Hello all,

I want to start off by thanking everyone for visiting the site. January we set an all time high in terms of page views and visitors, we appreciate you spending some time on our site. Thank you.

I thought January was supposed to be a slow time, but seems every week there is something going on at the Resort that I want to see, and this weekend was no exception with the introduction of a couple new shows, another Family Fun Weekend, and a new exhibit at the Blue Sky Cellar. The crowds were up slightly from the past couple of weeks and I would say closer to a regular Friday than a slow off season day.

Jason

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

Disneyland & DCA Thoughts and Observations:

• As I entered the park and glanced at the Entertainment Schedule noticed they went to an expanded four page format with both parks sharing the front page, each having their own inner page, then the family fun weekend on the final page. Some interesting notes as I read through it. First was they shifted to the earlier night time schedule that they used in December with World of Color at 8 and 9:15, fireworks at 8:45, Fantasmic at 9:05 and 10:15. On the inside there was a big space for the new Magic, Memories and You show. Also since there was more space Laser Man show times are listed again at ElecTRONica.
  
  I was kind of surprised that the new Let the Memories Begin campaign was not on the cover of the park guidemaps yet in a big way. I was expecting to see the Small World show on the cover at Disneyland.
  
  One last time note to make. If you visit the parks on Saturday they shifted the Sing Party forward an hour or so with the first set at 6pm and the last starting at 9pm now.
  
  
• Friday the second Pixar Pals show premiered. This one featuring Monsters Inc.: Monsters Mayhem. The show follows a similar schedule to the Incredibles as well as format with several characters and performers making their way out and doing a dance routine then interacting with the crowd. I enjoyed the Monsters one a bit more, I think because the show kept moving. The Incredibles show seemed to lag because of the number of kids participating and how everyone needed a turn at each task. I was a little disappointed that it looks like only one Pixar Pals show will run at a time. When reading the original description I envisioned these shows happening around the park on the same day. But since they re-use the same float and the performers looked to overlap that will not be happening, at least with the two I have seen so far.
  
  
• Also opening Friday was a refresh/update to the Blue Sky Cellar. As with all the exhibits so far I really enjoyed a look at the concept art and other exhibits. I also think it is great that they are continuing to spend the time/money to regularly update the show. The new animated map was a great addition too (see the official Disney video below). If you missed it I included quite a few more shots in the Construction Progress section from the Cellar.
  
  
• Over at Disneyland the third weekend of the Family Fun Weekends featuring Character Fan Days was in full swing. The crowds and wait times were substantially more than the previous two weeks, but still not too bad for most characters. The Dwarfs were long and the sketch line was probably one of the longest lines in the park Friday. Not sure if this was because the word is getting around on these weekends, the park was more crowded, the publicity of this week on the blog, or just because of the theme this week, but it was nice to see many guests enjoying the festivities, even though it did make taking pictures a bit more challenging for those who are line adverse like myself.
  
  
  • As you saw in the pictures this week featured several groups of characters, many that you usually do not get a chance to get pictures with and for sure not as a group. So there were some rare photo opportunities.
• One of the highlights for many was the opportunity to watch a Disney sketch artist draw a character of your choice and to top it off you got to take the drawing home, for FREE! This line stretched quite a ways and I would estimate was well over an hour. They had three artists drawing and it took about 5 minutes a sketch so they really could not pump guests through that quickly. I enjoyed just watching the artists work.
• The entertainment this week consisted of Disneyland favorites pulled from around the park to perform a set. I thought this was a nice touch and worked perfectly. As well as character introductions every half hour, but how come the Country Bears did not get introduced! I was disappointed not to see Big Al out on Friday but I saw pictures from another site that he was out on Saturday for a while.
  
  
• Around dinner time Disney was having some serious issues with their point of sale system. I stopped by the Village Haus just before 5:30 to grab a burger and they said they would only be accepting cash due to a computer problem, no credit cards or gift cards or anything that needed to be scanned. I did not think much of it and wandered around and over to Tomorrowland and walked up to the Tomorrowland Terrace where a CM informed me the same thing and said it was park wide and maybe resort wide (she did not know). Soon after this I noticed in several places the CMs put up signs saying cash only. I killed some time and then tried again closer to 6:30 and things were back to normal. But that seemed like bad luck/timing to have the system go down during dinner time. I did not think about it at the time but I am guessing this effected the merchandise locations too. Was anyone else in the park Friday, do you know?
  
  
• The Magic, the Memories, and You! show premiered Thursday night and runs twice nightly on the weekends and once on week days according to the schedule I saw Friday. This is a projection show on Small World featuring some great effects, music, a couple fireworks, as well as guest photos taken throughout the day.
  • I enjoyed the show. I was not wowed by it but I was entertained and would definitely recommend seeing it if you are in the park. Some of the effects are great to see. Especially those that involved transformations of Small World and putting pieces of the facade into motion. Also I thought they integrated the guest photos nicely. They do not overwhelm the show but instead are used to support the show. Now I am really looking forward to seeing the WDW version on my next Florida trip, down there they run a similar show but use Cinderella Castle as the projection surface.
  • I thought the times of 8:00pm and 9:10pm were a bit awkward to deal with because of the fireworks. Wonder why they did not run an earlier one. Best guess would be because of the fireworks for the finale but would have liked to have seen something during the 6 or 7pm hour. The problem with 8pm is when its over you have 30 minutes till the fireworks. If you want to see the 9:10pm one you would be hard pressed to make it there if you watched the fireworks elsewhere like many like to do.
  • One other issue was that being so close to the end of the Remember meant that for the second show we were all held quite a ways back due to the firework fall out restrictions not being lifted yet. So all guests were held back in the narrow mall area instead of the wider area directly in front of the attraction. I would venture to guess the further back you got the less impressed you were (I will have to try it sometime to verify).
  • From what I could tell they use the same images for both shows.
  • As for viewing location tips if you can position yourself straight on with the facade you should have a great view as long as someone tall or with a kid on their shoulders does not get in front of you. The crowds for both shows Friday were on the mild side, guessing due to the fact that very few people knew what the show was and maybe the awkward timing.
  • On Friday the crowd was light for the first show, you could have shown up about 10 minutes before and still found a great spot to watch from. The second was more crowded thanks to the fireworks just ending, also it may have felt that way because of the fire marshal restriction I mentioned above.
    
    
• I was disappointed that they were not doing the regular projections during Remember, Dreams Come True. Is this because of the new Memories show? Or has this been in effect for a while now? Or were there just problems on Friday? The fireworks were delayed due to technical difficulties and the second Memories show was also wonder if this had anything to do with it. Anyone know more?
  
  
• Had a report from some friends that over at the Haunted Mansion the hearse was MIA. They asked a CM and got a very clever response of don't you see it over there? I am assuming it is backstage getting some TLC. I thought it would have been funny if during the rehab time they would put a horse out there instead. Also they said they believed the suit of armor near the endless hallway was still gone and Madam Leota was still stationary on the table.
  
  

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.

• Interesting Web Finds
  • 2010 Year in Review (Walt Disney Company Annual Report Website) - Disney has published their annual report to the web and it includes the traditional text as well as images, video, and animations this year. Here is a direct link to the Parks and Resorts section
    
    
  • New Blue Sky Cellar Show Previews Little Mermaid and Unveils an 'Animated' Map
    
    
  • New Projection Show Turns 'small world' Into a Big Canvas, for 'The Magic, the Memories and You'
    
    
  • Every Role a Starring Role - Behind the Scenes with Scuba Divers
    
    
    
    
    
• Disney Related Press Releases
  • 1/27/11 - ‘small world’ Becomes a Big Canvas As "The Magic, The Memories and You!" Projection Show Conjures Vacation Memories at Disneyland
    
  • 1/27/11 - The Walt Disney Family Museum Along with KCBS AM/FM and KRON TV’S Jan Wahl Present REEL GLAMOROUS, February 20, 2011 
    
  • 1/25/11 - You’ll Wish YOU Were a Kid Again at The Walt Disney Family Museum Discovery Summer Camp!
    
    
• We post some announcements on:
  • Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/disneygeekcom
  • Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/disneygeek
  • Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/disneygeekcom
    
    

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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