Hello all,

Friday was a surprisingly quiet day in the parks. The summer crowds seemed to have evaporated and the heat wave even broke so it was mild to cool to walk around compared to what the rest of the week was like. As you saw in the pictures waits were on the low side (with most of the usual suspects well under an hour). At DCA in the early afternoon I saw Soarin under 30 minutes, Screamin a walk on, Toy Story its usually 40-45, and the Fun Wheel in the 15-20 min range for non swinging.

Jason

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

Disneyland & DCA Thoughts and Observations:

• As I mentioned in the pictorial updates, Taste Pilots has a new menu. They replaced the regular burgers with third of a pound angus beef burgers. Which translated into a $1.00 price increase for the regular ones and 50 cents for the others. So they are at the $10 for a burger and fries now. The new burger did taste better, but the new buns are a step backwards. Not as far back as WDW but no where near as good as the old ones. Also I still do not know why they do not knock anything off if you get a plain burger vs a cheese burger. The registers at WDW do this. Anyone else try the new burgers? What do you think? With an over 10% increase in price not sure if the quality/taste improved that much. If I was not so lazy I would start hiking back to McDonalds for dinner. Also want to complain again about them swapping out the french fries for the same boring ones as everywhere else vs the waffle fries they used to have.
  
  
• I thought it was interesting how the Red Car marker has been swapped out on near Tower. Guessing this was done since the original date on it said 1942 which would have been after the lightening strike which was 10/31/1939 according to the backstory. Great to see them updating the mistake, but curious how it got that far before someone noticed.
  
  
• Stopped by to see Aladdin since it has been a while. It seemed the Genie is now given more free time to ad lib throughout. Or maybe this one was just really playing to the audience. Also there seemed to be a couple other more humorous moments from other CMs too, it was nice to see the show playing more loose, at least in my mind.
  
  
• Getting in and out of the Hyperion was not as bad as I had expected. It was a little slower but not gridlock. I was there for the last show of the evening, so wonder how it is earlier in the day.
  
  
• Glow Fest has vacated the Backlot and the construction walls have taken over the back street. Glow Fest still has two performances on the stage nightly and then the dance party starts. The dancers move down to the ground (between the yellow stripes that were added to the plaza) and a DJ is at drum station above the stage. The transition was not as smooth as heading to the backlot and the party seemed to lack some energy without all the lights, LCD screens, interactive projections, but those that were participating seemed to be having a good time. I thought the area thinned out rather quickly, but that may have been because it was nearing show time for World of Color. Also noted there is only one drink bar/stand out now and no food truck, so it really is scaled down for this extended run through the holiday weekend next week.
  
  
• A couple of Disneyland night time entertainment observations: Fantasmic looked the same as a few weeks ago, no eels or riser on the stage for Mickey/the Cauldron, etc.. During Magical Dumbo did not fly Friday. Everything else looked normal.
  
  
• As I was on the tram and leaving I noticed the top of the Indy show building did not have its usual tarp, you could see the steel outline of the facade. Guess they are finally replacing the faded ones? I could not get a good shot due to the darkness and the moving tram.
  
  
  
• 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.
  
  
  • Disney Press Releases
    • 8/27/10 - Disney-Pixar's Toy Story 3 Will Cross $1 Billion Today, Disney to Become First Studio with Two $1 Billion Films in One Year
    • 8/23/10 - Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend Celebrates Anniversary With Fifth Consecutive Sellout
    • 8/19/10 - Halloween Time Returns Sept. 17 as Mickey and Pals and Disney Villains Transform Disneyland Resort for the Season
      
      
  • We post some announcements on:
    • Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/disneygeekcom
    • Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/disneygeek
    • Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/disneygeekcom
      
      

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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