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

.In this 8 hour visit to the resort we tacked on another 9.33 miles (18999 steps). Pedometer acquired from our friends over at SierraMountainWorks.com

The crowds at the resort this Friday seemed healthy for the summer. There were a lot of people, but it was still manageable. Disneyland was much more crowded than DCA, as usual. Parking was an adventure as it has been the past couple times. Several cars each decided to stop and talk to the CM directing them around the garage (see if we did not have to drive 2 miles to park you would less opportunities to stop and ask questions)... oh well enough of my rambling and whining about the garage. I just don't understand why they changed it from the original setup.

One more note about parking. They were passing out a flyer for the concerts along with your parking ticket. It listed upcoming concerts and on the bottom was a note saying to ask at the ticket counter about visiting both parks in the same day. No signs were up by the ticket counters, so it must be on and "asking basis only". Surprised they do not advertise the new pass option.

DCA Items:

• As you may have seen in the pictorial update, the crowd for the Fifth dimension concert was not that impressive. The seats were fairly full as was the railing, but you could easily have walked up at anytime and had a nice standing view (probably even seating if you really looked).
• The show itself was pretty good. I am not really a 5th Dimension fan, so I only knew a few songs.
• We did not catch the second concert, so no clue how the crowd was for it
• The tree that was blocking the view into Flicks was moved. So we had an unobstructed view of the entrance area. They were putting up the side walls, well actually prepping the wood to go up.
• The Zephyr seems to be going down at somewhat random times. We walked by in mid afternoon right before the concert and there was a sign up saying due to high winds it was closed, but there was barely a breeze blowing. Then during the concert it started up and was running. The breeze felt much stronger then too.
• All caught Blast! again, only a short time left in their run.
• Work on Tower seems like it is going to be much more visible in the near future with the steel work beginning soon. The crane was in place and some steel had already arrived Friday.
• Also saw a Segway out in the park. It had a security guy on it. Seemed to be more of a PR thing that actually being used to patrol. He spent most of his time near us answering peoples questions about the Segway because most had never seen one before.

Disneyland Items:

• For all you Barrage fans out there, the European cast is coming back to Disneyland and will be performing from August 6-25th at Club Buzz
• One interesting observation was that by 6 pm most of the railing space along the river for Fantasmic had already been claimed by people, a full 3 hours before the show. That is great to see.
• Finally caught the College band in front of the castle(5:30). It was a great set of Disney tunes and entertaining as always.
• Work on the Pooh queue looks to be moving along. Looks like concrete will be poured any day now. Wonder if once its done they will take down the walls or leave them up until the ride opens next year.
• In Innoventions we saw the area upstairs where Disney Interactive and Secret Labs used to be there is now a Lilo & Stitch thing. We did not get to see the demonstration, it was all closed down. We did try out the Stitch video game though. Other than that nothing new jumped out at us in Innoventions.
• The crowd for Believe seemed really large, either that or people just spread out more to make it look bigger...

Other items:

• We grabbed a quick bite at McDs on Harbor and found the Anaheim Resort now has maps out (and a 10% coupon for McDs). Anyway the maps are really good if you wanted to know where the various hotels are around the park. Here is a link to their website that has a copy of the map - Click Here.

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

Send comments, questions, any other email to: disneygeek@disneygeek.com