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2/06/15 - Thoughts and observations from Friday at 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.

2/06/15 - Thoughts and observations from Friday at the Disneyland Resort

Hello everyone,

Friday was a picture perfect winter weather day at the Disneyland Resort. the highs crept toward 80 and there was not a cloud in the sky. As night fell the temp dropped to the 60s and slight breeze kicked up, which did interfere with Fantasy in the Sky. I spent some time just roaming around and check in on the ongoing projects which is always interesting to me. The crowds felt larger than I was anticipating, but wait times were mild across the board so maybe it was the closures making it seem more crowded than it was.

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

Thoughts and Observations:

  • The scaffolding around Sleeping Beauty Castle now features a large print of the original concept art created by Herb Ryman. This is a great touch for the 60th anniversary. Only thing I think it was lacking is something to explain this to the non-geeks a bit more. It is really interesting to see concept art that is full scale. The photos on the construction coverings have come such a long way over the years. This is substantially better than what we saw for the 50th. It was a solid blue cover with some small props/signs on it.

  • No signs of anything going on in the Big Thunder Ranch area this off season. I saw a post that the Gospel Fest will be there this year because the traditional location in Stage 17 is unavailable due to the Snow Fest being there. I also read that they are not rehiring egg painters this year so sounds like the Spring/Easter celebration is not going to happen either. I have not seen anything about a Mardi Gras celebration this year either. Has anyone else? I did see a post that the weekend of the 20th DCA will be celebrating Lunar New Year in Paradise Gardens.

  • While passing through New Orleans noticed the La Mascarade D'Orleans has reopened. It is now a Pandora Jewelry store. The store itself lost of the uniqueness to me. It is a brightly lit store and the display cases dominate the view. There are a few props around the store. From one stand point it makes perfect sense to have a jewelry store directly across from the Club 33 entrance but loosing the character of the store was a little disappointing. I thought when they transformed the store from the pin store to the last iteration it was an enhancement. This seems to have taken a step back in my mind.

  • I spent some time checking in on the projects going on around both parks. Nothing too visible or interesting jumped out at me.

  • The Pacific Wharf Cafe has reopened at Disney California Adventure. They have reconfigured the entrance and queue in an effort to handle the large lines better. I have never been a fan of the split queue because then it comes down to luck if you picked the faster or slower side and I always seem to have bad luck and watch guests who entered with me and choose the other queue exit faster. I would have liked to have seen them tweak the register set up or some other way to service guests faster instead of re-arranging the queue and enlarging it. The other big change is the small number of outdoor/covered tables that were adjacent to the restaurant are gone (guess those are the ones moved inside). So instead of gaining additional seating it appears to be a swap. This is too bad. I thought those covered tables with the heaters overhead were a nice place to sit during the cooler times of the year and the building offered a little protection from the weather too.

  • On Friday morning Disney announced via the parks blog that the Flying Tires will have their last flight on February 16th and then will close to be turned into a new guest experience opening in early 2016. This is an interesting move to me. Wonder what happened that they did not close down earlier in the year to push to have them operational for the holiday season when extra capacity is always good at the parks. I have always said your enjoyment of the tires is directly related to the length of your wait. You find the experience more favorable if you have a short wait. The announcement of the closure did not seem to have much of an impact on the wait times on Friday. It was a couple cycle wait, maybe 10-15 minutes the couple of times I walked by and the time I choose to go for a flight.

  • Do you visit our pictorial updates using a mobile device? If so we would like your feedback. I have created a beta of a more mobile version of our Disneyland Picture sets at https://disneygeek.com/mobile Please give it a try and share your thoughts.

Interesting Web Finds/Notes:

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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