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3/14/08 - My thoughts and observations from Fridays trip to 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.

3/14/08 - My thoughts and observations from Fridays trip to the Disneyland Resort.

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

Hello everyone,

Friday was a pleasant afternoon/evening at the Disneyland Resort. The weather was on the cooler side and the crowds seemed a little lighter than I was anticipating. I would have thought with it being Spring Break Season and ok weather it would be much more crowded. For example Nemo was under an hour for a good portion of the afternoon. Over at DCA there seemed to be a lot of people walking around, but the attraction lines were just a bit above average (wonder if this is because of people using the second day of their 2fer promotion).

Jason

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

Disneyland & DCA Thoughts and Observations:

  • The tram I took to get to the parks today was one of the newly retrofitted ones with the speakers on the cars pointing outward. It does make it much easier to hear the CMs and the tram announcements as its pulling into the stop.

  • I stopped by Playhouse Disney a couple times and the lines were quite long and I was too impatient to wait, so on a later trip I will have to pay a visit to check out the new show. If anyone has gone and has some pictures/thoughts to share drop me an email so I can post the information.

  • I went for a ride on the Disneyland Monorail to see if I could spot the new one back in the round house. I was able to catch a brief glimpse of it but my picture did not come out. It was all the way back in the round house.

  • As you saw in the pictorial update I was able to catch the Pixar Play Parade from two locations (this was done by walking rather quickly from one spot to the other and I made it with less than a minute to spare...). Overall I thought the parade was good. I would not call it an instant classic or anything along those lines, but I did think it was entertaining. This is the first parade in a while at the Disneyland Resort that does not have a stop in it. Its a traditional parade in that respect. I thought the crowd that assembled for the parade was pretty good too, it will be interesting to see if it can hold the people or if this was a combination of Spring Break and the Premiere that lead to it.

  • A word of warning to people watching the parade, heed the pre-parade warning that you will get wet. There is quite a bit of water, bubbles, etc.. that come toward you, not to mention beach balls (which managed to hit me a couple of times). Some of the water is controlled by CMs and they are fairly careful if they see you have a camera, but other streams come from the floats and those seem to be random. Overall I do not see the thrill of getting wet all the time, I guess in the 100 degree weather of July and August it may be nice but for those of us who enjoy taking pictures it makes it a real hassle to worry about the water and we end up not enjoying the parade or focussing on it as I found myself planning a shot, un covering the camera, snapping pictures, then covering it again. I would like to see a toned down version.. maybe one where only the first couple rows get wet.

  • I managed to time it right and get to the Sun Wheel before the masses from the parade arrived. When I walked down the ramp there were about 3-4 carloads in front of me. By the time I got on the line had stretched up the exit ramp quite a ways. I also found it interesting the CM asked if I'd be ok if they put another group in with me, what was interesting is usually they never ask.. they either just pair you up or let you go. (Of course I said no problem)...

  • I had heard/read of some changes to Fantasmic so I stopped by to see the show Friday night. The light towers have new lights and overall the lighting effects during the show are great. The lights seem much brighter, sharper, cleaner and there are some new projections onto the stage that are great plusses. With every plus comes a minus it seems and the finale fireworks have been scaled back a bit and I miss all the shells that would go off, but I can see how eliminating them would help with the smoke problems and probably save some money too. Here is a link from a fan of the site that took some video last week: YouTube Video of Fantasmic Finale;

  • The tram stop for the Mickey and Friends trams was probably close to the most crowded I have seen it. The line was stretching back down the ramp toward World of Disney. The reason for this seemed to be the trifecta of DCA closing, Fantasmic letting out, and Remember being canceled all about the same time. I decided to walk so I started down the trail and I noticed they were letting you board at the second tram stop (the one closest to Naples) so I hopped on a tram with no wait at all and saved myself the long walk.

  • Monday I came across the 2007 Theme Park Attendance Report by Themed Entertainment Association/ Economics Research Associates (Click here for the PDF) The report shows Disney parks in the Top 8 spots World Wide with Florida's Magic Kingdom leading the way followed by Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland. The Disney Parks:

    1 MAGIC KINGDOM at Walt Disney World, Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA 17,060,000
    2 DISNEYLAND, Anaheim, CA, USA 14,870,000
    3 TOKYO DISNEYLAND, Tokyo, Japan 13,906,000
    4 TOKYO DISNEYSEA, Tokyo, Japan 12,413,000
    5 DISNEYLAND PARIS, Marne-La-Vallee, France 12,000,000
    6 EPCOT at Walt Disney World, Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA 10,930,000
    7 DISNEY'S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS at Walt Disney World, Lake Buena V 9,510,000
    8 DISNEY'S ANIMAL KINGDOM at Walt Disney World, Lake Buena Vista, FL 9,490,000
    13 DISNEY'S CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE, Anaheim, CA, USA 5,680,000
    21 HONG KONG DISNEYLAND, Hong Kong, SAR, China 4,150,000
    Note: The Disney Studios in Paris did not make the top 25.

    On the water parks side the two Walt Disney World parks took the top spots:
    1 Typhoon Lagoon, Orlando, FL 2,080,000
    2 Blizzard Beach, Orlando, FL 1,910,000



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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