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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.

1/17/25 - Disneyland Resort - Lunar New Year

Hello everyone,

Friday was a relaxing day at the Disneyland Resort as I enjoyed the Lunar New Year festivities and visited with friends. The weather was on the cold side topping out around 60 and cooling to the 50s reaching the 40s by the time I returned home. The crowds were average at Disneyland in the early afternoon. DCA was on the heavy side all afternoon and evening as you would expect with the opening day of the Lunar New festivities

Thoughts and Observations:

  • I started my visit walking through Downtown Disney. Security only had a couple guests in each line but it still took what felt like a very long time for them to go through everyone's bag. I really appreciate the system at Walt Disney World, it would be great to see Anaheim switch to a more efficient way of checking bags and guests.
  • There are a number of projects underway in Downtown Disney. There was not much visible progress this trip on the ESPN building renovation, the new Earl of Sandwich or the Tortilla Jo's removal. The Dress Shop has its new sign. The Wonderful World of Sweets looks the same, I am surprised that has not opened yet.

  • At the park entrances and at the Downtown Disney Monorail station the turnstiles are being replaced with the new gates. The sections that have been replaced are operating in a traditional entry mode with cast members using hand scanners.

  • Almost all signs of Christmas are gone from the parks and Downtown Disney. Small World Holiday runs through Monday and there are a few random trees stills. Disneyland has no celebration going on so the park is returning to a status quo state.

  • The Haunted Mansion returned on Saturday, so I missed it by a day this visit. The exterior looked done and ready to go but no signs of a soft opening unfortunately.

  • Rise of the Resistance turned five years old Friday, which seemed hard to believe. We thought about going for a ride but looked to be a good hour wait when we walked by.

  • Kat Saka's Kettle in Black Spire Outpost has replaced its queue with a few tables since my last visit. This is nice for those looking for a spot to enjoy the marketplace and makes the space more usable. I do not recall ever seeing the queue full, even when it first opened.

  • There seemed to be less tables outside of Docking Bay 7 on the overlook of the Millennium Falcon. Was this done to accommodate the fireworks viewing? Are those where the tables for the popcorn stall came from?

  • it's a small world holiday was a walk on so we went for a cruise. The mini figures I spotted last cruise were gone (as expected). A few figures were out for renovation. Woody and a hula dancer stood out as MIA.

  • Stopped by the Star View Station (the DVC member lounge) in Tomorrowland to catch up with a friend. They were seating you and it was an assigned seat. This seemed odd given there were maybe a dozen people in the lounge. There seemed to be more cast members than guests at times.

  • There is no parade at Disneyland right now. The Mickey and Friends Cavalcade has returned and features the Mickey drum float, a couple cars and an omnibus. The music is Brand New Day from Tokyo Disneyland's 35th anniversary.

  • The Lunar New Year celebration started today and runs through February 16th. The offerings are on par with recent years with no major changes sticking out to me.

  • Mulan's Lunar New Year Procession is back and runs from Hollywood Land through the entire parade route. I thought they missed an opportunity to highlight a snake character. I saw Shanghai is using Gary the Snake from the upcoming Zootopia 2 film as part of their celebration. For the procession they say Mushu is representing the snake.

  • Magic Key Holders can stop by the area under the Silly Sympony Swings and pick up a button and there is a photo op for the Lunar New Year Celebration. Button distribution is from 2pm - 7pm while supplies last.
  • The Bandstand will be hosting various groups throughout the celebration and Vocal Seoul is performing on Fri, Sat and Sun at the Sonoma Terrace. I miss the community groups they used to have and other guest performers. I saw on Saturdays Downtown Disney will have groups. Coming off the Festival of Holidays where there were five stages with performers going to just the two offerings seems on the light side. The Sonoma Terrace venue is very small and awkward to watch performances in. It would be nice to see them on a larger stage where more people can enjoy the performance. Hollywood Land has no entertainment going on and no marketplace. They do have special food offerings at the Studio Catering Co and other dining locations though.

  • As you would expect for opening day the marketplace queues were long most of the day for almost all of them.

  • Hurry Home is presented before World of Color as usual. Unfortunately there were no fireworks on Friday. The barges were out but nothing went off for the finale. Speaking of World of Color two notes. First is the cast members were basically waving everyone in when I arrived, not bothering to scan or check the virtual queue. I guess they were not expecting a big crowd given the cool weather? We managed to drawn an extremely rude guest while we waited. We were standing there waiting along the rail and the group next to us was spaced out a little. A guy came up with his kid and the kid wedged himself between us, not a huge problem and at show time we probably would have offered to let the kid stand in front of us any ways. Then the father proceeded to stand right on top of us basically touching both our group and the next he was in so tight. It reminded me of being in Shanghai. There was no one else around for 5 or 10 minutes so not there was a crowd or reason to try and hold the space. It was odd and annoying at the same time. He did not take the hint from us or the other group to spread out a bit.

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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.

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