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

Hello everyone,

We had some out of town company in and spent a rare Saturday at the parks. I was expecting a rather large crowd with the extended hours (8am-midnight at Disneyland) and the nice weather, well fairly hot weather in the 90s, but was pleasantly suprised to find the parks managable and definitely not crowded. I think we are in the lull before the summer storm, or at least that is what several CMs told us. Most attractions had waits under 20 minutes most of the day, especially the morning hours.

Jason

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

DCA & Disneyland Notes:

• As we waited in the long, slow moving, lines to enter the parks as we park hopped, and remember the crowds were light, but the lines were slower than usual for some reason, I could not help but wonder why there is not a more effecient way to get guests into the parks. It seems to me the more quickly you get in the faster you can buy things... also the frustration level of standing in the afternoon sun while the people in front of you try to get in with invalide tickets is really annoying.. I know that sounds like a Disneyland snob speaking, but even most out of town guests can figure out the ticket system but somehow I manage to get the line that has some odd problem.. speaking of ticket problems as we headed over to DCA we noticed that the tickets the others had in our party the date stamped on the back was incorrect. It said the 2nd not the 3rd. The tickets scanned right and the CMs at the gate never said anything but I found that interesting.

• Since we were at the park early we took advantage of the free 5x7 picture at DCA for Disney Visa Card Members.. if you have a Disney Visa and are in the park before 11:30 you should stop by Ariel's and take advantage of this perk. Its easy.. you just show your card to the person at the check in counter and they send you downstairs. You get your picture taken and voucher. On your way out of the park you turn in the voucher for a free picture.. an $11 value, so well worth it. This trip we got Mickey and Goofy with our group. What a great perk!

• Not much new to report around the parks. Work seems to be wrapping up on Club Buzz and the other minor projects around both parks. I had read on several sites that the Club Buzz work was to reconfigure the seating to make the area more open for the Subs queue. It appears that the new seating areas will be coming out nearly as far, but will be encircled by walls and separated. The Sub Lagoon work is progressing. I am really suprised by how large the new show building looks. It seems to be dominating the small lagoon. Also a little sadden to see the covers over the subs, so now the lagoon is even smaller looking than before and getting interesting construction progress shots are even harder..

• As I was walking around the resort I was really expecting to see more Cars merchandise/signs/etc.. up. There was some but not much. Also kind of surprised not to see any type of promotion like WDW is doing with the two Cars joining their parade.

• To avoid the heat in the middle of the afternoon we decided to go see Billy Hill. First off I was pleased to see they were not making you wait outside and you could come and go with no problem. Unfortunately it seemed as if the air conditioning was off, or at least set very high (or low depending how you looked at it), but it was quite warm inside(especially compared to the refrigerator that Innoventions is, which was the stop before Billy Hill for me). As you saw in the pictorial update there was a different (well new to us) Billy doing the show. Someone posted a link to the Blog to the actors website.. kind of interesting, thanks..

• We ate dinner at Storytellers Cafe and I have to say after a couple dozen meals there I actually had a bad experience this time, first time. The place was empty but the service was really slow and a bit disappointing. I had a fairly simple order.. a well done hamburger and fries. The first half of the hamburger was good but the other half was medium at best. The fries actually came luke warm this time, bordering on cold. The waiter seemed to disappear for long periods of time and not return and several times we had people with empty glasses and he was no where to be seen for refills and to top it off they were even out of the dinning pins.. everyone else in the group had a good meal and really enjoyed it so that was good (especially since I built up the place as being great).. but the service just was not up to the level it usually is there. Usually it seems your glasses are refilled before you reach the halfway mark and I have never had an undercooked or luke warm meal there before and like I mentioned above we have eaten there several times over the years. Oh well, better luck next time, hope this is not the start of a trend and instead a fluke.

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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