* After you read this report you may want to check out the pictorial updates in our Disneyland Resort Pictorial Update section

Hello all,

This was our first visit to the resort this year, seems like its been forever. Between the holidays and the rain its only been three weeks. The crowds were light at both parks. Almost everything that was open at Disneyland was under 30 minutes. Over at DCA there seemed to be more guests than usual milling around, not sure if this was because of the 75 Mickeys, the Southern California deal going on, or just perception. Most lines still seemed short, with Tower being a walk on most of the afternoon.

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

Disneyland & DCA:

• Not much new to report. It felt like half of Disneyland was closed for rehab, walled off or covered in tarps. The park is making the final push toward the kick off for the 50th and the finished parts look great! Nothing sticks out from DCA, except the Mickeys.

• The new "Parade", and I use that term loosely, is just a placeholder until the 50th kicks off, but it seemed rather sparse. The title of it is Mickey's Shining Star Cavalcade. It consists of a bunch of characters, some dancers, a banner, and one float, as you saw in the pictorial update. The soundtrack is a single song that runs for a couple minutes and loops, as has been the custom recently. Not sure why they couldn't come up with a 5-10 minute music track that did not have to loop. It really grinds on my nerves to hear the same thing over and over and over. The best part of the parade was that there were a lot of characters and no crowd, which meant some great photos and waves for kids. Also kind of interested, no real crowd control set up. A group of CMs lead the way to clear the street, which seemed to work ok. Still sad that they all where the custumes from where they are not Main Street ones or parade specific.

• Caught part of two sets of the 80'z All Stars, nice to see entertainment on the stage on a Friday, but wonder what happened to the groups we enjoyed list Barrage, Elvis, Neil Diamond , or even the Hotel California group. Seems to be the same couple of groups rotating every couple of weeks. Also nothing at DCA.

• Stopped to see Fantasmic since there were no fireworks, got a space right along the River without much of a wait. The show was great as usual. One little flaw, the Pinochio segment didn't happen, well the music did but no giant puppets.
  

75 InspEARations @ DCA

• Overall I thought the Mickey's were great to see and there were quite a few guests taking them in. The set up seemed ok, I was surprised not to find any down the Backlot. As you saw in the photo update I had images of 74 of them. One was missing from my collection, the Let's Party by Chris Fedun for Jump5. Not sure if I missed it or it wasn't out. There were three in the Esplanade, Two in Downtown Disney(pictured in my last update), and then 69 in the park by my count.

• The Pin Quest that went along with the event was great. There were a large number of guests seen around the park with maps and in the locations answering questions and trading pins. The way this worked is you picked up a map from one of the locations. Then at each of the 8 stops you could either answer the trivia question or trade a pin to get your map stamped. After all 8 stamps have been collected you head to the Wharf and get your complimentary pin, which is the Delivery Man Mickey (sponsored by Coke). Which is a nice pin and a great price. We really enjoyed the trivia and it made us think. We managed to figure out 6 of the 8 with no help and had to get some input on the other two.

• I was a little suprised not to see any lighting, or even an attempt at lighting the Mickeys so they would be visible at night, guess with the early park closing it was a necessary cost, but it could have been good.
  
  
• Another suprising aspect of the display was the lack of crowd control, meaning guests could go right up and touch, climb, pose with the statues. This was great for photos but several children seemed a little out of control and no Disney CMs to slow them down nor parents willing to.

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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