Yesterday morning marked the first time since 2019 (pre-COVID pandemic) that the CHOC Walk In the Park charity event (benefitting the Children’s Hospital of Orange County) took place along the paths of Disneyland Resort’s two theme parks: Disneyland and Disney California Adventure.
In the embedded video below, you can watch the full opening ceremony for the 5K CHOC Walk In the Park 2023 event, featuring the Disneyland Resort Ambassadors, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and Disneyland Resort President Ken Potrock.
Watch CHOC Walk in the Park 2023 Opening Ceremony | Disneyland Resort:
We arrived at Disneyland around 4:30 AM yesterday morning, just as Hurricane Hilary was beginning to make landfall in Southern California. Rain started to fall on the crowd as the teams of participants waited to be granted entrance into the park.
After the opening ceremony, we began to walk along the 5K route, which started in Disneyland’s Hub and made its way through Adventureland, New Orleans Square, Critter County, and even Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Along the way we encountered characters like Indiana Jones and some actual Pirates of the Caribbean (including our favorite Pirate Redd).
Next we traveled through Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland, where we were greeted by characters from The Princess and the Frog, Mary Poppins, Alice in Wonderland, and Star Wars– namely Darth Vader and a couple of menacing Imperial stormtroopers. During this leg of the journey we also passed the first mile marker.
In Tomorrowland we started to notice informational signs about the history of CHOC Walk, and they continued to pop up through the remainder of our morning.
As we left Disneyland itself, Pluto waved goodbye and we traveled across the Disneyland Resort esplanade to Disney California Adventure. There we were greeted by the citizens of Buena Vista Street, and made our way past the second mile marker into Avengers Campus– incorporated into CHOC Walk for the very first time– where Marvel superheroes waved to us from the balcony of Avengers HQ.
As we continued on through the final third of our 5K walk, we traversed the pathways of Cars Land, Pacific Wharf (soon to be rebranded as San Fransokyo Square), and over to Pixar Pier, where we saw a handful of Toy Story characters like the Green Army Men, Woody, and Bo Peep.
Underneath the Silly Symphony Swings there was a Magic Key-exclusive photo op backdrop, and then as we came around past The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Undersea Adventure attraction we were once again rooted on by Mickey and Friends. The finish line for the event was located near Grizzly River Run.
All in all, it was a very fun and unique– not to mention quite wet– morning, and it was wonderful to be inside the Disneyland Resort theme parks at such an early hour in support of such an important cause. Plus, how cool was it to be at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure before park hours while a hurricane was brewing in Southern California?
For additional information on the CHOC Foundation and CHOC Walk In the Park, be sure to visit the event’s official website.