30 Days of Disneyland – Day 2

Day 2 at Disneyland was easier and lighter than Day 1. I did a better job of surrendering to this 30-day experiment, and I felt much less resistance to it.

It was also a shorter day and less crowded at the park, especially in the morning. Rachelle and I only spent about 9 hours there, left shortly after 6pm, and had a nice dinner at Vegan Pizza nearby. There was a sold out Disneyland Halloween party in the evening, and we saw a lot of people in costumes as we were leaving. This party will repeat on Saturday and Monday (Halloween).

Since I upgraded from an iPhone 5s to an iPhone 7 before this trip, I’m enjoying some of the new features on this trip, especially the live photos. I like that they capture background sounds and music too. Initially I thought this was a fluffy feature that I wouldn’t care about, but it really adds a lot to the memory of an experience. Now I wish that my older photos had this feature as well.

Eating Vegan at Disneyland

While Disneyland is more vegan friendly than most amusement parks, in this particular area it still seems to be behind the times, and they could surely improve. They’ll gladly share an allergen and gluten-free menu at restaurants when you ask for one, and I’ve checked out of a couple of them so far, but these menus are poorly designed and are confusing to read because they’re sorted into separate lists for each allergen like nuts, dairy, eggs, etc. Even after requesting and reviewing one of those menus, we still had to ask the chef to get the real answer. A veggie burger wasn’t listed as being egg-free or dairy-free, yet the chef confirmed for us that it was indeed vegan, including the bun. He also said that sometimes they have to use backup veggie burgers that aren’t vegan when they’re out of stock on the main ones. So basically to be sure, we’d have to ask the chef each time to find out what they’re serving at the time we order.

I’d say to Disney that if you’re going to create such a menu, please design it to be less confusing and easier to read at a glance. For vegan and gluten-free options, it’s simpler to just mark them on the main menu with standard symbols like V and GF, respectively. I think that some of the front-line food service employees could use more training and education in this area as well, based on my recent experiences.

Mental Stimulation

Yesterday I was craving some extra mental stimulation, so this morning I loaded onto my phone some PDFs from an online training course I’m taking. I read them when I had downtime, such as while waiting in line. This was a nice break that let my mind shift gears. The small amount of learning (about 5o pages of material) made the day feel more balanced and satisfying.

With four more weeks to go, it seems like there’s a ton of time ahead. It’s beginning to sink in that we’re basically living at Disneyland for a month. I’m still not sure how that’s going to affect us.