Hello all,

What better way to kick off a holiday weekend than with a trip to the Disneyland Resort. Thanks to some perfect Southern California weather (highs in the upper 70s and not a cloud in the sky) it was hard to remember it is the end of November. The crowds at the parks were healthy but not wall to wall people. It did pick up into the evening but with DCA open until 10pm that seemed to help.

Jason

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

Disneyland & DCA Thoughts and Observations:

• The day started off on an ominous note. As I was exiting the freeway things came to a stand still (which reminds me I really need to start traveling with the camera in the car so I can take pictures of the backups instead of having it in the trunk). It took two light cycles to make it off the freeway exit ramp and onto Disneyland Drive. It then took almost another 20 minutes to make it to Ball Road. The overpass was set to exit only already and all traffic was stuck on Disneyland Drive. I kept muttering to myself what a mess this was. I was expecting it to take forever to park (I had read about horror stories of up to 90 minutes during the Halloween crowds.. and I had experienced a 60 minute debacle one Friday). Once I was in sight of the light it appeared that the cycles were not correct and we were receiving a very short green light to cross Ball. Finally made it up to the light and through the intersection. Things opened up, and as luck would have it the garage was open. There were maybe 3 cars in front of me in line. Seems since very few cars made it through it green it did not create a bottleneck at the tollbooths. I ended up in the first row about 2/3 the way down from the escalators on the 5th floor, not too bad.
  
  
• Another sign of trouble occurred as I gave the CM my annual pass for parking. My pass was invalidated. Seems now a days as soon as you renew online (or in the mail) your current pass is invalidated/disabled. I renewed my pass on Sunday and my new one had not arrived yet (it showed up Wednesday in the mail). My current one does not expire until the end of December so I did not think anything of it until they said my pass was not valid. They had to look my name up in the system then gave me my parking ticket. It did not take long, maybe a minute or so longer. She also said that I needed to stop by the ticket booth due to the problem before heading to the parks.
  
  
• After arriving at the park I headed to the ticket booths, and as luck would have it there was no line!! The CM working the window was not overly friendly and kept asking why I was not using the new pass (which I explained a couple of times was because it had not shown up in the mail yet). She typed in what seemed like 100 keystrokes then issued me a Courtesy Visit Certificate which had my new annual pass number on it. I understand why Disney deactivates the old annual pass but it seems to me there should be some window in there maybe a week when both are active for situations like this(or say something in the flyers and I would have waited a few days to renew).. or at least when it happens seems like they could be a little more friendly about it... also kind of surprising was the temp ticket did not have a bar code so the CMs at the gates had to type in the number each time I went through. Also since there was no bar code I had to pick up a Fastpass Card too so I could receive Fastpasses. Overall it was a slight headache and I ended up having to use three cards (used my original AP as a photo ID) throughout the visit. Lastly an FYI if you are in this situation.. the temp ticket you are issued is the number the CMs need to use to give you your AP discount for dining, etc.. as your current pass does not work for that either.
  
  
• Not much interesting to report from DCA. The lines were not too bad with Screamin at the 20 min point, Toy Story its normal 40 min, the Fun Wheel was about 20 minutes for swinging and 10 for non swinging in the afternoon. In the evening everything was slightly longer except the Fun Wheel which was substantially longer. Santa seemed to have a healthy wait every time I walked by.
  
  
• I found it hard to keep reminding myself that it was a Wednesday. Since it was a Wednesday the entertainment offerings were more limited, even thought it was a holiday weekend. For example the Billys were off and the Disneyland Band. Also no band at the Tomorrowland Terrace.
  
  
• As I mentioned in the pictorial update during the Showboat Jubilee shows they were really working to keep traffic moving in the area. If you wanted to watch the show you were directed to the area nearest the river. The other two tiers were supposed to be walkways and then the top tier was the extended queue for Pirates which was in sporadic use throughout the day. Things seemed to flow well and traffic seemed to be busy and delayed, but ok in the area. Actually it seemed the Pirates extended queue and stroller parking were causing more problems than the show possibly.
  
  
• Once the sun set and the crowds descended upon the park moving around became a little harder, but still not as bad as expected or previous visits. For example there was a healthy crowd for Fantasmic but 10 minutes or so before the show the area where I headed to watch the show had plenty of room still. Main Street was fairly crowded for the fireworks but at show time I still managed to find myself a decent place to watch. Also it was helpful that the show was delayed 10 minutes or so for some reason.. best guess was the wind. I was actually surprised the show went on. There seemed to be a fairly strong wind blowing out of the East. Everything was drifting quite a ways to the left as you looked at the Castle.
  
  
  
  
• Interesting Web Finds/Notes:
  In this section of the Geekspeaks column I will include links, notes, and rumors I find/stumble across/or have been informed of.
  
  
  • Press Release
    • 11/25/09 - A Reason to Give Thanks! National Thanksgiving Turkey Will Celebrate Presidential Pardon at New Home in Disneyland Park
      
      
  • YouTube Videos
    • National Thanksgiving Turkey Travels to Disneyland
    • National Thanksgiving Turkey on Parade at Disneyland
    • World of Color Fire Testing
      
      
  • We have started to post some announcements on:
    • Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/disneygeekcom
    • Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/disneygeek
      
      

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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