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11/01/19 - Thoughts and observations from Friday
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11/01/19 - Thoughts and observations from Friday

Hello everyone!

The Disneyland Resort is undergoing its annual rapid transition from Halloween to Christmas this week. Halloween was the night before my visit but already throughout the parks much of the Halloween decorations are gone and Christmas is arriving quickly. Stores are filled with Christmas (and Frozen II) merchandise. The Holiday season officially kicks off next Friday, the 8th. This week the crowds were heavier than I would have thought given the parks being between seasons. Wait times were on the high side when I arrived and continued to climb as usual as the afternoon went on. The weather was a perfect "fall" day in Southern California with the highs around 80 and dropping to the 60s by the time I left.

Thoughts and Observations:

  • This afternoon my arrival experience at the parks was mixed. The overpass was closed so I had to sit through a light at Ball Road. No lines at the tollbooth but then a slow crawl up the ramp and into a spot on the roof. No wait at security or to board a tram.

  • The parking structures tram stop project is wrapping up. The final sections are blocked off for paver work. Which meant on Friday the two sets of escalators to the lower levels were not accessible at the Mickey & Friends structure. They have started to add the metal mesh to the exterior of the structure. The exterior of the new elevator shafts showed little visible progress, guessing work has shifted to the interior.

  • As I mentioned the parks felt busy. FastPasses for Haunted Mansion Holiday were after 9pm when I first checked. I then looked at DCA and there were late return times for attractions too. I lucked out and when I went back to Disneyland a HMH for a window that opened within 20 minutes popped up so I grabbed those. After riding I again lucked out and picked up a Toy Story one for a time slot that worked with my plan for the evening.

  • I did not have as much luck with stand-by queues. I had wanted to go for a spin on the Pixar Pal-A-Round but the wait was 30 minutes or longer the couple times I walked by/checked during the day.

  • At Disneyland the Hub / Tomorrowland Entrance renovation is moving along. Some walkways have reopened which has helped with traffic flow. From the Astro Orbitor it looks like the rest of the south side is moving quickly toward completion. The north side did not have that much visible progress.

  • When I used my FastPass for the Haunted Mansion Holiday the return queue was moving quickly but everything ground to a halt once exiting the stretching rooms. Not sure why they kept filling the rooms so much and jamming guests into the corridor below.

  • Grabbed dinner at the Smokejumpers grill. There were plenty of tables and no waits during my visit (which was around 4pm).

  • Spent some time roaming around Toontown as the sun set checking out how the Toons decorated this year. Nothing drastically different jumped out to me. It seems to be the same as last year on a first look around.

  • Something new to me in Toontown was the additional recreation activity that was added in the Downtown area.. cast members were letting guests fish in the Roger Rabbit fountain. The CMs and kids that were participating looked to be having a good time. Not sure why this was going on or if this is a regular occurrence. It was my first time noticing it.

  • Took a walk through Batuu after sunset. The streets of Black Spire Outpost had a fair number of guests moving about and the stand by wait for Smugglers Run was posted at 65 minutes. Docking Bay 7 menu labels have been altered to be more obvious what the food is. Before the names were more on planet and the descriptions told you what the food was, but I guess this was too much for guests so they had to change the title too.

  • The Musical Celebration of Coco and Día de Muertos festivities at Disney California Adventure run through Sunday. Friday night when I visited the area was busy and the show was a half dozen or so guests deep as usual.

  • The Toy Story Midway Mania FastPass return was slow this evening. It took me almost 20 minutes to get through the queue and ride this evening. They were making announcements for those in the stand by that the wait time was longer than what the sign said when they entered. So guessing a large number of FastPass guests showed up or something right before I got in line.

  • Walked through Downtown Disney to see what was going on this evening. Halloween decorations were still up throughout. Phat Cat Swinger was performing on the West End Stage, next week they move into DCA for Festival of Holidays. In front of the former Rain Forest Cafe a new trailer has arrived and is being set up. It will be a new dining location - Asian Street Eats. World of Disney has transitions and the central area is Christmas central. There is also a Frozen 2 section replacing the princesses.

  • Stopped by to visit Fortune Red when I returned to Disneyland. I am halfway through the third story in the Play Disney App there. It has become hard to reach him with the area being used as the entrance for the character meet and greet much of the time.

  • Since I was in the area I stopped to watch the first half of Fantasmic from a stand by area in the back that had no crowd. It was a fairly obstructed view of the show but with no wait and a last second decision (the show as going on when I stopped) it was not horrible.

  • Mickey's Mix Magic has returned for a week bridging the gap between Halloween Screams and Believe in Holiday Magic this weekend.

  • Downtown Disney's tram stop was set up with a large queue again and cast members were directing guests to waiting tram load zones. Overall the system worked efficiently for me. I was able to just keep walking and a tram pulled in and I made it on with minimal waits.

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

Geek's Blog Postings Recap September 25 - October 21, 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.

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