Disneygeek - Geek Speaks - 05/27/11 - My thoughts and observations from Fridays visit to the parks including a ride on the new Little Mermaid attraction, a couple viewings of Mickeys Soundsational Parade, and some first impressions of the recently opened Disneyland hotel dining options and changes.

The Geek Speaks:

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.

05/27/11 - My thoughts and observations from Fridays visit to the parks including a ride on the new Little Mermaid attraction, a couple viewings of Mickeys Soundsational Parade, and some first impressions of the recently opened Disneyland hotel dining options and changes.

Hello all,

I hope everyone is having a great Memorial Day weekend, thank you to all you veterans out there. To stay with the theme of the weekend, in case you missed it a few months ago the retiredgeeks attended a special flag retreat at Disneyland honoring a medal of honor winner. Click here for pictures and video.

I started my holiday weekend off with a trip to the Disneyland Resort to check out the new parade and other recent openings. The crowds seemed maybe on the high side of average but the parks did not feel jammed like they do on some holidays. Wait times throughout the afternoon were mild. I did not pay that much attention to them overall though since I had a fairly full agenda/shot list to get through.

Jason

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

Disneyland & DCA Thoughts and Observations:

First stop of the day was DCA to check out the construction and hope for a Little Mermaid soft opening. As you saw in the pictorial update the construction is moving along quickly with a lot of visible progress out on the dining area as it heads into the final weeks of construction. The new main entrance is looking rather complete too. After making the rounds and grabbing the construction shots I saw what looked like a lot of activity around the Little Mermaid attraction so I found a spot in the shade to hang out and see if they were going to open. Decided to give them till 2pm and see what happened. As luck would have it they opened the queue a few minutes before 2, so only had to wait about 15 minutes or so for them to open then walked on for my first ride. Since I was very close to the front of the line I opted to hop back in line for a second round, this time a 20 minute or so wait, but still not bad. I went back again in the evening and waited about 40 minutes for my third trip through.
If you have been following my pictorial updates you have seen most of the queue already, but actually walking it made for quite a different view. As you saw they have made the outside queue able to expand to accommodate the anticipated crowds, or shrink back to its regular size if not needed. It seems like a very flexible design. The plants as you go through the queue do bring up images of sea life and work perfectly. It was fun to see the amount of detail and effort that went into the space and how they maximized it to squeeze in a fairly long queue. One interesting note is the music that is playing in the outside queue is the regular Paradise Pier music, also curious if the black speakers will be receiving covers, seems like they should. Once you make it around to the building there is a very small queue and you are but aboard very quickly due to the large capacity of this attraction. I was happy to hear there will be no Fastpass for this attraction. That means the line should keep moving and it makes those wait times seem easier to deal with.
- First impressions of the Little Mermaid Ariels Undersea Adventure: Overall I enjoyed the attraction (went on three times in total Friday). I was expecting an attraction that was a little more detailed and longer than your average Fantasyland Dark ride, but not one up to the level of say a Pirates or Haunted Mansion. Mermaid met these expectations and maybe surpassed it a bit. I thought they used all the available space and managed to cram quite a bit into the building. The pacing of the attraction seemed a little on the quick side to me, I actually enjoyed it the most on the third trip when it kept slowing down (guessing this was due to wheelchairs/load needs). Also due to the tight space I thought the amount of time/space between scenes was a little too short, but understand that you cannot have long transitions. Another element that jumped out to me as I went through was the large number of animated characters. Seems most move, sway, spin, or shake in some manner. Lastly the sound really stood out. I believe all the sound comes from the sets/characters, I do not remember hearing anything coming from the clam shell (so it is different than Haunted Mansion). The localization of the sound is great, for example in the Under the Sea section you can hear some of the individual instruments and the sound seems to be coming from it!
- I have no idea how the crowd trends will be with this one, but it seemed that the wait remained solid all afternoon and evening, but it did get shorter during World of Color. I would image the wait times will be fairly solid for the first several weeks as all us annual passholders try to cycle through and experience the attraction, come later this summer we should be able to get a better idea of how the lines will be.
Over at Disneyland Splash Mountain has reopened, I did not go for a ride, did anyone? Any major or minor changes? If you went and have pictures or thoughts to share drop me a line.
Also new over at Disneyland is the food/beverage stand in Frontierland. It definitely is not what I had envisioned, but it works. It appears they have consolidated all the carts and smaller stands in the area into one medium size stand. I think this is a great idea and am curious how this will effect traffic in the area.
Mickeys Soundsational Parade officially started Friday (still odd that they did not call Thursday the official start since it was listed on the time schedule, etc..). I watched the first parade from the hub looking at the Matterhorn and the second from up on the Main Street Train Station looking down on it. I wanted to experience it from two very different angles.
- First Impressions: I thought it was extremely well done and I was very happy to see a parade in the traditional sense return to Disneyland. There were no show stops, just a rolling parade that lasted about 15 minutes from when it started moving till the last unit passed me by. I thought the animation and details on the units were great. The sound track was catchy and integrated the regular disney music perfectly, but both places I stood seemed to be on the edge of a zone, need to figure that out still and see if it makes a difference to be in the middle of an audio zone. I thought the large number of performers and characters in the parade were also great to see too. I found Mary Poppins to be an interesting finale. The one thing I would have liked to have seen is more live musicians. Having the drum line at the beginning really opened it up with a high energy moment. Also the articulated (guess that is what you would call it, his eyes blinked and mouth moved) Mickey was a nice touch and closing with the Pearly Band.
They only had one Monorail running on Friday, better than the week before when there was none. Only Monorail Blue was making the rounds so this meant some fairly long waits for the next train. I read on a couple sites the Orange and Red should be able to return to service in the coming days.
I spent some time roaming around the recently opened areas of the Disneyland Hotel. They have opened the two new dining locations, a fireplace area, grass/garden area, and the lobby of the soon to be Frontierland Tower. Here are my impressions of each:
- Trader Sams - Inside seems a bit tight/small and dark for my tastes, but there are quite a few interesting items scattered around and I think the thought is most people will opt to sit outside anyways.
- Tangaroa Terrace - This is the quick service location and is the Disneyland Hotel answer to White Water Snacks. I thought the menu offerings had a nice mix of traditional fast food plus a couple of specialty items. Only wish I had was that they would have had the option of regular fries instead of sweet potato fries since I do not care for those. Again there is very little indoor seating, but a fair amount of outside seating available.
- Monorail Pool - The pool was not open but you could walk right up to it. Having the bridge that overlooks the pools was a fun touch and will serve a purpose once they finish the work on the building that houses the other restaurants. Right now it is a dead end due to the ongoing construction. The monorails on the water slide look great and help to disguise some of the steel and slide, but in the end there still is a lot of it. There seemed to be a large number of chairs out around the pool, more than the current pool offers. All the walls look to be in place and the Neverland pools days look to be numbered.
- Frontierland Tower - The former (or I guess current Wonder Tower) has had the first floor lobby reopen and you can see the new Frontierland overlay. I would describe it as minimalist. The colors do evoke the west, but it is not an in your face theme at all. There are a couple pieces of artwork which were a nice touch. The large centerpiece is the model of Big Thunder and it was great to be able to spend some time examining it. I was a little surprised that the background music was generic and not tailored to the land, maybe that is coming?? I found the wallpaper in the bathroom to be a great touch with the old attraction posters.
- Gardens/Fireplace area - The large outdoor fireplace area looks like it is just waiting for you to sit and relax. I am envisioning they will be doing some events out there or folks from Trader Sams will be laying claim to this area to sit around and talk. The garden/grass area near the Frontierland Tower was ok, but I enjoyed the old koi ponds and waterfalls more. There were a fair number of trees brought in and it does look good.
- I am curious how this area will work once the pool opens. On Friday it was very peaceful and relaxing to sit outside at the dining area, hang out on the bridge, or sit near the fireplace. But once the pool opens and people start using the water slides and screaming/splashing around wonder how the noise will travel. It could add some energy to the area or it could be an annoyance to those trying to relax.
- The former Dancing waters space is still walled off, so curious what will be going back there.
For the World of Color I tried to line up where I stood last week and the CM working the area informed me that it is a walkway and you cannot stand there. I thought this was odd since last week they said as long as you stayed between the Mermaid rope and the line that indicates the parade route you were ok. Hopefully they will revert back to last weeks version, it actually gave those of us without a Fastpass a chance to experience most of the show.

Interesting Web Finds/Notes:
Below are some interesting links, notes, and rumors I found/stumble across/or have been informed of since the last Geekspeaks column.

Interesting Web Finds:
Here is are three videos from the Disney Parks Blog about DCA
I have been posting my webfinds to the Geek's Blog as I find them/have time to post them.