** After you read this report you may want to check out the pictorial updates in our Disneyland Resort Pictorial Update section

Overall:

It was a damp and wet trip to the Disneyland Resort. The weather issues did not seem to put too big of a dent in the crowds. I think most were like us and believed that it would clear up, which it really did not.

I was disappointed in what the Resort had done for Mickey's 75th. They have display windows set up at World of Disney, that is it. I did not see a selection of merchandise even.

I had lunch at White Water snacks and spent some time in the Grand Californian lobby. What a great place. I had visions of being on vacation in florida. You really do not feel like your in Anaheim. I pulled up a seat in one of the oversized chairs near the piano, with a perfect view of the tree. What a great was to spend some time.

ESPN:

I was also extremely disappointed with my meal at ESPN Zone. We eat there on a semi regular basis and this was the worst experience I have had there. It was substantially below the expectations we have. Getting a seat was rather easy, we agreed to sit in the recliners, so there was no wait. Upon sitting down I discovered my leg rest would not go down, so I was stuck trying to eat with my feet up. Our waitress promptly showed up and took our drink order then food order. I was using my free meal (they had a frequent visitor card, after four trips you get a free meal). I ordered the New York Strip Steak. I ordered it well done. I told the waitress that I wanted NO pink. The food arrived in an ok amount of time. I cut into the steak and found it to be medium at best. It took us almost 5 minutes to flag down a CM. It happened to be the hostess and she looked at me like, there is no way she was going to take the plate back to the kitchen for me. She did find our waitress for me, who promptly apologized and took the plate back to the kitchen. In a few minutes she stopped by again saying that she had informed the manager and the steak would be back in a few more minutes. In a couple minutes the manager showed up with the steak. It was chared beyound believe, seems the just threw it back on the grill. I cut into it and it was close to a well done medium well... no where near well done. I caved and said its eatable... the manager apologized and scurried away. I cut into the steak to find a lot of grissle, add that to the chared part and there was not much beef left in the 14oz steak. What I did manage to eat was best described as OK. Nothing close to my expectations. I guess I it was unfair of me to compare it to WDW steaks, but I do and it was subpar. I managed to eat enough fries to fill up. The waitress apologized several more times. The check finally arrived and I noticed they tried to charge me for my drink too (which the ticket said a free entre and drink). So after getting it corrected by the manager we were off again. Overall I would say stick to burgers and sandwiches at ESPN... I will never order a steak again there... even if its free.

We have moved our trip rundowns and mileage reports to our Park Miles section.

Disneyland Items:

• The crowd is what I would chracterize as average. Not too busy, but not off season or bad weather light. The average wait time was around 30 minutes for most major attractions.

• I did not spend too much time roaming the park, so not much else to talk about. We did have an entertaining skipper on the Jungle Cruise.

• It was also nice to see two monorails running, which lead to practically no wait time.

• The Christmas Fantasy Parade was the same as always, except for the new reindeer, which I did not care for. One other interesting note with the parade was they started about five minutes early, I think was due to the rain. There was a heavy drizzle that started about 2/3 the way through the parade, at which point it sped up some.

• The Candlelight was awesome as usual. There was an energetic crowd, even with the off and on drizzle. We lined up around 4:00pm for the 5:30 show, which actually started closer to 6:00 due to the rain. The Disneyland techs and CMs did a good job of keeping the electronics and stage in shape to be show ready. Lou Gossip did a good job, he really seemed into the readings and like he was having a good time. I was so happy to see the show on Main Street again.. I hope they opt to have it there more often. Rumor is it will be there for at least the next few years. The staging had to be re-built for this year and in doing so they changed the set up a bit. The orchestra is now on a plateform in the middle vs where they used to be on the ground on the side near Abe. In doing so they eliminated some chior spots. Also there were no Dickens singers this year, but the bell people were there and instead of there traditional spot down in the middle, they were up against the train depot rails, in front of the chior. The trumpets returned to their traditional spot on top of the train station. I thought the way the speakers were positioned in relation to us was kind of annoying. Sound was coming from the side, where as I was looking straight at the audio source, which was strange to hear. One other note is there seemed to be less chior people than in the past. I think this was due to the new positioning of the orchestra. Also weird is there was no pre-show. This may be because of the rain, but in the past the Bells, or the Dickens singers, or some other group was out to perform while you waited for the show.

DCA Items:

• We did not spend much time at all over in DCA. The crowds were extremely light, as usual.

• Still no big tree or focal point for the holidays in the park, just the beach party near the entrance... which really did not work out too well in the mist and rain.

• Walked out by Tower of Terror, and the exterior looks almost complete. Work was still going on near the queue area.

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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