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11/25/15 - Thoughts and observations from Wednesday at the Disneyland Resort to kick off the Thanksgiving Weekend.
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11/25/15 - Thoughts and observations from Wednesday at the Disneyland Resort to kick off the Thanksgiving Weekend.

Hello everyone,

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Hope you are having/had a great holiday. I started mine off with a trip to the Disneyland Resort Wednesday afternoon. I was prepared for very large crowds and cold weather. It turned out to be crowded but not that bad and the weather slightly warmer and less windy than I had thought. I had a very short picture list this week since I was just at the parks Friday so it was a relaxing day and a chance to take in some of the entertainment and just relax.

Jason

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

Thoughts and Observations:

  • Arrived at the Mickey and Friends parking structure and found no line at the tollbooths, seems the Disneyland Drive traffic was being sent elsewhere and the overpass saved me a lot of time. Interesting they were sending cars down the second row and not the first as usual when I arrived. When it came time to leave that second aisle was set up as the exit lane too with the first being used for cars arriving.

  • Stepped into Town Square as A Christmas Fantasy was arriving. They had the east (Tomorrowland) bypass open. But they were dividing up the crowd and sending some up the sidewalk and some up the corridor. I noticed this too late and was sent toward the sidewalk. So managed to miss using the bypass again. The plus of this is I was able to watch the parade a bit as I walked up the street.

  • In Tomorrowland FastPasses for Star Tours and Hyperspace Mountain were both gone and it was just after 1pm. Lines for both were over an hour. The rest of the area was crowded but not that bad. The Launch Bay and the Hero HQ were both not a problem to walk into. Inside character lines were 20-60 minutes. The gift shops and exhibits had guests milling around but neither felt crowded.

  • Caught a full set of the Dickens Yuletide Band on Main Street USA. Always great to hear their Christmas music. I do miss the Dickens carolers that used to be on Main Street. At least the band is around though. Later in the evening I took in a Dapper Dan Christmas set in front of the Fire House too.

  • I thought it was noteworthy that when I picked up a FastPass for the Haunted Mansion Holiday the return time was actually ahead of the stand by wait time estimate. Not sure if guests noticed this.. or with so many FastPasses out for later in the day they were stuck.

  • Spent about an hour out on Tom Sawyer Island walking around and catching up on some emails. It had been a while and I wanted to get one last visit in before it closes down in January. It is a bit depressing for me to walk around the island with so much closed, off limits, or gone. For example you could not even go up on the hill that has the tree house. In the Pirates Cove area some of the elements were off limits.. then you have the new Fort Wilderness. It will be interesting to see how much of the upcoming changes will impact the guest areas of the Island and what will be changed.

  • All this week there are two Disneyland Forever shows nightly and the first Paint the Night has been moved up to 5:45pm, three hours earlier than normal. One side effect of this is areas of the park start shutting down or having reduced access before 5pm. This includes parts of Fantasyland, Toontown, and the Small World area, depending on the winds. I noticed the Fantasyland attractions did reopen between shows.

  • I was on Main Street for the tree lighting moment. I really wish they would bring back more than the brief tape playback for this event. It is almost a by the way moment and not very magical.

  • Around 5pm Main Street was crowded as usual but no more so than years past when there was a later Christmas Fantasy Parade or no more so than say 8pm when Paint the Night was at 8:45pm. I waited and found a standing spot in the third row about 15 minutes before Parade time with no problem at all. The crowd for the parade and then Disneyland Forever after felt about the same as when it was later in the evening. The one difference I noticed was the jammed walkways heading into the park. Where as normally the traffic is exiting with Fantasmic being over, etc..

  • A quick note about Disneyland Forever. For both shows on Friday Tinker Bell and Nemo were missing and the flames/fire effects for the Nemo segment did not run. Other than that it appeared to be full/normal shows. Also after both shows a Kiss Goodnight was played.

  • After Disneyland Forever a majority of the guests on Main Street headed toward the park exit. I would say 3/4 to 4/5ths of the street was exit traffic very similar to what you see after the regular time. So the theory of running the fireworks early and people will leave seems true based on this one data point. I worked my way up the street toward the hub. When I first arrived it was very crowded as expected but within 5-10 minutes the congestion started to ease and it was not too bad.

  • It was a very odd feeling and completely threw off my sense of timing to be done with fireworks by 7pm. The rest of the night everything seemed a step off from me and out of my routine and my sense of timing felt off.

  • Stopped by Tomorrowland to see the lights for Star Wars: Season of the Force. There were several spotlights and other lights on around the Orbitron. They looked ok from the ground and from the second floor of the Tomorrowland Expo Center. I was expecting more though. The lights repositioned slightly and there were some small bursts of smoke but nothing else. It is too bad they did not take this opportunity to fix the Orbitron or do more of a light show. With the Star Wars music playing it really is a missed opportunity. Space Mountain had normal lighting Wednesday. The lights were nice to see but really lacking to me.

  • Stopped by Small World Holiday and the quarter hour projection show was running this evening. It appeared to be the same as last year. I think this is one of the nice pluses that happen around the park and really enjoy it.

  • Passed through Fantasyland and the attractions that had shut down for the first Disneyland Forever were back in operation and had their usual wait times during the 7pm hour. They would be shut down again soon for the second show.

  • Just after 8pm headed for the Jingle Cruise. It had a posted 25 min wait and turned out to be just about that. The trip was ok, but I recommend visiting during the day.. some of the props are a bit hard to see at night. For a second or third trip night time works well. As always it really depends on your skipper as to how good or bad your experience is. We had an ok/average skipper this evening.

  • Walked through the hub just before 9pm and there was still seating available in front of the castle for the 9:30 Disneyland Forever and Main Street was still mostly regular traffic, not many guests queued up for the fireworks yet. I then walked through Frontierland and the Fantasmic crowd curious if that was larger than usual or not. It seemed about normal with gaps in the crowd and cast members running guests out who tried to fill in the spots without a FastPass.

  • Watched most of Fantasmic from a standby spot in the back.. the view is ok if you have seen it before but for a first timer it really does not leave a great impression. Also frustrating to stand back there and see open space in front for FastPass no shows that is going unused.

  • During the Columbia pass they did not perform any stunts. There was no rope swinging, free fall, or high sword fighting. Peter Pan was up in the rigging but everyone else was on deck for the pass. Anyone know why?? It was not windy or bad weather.

  • I returned to Main Street about 10 minutes before Disneyland Forever. The crowd had filled in most of the hub space and first block. But once you passed center street the second block toward Town Square had plenty of space. As show time approached it filled in but was not jammed. Cast Members were asking guests to move up to make room further down the street the street to move guests out of Town Square. The show went off as usual. It was a weird feeling to see the same show 3 hours later. Afterwards the exit looked very similar to usual with most guests heading out.

  • I was curious how the two fireworks showing and earlier Paint the Night would work and what it would do to the crowds. From what I observed it seemed to work well in terms of the park not becoming gridlock and more guests were able to experience Disneyland Forever from Main Street. During the second show most around me were seeing it for the first time so that was fun to hear their reactions.

  • This year I do miss the garland on Main Street (it is not up to allow for the Paint the Night Parade to run), Believe in Holiday Magic with the White Christmas finale.. this is a great way to end your day at the park, and the after dark showing of a Christmas Fantasy Parade. I think that parade looks better under the lights. At least I still have the sound track for Believe in Holiday Magic which I listened to on the way home plus Luminaria.

  • 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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