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

Hello all,

This was an extremely rare Thursday visit to the Disneyland Resort for us. I had a great excuse, the lazygeek got married so I was in Orange County all weekend. That is also why these thoughts and observations are late.. so enough rambling and onto the comments.

First think I noticed upon arriving at the resot were the new guidebooks. The Disneyland booklet has Buzz on the cover, lists Buzz and also an interesting find, lucky number 7 now is listed as Disneyland: The First 50 Magical Years and it has a special golden mouse-ears next to it to indicate its for the 50th. DCA also got a new guidemap with Playhouse Disney on the cover announcing the JoJo's Circus has joined the show.

The crowds at the park were light, which was to be expected considering the threatening weather, early closings, and not many places were on spring break yet.

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

Disneyland & DCA:

• As you saw in the pictorial update I started the evening at DCA to see what's new and not much was. Peaking around and through the walls around Superstar Limo you could see very little was going on and we did not spend too much time in the park because of the early closing and the quickly approaching darkness.

• Stopped by Greetings from California to pick up my free Annual Passholder's mousepad. Its always a suprise when something is truely free from Disney and this was. The mousepage features the 50th logo.

• Thursday marked St. Patricks day as well as the official, unofficial, opening of Buzz Lightyear. The attraction should be operating on a regular schedule now and a small ceremony was held in the morning to mark the opening. (We have a couple pictures coming soon in the Lazygeek's photos of the parade). When we arrived at the park the plan was to get a fastpass unfortunately the ride was down so we had to come back later and wait in line, but I did get on. Nothing seemed different than the preview a few weeks ago (except I scored better). The lines at the photo kiosks seemed longer and slower, so I bypassed those, too bad they don't have a photopass system like Florida and if they did it would be great if it was linked up so you could just swipe your card and have your photo sent, no waiting in line. That would be great for all on ride photos.. wonder if its in the works.. seems like a logical extension.

• The Tiki Room was also open and I took in a show. The pictures I took really do not do it justice. The colors are great, the animation is fully restored and the soundtrack was clear and crisp. I would image the show sounds and looks better than it ever has. I did not notice anything different, the show seemed identitcal as advertised to what has been running in recent years.

• It was great to see the Columbia sailing around in the darkness, cannot remember the last time I saw that.. I just missed the last sailing (which was 8:30 I believe).

• As you saw in the pictures there was a climber on the Matterhorn for a couple hours. He stayed near the peak and was talking too a "tech" CM (dressed in black) who was at the peak. He would go up talk, then go back down a bit. Not sure it it was repairs, show prep, training, or something else or just the normal routine.. but it looked out of place. Also there were three or four CMs down near the bottom third of the mountain. I could not tell what they were up to, but they kept pointing and talking as they looked over Fantasyland. It was too dark and too far for a good picture or to make out their helmets.

• Buzz was down for an hour or so and we noticed Big Thunder down too for a while. Also kind of weird the their was one steam train on the tracks and on more than one occasion saw it backing up around parts of the track. My guess is this was testing and finally tweaks to the system with the new track/sensors that were installed during the rehab. We understand the railroad opened for business (minus the Tomorrowland station) on Friday.
  

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

Send comments, questions, any other email to: disneygeek@disneygeek.com