Disneygeek - Geek Speaks - 3/05/20 - Thoughts and observations from Thursday 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.

3/05/20 - Thoughts and observations from Thursday at the Disneyland Resort

Hello Everyone!

Today was a segmented visit to the Disneyland Resort for me. I left for a good portion of the middle of the day to attend a preview of the Walt Disney Archives exhibit at the near by Bowers Museum. For pictures and more from that event check out my post on our blog or the full picture set in D Geeks Travels section. The crowds inside Disneyland were light. It was a true off season mid-week day. One of the big reasons for this is a very large convention that was to be at the Anaheim Convention Center this week had been cancelled leaving thousands of empty hotel rooms.

Thoughts and Observations:

I arrived at the Mickey and Friends parking structure about an hour prior to the 9am park opening and encountered no delays at all parking and relatively short security lines. The trams were a bit slow in coming. Once reaching the Esplanade guests were entering Disneyland already and the lines were fairly short too, about the Monorail beam only.
We hung around Main Street USA to try for a Rise of the Resistance Boarding Group. There was no need to but some thought it was a lucky spot after last time. Our luck was not as good as the app decided not to work for them or me on a first try. My goal was to get a higher boarding group for myself due to being gone mid day. My target was about 100. So I waited a couple minutes and tried and picked up group 83 and then helped the others who still had not gotten theirs and picked up 87 for them. As I walked around I fiddled with the app and learned you can cancel/leave a boarding group and retry if you want. So I did and the second time picked up group 117 for myself. Today Backup boarding groups were available until lunch time.
I had my two young nephews as part of the group today so we started in Fantasyland. They really enjoy the boat attractions so they went on Storybookland as we did the Boarding groups then we all met up for it's a small world. They were only loading one side and the process was going extremely slow. Guests were not really listening and several boats had guests standing up or kids leaning out so they kept having to tell them to sit and hold up things more.
I left the park by 10am to head to the museum. To catch a tram back to the parking structure was a bit of a wait. A couple passed by the load zone, but eventually one did pull in and I was able to board with two others that were waiting.
I returned to the parks around 2:30 in the afternoon. I traveled up Disneyland Drive and saw no indications that the Pixar Pals Parking entrance was closed so decided to make the left onto Magic Way, only to learn the entrance was closed. It would be nice if they had more signage. So I had to circle around on the surface streets to reach the garage. Drew a worse parking spot this second time on the far side of the garage, but near the exit.
Stopped by Disney California Adventure around 3pm to grab a bite to eat at Smokejumpers Grill. There was no line, I was able to walk up, order, and my food was available quickly too. While eating I took a look at available FastPass choices and I could have booked almost any ride in both parks with a return window starting before 4:00pm, many instant return times. The parks were have a very mild day.
As I was heading to the parks the first of our Rise of the Resistance Boarding groups were called. Ate a quick meal then met the group. One opted to stay with the kids and did not feel like riding, he has before, so I was able to use his boarding pass and go for a ride right away. There was a slight delay to scan boarding passes but then we walked without stopping through most of the queue. Made it from entering the queue to the briefing room in about 11 minutes. 33 minutes total time from entering queue until exiting.
While riding my later boarding group was called so I was able to meet up with the rest of the group and then those of us with the later group entered the queue. This time there was a longer backup to get your boarding group scanned and then the line was stopped just outside the caves. This time it took about 20 minutes to reach the briefing room. Once onboard the shuttle after a few minutes an announcement came on saying the attraction was down and to wait for a cast member but then the show kept going. Eventually the show stopped and the automated messages saying something was going on/stalling came on. Then the regular show played a bit more before finally stopping. After about 10 minutes the interior door (the one you never use for the attraction) opened and there were two cast members there to help us out. We stepped into the center of the circular structure with the three shuttles visible around you. You had to watch your step with uneven surfaces and there really was not a lot of time to look around and soak it up, but it was really interesting to see the industrial side of what it takes for the shuttle portion of the attraction. We were led between two shuttles then out a door back to the courtyard between the briefing rooms and shuttle. They had both briefing room doors open. Cast members were there to scan park tickets and give us a mutli experience FastPass good for anything including returning to Rise of the Resistance.
Met up with the rest of the group as they exited the Mark Twain and we decided to go find a spot for the 6:00pm Magic Happens Parade, it was about 5:30. Ended up in the hub looking down Main Street. It was great to see the night time version one more time before the clocks change and it becomes another daytime parade. The kids (ages 10 months and 3.5 years) both loved the parade. The clapped and pointed a lot throughout the procession.
The Indiana Jones Adventure turned 25 on Tuesday and to celebrate there was an Annual Passholder opportunity on both Wednesday and Thursday evening to ride the attraction. They distributed wristbands and buttons for the event starting at 6:30pm in the Star Wars Launch Bay. We walked over after the parade to check out the distribution. The line wrapped around near the entrance then out in front of the building. They had not opened the doors yet so we thought it would move fast and got in line. Mostly because we did not want to walk somewhere and come back. It turned out to be a very slow line and we wanted close to 45 minutes for the button.
We decided to leave the park after getting our buttons since everyone was getting tired. On the way out noticed they were still selling tickets for this evenings Pixar Nite at Disney California Adventure still.