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2/20/15 - Thoughts and observations from Friday at the Disneyland Resort including Lunar New Year Celebration
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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.

2/20/15 - Thoughts and observations from Friday at the Disneyland Resort including Lunar New Year Celebration

Hello everyone,

My primary objective on Friday was to spend some time at the Lunar New Year Celebration and then relax and roam the parks. The crowds as I walked around felt on the heavy side for this time of the year. The wait times were about average, where as I was expecting more of an off season feel.

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

Thoughts and Observations:

  • The Happy Lunar New Year Celebration! took place in Paradise Gardens this year and ran from Thursday through Sunday. Overall it was on par with past offerings, featuring an assortment of community performing groups, a processional with Mulan & Mushu, Character meet and greets, some food offerings, arts and crafts, face painting, and some opportunities to learn about Lunar New Year customs.
    • They did not promote the event this year. It was listed on the back page of the Disney California Adventure Times Guide and gave the standard blurb and 11am-5pm time slot. I saw a DisneyParks blog post, a couple tweets/Facebook post and other than that it seemed to rely on word of mouth. Even with this lack of publicity there was a healthy crowd when I stopped by.
    • Another of my ongoing complaints about these events is the lack of a posted schedule so no one knows what is going on and when. If you ask Cast Members most have a listing but it is not listed in the Times Guide, on signage, or even on the website or Twitter. Part of the explanation for this may be because of limited space in the area so they do not want to over promote it, but it still seems some info would be helpful for guests.
    • The processional featuring Mulan, Mushu, and an assortment of performers was a highlight of the event. This year the event clocked in at around 10 minutes and was substantially longer than previous years. I enjoyed the performance the the audience around me did too. The one issue is there is a limited viewing space due to it being performed on level ground right outside Paradise gardens. It is for events like this that the old amphitheater on Paradise Bay is missed.
    • The merchandise selection was limited to a T-shirt, traditional envelopes, and a pin. I am surprised they do not offer more.
    • The character meet and greet had a long wait as expected with guests waiting upwards of an hour when I checked to meet Mushu, Mickey/Minnie or Chip/Dale. The cast members were warning guests of the wait time and that there is no guarantee which character(s) will be available when they reach the front.

  • Walked by Luigis to see if they had any indications of the new attraction and there were none posted. The signage on the walls and out front was well done but no information posted or from the cast member out front. Was expecting to at least see the concept art that was posted on the Disney Parks blog. Too bad they did not use the queue area as a preview or even the Blue Sky Cellar down Route 66 which is sitting unused.

  • Over at Disneyland stopped by Innoventions to see what was going on. No indications of what is coming but signage saying the Dream House is closed and inside you can see most of the house furnishings have been removed. The upper level of Innoventions was open and there were a fair number of guests at the Marvel areas, the video games had a couple guests but a lot of empty space.

  • I grabbed dinner from the Pacific Wharf Cafe this evening. I was curious if the new configuration helped with the wait time and in my single data point of experience it did not. Actually it was worse. We arrived during the 5pm hour, dinner time, and the line was relatively short, maybe a dozen groups in front of us. They only had the left half of the queue open. But all registers. The line moved about its normal pace and we reached a register and ordered. We had a simple order.. a bowl of soup and loaf of bread. After we ordered I went to the restroom, picked up our silverware, found a seat, and our order still had not shown up. No clue the delay. Eventually had to ask a cast member what was going on and they filled the order. Seems it slipped through the cracks.

  • Walked through Freeze the Night and took part in some of the Frozen Fun since some members of my group on Friday had not seen the offerings yet.
    • They wanted to see the sing-Along so we grabbed FastPasses but returned early and tried our luck at the standby line. It was long but we made it in along with quite a few guests after us. Curious if they change the distribution of tickets or if there were just a lot of no shows for the performance we tried for.
    • As we walked around the Freeze the Night festivities it was fairly easy to tell why this was going to be ending and the Mad T Party returning in May. The number of guests was about average but most were younger and they were not buying anything. As you looked around the area there were a lot of empty hands. The line at the bar was non existent.. you could just walk right up.

  • The lighting on the castle this evening really showed off the Herb Ryman concept art well. It looked much nicer than a few weeks ago. It was a nice touch and way to make the best of the situation as the work on the castle progresses. Surprised they did not do something similar out at Small World. Instead it was a mostly dark facade. I overheard several guests saying it was closed and not walking down that way. This might have been a common thought because there was no wait at all when I would by just before 9pm.

  • I walked through the Fantasmic area just before show time. The viewing area had more guests in it than previous trips but there was still a substantial amount of empty space. In my walk through I saw at least a handful of groups go under the ropes to a wide open area and several CMs respond in kind to each group and usher them out of the reserved area. This is too bad that less than 5 minutes to show time there are large spaces open and guests being pushed away. I understand the idea to have reserved space but seems they need to find a way to fill in more of it as the show approaches to better utilize capacity and guest experience. There are a number of guests with poor, obstructed, or no view of the show and then wide open spaces in prime viewing areas.

  • 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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