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09/23/11 - My thoughts and observations from Fridays visit to the Disneyland Resort and the new Blue Sky Cellar exhibit
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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.

09/23/11 - My thoughts and observations from Fridays visit to the Disneyland Resort and the new Blue Sky Cellar exhibit

Hello all,

Headed to the Disneyland Resort again this Friday to check out the new Blue Sky Cellar exhibit and take a second pass at the Halloween Time festivities since I knew I was not going to make it next week. Overall the parks seemed a little more laid back this week, but it could be because I had just been there and had a fairly short agenda/shot list. Wait times seemed about average with most well under an hour most of the day. I left Disneyland for DCA as the sun was setting so not sure if the crowds jammed the Halloween overlays again.

Jason

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

Disneyland & DCA Thoughts and Observations:

  • As I was heading into the parks I picked up a time guide and guide map as usual. Noticed the time guides this week are their traditional black and orange for Halloween Time, but reading through them I saw no mentions of any of the Halloween Time festivities. This seemed a bit odd. I would have thought the Halloween Round-up would be listed somewhere at least.

  • Made a pass through Disneyland first because I wanted to be sure to get a Fastpass for Haunted Mansion and see the pumpkins at the Ranch. Nothing really jumped out at me this week as I circled the park, just some tweaks to the ongoing projects as you saw in the pictorial update.

  • Both Monorail Orange and Red were in service so that made for a short wait. Later in the afternoon there was an issue but not sure what. When I went to board from the Downtown Disney station the cast member said there was at least a ten minute delay. She did not know why but that is what came over the radio. So I opted to walk. I noticed they both seemed to be running again later.

  • The Blue Sky Cellar has a new exhibit titled: Introducing Buena Vista Street.
    • I really enjoyed walking through and seeing some more of the detail of the new street up close. I had seen many of the pieces at the D23 presentation but there is something different about seeing it up close verses on the projection screen that seems to work better.
    • I was surprised that nothing new for Cars Land was added, besides some new pictures from the site. Just the same board with concept art as before but in a different location. I guess it makes sense to educate people on what Buena Vista Street will be since everyone will figure out Cars Land fairly quickly, but still I would have thought two boards at least.. seems the attraction posters space is just calling for more Cars Land artwork.
    • Wonder if this will be the last display for the Cellar or if it will continue on. Seems with Aulani and the Disneyland Hotel making it in this time it is a good trial for future non DCA displays. And having a permanent Imagineering exhibit space sure would fit nicely with the Walt Disney influence to the park.
    • The new film playing in the screening room was great this time around. It talked more about the Imagineers and the process than the past ones and seemed less of a commercial and more an infomercial (if that makes any sense) to me. Verses me trying to describe it here is a recording I found on YouTube, the angle is a little odd, but the quality is good:



  • Out at the Disneyland Hotel work is moving along. I spoke to a worker out there and he confirmed a November target for the interior work on the Fantasy Tower. November 7th so everything should be wrapped up before the Holiday kickoff. Several areas of the ground floor were to open later Friday evening, the crews were putting the finishing touches on them when I was walking around. The registration area was going to go behind walls soon in two parts. The pace of the lobby make over is really quick.

  • Decided to wrap up the evening with World of Color since last week I watched Remember. I was very close to giving up on the show since no announcements were being played and it was over 15 minutes late. But finally the show starting in a few minutes announcement played and the show did go on. It was about 17 minutes late. No clue why because I was back in the stand by area by Little Mermaid. I found it odd they played no announcement saying the show was delayed. Wonder if it was a speaker problem. Anyone hear anything?? The Cast Member in our area was funny.. he looked at his watch then said they are officially delayed. No one seemed to tell him anything so he knew what we knew... nothing.

  • As I was heading out the trams seemed to be loading even slower than usual. The lines were not that backed up when I arrived, only had to wait for the next tram to pull in but it just seemed to take longer than usual for one to show up, then once boarded for them to clear us to depart. As we pulled away it looked to be a couple tram wait left at the station. So I could only image how quickly it was going to back up once the masses from Disneyland and all those from WoC caught up.

  • I was parked on Goofy (level 4) and found it interesting that upon exiting they had it set up to force us to go to Ball vs allowing the overpass like usual. Luckily I made it through the first light but that seemed like a recipe for a traffic jam as the crowds started to leave the park behind me.

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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