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

Hello all,

Friday was a great day at the parks. The temperature crept into the mid eighties and it felt like Spring (even though we somehow skipped winter this year). The crowds in the parks were on the heavy side, I would call them average summer crowds for the most part. This weekend marks two anniversaries for Disneyland attractions. The first is a milestone for Pirates of the Caribbean which turned 40 on Sunday. The second is on Saturday Buzz turned 2.

Jason

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

Disneyland & DCA Thoughts and Observations:

• The Mickey and Friends trams seemed to be slow/inefficient all day long. When I arrived there were quite a few guests waiting to board and each time I went by the area there were either long waits or no trams around. For example after Remember, which is when I usually leave, you can get on a tram with usually a 1 or 2 tram wait which translates to about 5 minutes or so. Friday night I got on the 4th tram that showed up and it was over 20 minutes later than usual when I got back to my car. Not sure what the problem/hold up was but this was a longer delay than during the holidays even.
  
  
• The operating hours of various dining places and carts within Disneyland still seems odd to me. For example on Friday (when the park was open till midnight and a good size spring break crowd was on hand) the Hungry Bear closed at 4:00pm. My best guess is since Splash Mountain is closed they did this, but at 4:00pm there were still quite a few people in the area and it seems like it would have made more sense to stay open till 6:00pm or so to hit some of the dinner rush. Also noticed several carts closed in Fantasyland in the early afternoon even though the area was packed with guests.
  
  
• Speaking of the Hungry Bear I was a little surprised by the most recent cost savings measure. When you ask for a cup of ice you get a small dixie cup and to top it off one side says Disneyland and the other side says Walt Disney World and they both have the where dreams come true logo on them. I understand wanting to cut costs and all but this seems overkill and in the quantities they go through paper goods I cannot believe this is a substantial savings, but maybe it is.
  
  
• Buzz Lightyear seems to be in need of a rehab. Its now two years old and I do not remember it being down for an length of time. As you ride through there are now several targets that do not work and props such as the large orange robot or the spinning saw that no longer work. And now a new trick the scores don't seem to be syncing right with the pictures. Friday I scored just over 300,00 and the lazygeek was about 200,000 but when we looked at our picture my score was listed as 30,000 and his even worse at 1,200. So not sure what happened but for some reason it did not like us.
  
  
• I did catch the United States Air Force Academ Band - Solaris - who performed what I guess is a prepade even though it was half an hour before the parade. The stopped several places along the route and performed a couple songs and posed for pictures for a Disneyland Events photographer. I wish they would have had longer sets. They had another Air Force band, The Falconaires on Sunday and they performed in Town Square and during the Flag Retreat.
  
  
• I was suprised with the large crowd and no Fantasmic that Remember was not more jammed on Main Street. The crowd seemed about average, from my viewpoint near the Disneyana store.
  
  

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