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Hello all,

Sunday marked my first visit to the park for the New Year and it appears quite a few others had the same idea. The weather was perfect and I wanted one more day of vacation before heading back to work. The crowds at Disneyland were fairly heavy with quite a few guests roaming around and the parking lot seemed to have long lines all day long. DCA on the other hand seemed to be on the mild side. I am guessing many in the crowd were annual passholders coming to see the holiday decorations one last time before they are taken down for the season, plus Sunday marked the first non blackout day since mid December for many passes.

Jason

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

Disneyland & DCA Thoughts and Observations:

• I was really surprised by the lack of promotion for the new How will you celebrate campaign. When I was there before Christmas banners were up along the tram route and in the esplanade and Sunday everything looked the same. There were no other real signs of the promotion, or if there were I missed them. I think its rather sad how this event is opening so quietly. Its almost as if you are being penalized if your celebration/birthday happens before the late spring when it will really kick into gear with the new street celebration and events at the ranch. If you planned a trip around your birthday say in January or February it appears you will not be greeted by many special events... but then again free Disneyland is free Disneyland so your average day guest will still be happy. But seems to me they should have been ready to make a splash January 1st with the new promotion and from what I have seen neither Disneyland nor Disney World really were.
  
  
• I actually had some great parking luck. As I rounded the corner and started to merge to head to the garage I saw stopped cars and made a snap decision to try the other entrance. As luck would have it, it was still open and there was no line. Then an even luckier thing happened as those of us entering from that entrance were directed to a different floor in the garage than everyone else and I was able to drive right up and park in the front row with no waiting. As we drove by the main toll booths I saw all the lanes were open and backed up as far as you could see and after getting through there cars were backed up going up the ramp they were using to too. For once I made a good call and got lucky in terms of parking waiting time!! The Lazygeek was not so lucky and when he arrived later in the day the traffic was backed up to Ball road almost and it took him almost an hour to park. (I ended up walking over to the Disneyland Hotel and on the way we noticed the parking entrance we used was closed then, so 10 minutes later and I would have been in that long wait).
  
  
• There were quite a few people waiting at two tram loading points and no trams in site, so I headed for Downtown Disney by foot. The Lazygeek reported a similar experience with quite a few people waiting at the tram stops so he made the hike to the parks too.
  
  
• I stopped by both the Disneyland Hotel and the Grand Californian and the Christmas decorations are down and gone at both of them. Almost more surprising was no real signs of the new celebrate campaign.
  
  
• Over at DCA things should kick into high gear in the coming weeks. It was nice to see the new sign for the World of Color show. Kind of surprised there was only one in that one spot but I guess many of the other areas will be undergoing renovations so it makes sense. Also funny to note is there was a Photopass photographer set up taking pictures of people in front of the sign.
  
  
• Department 56 looked to be on its last day or so with almost everything gone, wonder how many other stores will be leaving in the coming months and who will replace them....
  
  
• The lines a the ticket booths as I passed by were among the longest I had seen in a long time. They filled the front queues and stretched around back of the buildings and wrapped back and forth. It appears most were good sports, as the extended queue consisted of tape on the ground and nothing else to manage the switchbacks.
  
  
• Caught the Billy Hill Holiday Extravaganza and this set of Billies did a different set than the others. They did their regular Elvis and Beatles impersonations but to holiday songs... it was great watching the Billies sing as the Beatles singing Feliz Navidad....
  
  
• One of the longest lines in the parks was the one for Annual Passes (guess the new payment plan option is keeping them busy). It took about an hour for the friends we were waiting for to get through the line. They said the CMs inside the bank were extremely efficient and the process took only a couple minutes but there were just so many people it took a while to get through. The line seemed to always be about the same length every time we passed by. I was surprised they had not moved down the street to the larger space yet.
  
  
• We went on Small World Holiday for one last sailing of the Holiday season, it closed on Monday to go back to the regular show and when it reopens next month it will have the new scene and Disney characters too. I always knew the left line was slower because of the wheelchairs but Sunday we goofed and got in that line and I would say it was at least twice as long as the right one. We watched 2-3 boats cycle through from the other side for each one from ours.
  
  
• While in line we watched the 3:30 Christmas Fantasy Parade. By accident it dawned on me we caught the second parade of the season(well it was the first day but it did run once for the Christmas taping before the main debut) and now the 2nd to the last (I missed the 6:30 one as we were at dinner).
  
  
• Also caught Haunted Mansion Holiday and we should have known something was up when the Fastpass return line was outside the gates. We figured it was still worth waiting for since you only had the short walk to the mansion. Little did we know they had the Fastpass line going out to the graveyard too. So it was a good 20-30 minute wait till we boarded the elevator. It appeared they only had one elevator working. There was no line at all once you reached the doom buggies, I was expected the hallway to be jammed and there was not a soul in sight.... also kind of odd it seemed every 20-30 seconds through the ride we slowed down. I find it hard to believe there were that many people needing assistance getting on and off the ride, but maybe...
  
  
• Ate dinner at White Water in an effort to avoid some of the crowds that were packed into Disneyland and that objective was met as there were only a couple groups eating when we did. Overall our experience was not the best, which surprised me. First off I ordered a hot dog and then about a minute later, after paying, I was told they were out. So I said ok switch me to a hamburger, which they did but in doing so they took the time and effort to credit me and then recharge me for the hamburger. I remember in the old days they would just do the swap (a hamburger is a dollar more). But instead I held up the line for 5 minutes as they did the transactions. Then to top things off the first half of my order did not show up until we asked for it and by that time it was cold. Hopefully this was just a one time thing, I really enjoy eating at White Water...
  
  
• We stuck around and caught the last electrical parade of the season at DCA. We watched from near the exit to Golden Dreams and everyone in the area was really spaced out, probably 10-15 feet between groups. Kind of sad to see. It was great though since the characters could interact with each and every group/person in the area. When we exited we saw the crowd in the sunshine plaza was probably 10 people deep which more respectable.
  
  
• The Lazygeek just got back from Walt Disney World (he went for a couple days between Christmas and New Years) and he kept commenting at how much better Disneyland was doing managing the large crowds than WDW did. He was at the Magic Kingdom one day and said it was a complete mess with no real control. Where as Sunday at Disneyland there were people everywhere but the CMs were working really hard to keep everyone moving and in the proper locations. For example we wanted to cross the Christmas parade to get to Small World. We waited at the crossing and while there two CMs kept repeating that we were in a crossing and as soon as the ropes were opened we were to walk across and to stay to the right as others were crossing from the other side. It worked pretty seamlessly. The Lazygeek said at WDW he was trying to get through Frontierland during the parade to get to the Liberty Tree Tavern and it was a mess with no CMs doing anything to keep the walkways moving.
  

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