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7/29/05 - Some thoughts and observations from Fridays visit to 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.

7/29/05 - Some thoughts and observations from Fridays visit to the Disneyland Resort.

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

Hello all,

What a great afternoon at the Disneyland Resort. The weather was a bit on the hot side, the summer crowd seemed about right for the time of year, and we really had nothing on our agenda for the visit. Lines throughout the park appeared to be about average for the summer. With fastpass and some luck you can get on a couple attractions without much hassle. Splash Mountain had the longest posted waits of the day with Space Mountain right behind. Most other major attractions flucturated from 15-45 minutes depending on when we walked by. Over at DCA the lines were noticably shorter than Disneyland, but about the same as usual over there. Soarin ws 40 minutes. GRR over an hour during the heat of the day. The Sun Wheel a near walk on, the bread tour nearly empty, Bugs land posted as 5 minutes each, but really less.. Tower a near walkon (posted 20 though, but no winding, it appeared to go right into the lobby)

Jason

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

Disneyland (and a couple DCA notes too):

  • Noticed a couple minor changes as we walked the park. For example, the kiosk to help you locate your photo mosiac images that used to be near City Hall/Tour Garden is now over by the large Steamboat Willie Mosiac (only a couple feet from the other kiosk). We also spotted three new (well new for us) photo mosiacs. Stitch in Tomorrowland and then Kermit/Miss Piggy and Chicken Little on DCAs Backlot. One other interesting change is the hidden 50 that used to be right above the wheel house on the Mark Twain was gone.. there was now a large one hanging above the banner. Much more obvious than before. Wonder why the change. (We will update our 50s section in a couple days).

  • Since there was not much on the agenda just kind of roamed the park, which was nice. Caught several of the street performers as well as musical groups. Including the All American College Band for most of their sets. It was great to hear some new songs in front of the castle (including an attraction medly that featured Star Tours and Fantasmic at the end, we missed the beginning) as well as the theme from the Incredibles. Next trip need to catch the whole set..

  • Dinner at White Water Snacks was extremely quite. It was 6:30 and there were only two groups in the place, including us.. The service seems to have gone down a couple noches.. I ordered a hot dog.. first it took what seemed forever. The other group that was behind us got their order first as did the lazygeek who was behind me in line. When the food arrived the hot dog was luke warm at best and the bun was on the hard side of fresh. Also I think the prices may have gone up again since our last visit, but its been so long they may not have..

  • Pulled up a spot in the street to watch Remember and sat down to wait (too bad this show is so popular that you have to stake out a spot 45 minutes early to get a decent view).. anyways.. About 10/15 minutes before show time we realized there had been no announcements. Then the announcer came on and said the show may be canceled but no decision had been made. We heard this announcement a couple times then show time came and went. Another annoucnement that due to high winds the show has been delayed. Then delayed once more.. then the 5 minute warning played.. a couple minutes later the show fired up and ran unaffected. We figured for sure it would be canceled. Ground level winds were calm to non-existant, but upper winds seemed steady.. the Fantasmic smoke blew through/by in a matter of minutes. It was kind of erie to watch the Matterhorn become clouded with smoke then clear..

  • Crowd control leaving the park really has its act together. We had no probablems at all navigating the street and walking right down Main Street, out to the tram, waited for the next tram to pull up then stepped right on. No real delays anywhere. It went really smooth.

  • I guess I should mention that we noticed the helicopters hover nearby as we strolled through DCA after dinner at White Water Snacks in the Grand Californian. Made a call to someone at home and they said they saw nothing on the news, so we continued on and went to Disneyland, were we saw the number of helicopters grow and stay around for well over an hour. This was the only noticable affect of the evenings accident on Screamin. For those who have not seen the news, two coaster trains ran into (bumped) each other near the station of this thrill ride. We did overhear a couple guests talking about it and that is how we found out what had happened. After reading about the response I am shocked we never heard any sirens or anything.. usually you can. Also suprised no rumblings from guests as we walked through DCA, no one seemed to know, most did not even seem to notice the helicopters at first.

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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