Last year I had the opportunity to attend the countdown at TDL. This year I decided to pass, but I made sure that I was at the parks for the New Year Greetings. If you click on that link you can see the photos hubby took of the mini greeting show. Today I’m going to walk you through my day at the parks! Excuse the phone quality photos :3

We arrived at the parks around 6 AM and sat shivering in the cold until the TDS opened at 8 AM. We thought we had arrived pretty early, but the lines were almost reaching the ticket booths by the time we grabbed a spot. As we walked into the park Mickey and Minnie were dancing, but we had no time to stop and watch. As we headed towards the harbor we were greeted by Danny on this rather large pot of new year flowers!

The day started out super sunny and we were very grateful as it was freezing cold! We picked a spot to sit for the greeting show and hubby headed off to try his luck at the lottery and to get us some nourishment. It was very interesting to watch the crowd rush by as they headed towards the American Waterfront, but by 8:30 it had slowed down to a trickle.

Hubby came back with a scrumptious breakfast, but no lottery tickets for Big Band Beat. Boo! Better luck next time. Anyway, what you see pictured above is delicious bread from Mamma Biscotti’s Bakery. Since hubby picked everything I’m not sure of the official names, but the top right is a focaccia type bread with a slice of bacon and fried egg. The croissant had a small sausage in it and was very good! There is also a chocolate cheesecake bar in the paper wrapper that you see. It was quite rich, but went very well with the cafe lait!

In case you were wondering, “Today” for the first half of January is Minnie!

Since we still had quite a bit of time before the greeting show I made my way over to the “Gelatoni Corner” of the harbor and to my surprise found that everything was gone. Both the statues and paintings on the wall were completely totally gone! I wonder if we’ll be seeing something new for Sweet Duffy?

This little painting was still there!

And then it was time for the greeting show! Even though it was super short I was really glad that I got to be there and celebrate the new year with all my favorite characters. Along with the photos hubby took, you can also check out the video I took. I added English captions to the parts where the characters spoke.

After the greeting show we headed over to TDL to catch the greeting parade! We were worried the parks would reach capacity which would have meant that we couldn’t get in with our annual passports, but luckily for us it didn’t. The “Today” at TDL until the 12th is Mickey!

A Danny fan decorates the Kadomatsu at Disneyland!

While we waited for the parade we decided that more nourishment was needed. The cup contains a White Chocolate Green Tea Mousse. I’ve had bad experiences with souvenir sweets, but this one was pretty good. The mochi was really sticky! I would love to tell you how the Strawberry Manju tasted, but hubby ate it in one bite. He said that it was good so we’ll just have to believe him.

The super cute souvenir plate!

By the time we had finished our snack it was time for the greeting parade. We tried to pick a spot where Donald’s car would stop, but a cast member warned us that he might possibly stop at a different place because they moved in time to the music. He didn’t stop right in front of us, but we had a very good view (of his butt!!) :D

Since our car was parked over at TDS we headed back and on the way we saw a really cool Duffy party!

All in all it was a really good day. It was mainly spent waiting for two very short shows, but that was the goal and we accomplished it. It definitely would have been better if the weather had been a bit warmer, but at least it was sunny most of the time. The parks should be heading into their slow season, but with the new Frozen event we’ll see how that goes!