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1/10/14 - My thoughts and observations from Fridays visit to the Disneyland Resort.
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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.

1/10/14 - My thoughts and observations from Fridays visit to the Disneyland Resort.

Hello all,

The holiday madness has ended and the crowds eased giving the Disneyland Resort a chance to catch its breath. Christmas decorations are mostly down, with just a few areas left to go. Several renovation projects are under way around the parks. Just because it is off season does not mean empty walkways though. As you saw in the pictures there were still a fair number of guests roaming the parks, but attraction wait times were great in the early afternoon and creeping up as the day went on, as normal.

Jason

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

Thoughts and Observations:

  • As you saw in the pictorial update Buzz is the face of the Disneyland Resort advertising this off season. He is on the tram stop billboard and Downtown Disney banners, but interesting he was not on the Ticket Booths plugging annual passes. Speaking of annual passes I still do not understand why the computer systems do not recognize them better. For example when parking in the structure Friday they passed out a flyer to upgrade your annual pass. I have a Premiere Pass and there was no one else in the car so seems they should have saved the paper and not given it to me. Or how much of the year on cash register receipts from dining locations you get a coupon for 20% off purchases before a certain time at select stores. But with my annual pass I get 20% off all day.

  • I was surprised to see the impact the Club 33 project was having on New Orleans Square. There are a large number of walls and a blocked walkway to the restrooms so far as part of the project.

  • I found it humorous boarding on sad that the mayor from the Laughing Stock company was out in Frontierland trying to convince guests to head inside the Golden Horseshoe to enjoy their show. Does anyone know have they been doing this for a while or is it something new? I do not recall ever seeing anything like this. As many of you know Billy Hill and the Hillbillies had their last Disneyland performance on Monday the 6th. It was announced this week that they will be playing at Knotts throughout the winter/spring. It will be interesting to see what direction Disneyland goes in. I was hoping with the Billies being forced out they would retire Laughing Stock too and come up with a new show for the Golden Horseshoe. So far no signs of that.

  • Out at the Big Thunder Ranch a new event has moved in for the off season. This year they are calling it the Frotnierland Troupe presents Roundup of Traveling Disney Friends. This is occuring at the Big Thunder Ranch Jamboree. How is that for a mouthful to remember. Why must they keep making the names longer and harder to remember and type! This event has the same elements as the past ones. There are three character meet and greet locations set up and a food stand. New is smaller stage for entertainment. The main stage is in use for performing arts showcase groups. On Friday they were switching characters out at the top and bottom of the hour and there were two performers rotating the smaller stage. Due to no real advertising and the low crowds Friday the area was very very quiet which was great! You could basically walk right up to the characters and they were out interacting and having a great time. At several points I thought cast members out numbered guests. I am guessing at some point they will advertise this on the blog/twitter/park guides/etc.. and crowds will pick up. But for now if you are looking for a place to meet some characters that usually are not out with mild crowds stop by the ranch and see what is going on. In the guidemap they list it as Big Thunder Ranch Jamboree Featuring Some of Your Favorite Disney Characters and it is runningFri-Sun 10:30am to 5:30pm this week (guessing that will be the schedule most weeks).

    I thought the way they were swapping out the characters was a nice touch. They had a horse lead out the next group and then the other group backstage. Here is a video clip of one of the change overs:


  • Today was an odd entertianment day at the park. At Disneyland there were no performances of Fantasmic or a parade. At DCA no World of Color. Also Remember was at 8:40pm so early for a Friday. Because of this there were some interesting opportunities. For example the horse drawn street cars were on Main Street until 4pm. Also night time rides on the Mark Twain. And over at DCA the Pier attractions were open all night.

  • Unlike my last trip, this trip park hopping was kept to a minimum and I only hopped over to DCA once in the afternoon for a quick walk through of the park. On this walk through nothing too interesting or different jumped out to me. The usual light crowds and Christmas decorations disappearing to note. I ended up spending most of my time at Disneyland enjoying the entertainment and roaming around the park.

  • Small World Holiday was still running and will be until Haunted Mansion reopens then it goes down for the removal of the holiday overlay. I went for a cruise and took a full ride video. Interesting to note the exterior lights were on but no projection show going on. Here is the video:


  • Over the years one of the groups I always enjoyed watching perform was the Fab 4 in Tomorrowland. Friday evening a new Beatles Tribute Group, A Hard Days Night performed. It was great to hear Beatles music live in the park again. Judging by the large crowds at the two sets I attended so did many other guests. Hopefully they become part of the regular rotation. I have seen them on the schedule a couple of times over the past couple of months and this was the first time I was there on a day they were. Here are a couple clips from their first set of the evening:


  • I closed out my evening with the return of Remember Dreams Come True. The show seemed the same to me, nothing jumped out as changed.

Interesting Web Finds/Notes:
Below are some interesting links, notes, and rumors I found/stumble across/or have been informed of since the last Geekspeaks column.

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

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