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Hello everyone,

Sunday was a rare weekend and all day visit to the parks for me. I decided to celebrate USC victory on Saturday by taking the day off and spending it at the parks and then watching the Candlelight Ceremony. The crowds at the park were mild, with most attractions not seeing huge wait times. There were a fair amount of people moving around the park and the Candlelight performances were full and Main Street was crowded.

Jason

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

Disneyland & DCA Thoughts and Observations:

• While walking by the sub lagoon I noticed there were three subs out of service for most of the day and the line was still hovering around an hour. I heard on Saturday one of the subs got stuck/broke down out in the lagoon and people were taken off by boat.
  
  
• Not much happening over at DCA. The park was its normal mellow self. I was disappointed to catch the Wave Riders and the part of the set I caught they only played regular music, no Christmas music... and they were performing at the beach party blast. I also found it odd how the CMs working the Sun Wheel were trying to cram groups together. There were about 5 groups in line while we were there and they were trying to fit 6 people in the red cars. I can see this when the line stretches for several groups but with that small of a line it seemed a bit overkill to me.
  
  
• I did spend some time walking around the Snow White Exhibit in the Animation Building. I found it really interesting and enjoyed looking at the concept art and early sketches. I thought the presentation was well laid out and worked nicely in the space due to it not being crowded. I am curious how it is if a crowd arrives (like later this month). I also enjoyed seeing all the Snow White images on the large screens around the lobby (they changed the film loop to be just Snow White and the house lights are up so you can see the artwork).
  
  
• The Candlelight Ceremony was full as usual with people everywhere. Disneyland had a small army of CMs on hand to help with the crowd control and for the most part they seemed to keep things moving (some walkways moved much slower than others but they did move...).
  
  
• Its still amazing to me how rude some guests can be. I was in the area near the Fire Station to watch the show and most of the people around us were there about an hour before the show. We were fairly full, but not packed in, so it was comfortable. Then right around show time people show up and shove there way in and look at you like you are taking their spot and complaining about the crowding and then to top it off they talk through most of the show (I was just happy I was taking stills and not video as I would not have wanted to hear them the entire show on my tape...). Also we were in a roped off area next to a walkway and people still insisted on trying to push there way through thinking it was a walkway even though others were trying to explain to them it was a veiwing area.
  
  
• It had been a couple years since I saw the Disneyland Candlelight (it always seems to be the weekend of the USC/UCLA game so I miss it, but this year I made the trip down on Sunday). The show was pretty much the same as usual. I was surprised that there was no pre-show entertainment, in the past I remember the Dickens Carolers or the Bell group or at least the orchestra playing a couple tunes. The only other noticeable change to me is the soloists seem to be getting a larger part. Silent Night is now sung by one (and the first half was in Spanish too which seemed really awkward to me). I hope this trend does not continue where professional singers take over the show, like I feel they have at Walt Disney World with the Voices of Liberty dominating much of the show. I enjoy the large choir.
  
  I found Jane Seymour's reading to be flat... she basically just read the part, she even appeared to read her thank you. Also kind of annoying to me was she did not look around, she looked in pretty much the same direction for almost the entire show, so all my shots are a profile of her except for a couple where I caught a quick glance to our side. I overhead several people around us commenting the same thing how they thought her reading just lacked a spark or something that some of the past narrators brought to the show.
  
  
  

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