CHOC Walk in the Park 2018
We recently participated in the annual Children's Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) Walk in the Park event hosted by Disneyland. This was our largest team to date as well as our largest purse raised. We also sponsored a special young girl named Charlie who is the grand daughter of one of our co-workers at Warner Bros.
As a team we raised about $2,000 and all of that will go towards CHOC for them to use as they see fit. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our team members who donated their time and money towards our efforts. We could not have accomplished so much without you! Thank you to In-N-Out burger for donating meal vouchers which we raffled off. Thank you to CHOC for also donating Anaheim Angel's tickets, Dave and Busters Power Cards and Rubio's Taco's vouchers which we also raffled off to raise money. Last but not least, thank you to Warner Bros. Property and consumer products for donating item which we sold via yard sales, online auctions or raffles to raise money.
On top of the money we raised to donate to CHOC, we also were able to raise enough to purchase Disneyland park tickets for Charlie and her sister and mother to enjoy a day in Disneyland, a well-deserved distraction from her ongoing battle with cancer.
We stayed at the Grand Legacy hotel in Anaheim, CA in a two bedroom suite which accommodated our team. The room was nice and in a great location, walking distance from the park.
On the morning of the walk, we were up bright and early at 4:00AM and a couple of us made a coffee run to Downtown Disney around 4:30AM. The rest of the team were in line with us at the main entrance by 5:00AM and this year they waited quite a while before letting us into the park. We were on Main St. U.S.A. by 6:00AM and by the time they finished with their opening ceremonies, it was about 6:30AM when we began the walk.
Just like in previous years, they had numerous characters spread throughout the 5k route, many of which you could queue up to take a photo with and we took advantage every opportunity we could.
There is something special about walking through Disneyland early in the morning and although there were thousands of walkers for the event, it still felt nearly empty compared to a normal day in the parks and I think this is worth participating in the walk in itself, not to mention all of the good the money raised does for CHOC.
We finished the 5k some time around 9:30AM, crossing the finish line located in Downtown Disney next to La Brea Bakery.
We split up at this point, some of our team went into Disneyland, one person held our spot in line for a photo and the rest got in line to purchase the discounted park tickets that were specially priced for the event. Once we purchased our tickets and took the photo, we headed to our character breakfast at the Plaza Inn inside Disneyland.
If you have never tried the breakfast at Plaza Inn I highly recommend you do so. It is an all-you-can-eat cafeteria style breakfast with character interactions. We were seated in a great location on the patio and immediately greeted by Eeyore! The other characters that were there included: Captain Hook, Rifiki, Chip and Dale, Tigger, Max, the Fairy Godmother and Minnie Mouse! Most of the characters visited our table, a few did not either because they had already come around before we were seated or were about to but we had finished our meal and left; but we weren't too worried about it, we had a great breakfast and enjoyed the characters that we saw.
Note: If you eat at any character meal and not all of the characters come by your table, you can let your waiter/waitress know or speak with a host cast member and they will make sure that character(s) come visit you table.
After the breakfast it was a free-for-all as far as our team activities went. Some of us returned to the hotel to shower and rest before returning to the parks while others set off to ride some attractions.
We enjoyed playing in the parks later on that day and having some time to relax the following day. Thank you again to all that helped us raise money for CHOC and our team. Thank you to our team members making THAT ONE TEAM so strong. It was an exhausting weekend, full of fun, early mornings, and good food.
