Part 2 of my photos and observations from my trip to Disneyland on Friday.

I’ll start with the resorts, since that’s actually where I began my day – walked there from the Pinocchio Parking Lot (I arrived early enough that I was parked outside in the Pinocchio lot rather than inside the garage, which suited me since the walk from there is a little shorter to/from the hotels).

The remodeling of the Dreams Tower at the Disneyland Hotel still continues – it looks to be about halfway done. If anyone has the opportunity to stay in the new rooms please send us some photos!

At the Paradise Pier, the new Surf’s Up Breakfast with Mickey has replaced the Lilo and Stitch character breakfast. It’s a breakfast buffet – there is no longer an a la carte menu. Stitch is still at the breakfast, along with Mickey, of course, but no Lilo. The buffet includes: an omelet station, breakfast flatbreads, Mickey waffles, chocolate peanut butter banana French toast, smoothies, parfait station, chilaquiles and smoked salmon. $25.99 for adults and $13.99 for kids, tax and 15% gratuity will be added.

For those who would like a hot breakfast but not the buffet, the Surfside Lounge is offering breakfast now in addition to the usual coffee and pastries. The menu is HERE.

A number of things going on at DCA. The construction walls are still up around Paradise Bay, but they have finished the structure they were building at the end of the bridges between Paradise Pier and Pacific Wharf so those walls are down, and that makes it not quite so claustrophobic. This looks like a big light and speaker tower to me.

And of course work on the World of Color show is continuing in the bay itself.

The bay has been refilled and so the nice reflections are back again.

There’s still plenty of construction walls up all around Paradise Pier, but the ones between the bay and the former Golden Dreams attraction have been moved closer to the bay so that there is a little more room to walk now. A wall completely blocks the walkway in front of Jumping Jellyfish so you have to go around the S.S. Rustworthy past Pizza Oom Mow Mow for the moment.

The Wine Country Trattoria and the Wine Terrace are both closed while the restaurant is being remodeled – it is scheduled to open again in April. And while we’re talking about food and restaurants, here’s a reminder that Disney’s Calfornia Food and Wine Festival returns from April 16-May 31. No information on the schedule or events is available yet, though.

Big changes back in the Hollywood Backlot area – the center of the street is blocked by construction walls, and you have to go up one side or the other depending on whether you want to go to Playhouse Disney and the Animation Building or the rest of the backlot area.

The reason? The tracks for the Red Trolley are going in, and the trolley itself is supposed to open later this year.

The walkway is so narrow that they have had to close Award Weiners – there’s no room for the line for this popular counter-service restaurant.

On the construction walls are vintage Disney movie posters.

There’s a new Annual Passport Processing Center in the far corner of the backlot, which was a food court restaurant called Hollywood & Dine when the park first opened, but has been closed for years. I was told this location is “temporary”, but not just how “temporary” it is.

I tried something I’d never had before – I was in DCA early enough that the Pacific Wharf Cafe was still serving breakfast AND I was actually hungry. I really like their soups and salads in bread bowls, but for breakfast they serve scrambled eggs in a bread bowl. It also came with two slices of nice crisp bacon and some fruit – a bunch of grapes and some sliced oranges. The eggs were a little dry but everything else was excellent. The eggs need a little oomph, so I got a couple of packets of salsa from Cocina Cucamonga. No way I could eat all that bread, and I ended up taking most of it home where it made for a fine soup bowl for some homemade split pea soup that night. For $5.99 it was good and very reasonably priced. The breakfast menu is HERE. I don’t think the breakfast menu has changed at all in the five years I’ve been collecting menus for AllEars – I keep expecting the prices to go up.

There’s a couple new stores that have opened in Downtown Disney recently. D Street is Vinylmation central, but they also carry “cutting edge apparel” for men and women as well as other collectibles and artwork.

But my favorite new store is The Cupcake Store, which is located at the end of Downtown Disney near the ESPN Club. It’s a little shop right in the center, which sells gourmet cupcakes. They are nicely decorated with flowers, chocolate, candy sprinkles, etc. There’s vanilla, yellow cake, chocolate, red velvet, and vanilla coconut and they are $4.95 each. I’m not sure why I took a photo of the shop and didn’t take any pictures of the cupcakes!

Something that is not new, but I’d never noticed before, is this remote-control boat area on the side of the Rainforest Cafe. There was no one playing with it when I was there, so I don’t know how popular it really is.

And that brings us to the end of my ravings – for now, at least.

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