Disneyland Dressing

I can’t believe that we were in California just one week ago!

We took the kids to Disneyland – M finally talked me into it. While I have wanted to go my whole life, we were not being pestered, and the Disney brand is not, shall we say, beloved here in Europe.  But it was a great age to go, and we had a good time, so I am very glad that we did it.

To get ourselves properly Disney-fied, and to ward off the consumer onslaught I was expecting in the parks, the girls and I prepared some Disney outfits for each day of the trip. It was fun to do, and helped us get in the mood long before our trip started.

We were glad to have the clothes to wear once we were there. The shops were not calling us (easy, if you don’t go in!), but because every single other person  is sporting nothing but Disney. It’s an alternative universe man! Corny, but fun. I loved the family groups wearing matching shirts, especially extended families who seemed to be managing to navigate the parks in a party of at least 8 people. Without tears or tantrums.

I have some other posts, covering the more detailed me made items, so this post covers the main part of dressing ourselves over the 4 days of our visit.

Embroidered Patches

The quickest, cheapest, most sustainable way to wear Disney clothing is to sew a patch on to your existing clothing. I endeavoured to do this for some of my outfits, knowing I’m not into wearing Disney in real life.

There is a huge choice from eBay sellers, you can get almost any character you like and they only cost around £1.50 per patch, including shipping.

I wore the red vest with the vintage Mickey on the first day. I did buy the vest new, I have a similar red top I could have used, but it is a fine fabric and I didn’t want to spoil it by stitching something onto it. I really like the vintage Mickey patch and I’m happy to keep the vest. I might even wear it.

The Thumper patch was not totally necessary, but it was too cute not to get. I hand sewed it over a torn part of my denim shorts, which I wore on 3 out of the 4 days. But I should probably take it off now.

I should have donated the Minnie patch to Little Sis, whose red dress we had to press into service when we forgot to pack one of the planned outfits (oops!). She had said she had so many outfits that we ought to stay another two days! My top is the Sorbetto that I made years ago. At the time, I didn’t like it much. “Too Minnie Mouse” I thought. It was hanging in the cupboard as a way of stashing the fabric until it was needed for other projects. Who knew I would ever want something Minnie Mouse? And Mouse-ify it further! The patch only fitted properly if I placed it under the ruffle. It was too large for the front panel.

I should have got some extra patches to sew onto our baseball caps. I put my ‘First Visit’ badge over my hat logo, but Disney would have been more fun. Mickey’s face or silhouette would have been my choice.

Minnie Ears

Talk about an alternative universe! In no other place would it be completely normal, nay desirable, for almost all females, especially grown women, to wear mouse ears all day, every day. But they sure are cute!

The ears in the parks are extremely seductive, with a huge variety - usually sequinned - but luckily the girls really liked theirs, which I bought in advance from an eBay seller. The “Disneyland Fairy” delivered them on the first night. While simple, these are smaller in size and weight than those sold in the parks - I couldn’t have worn the park ones for more than a couple of hours - and they stashed easily in my backpack. Not to mention the complete lack of sun protection. For an Aussie, it was shocking to witness how 90% of women appeared to be wearing ears or nothing. Certainly not a hat. My girls were only allowed to wear their ears on a shady ride, or in the evening. Mean Mama! I snuck a wear or two on the odd occasion one of the girls was not with me.

Minnie Bows

I planned these bows as something the girls could sew themselves, thinking we might wear them on a ponytail, at the back of a hat.

Big sis decided that she wanted a much smaller bow than I had planned, and it turns out she was right.

The two larger ones didn’t get worn very much/at all, but I did enjoy wearing the smaller one, in lieu of ears.

But they needed more batting and/or strong interfacing. The two larger ones have one layer of batting, running through the centre knot. The wear and tear on the smaller one showed up in a droopy bow by Day 3. If I did it again, I would interface both surfaces with medium weight interfacing and add a layer of batting. Maybe two. I would also not machine gather the centre, but instead run hand stitches loosely through the centre, and finally, I would secure the knot to the bow by hand. This version can be pulled clean out of the centre of the knot, meaning it can be pulled off centre too easily.

Final thoughts

The clothing on sale in the parks was really cute, but honestly, the Disney brand is so tainted by over-licensing to dollar stores everywhere that it sticks in my mind as cheap tat. I did see good quality kids clothes at Gap in Canada (at Disney prices), so perhaps they are working on coming back from the crap they have been allowing. I was pleased to get our few t-shirts from H&M, Primark and Amazon in the UK (two of them found with the sleepwear!) and much prefer the more subtle repeating silhouette to the vinyl graphics.

We equipped ourselves with lanyards and pins, but found no opportunities for trading. One sighting in four days of a “Cast Member” wearing a lanyard, and he was talking on the phone. The girls have given away some of their pins to their friends as souvenirs, but it makes you a bit more picky about those trading grab bags when you know you’ll be going home with the same pins you came with. Skip. They are too heavy and hot to wear in the parks anyway.

I had also arrived armed with glow bracelets for the evening festivities. We had fun with them, and they are a great way to pass the time while you are waiting for a show to start, but I didn’t see anyone else with any. I like the extra visibility it gives my kids, so I’d probably do it again.

The girls hadn't packed a pair of socks for each day but with all the walking we did, the really needed those socks. It was fun to choose some souvenir socks for the fourth day. 

Disneyland itself was both what I expected it to be, and not entirely what I expected. If I listed the bad and the good, I would find far more to complain about than praise, but the good created so many good memories that it was a wonderful trip. (Once every 10-40 years or so!)

The Old Man of Disneyland's house