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12/02/17 - Thoughts and observations from Saturday at the Disneyland Resort.
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12/02/17 - Thoughts and observations from Saturday at the Disneyland Resort.
Saturday was a relaxing day at the Disneyland Resort for me. My main objective was to enjoy some of the Holiday entertainment and then take in the Candlelight Ceremony in Town Square. The parks were busy throughout the day but as night fell and the Candlelight took over Main Street and the entrance to Disneyland became extremely crowded. Walking through Disney California Adventure after dark felt crowded too. Wait times were busy but not holiday levels.

Thoughts and Observations:

  • I was unsure what to expect this week based on my last Saturday visit in November when I exited the freeway this morning. I was pleasantly surprised to find traffic moving and lines maybe a dozen cars deep at the toll booths in the Mickey and Friends parking structure. So it was relatively easy to park, get through security and to the parks.

  • Enjoyed a couple of performances by the Disneyland Band. I was really hoping to see their castle performance with the characters.. but since Town Square was blocked with the Candlelight that set did not happen. They played a regular set instead. I would have liked to have heard a Christmas song or two.. with the Castle backdrop that would have been nice.

  • Walked through Toon Town and it was extremely quiet. I was able to get some fairly wide pictures with no one in the frame. The wait for Mickey was posted at 15 minutes and the Go Coaster was mostly empty. This was after 9am too. The Goofy water fountains were both not functioning this morning. The taller one has had problems the past month or so but this trip neither was working.

  • Space Mountain is testing a single rider option. I saw a sign near the exit indicating where to go, and no other mentions of it. I did not use it nor see anyone else head that way. Last week I saw people reporting it was a near walk on since many guests do not know it exists yet. So keep that in mind as an option if you are looking to avoid a wait.

  • New since my last visit are AT-AT pop corn buckets in Tomorrowland. These sell for $25 and had a good size line the couple of times I took a look. They seemed to be well stocked with a good flow coming out. I find it interesting how much people will pay for pop corn buckets.. where bucket probably should be in quotes, since many are more a toy or model than container.

  • Another way to spend $25 was the Christmas Tiki Mug released at Trader Sams this past week. Interesting that it is an elephant decorated for the holiday. Would have fit perfectly with the Jingle Cruise. I stopped by in the early afternoon and they had plenty of the mugs left and there was no wait at all.

  • The annual Toys for Tots drive was going on this weekend in Downtown Disney featuring firefighters, Marines, a DJ and more. Several stores were also participating.

  • I spent a good portion of my day waiting for the Candlelight Ceremony. My plan was to spend about 2 hours but when I walked by 3+ hours before show time there was already a good size crowd. I was able to catch up with some friends and meet new friends. The only bad part was they made us stand longer this year than past years. I think I stood for well over 2 of the 3 hours. Which is way too long to be in one spot plus the hour show.

  • If you have never seen the Disneyland Candlelight Procession/Ceremony I would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys Christmas. The show consists of a guest narrator reading the story of Christmas with Christmas songs in between performed by a full orchestra, several soloists and a large choice all on risers in front of the train station in Town Square. If you have seen the Walt Disney World version, the Disneyland one features different arrangements and some minor tweaks plus the impressive venue of Town Square.

  • I thought it was interesting this year how the narrator was kept under wraps until the last possible moment. Usually something leaks out the week or at least days ahead of time. This year nothing until Chris Hemsworth appeared for the sound check an hour before the ceremony, or at least that I saw reported.

  • The Candlelight Ceremony causes a huge operation challenge for the park with Main Street being taken over and turned into the theater for the show. Then add in those waiting for the second show. And then to top it off a busy Saturday evening with guests wanting to enter/exit the park and it is a huge task to try and keep everything moving. The operations team did so for the most part from what I saw. It was slow going at times and from what I hear entering the park was extremely difficult. They did halt all entries for a while (assuming this was one the show was ending.

  • Grabbed a quick bite to eat and enjoy the sunset concert by Phat Cat Swinger. I ended up with a corn dog from Corn Dog Castle because they line was moving quickly and I was able to make it back to catch the start of the concert in Paradise Park. I ended up having to sit on the ground though because there are no real seating options in the area.. benches are hard to eat on when you want to put some things down.

  • Closed out my trip walking around Downtown Disney. Caught part of a set by Holiday Harmony. Was disappointed that Disneyland.com had the wrong set times. They said the top of the hour and we arrived about quarter to and they were about halfway done with their set. They said they would be back in half an hour so that put it at a bottom of the hour start.


Here are some recent posts to the Geek's Blog:

Geek’s Blog Postings Recap November 7-24, 2017

Disney Related Press Releases

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

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

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