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12/06/14 - My thoughts and observations from Saturday 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.

12/06/14 - My thoughts and observations from Saturday at the Disneyland Resort.

Hello everyone,

I spent all day Saturday at the Disneyland Resort with friends and family. As always during the holidays the parks were crowded and to add to it this weekend is the Candlelight. The lines at both parks were on the long side especially as night fell for most attractions and the walkways at Disneyland became extremely crowded as is normal this time of year.

Jason

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

Thoughts and Observations:

  • I started my day off with some good fortune. Arrived at the Mickey and Friends garage and had no problem at all being directed into a parking spot. Some of our group parked out at the Toy Story lot and reported the same. One friend arrived an hour or so later and ended up being sent to the Convention Center then to top it off the bus they were on had a problem so their arrival in the park was delayed.

  • This trip marked the first visit for one person in our group, my cousins year and a half old daughter. It is always fun to enjoy the parks with a first time guest and she was great to watch enjoy the park and festivities. And for being so young she made it through most of the day with no real problems. She even enjoyed the Candlelight (funny since the spotlights on the roof are what she liked more than watching the choir).

  • We ate lunch in the Golden Horseshoe and as we were wrapping up the Laughing Stock Co took the stage. Several in the group had never seen them and their impression of the show was much more favorable than mine. I have never been a big fan of the show. I prefer music over their skits. I would have much rather seen the Billies stay and them go.

  • In the early afternoon we stopped by Cars Land to use our FastPasses, which saved us the posted 120 min standby line. Went for a spin on the Flying Tire which only had about a 10 minute wait. The rumor is the tires days are numbered now. I road with a first time flyer. Their opinion was it was an interesting challenge to fly around but if they could see why the line was short.

  • Friday Disney officially announced Frozen is going to have an increased presence around the Disneyland Resort. The Backlot area of Hollywood Land will be taken over. With a sing a long moving into the Muppet Theater. Olaf and snow into Stage 17. Anna and Elsa to the Animation Building. At night a Frozen theme party will take place. This officially starts January 7th but a "sneak peak" starts on December 20th. On Saturday work crews were busy making the changes to the

  • The Candlelight Processional took over Main Street as it does one weekend each December at Disneyland. The show was great as always. Beau Bridges was the guest narrator this year. I was a little behind schedule and did not make my way into Disneyland until about an hour before show time but as luck would have it I managed to find a spot near the Opera House to watch the show. Also we were able to watch the VIP guests arrive for their reception/seats. The most notable was John Lasseter and his family. This year the show itself seemed to be the same as last year. No solitary life segment again. I posted a couple video clips from the show. If you want to see the full show our friends over at DAPS Magic have posted it, click here for a direct link to their play list

  • The new by pass corridors were in full use on Saturday and they seemed to keep the mass of guests moving. They had the East side (right side when looking at the Castle) used for guests entering the park and the West side for those exiting during the Candlelight. I did not get to walk through the East side. When we exited the area they directed us down the middle of the street. Later in the evening I did walk down the West side to exit and it is an improvement over the backstage walkway. At least now it is somewhat presentable. The changes on the east side boiled down to some shades, new paint, attraction posters and some new wall/fence.

  • 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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