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

10/19/18 - Thoughts and observations from Friday at the Disneyland Resort
Friday the crowds felt worse than summer at the Disneyland Resort. After sunset Disney California Adventure felt worse than holiday busy with long lines for just about everything again. I think the three key factors to this feeling were another Friday Halloween Party at Disneyland, Halloween Time coming to an end at the parks, and many Utah schools on Fall break. The weather started off hot and breezy with highs in the 90s but cooled to the low 70s by the time I left and was in the 60s when I reached home.


Thoughts and Observations:

  • Started my visit off as has become the routine checking out the Star Wars and Parking Structure projects. On the Star Wars front the visible progress is minimal as expected with the parts of the project that you can see over the buildings and trees becoming less and less each week. The parking structure continues to grow at a good clip with the sections nearest the Mickey and Friends starting to stretch to the 5th floor and the escalator structure showing progress too. The rest of the garage is above the 2nd floor now with various sections done as you move across the project.

  • I visited the Disneyland Hotel since I had not been there in a while. A group was performing in front of the Halloween Photo op in the main lobby (in the Fantasy Tower). They are called the Cyrptics and perform throughout the afternoon. There set is similar to the Scarolers you can catch in Downtown Disney on Wednesdays & Sundays. I thought it was an entertaining set and watching Chip interact with them and guests was great.

  • Walked through Downtown Disney to reach the parks today. No waits at security. Not much going on as I walked through either. No visible change on the West side. The Monorail was closed, as has become the norm on hot days. Further along the under construction new dining locations on the north side do not have a lot of visible progress either. Salt and Straw opened since my last visit and with the 90 degree plus weather had a healthy queue outside the store this afternoon.

  • The big news in Downtown Disney is the return of the World of Disney. The store fully reopened Friday morning. The new store feels much more open and bigger on a first walk through. I guess it may be because more merchandise is along the perimeter? I found the animated/projection touches a little plus but overall I thought the store itself lacked something. It starts outside with a generic sign, no traces of Disney. Once inside there is a lot of merchandise covering everything you would expect from the parks, Marvel, Star Wars, Princesses, Pixar, Disney Junior, etc.. The large center section is set up for Christmas so it will be interesting to see what seasonal or other featured products fill this space throughout the year. Three sets of windows along Downtown Disney feature some animation/projections/lighting and are interesting to see. The rest of the windows are a plain backside of a backdrop with a solid color light at night.

  • First stop today was Disneyland for me. The walls are down from the West side of the hub. The walkways, planters, and water way look more or less the same. No substantial changes. The plants around the water have been cut back and reduced it appears and the water way cleaned maybe, but no other changes jumped out. There is a small section of the path from Frontierland to Fantasy Faire closed still.

  • Most FastPasses for both parks were gone by dinner time. With Disneyland closing at 7pm this was not a surprise but DCA had almost everything gone too by the 5pm hour.

  • As the sun set the crowds at Disney California Adventure jumped up. Around 7:45pm some posted wait times: 90 min for the Pixar Pal-A-Round, 40 min for Mater's, 50 min for Luigi's, 180 min for Guardians, 160 min for Incredicoaster, 150 for Soarin, 120 Radiator Springs Racers, even 45 min for the swings. Dining lines were long too with it not uncommon to see a couple dozen guests in line for snack items. Quick service was even worse. Flo's had a queue out the door and down Cross Street. Mobile dining windows were an hour later for some locations. Rest room lines were also long in many locations with it not uncommon to see the women's queue outside the door.

  • I decided to stay for Paint the Night and found a spot about 10 minutes before show time. 8:50 came and went. 9:00 came and still no signs of the parade or announcements. At this point decided to start walking. As I walked down the route figured out it has reversed course this visit and was arriving in the Pier area from Hollywood Land. All summer long it had started near Paradise Gardens and worked its way to Hollywood Land. I found this interesting. Is this the new norm? Anyone know?

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

Geek’s Blog Postings Recap October 1-15, 2018

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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