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2/12/16 - 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.

2/12/16 - Thoughts and observations from Friday at the Disneyland Resort.

Hello everyone,

This week the heat wave continues and it was warmer than last with temperatures approaching 90 when I arrived at the Disneyland Resort. Add to this the President's day long weekend, some local schools were closed on Friday too for an even longer weekend plus Valentine's Day weekend and the parks were both busy. The refurbishment list continues to grow too with Splash Mountain closed for some work. Wait times were moderate to heavy throughout the day depending on your timing.

  • Splash Mountain - Annual Refurbishment - Reopens 2/19
  • Jungle Cruise - Reopening in Spring
  • Autopia - Reopening in Spring
  • Hyperion Theater - Closed until Summer, reopening with a new Frozen Musical
  • Mark Twain Riverboat - Star Wars Project - Closed until 2017
  • Sailing Ship Columbia - Star Wars Project - Closed until 2017
  • Davy Crockett's Explorer Canoes - Star Wars Project - Closed until 2017
  • Pirate's Lair on Tom Sawyer Island - Star Wars Project - Closed until 2017
  • Fantasmic! - Star Wars Project - Closed until 2017
  • Disneyland Railroad - Star Wars Project - Closed until 2017

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

Thoughts and Observations:

  • The Mickey and Friends Parking Structure was more full this afternoon than previous trips. We were directed into a space on the 4th floor and as we headed for the tram noticed all the other floors had cars on them already. Not a positive sign in terms of crowds. A positive note was parking was a breeze. Pulled right in and had no delays at the toll booth or being directed to a spot. I think they may have had the Disneyland Drive entrance closed or at least signs directing cars to other lots.

  • Today the trams to and from the park seemed slower than usual. Interesting they were using the tram load zone closest to the escalators this afternoon to board. For the last several years they have used the far one. There was a tram pulling away when we reached the area. An empty tram passed right before and there were two or three on the other side but it took several minutes for one to come around and pick us up. In the evening heading back we were waiting at the zone for several minutes with no trams in sight except for one loading at the next zone. Eventually one showed up but had to go around to drop off. Then one came for us. It was slower than usual. Then when we reached the garage we were stopped for a couple of minutes waiting for a spot to unload. Not sure why there was a delay since there were not that many trams in front of us leaving. Also this after Disneyland Forever near a peak exit time.

  • There were minimal Valentine decorations this year. Only the four planters in Town Square stood out to me. I did not see any other photo ops and just a couple random merchandise items, like pins. I read Downtown Disney was doing a couple special menus and carriage rides, I did not go over there this trip though.

  • No real mention of presidents weekend either. I did not make the flag retreat (it was at 3:45pm which seemed really early did not work with my schedule).. but I did take in a showing of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln and the cast member there did acknowledge it was his birthday Friday. 207th if you were curious.

  • I did a quick walk through the park to check on the projects. Out along the Rivers of America they have started to clear some of the trees and looking at the former ranch area you can see they have started to clear the area too. So the preparations for the Star Wars project are starting to move. The river still has water and is status quo. The Mark Twain has added scheduled performances on the mid deck. I was not able to catch one Friday but I think this is a great addition. There are more tables and chairs too.

  • The second week of the Annual Passholders - AP Days celebration was going on. That meant new buttons and activities pamphlets. Unfortunately Stage 17 was closed due to the Celebrate Gospel! event in there on Saturday. The Blue Sky Cellar and Main Street Opera House were both participating just like last week. Outside Stage 17 they were distributing buttons. At the Blue Sky Cellar in addition to the button and other handouts for this week they had a surplus of the first weeks and were giving those out too as well as other random material they had, such as Paint the Night post cards. Overall those who stopped by seemed to be having a good time and enjoying the items.

  • I passed through Cars Land and again no real visible progress at Luigis. You could hear the attraction being cycled and see some glimpses. No indications of when it may open. There are some new Churro choices at the first Cozy Cone, I posted a picture of the sign. I did not see anyone with one. Ice Cream was the popular item and the line for Cone #2 was really long this afternoon/evening.

  • Speaking of lines.. grabbed dinner at the Pacific Wharf Cafe. The dual line configuration is not any more efficient than the single line and worked to our disadvantage. Both sides looked about the same length so we went right. Turned out there were two registers open to the left and only one to the right. So our wait was double the other direction.

  • Zootopia has an increased presence now with posters and murals in the Animation Building plus a sequence in the main lobby rotation. It features the song Try Everything along with concept art and footage from the film. It is in the rotation between Frozen and Cars. Judging by the other guests in the lobby (I saw it twice) there seemed to be some interest in the film and people were definitely talking about it.

  • I made my way out to Toontown after dark and found quite a bit of scaffolding up. Great to see some refurbishment work going on. Also new this week is the closure of Splash Mountain for its annual work.

  • The rest of my group this evening found a bench on Main Street and stayed there for the evening which led to a great view for Paint the Night for them (of course they did not have a camera to get pictures to share). While there Cast Members were going around and interacting with the crowd as they always do. Tonight they were also passing out some of the Main Street APDays buttons from last week. Also Pluto was interacting with the crowd. I find these character interactions much more interesting than the staged/static photos.

  • This week I updated the Disneyland App on my cell phone and noticed it automatically had my Premiere Pass linked to it now. I tried to link it for PhotoPass and no luck.. then I realized that I had no active pictures from Disneyland (only WDW and those do not show up here you have to go to the WDW App). So on Friday I made sure to have my card scanned for a picture and sure enough about an hour after that I was able to scan my card in the app and the photos showed up. The Disneyland App continues to expand in terms of options.. in a previous update they added menus and more entertainment schedule information. So the built in feature set is really expanding if you have not tried it in a while.

  • Do you visit our pictorial updates using a mobile device? Did you know we have a more friendly mobile version of our Disneyland Picture sets at https://disneygeek.com/mobile

Here are some recent posts to the Geek's Blog:

Disney Related Press Releases

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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