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Hello everyone,

Friday was a very crowded day at the Disneyland Resort. I was expecting it to be a little heavier than my previous visit but it felt like the holidays at Disneyland and even DCA had a heavier than expected crowd. I am not sure if its the Halloween promotion or something else that lead to this. The weekend before was Columbus day, so that was not it. The lines were not overly long early in the day but grew as the evening came, with a couple of exceptions, such as the Sun Wheel which on a normal Friday is a walkon to full cycle (15 minute) wait, but Friday the line was 3-4 times that length the two times I walked by.

Jason

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

Disneyland & DCA Thoughts and Observations:

• The story of the day from my perspective were the crowd that grew as the day went on. Adding to the crowding at Disneyland was the fact that DCA closed at 6:00pm because of the Halloween party so after the Block Party Bash there was a migration across the Esplanade and add in people getting off work and coming to the park and Main Street was quite busy from 6:00pm on. It looked like the crowd control CMs had their hands ful for the 6:30 parade. Most of the food lines were very long too, as noted by the one shot of the Wharf Cafe that extended out and into the walkway. At Disneyland the lines were the same almost everywhere.
  
  
• The Haunted Mansion area was in full holiday swing with guests going everywhere and near gridlock as people try to get fastpasses, get in the standby line, and use fastpasses. The area is just so tight there is no place for everyone to go. There were quite a few CMs trying to handle the masses but add in the darkness and the usual Fantasmic/Splash Mountain traffic and it was its usual self. Also once inside they seemed to be even further backed up than usual once you come out of the stretching room, it took us several minutes just to get out of the room, seems they dumped too many guests too fast into the hallway.
  
  
• Before DCA closed I spent some time roaming the park looking at the Halloween party preparations and then on my way out some time looking through the gates. It did not seem over crowded or decorated but those inside seemed to be having a good time and the comments I overheard were positive. I am still not a big fan of these after hour parties because of the impact they have on the regular day guests. This is much worse at Walt Disney World but Disneyland is starting down that slippery slope with these Halloween parties, especially if Friday is any indication of what happens to the crowds. I say WDW is worse becuase they have actually taken things that used to be part of the regular day and made them only in the after hours parties. For example if you want to see the Christmas parade or fireworks you have to go to the after hours party at the Magic Kingdom. They only run the parade for a few days around Christmas for the general paying tourist and I believe they don't run the holiday fireworks at all. Same with the holiday stage shows.
  
  
• I also noticed the monorail was fully wrapped, I didn't get any good shots of it though due to timing and darkness... maybe next trip. Also there appeared only to be the one running, the time between trains was long and the line looked solid.
  
  
• As for the various projects going on around the parks:
  • The new Fort (well I guess its really going to be just a facade since I don't think they are plannig to open the gates again from what I have read on other sites) looks to be in the final stretch with just the tops of the towers missing for the most part.
  • The DVC expansion to the Grand Californian looks to be moving along nicely with the footprint of the new wing clearly visible.
  • Toy Story Mania at DCA now has windows and it looks like the facade will really start to take shape and finish up in the next several weeks. The level of detail on this new building looks to be quite extensive. The main show building behind Screamin looks a little odd, wonder if it will be painted differently or if once the highly detailed front building is finished you will not see or notice the brown one behind the coaster.
    
    
• Well that's all that comes to mind for this trip. Besides the crowd it was a nice relaxing day at the parks since I did not have much on the agenda and the weather was mild.

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