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01/13/12 - 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.

01/13/12 - My thoughts and observations from Fridays visit to the Disneyland Resort

Happy New Year all,

I had not originally planned on going to the parks this Friday but the perfect weather with the temps just about touching 80 degrees and no wind made it too tempting to pass up to kick off a three day weekend for me. The crowds felt like a regular day. I was expecting it to be closer to off season, but wonder if others had the same idea as me. Wait times were reasonable for most of the usual suspects in the 30-45 minute range creeping up to the hour range as the afternoon went on.

Jason

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

Disneyland & DCA Thoughts and Observations:

  • As you saw in the pictorial update almost all signs of Christmas have been removed from both parks. Just a couple little reminders like Small World Holiday, snow on the Castle and a Believe in Holiday Magic sign remain. They have really moved fast to put everything away.

  • One of my favorite times of year has arrived. I really enjoy watching all the projects around the parks, as is evident by the large number of pictures I take of them each year. Something that I do want to point out is most of the parks are operating normally and my pictures may make it seem like everything is closed or behind tarps/walls when that is not the case. I just tend to gravitate toward the change and work. There is a lot of work going on and it can create some challenges but most of the park is open and operating normally.

  • The parade route concrete work between Littler Mermaid and Paradise Park is causing some challenges for World of Color. If you go while the work is going on be sure to read your Fastpass carefully and follow the signs/ask cast members to make sure you head to the proper place. Here is a quick run down of what I noticed on Friday:
    • The Red section is currently gone
    • The Blue, Preferred, and Yellow section have been elongated a bit and shortened. The top tier is now a walkway so all three lost that space and instead spread out more. So Yellow currently occupies the space previously used by Red more or less and everything shifted to the right a bit to compensate for loosing the top tier.
    • They had the area set up as one way traffic with those walking toward the Zephyr walking nearest the Mermaid building and those heading back toward the park using the top tier of Paradise Park.
    • For the second show to line up for yellow they were directing people to the Jellyfish area, the other two were still along the parade route as they usually are.
    • Two new alternate (standby/open) viewing areas are available. The first is in the area surrounding the planter/random light house thing (still not sure what to call this) across from the Little Mermaid entrance. The second is the far side of the bridge that heads into the Pier. So the Blue is the water side, the middle a walkway, and the side nearest the Wharf alternate viewing. I watched the opening couple of segments from the one by the planter and it was ok. You could see the width of the show, sort of make out the tops of the projections and the audio was fine. You missed anything that was low because of the angle and number of guests in front of you. I did not try the far side of the bridge since it was full already when I walked by. I would venture to guess the same would hold true

  • Over at Disneyland a new music loop is now playing on Main Street. All the tracks have been re-recorded and a couple of new ones added. In addition to the classics you can now hear some from Up! I found the video below on YouTube if you are interested in hearing the new music. The Parks Blog also posted a story about the new recordings if you are interested. Overall I thought the new music worked well. It is a little more up tempo. The Up! Married Life segment works but it still seems weird to me..


  • The Matterhorn scaffolding is looking impressive and they still have a lot of the mountain to cover. Curious what kind of tarp, assuming there will be one, will go up if it will be a design or just a traditional green/plain one to cover the scaffolding during the painting. Also if they will be able to let Tinkerbell fly the entire time. She was Friday.

  • It was great to be able to see Soundsational under the lights. There is just this extra element that comes from the lights that I do enjoy. If you have a chance I would recommend seeing it.

  • Nothing interesting to report from the new park maps or time schedules. Did notice the Muppets lost their spot on the DCA time schedule.

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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