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3/21/14 - My thoughts and observations from Fridays visit to the Disneyland Resort.
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3/21/14 - My thoughts and observations from Fridays visit to the Disneyland Resort.

Hello all,

The Spring break season has begun at the Disneyland Resort. This translated into a fairly crowded Friday afternoon/evening. Wait times for the usual suspects were well over an hour most of the time.

Jason

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

Thoughts and Observations:

  • I started off the afternoon walking to the parks through Downtown Disney. I had not done in this in a while so wanted to see what was going on. There were quite a few lifts and workers doing some facade renovation work on the block of stores going from Build a Bear to Ride Makerz. Everything was open during the work and they cleaned up by the evening. This has been going on for a couple weeks now. The other big news in Downtown Disney is the Starbucks has opened. I took a quick look inside and there was a healthy line of guests. I did not linger or really explore it..

  • First stop of the day was Disneyland and a round trip voyage on the Monorail to check out the sub lagoon and Alice in Wonderland work. I spotted a couple workers in the sub lagoon but other than that not a whole lot of visible progress. Alice in Wonderland closed since my last visit and is scheduled to reopen in early July. They are re-routing the exterior portion of the track to make it OSHA compliant and will be doing some upgrades inside too.

  • Speaking of renovation work. Here is a quick list of current projects and expected completion dates, note everything is subject to change and this year has several times already so be sure to check Disneyland.com for the most up to date listings.
    • Current Disneyland closures:
      • Alice in Wonderland - through July 3rd
      • Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage - Through Fall 2014 (no date given)
      • "it's a small world" - April 9th with a second closing scheduled late April through May
      • Indiana Jones - through May 8th
    • Upcoming Disneyland closures:
      • Carrousel - 4/28-5/8
      • Matterhorn - 5/27-8/14
      • Pirates - 4/28 - 5/22
      • Space Mountain - 5/12-6/26
    • Disney California Adventure closures:
      • Grizzly River Run - 4/21-6/19
      • Little Mermaid - May 9th
      • Redwood Creek - is supposed to be open already but Friday it was still behind walls
      • Tough to be a Bug 3/31-4/18

    • The Frozen Royal Reception (Meet and Greet) continues to draw large crowds. Friday the posted time was 120 minutes. It dawned on me that gave plenty of time to watch the entire film while waiting in line, speaking of which many of the gift shops featured the DVD, Blu-ray and Soundtrack.

    • Big Thunder has returned from its long renovation project (over a year) featuring a new track, paint, and some effects. Friday the wait was well over an hour the couple times I passed by.

    • Out at the Big Thunder Ranch the Springtime Roundup starts next Friday. This week most of the signage and props were in place. The roundup starts the 28th and runs through April 20th. It will feature treats, crafts, egg art demonstrations, entertainment, Mr. Easter Bunny and a several other Disney rabbits.

    • The 2014 Egg-Stravaganza - Easter egg hunt is returning to the Disneyland Resort again this year. It will be taking place 4/10-20 at both Disneyland and DCA this time around. There was a blurb about it in the Disneyland time guide on Friday. I do not recall seeing many advertisements in there for upcoming events like this before.

    • Spent the later part of the afternoon at DCA. Crowds were on the heavier side there too. I walked the park and nothing too new or interesting jumped out to me. As I mentioned in the pictorial update I am really surprised by the lack of Muppets Most Wanted merchandise. Seems doing something with Muppet Vision for the new film and some merchandise would be a natural tie in. I was guessing since they played some of the film at the AP event last Monday that it was going to be playing for regular guests to promote the movie. But as of Friday there was nothing going on. So I guess the only change are the couple of posters and preshow interruption.

    • I stopped by Innoventions near the end of its day (it closes at 8pm). I was surprised there was still a healthy crowd inside. The meet and greets for Thor and Captain America had long since closed. Both have relatively short hours of 11am-4pm. The treasures of Asgard displays were open to walk through, but the Captain America area was closed off. It seemed odd they were still enforcing the one way traffic around the upper level even though the queues were empty.

    • Decided to watch Fantasmic since I was in Disneyland and then Remember (I really do not like the single 9:45pm World of Color showing. It is a tad late for me and with one showing is crowded). Only note here is Tinkerbell was MIA for Remember. She did not fly for either segment of the show. Everything else appeared to be normal for the show from my vantage point near Town Square.

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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