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10/12/11 - My thoughts and observations from Wednesdays Annual Passholder event at Disneyland
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10/12/11 - My thoughts and observations from Wednesdays Annual Passholder event at Disneyland

Hello all,

I headed down to the Disneyland Resort on Wednesday for the Disneyland Annual Passholder Soundsational Parade event. I arrived a early and spent the afternoon roaming the parks, which seemed like a great idea except for the fact that the temperature was in the 90s. The crowds in the parks were about what I expected, on the light side but not not walk-ons. For example Toy Story was 25-30 minutes the couple times I walked by. The Fun Wheel a cycle or so for the non-swinging.

Jason

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

Disneyland & DCA Thoughts and Observations:

  • I do not have much to report from the parks. As you saw in the pictures there was some visible progress in a couple areas around DCA and the Hotel, which was interesting to see as always. The only other park note that jumps out to me is they had only one Monorail running (Orange) so wait times were too long for my patience to ride twice and get construction shots facing both ways. I was happy to see you could still get a pictures/view of the work even with the new walls.

  • The main reason for going to the parks on Wednesday was the special Annual Passholder event featuring Mickeys Soundsational Parade. The event was announced on the Disney Parks Blog and open to all Annual Passholders. You had to send an RSVP e-mail to an address posted on the blog with your contact information. If you made the cut you were allowed to bring three additional Annual Passholders as guests. The event was free and lasted from 8:00pm till midnight at Disneyland. There is a second one next Monday, the 17th. The blog listed very little in terms of details. It did say there would be a running of parade, an up-close look at the parade floats, Meet-and-greet photo opportunities with some favorite Disney Characters, and the chance to enjoy select attractions, stores and restaurants in Tomorrowland, Fantasyland and Main Street, U.S.A.

  • It has been a long time since they held an Annual Passholder event at the parks. These used to be semi regular occurrences then seemed to fall out of favor after the infamous Light Magic Preview (which I was not able to attend for some reason.. I cannot remember why now.. ). I have great memories of some of the events in the mid 90s where you had a chance to tour the round house, see the new Team Disney Building, walk through a dark ride in Fantasyland, ride Space Mountain with the lights on, and other treats along those lines. Hopefully this event hit the right marks and this is the start of a trend. I was kind of surprised this was not done in conjunction with D23 at all, this seems like it would have been a perfect event to have both involved in.

  • The RSVP process was a breeze, still thought it was odd that it was not a webform through the Disneyland AP site or something. Seems a lot of extra overhead to have to process all those e-mail requests to me.. but it worked. I sent in my e-mail and then when the list was posted my name appeared and I received a confirmation e-mail The check in process was smooth with no real wait and plenty of CMs on hand. You were able to check in starting at noon so I think that helped too to space out the arrivals. Upon check in you received a handout with the schedule for the evening, a wristband, and a voucher for a PhotoPass discount. I thought the discount was odd.. it was for up to 5 photo downloads at $1.99 each. I guess that is a decent savings but still seemed odd to me.

  • The handout:
    • Listed the parade as being at 9:30pm and then at 10:30pm some of the floats and characters from the parade will be on Main Street USA.
    • There was a blurb about the special items at the dining locations, but no indication of what they were. The Blue Ribbon Bakery, Main Street Refreshment Corner, Tomorrowland Terrace, and Redd Rocketts Pizza Port were all participating. I found out that Coke Corner had a bacon mac and cheese hot dog, Tomorrowland Terrace was doing a free cupcake with meal purchase. The other two I did not make it to, if anyone has a picture/info feel free to send it along and I will include it. No one in our group wanted to try the hot dog, but several had a cupcake and said they were good. They did not really elaborate beyond that...
    • A couple merchandise deals. If you purchased a classic Mickey ear hat the embroidery was free. The PhotoPass coupon, and $20 off if you renewed your Deluxe or Premium Pass this evening.
    • At the bottom a listing of the attractions and shops open on Main Street, Tomorrowland, and Fantasyland.

  • We started the evening off with a stop in Tomorrowland. With no Fastpass the lines at the attractions were moving quickly and the small crowd meant there really was not a long wait. The first time by Star Tours said 40 min, after walking on Buzz it said 30, we ended up waiting about 20. As the evening went on the line shrunk to a posted 10 minute wait and I heard many saying it was near walk on later in the night. Based on what I saw in Tomorrowland I would assume Fantasyland was much the same, but I never quite made it out there.

  • A highlight of the evening was an unannounced and somewhat hidden gem. Three members of the creative team behind the Soundsational Parade took part in a panel discussion and then Q&A session at the Tomorrowland Terrace. Verses me trying to describe it I recorded the discussion, the video is below. I always enjoy these types of panels so this was no different. You always learn something new.


  • Seeing the parade with the lights on did bring a new dimension to it. I always tend to favor the parades after dark, I think the lighting adds to the show usually and this was no different. The on float lights were fairly minimal but they worked. Here is a video clip of the finale going by:


  • After the panel discussion I headed back to Main Street to see the floats up close. They had a handful of the units out along with some of the cast from the parade for pictures. I thought this was a great finale for the evening and gave you something you cannot normally do.

  • Overall I thought the event was extremely well run. There were plenty of cast members on hand and thanks to relatively low cap on the attendance there was plenty of space to enjoy the event. My one complaint of the evening was in communicating what was going on. For example I think they missed a great opportunity to draw people to the panel discussion. There were a couple of announcements in the Tomorrowland Terrace area (I do not think it went park wide) and nothing else. Also they did not post the time anywhere. For example I walked by when they were doing the sound check and even then the CMs played it close to the vest with the time and who was going to be there. Same goes for the special dining offerings. I thought having those posted somewhere or tweeted or something would have been helpful too.

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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