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07/20/12 - My thoughts and observations from Friday at the 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.

07/20/12 - My thoughts and observations from Friday at the Disneyland Resort.

Hello all,

Friday was a nice summer day at the Disneyland Resort. For us weather snobs in Southern California it was hot, temps in the upper 80s as I arrived at the Disneyland Resort but there was a slight breeze from time to time and our normal low humidity so it was not miserable. It cooled down to the 70s by the time I left and was in the 60 when I reached home...

The crowds at the parks were average for summer. With the coasters hovering near an hour and the two water attractions (Splash and GRR) both substantially higher, especially in the afternoon where I saw GRR at 100 minutes and Splash at 80 minutes. Over at DCA Cars Land was busy with Maters near an hour a couple of times and the Flying Tires hovering just over an hour. The Racers were down the couple times I walked by.

This trip my only real objective was to walk both parks to see if anything new or interesting popped out since it has been a while since I did that.

Jason

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

Thoughts and Observations:

  • I was directed up to the roof for parking, it meant a warm/hot car to return to in the evening. But I guess it was better than being directed to an alternate lot and I lucked out and had a spot close to the escalators for once.

  • The Earl of Sandwich shop seems to be moving along rather slowly. Maybe it is just because we cannot see too much of the progress, but seems at its current pace it will not be open for quite a while. I would have thought the target would have been now for the summer crowds.

  • In looking back at my trips this summer it seems I have not spent that much time at Disneyland. So this trip I made sure to walk the park and see what was going on. Also took in some of the entertainment as I roamed including Calling All Drummers and the Dapper Dans. I have noticed with all the entertainment choices at DCA as well as Cars Land I find myself staying over there longer than before.

  • I was disappointed to see that guests have not really discovered the Big Thunder Ranch Jamboree. It was a ghost town again this trip. A great experience for those that do stumble upon it but I would assume that the low numbers do not bode well for its future. If you are in the park looking for characters you should stop by and see what is going on. For example I noticed in Toontown the line to visit with Minnie was long, probably close to 45 minutes with no shade and you were in the sun. Out at the Ranch I spotted Donald, Chip/Dale roaming around and there were no guests near them at all.

  • I headed over to Disney California Adventure next. My objective again was to do a full of the park too just to see what was going on. I did half (Cars Land, Hollywoodland), caught the College Band, then did the other part, GRR and Pier.

  • The All American College Band had a guest performer Friday. Jiggs Whigham who is a jazz trombonist and used to be in the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Here is a clip from one of their songs:


  • I managed to catch part of an Instant Concert from the back side. Glad hear the sound was being played on the far side of the Bay and quite a few guests were lined up at the rail to watch. I thought it offered a great view of Goofy since he looks at the water most of the show, but he is quite far away and if you do not know where to look you would miss him and not really get what is going on.


  • I was pleased to see the caramel milk chocolate was being given out at Ghirardelli today. Last trip was hazelnut crisp which I did not care for.

  • Caught DJs Dance Party. I do enjoy this show better after sunset with the lights and I think the idea of characters from the film roaming into town is good but something with the execution of this show still does not sit right with me. Maybe it is the hip factor... the music selection or something. I think it would be great to see more characters from the film find their way into town in the coming years. A lot of great possibilities, should be fun to see what happens.

  • Magical was delayed for a while Friday, no indication why but seems like it should not have been weather since there was little to no breeze. The show did eventually go off.

  • Disneyland has a new park guide map cover featuring the Matterhorn with climbers. Also the two park time guides now have blurbs about Otto. Otto is a voice activated park info service. I was given a card a couple months ago by a guest relations cast member and now seems they are making a bigger push to get the information out.

  • Speaking of information out... I really wish they would make a lighter footprint version of the mobile phone app. I like the idea of being able to get up to date information but the app takes forever to load and navigate and half the time the GPS does not seem to find me properly. I would like to see a simple app that would give you official wait time and complete show schedule information. With the number of local visitors to Disneyland seems something like that would go over well since most toy around with unofficial ones or twitter for the information now.

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.

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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