Disneyland Resort in Anaheim - February 9, 2002 trip report (including Avalon Cove Bar restaurant review)

 

My husband and I made a rare Saturday visit to the DLR, the incentive being new pins recently released and trying out the new Avalon Cove bar.  We arrived around 12:30, and it was moderately busy.  We stopped into the World of Disney first, where we found a few of the pins we were looking for.  During the course of our time at the resort, we found all of the new pins we were looking for, save one which was already sold out.

We then headed into DCA and browsed around Greetings from California, where we found most of the other pins we were looking for.  We also discovered that DCA has recently added a new Mickey head antenna topper - it's DCA Minnie, kinda like the DCA Mickey with the blue sunglasses, but this one has the pink bowtie and pink sunglasses.  Very cute, so we picked up a couple of those.  (BTW, there's a new DLR Mickey beanie that we picked up a couple weeks ago.  Mickey is wearing a red and yellow baseball cap with "Disneyland Resort" stiched in the cap.  He's wearing a tie-dyed shirt (blue, green, white, yellow and orange) with "Disneyland Resort 2002" on it, and he's also wearing a pair of jeans with the bottom cuffs rolled up.  The tag refers to it as the "Ears to you Mickey 2002".)

We then headed over to Avalon Cove.  We've had lunch at the new character dining at Avalon Cove, and the bar used to be one of our favorite places to eat, but we haven't been to the bar since the changes and wanted to try it out.  The food menu has much less than what used to be offered - there are only 5 appetizer items, but there are lots of alcoholic drinks being offered, so it's much more really just a bar now.  The five items offered are:  California roll sushi, loaf of onion rings, fried calamari with marinara sauce, chicken lettuce wraps, and lobster nachos.  My husband and I shared an order of the calamari and the nachos.  The calamari was very good, very fresh, and the marinara dipping sauce was very tasty.  The lobster nachos were really good.  The lobster itself was ok, but the rest of the dish was great.  It's a very big portion, serving more than one, with fresh-made chips (as we were leaving later, we saw the cook cutting stacks of round tortillas into chip shapes before presumably frying them), 2 kinds of cheese (though we would both have preferred if there was a bit more cheese), tomatoes and some black beans.  Both items were plenty for the two of us for lunch.  While I don't see us visiting the bar as often as we used to, I can see coming back periodically.  The only downside is that they don't offer an AP discount.  (When asked, our waitress said that the bar menu was basically finished, but that at the downstairs dining, they were working on coming up with a lunch menu that was different than the dinner menu.)

We originally started out sitting at the bar on the side closest to Treasures, but because it was a very windy day, we kept getting huge gusts of wind, one of which almost blew our silverware and napkins off the table, so while we were still waiting for our food, we moved to a table just about at the entrance to the bar.  As we were eating, we noticed a group getting ready to perform at the amphitheatre across the way that's kind of by where Golden Dreams plays.  We had a great view from where we sat so ended up watching their entire show.  We found out later that the group is called Wizard Acrobats.  It's a troupe of 5 people who do various acrobatic moves, individually and together.  At one point, they pulled out a limbo stick and had kids from the audience participating.  It wasn't a real contest - most of the kids just ducked under the stick as it got lower - it was just fun for everyone, and the kids seemed to have a great time.  (As the show progressed, we noticed that more and more people had stopped to watch the show.)  After the limbo with the kids, one of the troup members himself repeatedly limboed under the stick as it progressively got lower and lower to the ground.  One of the troupe members also did a balancing act with various wooden chairs.  One member was so limber that he could be bent completely in half backwards.  The finale was when the troupe make various figures with the entire group.  Very cool.  I highly recommend catching this show.

After lunch, we walked through Paradise Pier for a bit.  The carrousel wasn't running, and the Sun Wheel, the Golden Zephyr and the Bee Stinger were down, presumably because of the high winds.  We then happened upon new Mickey and Minnie beanie plush for Easter 2002.  Mickey is in a chocolate bunny outfit - chocolate brown from the top of his bunny ears, all over his body, past his little bunny tale, down to his feet, and even to the Easter basket with 3 eggs that he's holding.  He also has a cloth tag attached to him that says "100% Chocolate".  The bottom of his left foot has an egg-shaped metal tag that reads "Happy Easter to you in 2002 Disneyland Resort".   Minnie is dressed as a baby chick, with yellow fuzzy material around her head, body, legs and above her arms to resemble wings.  She has a pink bowtie on her head, a pink skirt with purple flower trim at the waist and pink shoes with a purple flower.  She's also carrying a wicker basket with three multi-colored eggs, and she has the same metal tag at the bottom of her left foot that Mickey has.  They are both very cute, so a pair came home with us.

We then headed into Disneyland, picked up the last of the pins we were looking for, walked around Star Traders, through Tomorrowland, to Toontown , through Fantasyland and then to Coke Corner.  After talking to Rod the piano player for a little while, we headed out and on our way to a scheduled dinner.

 

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