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08/11/17 - 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.

08/11/17 - Thoughts and observations from Friday at the Disneyland Resort.
I had a relaxing visit to the Disneyland Resort planned. With summer coming to an end I wanted to enjoy some of the entertainment one last time and visit with others. The park crowd felt moderate but I really did not pay attention to the wait times nor deal with the crowds much since what I had planned did not really bring the crowds into play.

Thoughts and Observations:

  • I arrived at the Mickey and Friends parking structure just after lunch, like I usually do, and today I found the overpass closed as well as the structure itself. Luckily I noticed it was closed, thanks to my misfortune of missing the light at Ball. So instead of getting stuck in traffic on Disneyland Drive I opted to turn left and go to Harbor to reach the Toy Story Lot. It added almost 20 minutes onto my parking time and is not a good way to start a trip.

  • While in the Toy Story lot ran into two guests that were desperately searching for a rest room. Their young child really had to go and unfortunately there are no restrooms options in the Toy Story lot. Your two options are to walk across the street and try a restaurant or hotel or wait till you get to Disney. Neither was going to work for this kid. Not sure what they ended up doing but it was a very stressful way to start the day for them. Seems that the temporary Toy Story lot has become quite permanent and with no progress on the new Eastern Gateway project it will be a primary parking option for many for several more years. It seems Disney should have invested in some solution years ago for a restroom or two. Paying $20 to park and having to endure a shuttle ride with no restroom is tough for some guests.

  • I decided to make the trip over to Mickey and Friends any ways to check out the construction. As expected nothing too drastic had changed since last week but still interesting to spend some time looking around. Also interesting to note they are still working on the new walkways. They were laying more bricks so hopefully some fences will be coming down sooner rather than later.

  • One member of my group needed to pick up a new annual pass. He had ordered it online. The process took quite a while and involved the ticket booth Cast Member needing to go talk to a manager for several minutes to process the pass. This is the second experience like this I have seen with people buying a pass online and it taking quite a while to get it redeemed at the ticket booth. Seems like it should be a fairly routine task given the large number of Annual Passholders and the overall acceptance of online purchases now a days.

  • The one line I did pay attention to throughout the evening was the Disneyland Railroad. I wanted to spend some time onboard but the wait always seemed to be several trains and that did not work with my schedule/plans/patience. Seems the regular demand plus renewed interest in the new route/scenes has led to healthy demand. I noticed three trains running and did not see any extended down time like last week.

  • Today was the last day for the 2017 Disneyland Resort All-American College Band. I made a point to attended all their performances and enjoy one last set of shows. The band is one of my favorite parts of summer. They are always entertaining to listen to and watching them grow and improve from the 1st week through the end is great. It always marks the end of summer for me when they wrap up their year.

  • The Main Street Electrical Parade wraps up its current run next weekend, August 20th, so I found a decent spot to enjoy the parade one more time. It will be very interesting to see where the parade heads next. The assumption is it will re-appear somewhere. If/when it comes back I would really like to see an update to the parade. I think the Tokyo Disneyland Dreamlights Parade is a great model. They update sections of it every couple of years and the parade retains its original feel but is continuously refreshed and tech updated.

  • Final comment on the Toy Story Parking Lot. Leaving the park and getting on a shuttle was really smooth. Unfortunately our shuttle either did not have working A/C or a driver who knew how to work it. It was stuffy and miserable inside and not the most pleasant smelling.. Not a good way to end your day at the park. Also the exit process from Toy Story leaves a lot to be desired. It was better than the D23 weekend but still took nearly two light cycles to get out. If they are going to force you to exit to Harbor they really should close the cross walk on the right side so you can make a right turn. It really backs up the exit traffic with constantly full crosswalks. It makes more sense to me to direct cars out to Katella to exit vs dumping more traffic onto Harbor. So exiting and getting onto the freeway took about 10 minutes longer than usual. So the Toy Story lot cost me at least 30 minutes of driving time. Plus the longer shuttle trip. So bet it ate close to an hour of total time compared to parking in Mickey and Friends for me.

Here are some recent posts to the Geek's Blog:

Geek’s Blog Postings Recap – July 26-Aug 3, 2017

Disney Related Press Releases

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

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

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