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10/08/11 - My thoughts and observations from Saturdays 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.

10/08/11 - My thoughts and observations from Saturdays visit to the Disneyland Resort

Hello all,

Spent a full day at the park on Saturday thanks to a USC bye week so no college football to watch. I spent the morning roaming the resort getting caught up on the latest construction projects and happens then spent the afternoon and evening visiting with friends and enjoying the parks. Overall the crowds were heavier than we were all anticipating. I did not factor into my crowd planning that it was Columbus day on Monday so many schools, as well as government, bank, etc.. offices are all closed. Wait times seemed to be summerish for the most part except for the Halloween offerings which were substantially longer (both Haunted Mansion and Space Mountain had posted waits well over an hour in the evening with no Fastpasses left.

Jason

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

Disneyland & DCA Thoughts and Observations:

  • Started off the morning at Disneyland since I arrived just before 9am and it was the only park open. I was there after the initial park opening crowd but still too late to really take advantage of short waits in Fantasyland. The rest of the park seemed mild though for the first pass through.

  • Stopped by Critter Country to see the new Meet and Greet. Overall it looks ok. Still awkward placement out in the middle of the dead end and I am not a Winnie the Pooh fan (mostly because he evicted my Country Bears from Critter Country). Speaking of which I had to laugh because the posted wait was 2 minutes.. I do not remember seeing a wait that low, usually I thought 5 was the lowest. I thought it was interesting how the queue area is much larger now and you can no longer walk around the dead end unless you cut through the gift shop, or the queue. Also it looks like the entrance to the queue is only on the Splash side, wonder what that does to traffic exiting the Winnie the Pooh attraction. Seems those families will want to get in line and have to go searching for the entrance and could bottle things up a bit. I did not make it back that way later in the day when the characters were out so no clue how it actually works.

  • I spent some time walking through the Emporium. The new design does feel much more open, also factor in it was just about 9:30am and not many people shopping. Not sure if I like the new look or not. There definitely is a lot of space reserved for the lines, but I am assuming that means there were guest complaints and this was in response to them and in the evening when the shop is crowded this probably makes for a much more organized and efficient process.

  • A little after 9:30 I headed for DCA. I let the initial crowd go in then walked right in. Grabbed a Fastpass for World of Color (speaking of which when I was on my way to the 9pm show in the evening at about 10 till 9 there were still Fastpasses for the 10:15 show being distributed).

  • I joined the mass walking briskly toward Toy Story at the rope drop. I noticed there was a new (or new to me) song playing. It was not the Celebrate You theme but instead some other celebrate song. Anyone have know what it is?

  • Toy Story is still a big draw and with Screamin still down really the main reason for guests to hike out around the Pier. I was in the first 50-100 guests in line so it was a walk on for me. By the time I exited and made my way around past the entrance again, which was only 5-10 minutes later, the line was posted at 40 minutes and looked busy. I continued on to the Fun Wheel and had to wait about one cycle since there were a lot of small parties in front of me and they were not grouping. By the time I got back around the line was a good half hour or longer already.

  • It was really hard to tell in my photos but the footprint for the new Buena Vista Street buildings comes out quite a bit more than the old buildings. Guess this is because the dining area in the cafe is enclosed, etc.. It is exciting to see the steel up already and the project is moving ahead quickly. The area around the pumphouse looks to be on the home stretch so maybe the walls on that side of the street will come down early to open up the area a bit more.

  • Back at Disneyland it jumped out to me at how alive Main Street was today. As I pushed through the crowd I noticed most of the Main Street fleet of transportation was running. I saw two omnibuses, two horseless carriages, two street cars, and the fire truck all making the rounds. It was great to see and the kinetic effect on the street were noticeable to me.

  • I finally managed to see the short show featuring some of the Soundsational Parade drummers out by Small World. It is called Calling All Drummers and was performed four times Saturday (noon, 12:35, and twice during the 1pm hour I did not write down the show times so do not remember exactly. I want to say 1:10 and 1:45). I thought it was a fun little show. I thought the story line was a bit hooky but the talent of the performers more than made up for it. I would have also liked to have seen the performers allowed more freedom. Due to the show being dictated by the audio I thought they did not have time to really interact with the crowd and allow for some free form.



  • I stopped by the Oktoberfest in Downtown Disney a couple of times throughout the afternoon/evening to see what was going on. I thought it sounded interesting. Those who were inside the penned off area all seemed to be having a good time. I was a little disappointed by the small area with the stage in the back and with so much else going on around it, it seemed overshadowed to me. In the evening I walked by and the line for House of Blues dominated the area and then the other performances going on along the main walkway. I am not sure how else they could have done it given the crowds and space limitations but it seemed to be lacking a bit to me.

  • Downtown Disney felt really crowded to me Saturday night. I usually do not spend that much time in Downtown Disney and when I do it is on Fridays so not sure if this is normal or not but there were quite a few people everywhere.

  • I went for a ride on the Haunted Mansion after dark again and there were a lot of guests in the area, with the Standby line stretching to 75 minutes, but the area did not seem as crazy as it was a few weeks ago. There were quite a few CMs in the area and I think made the difference and kept the crowd flowing.

  • Speaking of crowd I hiked back to DCA to watch World of Color since I had a Fastpass and because of my late arrival I was in the back of the Blue section. Overall the view was not that bad, but the number of guests putting kids up on their shoulders really was annoying and several people around me ended up bailing out to seek other spots or leave because of their completely obstructed views. Because of how low World of Color is this seems even more of a problem than the fireworks. I understand wanting to get your kids up where they can see and holding them is really a pain or not an option but there has to be a better solution. Maybe a designated standing area near the back of the sections or something. Thanks to the fairly level viewing terraces those who are on the shorter side have a hard enough time seeing if they are back several people from the front but throw this extra obstacle in and it has to be very frustrating for them. For me it was an annoyance that made it hard to shoot nice wide shots but for some it seems it would impact their entire experience in a negative way.

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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