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3/21/25 - 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.

3/21/25 - Disneyland Resort

Hello everyone,

Friday was a relaxing spring time visit to the Disneyland Resort. The parks felt more crowded than usual early in the day but less in the evening. Our guess is there were a number of spring break guests. Attraction wait times were on the longer side as you would expect with the crowd and my timing was not great so I did not visit many. The weather was great topping out in the mid to upper 70s and cooling to the 60s with a slight breeze most of the day.

Thoughts and Observations:

  • My day started with a mixed parking experience. I drew a crummy location in the far corner of the structure again but had no real delays during any part of the arrival experience. There was only one car in front of me at the tollbooth, who of course had a lengthy conversation with the cast member over something. No delay on the ramp or getting into a space. Security I walked right up to and then right onto a tram. I arrived at Disneyland just after 11am so there was a bit of a line due to the park hopping crowd. (Disneyland still has a restriction of no park hopping until 11am).
  • To mark Women's History Month the floral Minnie Mouse has replaced Mickey at the park entrance. Also Tilly has a Sash. I did not see anything else.
  • I noticed the Thumper Spring/Easter popcorn bucket was available throughout both parks. It was originally announced to be available starting the 25th. I saw plenty of availability and no extended waits at the carts I walked by. They had a mobile order option for one from the Hungry Bear, it came with a bag of chips vs popcorn though.
  • The Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe looked ready to open when we first walked by as if they were preparing to soft open. We passed again later in the day and it had indeed opened a day early. Found it interesting they were allowing mobile orders but the location was still listed as closed for renovation in the app.
  • Some of the group I was with today wanted to experience Tiana's Bayou Adventure. When we walked by the first time they were just reopening after a closure and had a posted 30 min wait and no single rider option. So they passed. Later in the after noon on another walk by it was a 70 min standby but single rider was an option. They decided to go and it turned out to be about a 20 minute wait. They noted that most single riders were being directed into the front of the logs. They lucked out and a guest exiting handed off a poncho they no longer wanted to that made for a more dry experience.
  • Both the Disneyland Railroad and the Monorail returned to service since my last visit. No substantial changes on either. The train received some new rails and general renovation work. The building that had the fire in New Orleans Square several years ago has been removed. Walls are still up so maybe they are going to rebuild it. There was nothing visible. The Monorail's noticeable change is the Downtown Disney station received a new entry cover and gates.
  • Walked through Downtown Disney to check on the various projects. The Earl of Sandwich looks to be stalled with the steel beams in the same state as my last several visits. Over at the former ESPN building the scrims were back in place so hard to tell what was going on. The center section looked to have the steel frame in place for the new exterior wall. At Tortilla Jo's some more minor demolition work on elements of the exterior but nothing substantial visible.
  • The annual egg hunts kick off next week with the return of the Eggstravaganza Event. Today I spotted about half of the Downtown Disney ones already in place and a couple in the parks. Without knowing how many were out I did not invest time searching this week and decided to wait until I knew they were all out.
  • Disney California Adventure felt crowded and attraction down time was not helping with things. For example Soarin' was down to one theater for a portion of the day and the standby queue was barely moving with the Lightning Lane backed up out the door. They were not offering single rider. Further up the trail during the peak afternoon time the return queue for Grizzly River Run spilled out to the walkway and was growing faster than the cast member with the end of the line marker was moving. The stand by was posted at 85 but was not really moving due to the LL backup. A few hours later as the sun was setting and temperature was dropping it was a walk on as you would expect. Over at Radiator Springs Racers the single rider queue was having a rough day backed up nearly to the entrance the three times I walked by.
  • I did not spot anything marking the opening day of the new Disney Snow White film today. In the Carthay Circle Restaurant lobby there are two costumes from the film in a display case. This was a fitting place to display them but a tad awkward to visit since they are in the waiting area. Adding to the challenge was my choice of timing with odd reflections and glare coming in from outside.
  • Stopped by to see the finale set of the Island Reggae Band performing on the Palisades Stage for the Food & Wine Festival. I really find it annoying they are not using the proper stage and again have opted for a temporary stage on the fountain area. This make it so hard for people to see the performance. Then for the last one they block off the upper terrace as they are setting up for the World of Color dessert party so it is even harder to see. I counted maybe 50 guests in the main viewing area. Others walked by but could not see or get to a spot to see so they kept on walking.
  • As the sun set the entertainment options went to nearly nothing in both parks. After 7:00pm you had a choice of the Guardians Dance Off or nothing it seemed. It is really sad compared to how the parks used to be where as the sun set entertainment choices would pick up with bands in various venues in both parks, especially on Friday and Saturday nights.
  • I decided to close out my night with Mickey's Mix Magic Fireworks on Main Street USA. Several times leading up to 9:30 there were announcements that the fireworks may not happen due to winds at higher elevations. At times a breeze would pick up but it was not sustained. This meant Main Street never really felt crowded. We moved out onto the street about 5 minutes before show time and had no problem find a spot. The fireworks did go off with only a slight delay. There was no snow fall for the Frozen segment, guess that did not return for this run of the show.
  • The trams to the Mickey and Friends parking structure were backed up with guests three to four trams deep on the World of Disney side and the other side looked backed up several too. I thought about walking and decided to see how it went. The first tram pulled up and I spotted a seat no one was taking so I was able to navigate through the guests in front of me and onto that tram. An advantage of not having a big group of people saved me a several tram wait or the walk.

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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

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

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