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10/18/19 - Thoughts and observations from Friday
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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.

10/18/19 - Thoughts and observations from Friday

Hello everyone!

I spent a full day at the Disneyland Resort on Friday. Arriving at park opening and spending just over 12 hours exploring the parks and enjoying some of the entertainment. The crowds were heavier than my past several visits and felt back to normal for this time of year. By nightfall the parks felt busy as you would expect on a pleasant October night. The weather was mile starting off in the 60s and climbing to the upper 70s before falling again as night fell.

Thoughts and Observations:

  • I arrived at the parking structures around 7:30am, we arrived in Anaheim early and went to breakfast then I drove over to park. No delays at all entering the structure nor at the toll booth. I used the new booth to the far right, it is a really awkward location, wonder if the plan is to remove the wall to integrate it more at some point or just keep it off by itself. Then my luck ended with cars backed up all the way down the ramp to the 5th/6th floors. We crept along at a snails pace up the ramp, merged into a single lane, then crawled along the back side of the Donald level and over to the Finding Nemo level in the new garage where I was directed into a spot in the furthest aisle about a handful of spaces from the back of the garage. It was almost 15 minutes from toll booth to parking spot. Not a good way to start your visit to the parks. Why do they not have more lanes or levels open for arrivals? There were plenty of cast members. I counted almost a dozen clustered around each other near the end of an aisle in the Pixar Pals Structure, they were just standing there waiting.. parking is not very efficient and seeing so many cast members not parking cars added to the poor arrival experience today. Wonder what the goal is in terms of getting cars into spaces? I would assume 10-15 minutes is substantially longer than the goal/plan.

  • Halloween Time continues to roll along in the parks, the season seems so long now a days. Christmas is starting to arrive with some visible changes like snow on Sleeping Beauty Castle as well as smaller light installations around the parks. Monday it's a small world closes for its annual changeover

  • As we walked around the parks today I observed quite a few instances, several dozen, of groups of 3 or more cast members clustered together talking to each other or just standing there waiting. Usually you see some. Sometimes they are waiting to be sent somewhere, sometimes training, or for a number of other purposes but today there just seemed to be quite a few just talking and it stood out. So much so that others in the group that do not visit the park as frequently asked me if that was the new normal.

  • Started my day at Disney California Adventure today, which worked in my favor in terms of entrance lines. Disneyland was long and DCA was no line. First stop was Pixar Pier and I was able to literally walk onto the Pixar Pal-A-Round. They held it for us and we walked right into the gondola, sat down, and our ride began. The ride was not smooth today with at least three backups for people to exit early. The line grew quickly behind me as the Incredicoaster went down around the time I entered the wheel. Also it appeared Racers were done, I saw no cars during our spin.

  • Around 10am made our way to Disneyland. The lines were still long to enter the park but they moved quickly. The scanners for passes seemed to be reading more efficiently today. Did they change something recently, or just good luck? They were scanning tickets/passes from a good distance and it was reading on the first try. Maybe I just had good luck today.

  • Alice in Wonderland showed a 10 min wait in the app and on the sign, but it looked longer. We still waited and it turned out to be closer to 20 minutes. While in line encountered several guests that just make you shake your head. One group thought it would be a good idea to help their kids stand on the railings and then take pictures. To add to the delay instead of having the kids move forward so they could get the picture they just backed into the group behind them and pushed them backwards into us so they could get a wide enough picture. Another somehow was separated and the second half of the group decided to push through the queue to join the first half. The Alice in Wonderland queue is barely wide enough to stand in.. trying to pass in it is a very tight squeeze for two adults.

  • Spent some time in Toontown taking in the new view. The hills that stretched from the Gag Factory behind the downtown area and out to Minnie's house have been removed. These were hiding a backstage building that has also been removed. This is the first stage of construction for Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway opening in 2022. Form the Miss Daisy you get a fairly clear view of the Team Disney Building (the large office building adjacent to the I-5 freeway). From what I have read the new building will have hills or something to hide it and add a backdrop to Toontown again once it is completed.

  • The Miss Daisy received a fresh coat of paint on the ground level overnight. The area still smelled like paint and had several wet paint signs up. It looked nice and clean again though.

  • Tomorrowland is testing a new FastPass distribution system. There are a trio of kiosks set up in the former queue space of the Tomorrowland Theater. As you approach the area there is a sign (one of the Galaxy's Edge boarding group signs) that lists the three Tomorrowland FastPass attractions and the current return times. You go to any kiosk, scan your park ticket and the same information is displayed asking you to choose which you would like a FastPass for. You select the one you want and the screen shows a digital version of your FastPass. No paper reminder is printed. You need to remember the time, check the Disneyland Ap, take a picture of the digital one, or scan your ticket to check with a cast member. This system seems very similar to what Shanghai Disneyland opened with, clustered FastPass distribution for each land. The system seemed to work efficiently on Friday the couple times I used it and walked by to see.

  • If you are an annual passholder and use mobile order at select locations you can pick up a free button. For lunch we ordered from the Galactic Grill and the Tiki Juice Bar and received buttons at both locations. The Galactic Grill was efficient and when they prepared your order they put the button on the tray for you. The Tiki Juice Bar you had to ask and the cast members took a moment to figure it out. I still wish the mobile order would allow you more choices to customize. For example I wanted a plain burger. I could get no cheese and no sauce but I could not get it without the lettuce and tomatoes. I really think it needs a plain option. Also if you do not want a side, just a burger, there is no option for that. My burger and fries were slightly better than the Hungry Bear last visit but still not good.

  • Throughout the afternoon enjoyed some entertainment around the parks including the Disneyland Band & Character march to Town Square, a couple Dapper Dan performances and the Musical Celebration of Coco. The Dapper Dans were enjoyable as always. I still think it would be helpful if the app or printed guide would tell you where their set is.. vs having to remember, guess, look around, or find a CM that knows. If you were curious the ones I noticed on Friday were - 12:30 was with the Band marching and performing in Town Square. 1:15 was at Refreshment Corner, 2:30 the Firehouse, 4:30 Flag Retreat.

  • For dinner grabbed a corn dog from Corn Dog Castle and remembered why I am not a fan of them there. For some reason they just do not taste as good as the ones on Main Street.

  • Spent some time as the sun was setting in Downtown Disney. Enjoyed a performance by the SCAREolers as well as the MoonRays. Both groups were entertaining and the sets were long which was great.

  • Walked by the Villains Dance party in Tomorrowland a couple of times and it seemed to have less characters. On previous visits the overlap between Villains seemed to ensure 3-6 on stage at a time. At one point there was only one, the Queen of Hearts. There was still a good size crowd on the dance floor and milling around.

  • After night fall the parks became much more crowded, as normal on a Friday. The Halloween offerings drew good size crowds. At one point the Haunted Mansion Holiday had a posted 120 minute wait. FastPass distribution for the day ended before sunset so that added to the longer waits. Most other attractions were well under an hour. For example out in Black Spire Outpost the wait for Smugglers Run was 25 minutes at that time.

  • I left the park around 8:15pm and full tram loads of guests were still arriving. They had the queue set up for tram loading and were already directing guests to tram load zones. The process worked really smoothly given the number of guests leaving.

Here are some recent posts to the Geek's Blog:

D23 Expo 2019 Summary Page - Links to all the announcements so far and will eventually contain links to all of our coverage

Geek's Blog Postings Recap September 10-25, 2019


Disney Related Press Releases

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

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

Send comments, questions, any other email to: disneygeek@disneygeek.com

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