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Hello all,

I was able to squeeze in a trip to the Disneyland Resort this past Sunday, between the rain storms... I really lucked out with mild weather, a bit on the cold side for Southern California, but no rain until I was on the freeway heading home. The parks were not too crowded. The wait times at DCA most of the early afternoon were around 30 minutes for the big attractions. Over at Disneyland they were fairly mild too most of the day. Even Nemo I saw a posted 30 minute wait at one point. The parking garage was one of the longest lines of the day, it took a good 20 minutes for me to park which was frustrating. I wish they had a more efficient way to get you into the garage and parked.

Jason

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

Disneyland & DCA Thoughts and Observations:

• As I walked by the ticket booths I noticed the new payment plan was being promoted. I am not sure if this is the best idea, but it should be interesting to see how it effects crowds at the parks and ultimately the bottom line. To my way of thinking if you have to finance the tickets are you really going to be spending much money in the parks? Maybe people will and the incentive will work, but seems odd to me.
  
  
• Spend some of the early afternoon at DCA and the park seemed really flat to me. The few holiday decorations that were up just did not do the trick for me to engage the holiday spirit. I missed the live band and to some extent the beach party even.
  
  
• Out at the Pier work is progressing slowly. The repainting of the Sun Wheel and the framing of the midway game facade are about the only visible changes I could see. The Bay itself looked the same with nothing sticking out to me.
  
  
• It was great to see the two new Monorails running during the day, due to the cold weather. They were still limiting each car to 15 people so it led to some longer than usual lines but nice to see. We rode monorail blue, first time on that one for me. I have been on red a couple of times. As we were returning to the park I saw red stopped near Harbor Blvd.. then we stopped too. The driver came on and said we were holding until they figured out what was going on with red. They ended up rebooting and going to a safe mode or something and it was able to move after 5 minutes or so. I thought it was great how the CM kept coming on and telling us what was going on vs saying there was a delay he actually laid out what was going on in some detail.. it was much appreciated by all.
  
  
• I ended up having to wait in a 30 minute or so line to get into the castle walk through. Most of the people around us seemed to be annual passholders or at least locals that have visited the park several times and all seemed excited about being let back in. As we exited I over heard several say it was worth it. I agree with them, the walk through is a nice little Disneyland plus and its great to see it back and restored . I also thought it was great how they were limiting the number of guests allowed in at a time and tried to make it feel as if you were not rushed. I think this worked out great for enjoying the show as well as taking some pictures. I know it contributed to the longer wait to get in, but I think its worth it. As for the restoration I think it looks incredible. I never saw the original show (I did see the one that ran in the 90s though) so my only comparison to that is the virtual tour on the Blu-ray disc and I think its a faithful recreation with some upgraded effects.
  
  
• I made it a point to be on Main Street for one of the snow events and it was well worth it. The new lighting effect looks great, even though they were having some issues with the garlands that cross the street near the tree. It appears there are new snow machines or at least new locations for them. They were not on top of the light rigs, but instead were on the building roof hidden from sight.
  
  
• This was the first time I have seen Fantasmic since the most recent rehab and the new digital projectors do make the film sequences look much clearer and more vivid. Also I saw a new light/strobe effect on the island that I did not remember, but everything else seemed about the same.
  

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