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Happy New Year everyone. Well here is my first trip of the new year and my thoughts on the visit.

Friday was a nice evening in the parks. The weather was brisk, but the crowds were fairly light. We were amazed at how light the crowds were, but I guess the cold weather kept alot of the locals away.

General (Common) Items:

• The parks were both fairly crowded Friday. Disneyland was no where near as bad as last year, but it was a sizable crowd and great to see. Most of the major attractions had lines well over an hour. Same for DCA. It was the most crowded I have seen DCA in months.
• There were still a lot of Nebraska and Miami fans around from the Rose Bowl.
• I still have to grip about the new parking structure setup. For almost a year we had absolutely no problems getting in or out of the Mickey and Friends garage. Now we have parked 4 or so times with the new striping and every time there has been some problem or delay. Yesterday was no exception. This was the worst delay I have been in. We were sent to the second floor and there was a line of cars backing up to down the ramp leading to the level. It took several minutes to get up the ramp and onto the level and then several more to get into a space. I am not sure what the problem was, but one item I observed was people leaving having to merge into and then exit the line of cars that were trying to park. It was quite a mess. Also to make matters worse I got stuck on the far side of the garage again where I had to back out into the exiting traffic in the evening. Has anyone else had problems with the new parking stripes or is it just me and bad timing? I never had problems before....
• Getting between the parks seems to be getting easier. The lines seemed to move much quicker than usual. I really like being able to go to any turnstile now. We still wish there would be an express gate or two. Maybe one for APs or people without bags or without strollers or something. It seems that we should be able to get through much quicker and need much less assistance.
• We are still really disappointed that there is not more going on for Walt's 100th birthday at the parks here in CA. Even the film they put in DCA is not getting that much attention. Heck they could not even come up with a new phrase for it. In the DCA guidebook they have a logo saying Celebrating Walt Disney, Where the Magic Began... doesn't that sound familiar.... well that is what htey have as the tag line for Disneyland for the past several months.
• One other disappointment is the guidemaps. They are back to their summer look. No more holiday stuff, not even a new picture for 2002.

Disneyland Items:

• Not much new happening at the park. The holiday decorations are still up and the shows going on.
• The Jungle Cruise is open, but we did not make it on to see what if anything has changed. Also all the construction walls are down in Fantasyland (no pictures because there were so many people you could not see the new stones/pavement).
• Innoventions still had the AT&T stuff roped off. Wonder when it will open. Or if we just have bad timing and keep missing it.
• There was a large crowd for Believe and they applauded and cheered several times throughout the show. Its amazing the reaction it gets compared to Luminaria.

DCA Items:

• DCA has some new entertianment groups performing. There is an improv group in Condor Flats (I missed their name) and a new vocal group in the Sunshine Plaza called Groove 66 (I think, I couldn't catch the first word). Both were entertianing and drew nice crowds. Too bad neither was listed in the park guide so people knew when and who was performing. There were not even any signs where they were.
• This was my first time seeing the "commercial" the Blast cast does for their show down in the Sunshine Plaza. It seemed to do the trick because the theater was packed.
• Luminaria had a nice crowd (we were still able to walk up and be in the second row by the Orange Stinger about 5 minutes before the show). The response still seems very muted with little applause. No where near the response Believe gets over in Disneyland. Everyone just kind of stands there. They now have an announcement at the end (have had it for a while) saying the show is over. I am still disappointed in this show, but it has grown on me a bit do not know why, guess because its there. Its a nice filler, meaning if I am in the park I will stop to see it, but I do not go and seek it out.

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

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