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

We really did not know what to expect this week. Between the rains all week and the newsmedia's obsession with terrorism and telling people to duct tape themselves into a room. Well they were wrong and the rains from earlier in the week finally cleared and Friday turned out to be a fairly nice day. The entire Disneyland Resort was alive with activity and healthy crowds. Both parks and Downtown Disney have had the largest crowds we have seen in a while during this time of year. I think the combinations of a Friday, presidents day, Valentine's Day, and just better weather than the previous 4 days led to the great crowds. I knew we were in for a busy evening when we arrived in the early afternoon and were on the roof, with cars on most of the other floors already.

There was also a new guidebook cover this week. It was aladdin and a shot from the Whole New World sequence of Aladdin and Jasmin (the last cover was the Cave of Wonders).

Downtown Disney had long lines at all the restaurants and even some stores. The build a Bear shop had a line outside the store of people waiting to get in. We walked through around 9pm and the parking lots were full and people were being directed to park in M&F.

We have moved our trip rundowns and mileage reports to our Park Miles section.

Disneyland Items:

• Finally some walls have come down. Both the Matterhorn and Carrousel have reopened. The Carrousel was down when we first arrived, cycling while some mechanics and CMs watched, and then when we came back in the evening it was open for business. The Matterhorn was down too, but a Mechanic told us in about 5 minutes it was going to re-open. So we hung around and the Lazygeek went on it (I do not do any of the rides with vertical drops or accelleration). He reported back that not much had changed. Just some larger openings and the track seemed as rough as ever.
• Small World has reopened again too after the change over. The sound track is now a restored version of the original World's Fair (according to what we have read). It is much crisper now and seems to have more parts to it. I liked the change.
• Lines around the park were longer than usual, but still you could get on most of the big attractions in around an hour.

DCA Items:

• Wow people in DCA, and not just for Aladdin. There seemed to be quite a few people in the park, but still not really long lines (except Soarin' which was over an hour most of the evening), but this was mainly due to one theater going down we think.
• Aladdin had a full house as usual. When we showed up just after lunch all that was left were tickets to the 6:15 show, so we grabbed those. Sat in the 2nd row on the far left side side of the theater. Not a bad seat.
• They were working on Tower late into the evening... you could see the glow from welding all the way from Disneyland.
• The island for the Illuminaria Christmas tree is really starting to become an eyesore. The birds and bird droppings were bad, but now the cover is ripped too. Time for something to be done, maybe make it a rock like they did down at WDW in Cresent lake (by the Yacht/Beach Club), which by the way is now gone...

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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