneyland Cast Members participate in this annual event. It raises money for sick children and the excellent CHOC facilities on top of giving folks yet another good reason to visit the Disneyland Resort.

From my own family's firsthand accounts, let me tell you, you are going to want to attend next year's "Walk In The Park." It happens in October. Check the CHOC website as to the details.

You KNOW I'll be there.
"We got to do something at Disneyland that you didn't," indeed.
Not for long, dear family. Not for long...

---Mike

6 comments:

Rich Blansett said...

I also participated in this year's CHOC Walk, the 20th Anniversary of the event. My daughter and I were walking both for her service hours requirement for school as well as in honor of my youngest daughter who has spent a lot of time at CHOC. Let me tell you, before the walk begins, you've never seen so many people waiting to get into the park! It took us over half an hour just to get into Mickey and Friends parking structure and that was with arriving at 5:45am! After going thru the security check and finding our group, we awaited our turn to march down Main Street sometime around 7:30am. Then, it is a 5k walk as you described, much of it shoulder to shoulder with other walkers. There are gaps to be found in the crowd, especially after the first kilometer, but it is still very, very crowded as you are funnelled thru some fairly narrow pathways. It is still good fun and everyone is friendly and supportive. From start to finish, it took about an hour and a half to walk the distance. Afterwords, you are led into the tailend of Downtown Disney near the trams and many immediately made their way back to Disneyland's entrance with year-round passes in hand. Needless to say, from what I hear, it became one one of the busiest days in the park and certainly such for an October Sunday. By 10am, the Peter Pan queue was a 40 mins. wait!

Nonetheless, this year's CHOC walk raised $1.9M and my daughter and I were very happy to participate. It gives one a unique view of the parks including backstage areas in some portions of both, and you really feel like you have done something for charity. I recommend it to everyone that can participate, with a word of advice: eat at least a half hour before you start walking (bring your own or eat in the car). We were STARVING by the time we finished and all the restaurants surrounding the parks were PACKED following the walk.

Connie Moreno said...

Me 3!! I got there uber early and the neatest thing was walking from the parking structure to the main entrance on the tram route. I kept feeling like I was being naughty and doing something I wasn't supposed to do, LOL!

And then... walking into Disneyland while it's still dark...what a feeling! Absolutely doing it again next year! And I put up seven posts worth of pics on my blog if anyone is interested.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the tip! This sounds like fun. I enjoyed Connie's pics. Seems like it was worth it to get the breakfast she wrote about.

Maybe next year. We could have a little party.

JG (no profile)

Anne said...

I need to do this. Its on my list of things to do. I'm just not sure how you register but it sounds amazing :)

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