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10/30/15 - Thoughts and observations from Friday at the Disneyland Resort
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10/30/15 - Thoughts and observations from Friday at the Disneyland Resort

Hello everyone,

Friday was my 30th visit of the year to the Disneyland Resort and was mild weather wise. The crowds on the other hand were moderate to start the day and only grew from there. By night fall Ghost Galaxy and Haunted Mansion Holiday had posted stand by waits of 2 hours.

Jason

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

Thoughts and Observations:

  • I was really surprised today not to find a Halloween Party scheduled. I guess since there was one Saturday night they kept the parks with regular hours on Friday. So this meant I managed to go the entire Halloween season only visiting on one Party night thanks to my Paris trip and the USC football schedule.

  • As I walked the parks and took in the Christmas decorations it was hard to get in the holiday mood with the temperatures in the upper 80s and Halloween not here yet.

  • The biggest news of the afternoon seemed to be the new walkway/bridge in New Orleans Square. It links the 2nd story near the Club 33 Jazz Lounge (across from the rest rooms) to the train station near the wheelchair ramp. Best guess is this will be used by Cast Members to reach the backstage area once the railroad closes in January for Star Wars construction. This is the first in many examples to come of the impact this project will have on the park. It is going to be an interesting year ahead with so much of the park closed due to the work, most of it temporary for a year or so but some gone forever. So far we know the Big Thunder BBQ, Ranch, and Jamboree will all be gone permanently. The Rivers of America (all River traffic, Tom Sawyer Island, and Fantasmic) will be closed for 12-15 months from all indications I have seen. The Disneyland Railroad will also be closed during this time. Internet reporting is the Rivers of America will be shortened as will the Railroad track to allow more space for Star Wars.

  • Nothing too interesting to report from Disney California Adventure. I am surprised they have not come up with some sort of daytime entertainment or activity to utilize Paradise Park. At one point there were no signs of life in the park at all. That is a large piece of under utilized space in the middle of the park most of the time. At least bring back the Instant Concerts.. but maybe with a more Disney twist vs classical music to engage the audience more.

  • As night fell the park became more crowded as usual. Both Haunted Mansion Holiday and Ghost Galaxy had waits over 2 hours. Haunted Mansion Holiday featured a very large and confused mass of guests in front of it and filling Magnolia Park. Pirates for most of the day was utilizing the overflow queue and taking up large chunks of New Orleans Square too.

  • I arrived in New Orleans Square just after 8:15pm to find a spot for Fantasmic. The standby area I wanted was not open yet. I failed to secure a FastPass for the 9pm show, they were already on the 10:45pm show when I stopped by. As I walked around the Rivers of America I overhead quite a few guests lost, frustrated and confused by the FastPass and many going up to cast members asking where to go. The entire process seems very unclear. I have not been a fan of it and every time I walk through it really re-enforces a negative guest experience for me. Again I saw cast members yelling at guests who had no idea about the ropes and were just looking for a spot for the show. Eventually around 8:45pm I headed back to the Standby entrance near the Harbour Galley and was let in. There seemed to be some confusion on the part of the cast members and ropes had not been set up yet so you could walk quite a ways into the viewing area. It worked out as I was able to go where I used to go pre-FastPass days.

  • As the finale started I started my trek for the exit because I did not want to stay out there for Disneyland Forever and did not want to be stuck in the large crowd. Because of the way they have the traffic flow set up I was forced to walk through New Orleans Square which is rather narrow and always busy. This led to a very slow march back to Main Street. I still managed to arrive at Coke Corner just as Disneyland Forever started.

  • I walked down Main Street trying to see if there were any reasonable openings for Disneyland Forever but there really were not and I did not want to be rude and push my way in. So I headed for Town Square to try some alternative viewing areas. I learned there are really not many good ones. You can see the shells going off but the projections look poor or are not visible at all in the areas I tried. As the finale came I decided to head out to the main entrance to see about getting a picture of the shells over the train station but I was too slow and my pictures were not good.

  • Thanks to the 9:45pm start time for World of Color and me being ahead of the Disneyland Forever crowd hopping onto a tram and leaving was really easy tonight. Then I lucked out on the drive home and there were no accidents or Caltrans work!

  • Do you visit our pictorial updates using a mobile device? If so we would like your feedback. I have created a more mobile version of our Disneyland Picture sets at https://disneygeek.com/mobile Please give it a try and share your thoughts.

Interesting Web Finds/Notes:

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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