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11/26/14 - My thoughts and observations from Wednesday at the Disneyland Resort.
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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.

11/26/14 - My thoughts and observations from Wednesday at the Disneyland Resort.

Hello everyone,

Hope every had a great Thanksgiving. I kicked off my weekend at the Disneyland Resort. The crowds were heavier than an average Friday but no where near the holiday levels that are coming. Wait times were moderate with many in the 40-60 min range most of the day. The walkways seemed more crowded than the wait times would indicate.

Jason

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

Thoughts and Observations:

  • It was a fun treat to see Oswald joining the Buena Vista Street Community Bell Ringers upon entering Disney California Adventure today. He seemed to be having a great time and so did the gathered crowd.

  • In October the Disneyland Annual Passholder team started a new weekly event called Wednesday with Walt. They screen films, TV shows, and shorts each Wednesday in the Main Street Opera House for Annual Passholders. The series will run through July and the parks 60th anniversary. Wednesday was my first opportunity to attend one. The process works like many other events. Starting at noon they distribute wristbands for the shows in Town Square. They scan your annual pass and ask you which show you want. You then come back at show time and are let in. Wednesday they showed Classic Holiday cartoon shorts. I thought the process worked very smoothly and the event was a nice activity for annual passholders. I hope to be able to make another one at some point. I really enjoyed seeing the shorts on the big screen and with an audience as they were originally intended. Most of use have only seen them on TV with a small group. It is amazing how well they have held up, they are still incredibly entertaining and they are around 80 years old now.

    One funny story on the way into the event a group in front of us asked the cast member a funny question on the way in. They wanted to know what was in the opera house, if it was a theater or what. Seems they had never been inside. The other guests around them and the cast members were a little stunned that an annual passholder who found their way into this event had no idea what was in the opera house.

  • As you saw in the pictorial update the Mark Twain has returned to service and looks like new again. Walking around the boat after a refurbishment is always a pleasure. It is too bad that between the weather, guests, and Fantasmic that look does not last that long.

  • Stopped by the Starcade and was finally able to see Baymax and Hiro. The curtains are no longer up and you can get clear views of the set and characters from inside now. Did find it funny that one person next to me asked why the one guest stuck around and kept joining others pictures. She did not realize Hiro was a character, she thought he was a regular guest that was just refusing to leave. Until her child corrected her of course.

  • I grabbed a bite to eat at the Village Haus and thought it was interesting the Cast Member did not know how to identify which Annual Pass I have (since they no longer print it on the pass) so they scanned it in as a So Cal pass and the 10% discount and that went through. I caught it and they voided it and redid the order to get the 15% discount but I was surprised the system did not catch it when they scan. Guess the scan does not tell the POS system what type of pass? This explains why they have to click different discount buttons. Seems they should have a smart enough system that the CM can just swipe the card and the computer gives the correct discount. You would think in 2014 that would be possible.

  • The new gingerbread house in the Grand Californian Hotel lobby is really impressive and worth checking out. The scale and detail is impressive and I am happy to see the gingerbread tradition starting to pick up in Anaheim. Hopefully in the coming years the other hotels will get displays too. I always enjoy visiting the Walt Disney World Hotels to check out their gingerbread creations each year.

  • Frozen celebrated its first anniversary on Thanksgiving day. Hard to believe the movie is only a year old... seems like we have been hearing Let it Go forever already! The power of Frozen is still amazing to see.. everytime a song comes on it causes a stir.. whether it is a piano player in the Grand Californian lobby or part of World of Color Winter Dreams.

  • I made the rounds to all three Disney hotels on Friday to see if there was anything new for the holiday season this year. Besides the great gingerbread house everything appeared to be the same as the last couple of years at the hotels.

  • Olafs Frozen Rink had a good size group on the ice and guests around. It does at some kinetics to the area with the activity and lights.

  • This is the last weekend for the Mad T Party at Disney California Adventure. Disney announced on their blog that the last night will be November 30th. They have not announced a replacement yet but the word on the "interwebs" is Frozen is moving in and taking over much of Hollywood Land including Stage 17 (the Millionaire building), the Muppet theater, parts of the Animation building and the Mad T Party space. No official announcement from Disney yet, maybe in the coming week? The annual Holiday media event is this coming weekend.

  • Speaking of the coming weekend, the annual Candlelight Ceremony will be held at Disneyland on Saturday and Sunday. I have not seen any announcement on the narrators.

  • I arrived on Main Street USA around 8:30 and caught the tail end of a Wintertime Enchantment moment then the plan was to take the Disneyland Railroad around the park. That failed since the cast member at the train station said the train was only going to New Orleans Square then shutting down until after the fireworks. So I spent some time roaming around Main Street. Goofy was out and having a fun time interacting with guests. When he arrived he organized a queue and then kept showing guests the Christmas decorations in Town Square.

  • Starting 15 minutes before Believe in Holiday Magic was slated to start Disney started playing warnings the show may be cancelled due to winds at higher elevations and unfavorable conditions. Come show time they played the same warning then about 5 minutes past the scheduled start they officially cancelled the show and did the wintertime enchantment moment and snowfall instead. There were no visible winds with the flags and trees not moving. I did not see the weather balloon go up even so not sure what was happening higher up. Seems as if something else happened to cancel the show. For World of Color I watched the snowflakes and they went fairly straight up.

  • To close out my evening I used a FastPass for the 10:15 World of Color Winter Dreams show. I tend not to stay that late because it makes for a long drive home (I live just over 70 miles from the parks). But since it was a holiday weekend and I assumed no Caltrans work shutting down freeways I stayed. The crowd for the second showing is usually thinner and easier to deal with than the first show and that was the case Wednesday too. We showed up about 20 minutes before the show and found a spot with no problems along a railing in a back tier. Seems everyone tried to push their way up to the waterfront.

  • Do you visit our pictorial updates using a mobile device? If so we would like your feedback. I have created a beta of a more mobile version of our Disneyland Picture sets at https://disneygeek.com/mobile Please give it a try and share your thoughts.

  • Video featuring my pictures:

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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