Hello all,

Friday was a cool and gloomy day here in Southern California but decided to tempt the rainy forecast and head to the parks any ways. As luck would have it the crowds were mild and the weather held with just some light mist and a drizzle starting about the time I was leaving. Wait times on most of the attractions are what I would call slightly less than normal for a Friday. Most well under an hour most of the afternoon/evening. The parks did fill up as the day went on as normal, but it was not the normal holiday madness. I am guessing the weather helped with this.

Jason

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

Disneyland & DCA Thoughts and Observations:

• Upon entering the parks I scanned through the time schedule for the day as usual and was pleasantly surprised to see Laser Man was listed in the ElecTRONica section. I was surprised to see only a couple shows scheduled each night, but great to see it listed. Maybe this is the start of a more complete time schedule?
  
  
• Nothing too new to report from DCA this week since I was just there last week. I thought that maybe the Backlot to Tower connection would be open, but it was not. Seems to me it would be good to have it open for the holidays and from shots I saw on other sites it looked like the street was ready to go. I did not make it on the monorail to see for myself.
  
  
• Over at Disneyland the wait times for Small World Holiday were back to a normal schedule again so I went for a couple rides. One in the afternoon which was a walk on due to the parade and then another with a 10 minute or so wait in the evening. I did not notice any differences from last year, did anyone else?
  
  
• Caught a performance by the Billys, they were performing their Christmas spectacular which is a fun mix of their regular show plus some Christmas music mixed in. If you have never seen the Billys I highly recommend stopping by and giving them a listen. Its an entertaining show usually and some great music.
  
  
• Friday I stumbled upon a concert at Plaza Gardens that was being webcast as part of the Yamaha Holiday Concert series live from Disneyland. I did a quick Google search and did not find any official website of future concerts and very little on this one even besides a couple twitter announcements that had a link to the live webcast but no archived webcast or other info. If anyone knows of the official website or has additional information on upcoming ones please send them my way and I would be happy to share them.
  
  
• I hung around Main Street for the tree lighting moment at 5:00pm. I was disappointed again this year as it is just that a moment. It featured a brief recording which is played in Town Square and the area around the tree only basically wishing everyone a happy holidays and then the lights come on. Remember in the past they had a brief ceremony/moment that featured some characters or other CMs.. it would be nice to see some of those traditions return.
  
  
• Speaking of traditions, has anyone spotted the Dickens Carolers? I forgot to ask a CM if they were performing yet. If anyone did do you happen to know their schedule so I can share it?
  
  
• Ended up at Tomorrowland Terrace again for dinner, mostly due to not wanting to hike over to DCA then back to Disneyland since the plan was to visit Small World again after dinner. The wait time was shorter this week but they managed to goof up my order and then loose the Lazygeeks for a while and when his did show up it was wrong. Overall not a good dining experience for us. So that is zero for two.
  
  
• As you saw in the pictorial update Haunted Mansion Holiday now features singing pumpkins in the dining room sequence. A nice little touch and one of the many things that makes Disney Disney....
  
  
• One last quick note, I saw that the pardoned turkeys will not be making their way to Disneyland this year, as they have since the 50th promotion back in 2005.
  

Interesting Web Finds/Notes:
Below are some interesting links, notes, and rumors I found/stumble across/or have been informed of since the last Geekspeaks column.

• Disney Press Releases
  • 11/18/10 - Disney, Gowalla Deliver the Magic of Disneyland Resort, Walt Disney World Resort, In a New Way
  • 11/16/10 - Disney Interactive Studios' Wii Video Games Provide Hours of Family Fun this Holiday Season and Beyond
    
  • 11/09/10 - D23’s Armchair Archivists Premiere Podcast
    
    
• We post some announcements on:
  • Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/disneygeekcom
  • Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/disneygeek
  • Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/disneygeekcom
    
    

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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