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

Hello all,

Had a great time at the Disneyland Resort on Friday afternoon/evening. It was a relaxing day with the main goal to see the Christmas Fantasy Parade and pick up an early Christmas gift for myself (I know your not supposed to but had a 20% off certificate for renewing my annual pass burning a hole in my pocket and Big Al's Big Figure calling me...). As I headed down the escalator from the Daisy level of the Mickey and Friends garage I thought I was in for a busy day again. There were 2-3 tram full's of guests waiting at the tram stop. Not quite sure what the hold up was. I managed to get on the 3rd tram to pull in. Upon arrival the parks were not too bad, seemed like a fairly typical Friday afternoon. As night time fell the crowds began to pick up. By the time the second Christmas Fantasy parade ended Main Street was nearly grid locked along with the Hub. 30 minutes to show time the Fantasmic area was not too bad. With Main Street nearly at a stand still Disney opted to open a walkway through the backstage area on the West side of the street. You entered near Coke Corner and walked behind the shops and next to the Jungle Cruise backstage area and came out on Main Street next to the Firehouse. It really saved a lot of time and seemed to help with some of the traffic jam on Main Street.

Jason

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

DCA:

• The crowds at DCA seemed to be normal, which can translate to light. The park seemed to have its normal mode, nothing really interesting to report on. We spent some time roaming the park after dark to see the holiday lights and were not that impressed. The backlot looked the same as the past several years. Bugsland looked ok but lacking. The tree area in the Bay Area looked good, but seemed awkward. Not quite sure why, but something just did not seem right.

• The backlot project is coming along, with the new Animation sign and entrance lighting done and from the monorail it looked as if they were putting the finishing touches on the courtyard between Muppets and Monsters Inc.

• Ate dinner at Award Weiners, kind of disappointed they did away with the cups the fries came in. Now you just get a regular paper basket like many other locations have.. I thought the cups were better because they were different for one and secondly and more importantly they kept the fries warmer and considering you eat outside this is a big plus. Good news is now Annual Passholders get 10% off here. As we were eating we thought it would be good to offer a two hotdog combo or something... one just isn't enough..

Disneyland:

• One of our main goals of the evening was to see the 2005 edition of the Christmas Fantasy parade. Not much has changed (or else our memories might be getting worse). The Christmas trees seemed new and were not spitting snow. Also the Gennie seemed to be driving really slow, not sure if that was related to couple of incidents last year or not. Nothing else popped out at us as being new or different. Guess we can go back and look at the pictures for sure. We still are not comfortable with the reindeer for the last unit the traditional ones were better in our opinion than these newer ones (what is this the 3rd year for these or 2nd I forget..).

• Saw on a couple websites over the past few weeks of Elvis sightings in Small World Holiday. At first I thought they were all related to the Elvis Stitch that appears on the surf board in the Hawaii segment... but then some pictures started to pop up of a Black and White pixilated Elvis picture in a Christmas tree, it looked like a bad photoshop job to me.. but since we were in the park decided to take a look and guess what.. its true.. We saw and attempted to get a picture of Elvis in the tree near with all the candles. You have to almost look back to see him but he was definitely there.. not sure the story to this, but kind of interesting.

• Had a couple emails already about the backstage walkway. We did not take any pictures, for a couple of reasons. One is it was dark so not that easy to do. Secondly we were asked to keep moving along by Castmembers and thirdly its just not that interesting back there.. as you walk toward the park entrance on your left are the back entrances to the shops along Main Street as well as a couple CM break areas and restrooms. On your right the first thing you encounter is the boat storage area for Jungle Cruise. One interesting note here several of them were left on.. guess they let them run till they run out of gas? Or wonder if they were being tested.. we saw no signs of life though.. Next you come upon a couple CM break areas and that's about it before we were turned to the gates next to the Firehouse. So nothing too interesting.
  
• Remember was delayed almost 30 minutes Friday evening, not sure why. The announcement said something to the effect of uncontrollable circumstances. not the regular wind/weather announcement. The wind appeared calm (before and once the show started) so our best guess is it had something to do with the crowds. Maybe they could not clear the backstage area because it was being used to move the Fantasmic crowds out of the park or something.. anyone know for sure?? Once the show started it ran as it normally would.

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

Send comments, questions, any other email to: disneygeek@disneygeek.com