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11/01/21 - Disney California Adventure & Disneyland Visit
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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.

11/01/21 - Disney California Adventure & Disneyland Visit

Hello Everyone!

I paid a rare Monday visit to the Disneyland Resort.  After booking I found out Monday many local school districts were off.  Both Magic Key and regular passes were showing full for the day.   Walking around the parks there were a lot of guests but the crowd felt less than our previous visit.  Wait times were well under an hour for most attractions most of the day.  The weather was overcast/cloudy and cool, in the 60s almost all day.   Today was a relaxing day overall for me in the parks with the goal of hanging out with my nephews (2.5 & 5 years old) and catching up with some other friends later in the day.

Thoughts and Observations:

  • Started our morning off on a positive note with a boarding group for WEB Slingers at 7am while eating breakfast.  Much better than my past couple of tries for Rise of the Resistance at 7am.
  • No delays in parking, security or walking to the parks this morning.  I did overhear a number of guests grumbling about the walk, more than past visits.
  • This is always an interesting time of year as the parks move quickly from Halloween to Christmas.  Most of the Halloween decorations inside both parks were removed already.  Christmas officially starts Nov 12th this year.
  • Today we started in Disney California Adventure since we had not started there in several visits.  I opted to take my youngest nephew so others could go on a couple things he was too short for still.  I do not think he was pleased with the idea as he refused to go on any attractions.  With most being walk ons we went through the queue and when it came time to board he decided they were no goes and clung to me saying NO.  I was not going to force him to ride something so we just moved on.  He has been on everything we tried several times and usually enjoys them so only guess was he was not pleased being excluded from the rides his brother was going on.
  • At rope drop it seemed a majority of guests rushed to Radiator Springs Racers and within a few minutes the cast members were telling guests they were in for over an hour wait.  Members of my group were close to the front and had a 30 minute wait.
  • Out in Paradise Bay the renovation work for World of Color continues.  There appears to be a fair amount of work underway and the project does not appear to be wrapping up any time soon.  The most visible change this visit were the rebar and forms for new support columns for the projector housings.  This time it appears they will be using concrete supports vs the original steel.  Will be interesting to see if the housing themselves will be different this time too.  It would have been nice to see them opt for a retracting system so the Bay would be clear during the day, but judging by the column height that does not appear to be the case.
  • Stopped by the Disney Junior Dance Party.  The show currently features Vamparina, Doc McStuffins and Mickey & Minnie Mouse.   Kids are asked to dance in place and all the performers stay up on the stage.  Cast members kept those in the front a good distance from the stage and kept reminding everyone to keep their masks on.  I did not notice any other noteworthy changes in the show.  Bubbles, streamers and snow still fall from the ceiling.
  • We walked by WEB Slingers just before our group was due to be called and noticed the attraction was down and backing up in the queue.  So we went and ate lunch vs waiting around.  While eating our group was called so we returned.  My instinct was to skip it but others wanted to ride and we were nearing noon so wanted to get our tickets scanned so we could try for Rise of the Resistance.   When we entered the queue it was backed up around the corner of the building back toward the meet and greet location.  The line moved quickly and in a couple minutes we were scanned and in the main queue.  It took about 30  minutes for us to work through the full queue and extended queue backstage.  I still do not understand why they would keep calling new groups and not let the backup clear up first.  The positive of this was we were outside when noon came and were able to pick up a Rise of the Resistance boarding group.
  • At 1:00pm the line for DCA stretched back to the compass.  They appeared to start to let park hoppers in a couple minutes early today.   Over at Disneyland the lines were shorter, they were short of the Monorail beam.
  • Plaza Point Christmas Shoppe replaced the camera shop on the north east corner of Main Street USA.  The store opened last week so this was my first visit.  My first impression was there are a lot of props around the store.  It seemed very busy from that perspective. I did enjoy taking a look at them.  It is a fairly small store so it felt on the crowded side with just a few guests inside.   The merchandise was standard Christmas fair with nothing unique jumping out to me, but I have to admit I spent most of my time looking at the props and store itself and not the merch the two times I walked through.
  • When I exited the Plaza Point store I noticed the line for corn dogs stretched almost all the way to the Plaza Inn entrance.  I did a quick check and mobile order return time was nearly instantly.  I found it interesting to watch all those guests in line using their phones but not wanting to mobile order.
  • The cavalcades are not listed in the app or website yet, so looks like they will not be.  The Christmas Parade starts Nov 12th and I am assuming the cavalcades will be retired at that point.  This was my first time seeing the regular Disney Friends one, it had been Halloween for my previous viewings.  I stopped for the 2:15pm one in the hub.  It was great to hear Brand New Day again in a park.  I heard that song endlessly during my visit to Tokyo Disneyland for its 35th anniversary.
  • In the mid afternoon the wait times in Fantasyland were getting quite long and the app was not accurate.  For example it had the carrousel at 15 min but it spilled out of the queue and wrapped around to Pinocchio, which was much longer than 15 minutes.  The area felt fairly crowded as we walked around too this afternoon.
  • When I used my Rise of the Resistance boarding pass it was about a 20 minute wait from entering the queue until the briefing room.  We flowed through the attraction with no major delays.  We were backed up about halfway down the hallway after the hanger.  I am still not a fan of how quickly they rush you through the hanger.  They were not allowing guests to really stop for pictures. If you slowed down you were told to move along.  The cast members in the interrogation area were not really into their roles this visit.  They were going through the motions and directing guest more like regular CMs.
  • Friends had a boarding group that was called about an hour after ours and the attraction went down. They received no information from Cast Members beyond the normal announcement saying it was down.  After 30 minutes of not moving they gave up and moved on.  There boarding  pass was converted to a pass good for any attraction, except WEB Slingers.   Seems to me they should allow you to opt for WEB Slingers instead.
  • Stopped by the Stage Door Cafe for dinner this evening.  The return time for mobile order was 30 minutes away when I placed my order. When we showed up there was no one at the mobile pick up so I looked to adjust and after 2 tries it let me move to a time within 5 minutes.  The line to order at a register had about a half dozen parties waiting.
  • After dinner I roamed the park a bit while others went on Haunted Mansion Holiday.  In Toontown it looks like they may be getting close to adding the facade on the show building. More support steel was installed and the giant sign was removed.  I was unable to get a look at the new pavement work because the wait for the train was too long the couple of times I walked by.  Also my plan to check out the Pelican's Landing work failed too due to the top deck of the Mark Twain being roped off the handful of times I thought about going for a cruise.  There was no indication of why the deck was closed.  The lower two decks had healthy crowds on all cruises due to this.
  • Since my last visit my Magic Key Passholder package arrived. These were sent out to all those that bought a pass during the promotion. The kit was a nice little gift with a pin, button, magnet, map, lanyard and 2,000 points for Disney Movie Insiders. Interesting to note the package shipping info said it was coming from Disney Vacation Club. I found it out to have a lanyard and no physical card. I would have much rather preferred a physical card.
  • Magic Key park reservations continue to be a challenge. At one point the other day there were a total of 5 available dates between then and January only. Availability keeps changing but its annoying to have to keep checking the site and hoping for something. It would be nice to have a wait list option.. so if you want to use one of your reservations to sit in the queue for a day you really want vs picking some random date or no date and hoping the one you want opens up. Also it is a bit annoying you cannot modify a reservation you have to cancel and then hope the new one is still there when you get there and if its not that your original is there to rebook. Why not let you choose the new one and cancel the old one in one process.

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