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Welcome to the disneygeek.com Geek Speaks section. In this section I will post my comments on trips to the parks or other Disney related events.

12/20/24 - Disneyland Resort - Final Visit of 2024

Hello Everyone!

Thanks to the Magic Key block out I made my 30th and final visit to the Disneyland Resort on Friday. The parks were busy as you would expect but due to most passes already blocked out and the cool evening the parks did not get that evening rush as they have been on Fridays. Wait times varied but for the most part were on par with a busy day. The afternoon was mild topping out around 70 but as soon as the sun set it cooled to the 50s quickly.

Earlier this week I returned from a week at Walt Disney World, be sure to check my December 2024 Walt Disney World trip summary page for links to all the picture posts and trip logs. Thoughts & observations plus full picture & video sets will be added in the coming days.

Since this is my last visit of the year wanted to share some stats with you. This year I visited the Disneyland Resort 30 times logging just over 300 hours in the parks and 281 miles on the pedometer. I shared just shy of 10,000 photos in the 30 full picture sets. I spent 16 days at Walt Disney World and no international trips this year.

Thoughts and Observations:

  • My parking experience was a mixed bag. I hit a green light at Ball Road and only two cars in front of me at the toll plaza. No delay going up the ramp but they parked me in a spot in the first row, I really am not a fan of having to back out into the exit traffic. The positive is I did not have to drive around the garage so it minimized time both entering and exiting.
  • Security had a minimal wait. Things came to a halt then as the tram boarding was backed up. They only had one station open and it was backed up several trams. I picked I line near the middle. The first tram that pulled in boarded then sat there. I could see the cast members moving about then realized the issue was they did not have a driver. A cast member ran from the back to the front and the tram drove away. While this was happening trams were backing up waiting to pick up guests and the queue just kept growing behind me. I noticed cast members preparing to open a second station so as soon as a tram headed that way so did I (along with a large number of guests in line around me). I made it onto that tram so in the end my wait was minimal but an adventure.
  • At Disneyland the walls are down and the first section of the new turnstiles is complete. They were open for entry but the new system was not in use. Cast members had hand held devices just like all the other lanes and the entry process was the regular one. The only difference was no turnstile to push or separate lane for wheels.
  • Tiana's Bayou Adventure has dropped the virtual queue and added a single rider queue since my last visit. The attraction has a traditional standby line and Lightning Lane. An interesting note it is included on the multi-pass not individual. The wait was around an hour a number of times I paid attention and it did drop as the temperature did in the evening.
  • The Pixie Hollow area renovation has partially wrapped up. The walls were removed from around the pond/garden area. So just the Meet and Greet area is closed. The work does not appear complete as the lighting package was not turned on (not sure it is fully installed), so it was fairly dark after sunset in the area.
  • I spent most of my visit bouncing around from park to park to see the various entertainment offerings. It is easy to forget that even in its current state the Disneyland Resort offers many more entertainment options than Walt Disney World throughout the day.
  • I was walking by the Jungle Cruise. The app said 30 minutes, the sign said 20 minutes, and looking at the queue it looked mostly empty. So I decided to give it a try and my timing was great as it turned out to be a three minute wait. We were held by a cast member while the upstairs emptied then proceeded to board a boat with no delays. I drew a less than ideal spot to see the new ruins but did manage to get some pictures. The ruins fell into disrepair and have been rebuilt.
  • As I was waiting for A Christmas Fantasy Parade I saw something I had not seen before. A group near me had a news paper and took it apart and sat on that versus the ground. To me the newsprint is dirtier overall than the ground in the area where we were.
  • I was disappointed with Alpha Rhythm Kings. They were the featured Holiday Concert for Festival of Holidays in Paradise Gardens Park but their set only included one Christmas song. They are a good band but for a holiday concert I expect more holiday music. Especially five days before Christmas. The one song they included was Blue Christmas so not even that festive.
  • The Ashes were performing in Downtown Disney. They played a selection of rock music which was also out of place for the holiday season and rock music did not seem to work well with kids running around the lawn either. The overall volume was substantially louder than previous acts too, wonder how it was in the restaurant?
  • I closed out my evening with World of Color - Season of Light. I decided not to try and leave or run over to Disneyland given the crowds and just enjoyed the show then left as the fireworks were going off overhead.

Here are some recent posts to the Geek's Blog:

Disney Related Press Releases

Be sure to check out the picture update that goes with this Geekspeak column, it can be found in our Disneyland Resort Pictorial Update section

Trip logs and mileage reports are in the Park Miles section.

Send comments, questions, any other email to: disneygeek@disneygeek.com
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