home > Columns > Geekspeaks >
12/16/11 - My thoughts and observations from Fridays visit to the Disneyland Resort
 The Geek Speaks:

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.

12/16/11 - My thoughts and observations from Fridays visit to the Disneyland Resort

Hello all,

It was nice to be back home at the Disneyland Resort. Vacations are always fun and visiting Walt Disney World and going on the cruise were great but there is just something to be said about the comfortable surroundings of the parks I visit frequently. I went into the day expecting the holiday crowds and was shocked by what I found. The parks really felt like an off season day. Many attractions were walk ons for most of the day and others had relatively short waits. I kept waiting to see the crowd materialize and it never did. Not sure if it was the windy weather, the only a week till Christmas, or what but it was definitely a great day to visit the Disneyland Resort. Due to the crowd levels I ended up visiting several attractions that I normally would not have even. I do not think I have ever walked right onto the subs for example. It is days like this that always make me hesitant to make predictions when people ask me what to expect. I would have said a fairly heavy crowd was to be expected.. at least heavier than normal, instead it turned out to be among the lightest crowds I have seen in recent months.

Jason

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

Disneyland & DCA Thoughts and Observations:

  • The story of the afternoon that I tried to capture in the pictures but failed to do adequately was the wind. Weather.com predicted at 15-17mph wind for the afternoon but it sure felt more than that at DCA, especially on the Fun Wheel where it was a challenge to hold the camera steady to get the pictures. Due to the wind the Swings and Zephyr were both closed. And the area around the Christmas tree was roped off to keep people away during the height of the winds.

  • With my last trip occurring three weeks ago I was curious to see the progress made around the resort and I was not disappointed. As you saw in the pictures Cars Land just keeps racing along toward its completion with the addition of more details on a daily basis. Most of the major construction looks to be wrapped up and now they are finishing up and starting to bring in the close up elements. For example noticed the neon on Ramones sign. Or the lamp posts near Filmores. Over at Buena Vista Street the building facades are really taking shape and the Carthay is partially unveiled and details are starting to emerge. I am guessing the walls around the Carthay will be down sooner rather than later to try and help with traffic flow. Sort of how they did it with the Little Mermaid building.

  • Over at Disneyland the Jolly Holiday Bakery is moving along. Still surprised it was not pushed to get open for the holiday rush. Everything I am reading says an early January opening. Guess that gives time to work the kinks out vs being overwhelmed with crowds.

  • Ended up grabbing a corn dog for dinner from the Little Red Wagon on Main Street. There were only two or three groups in front of me, very short! I am still curious why there is no place at Walt Disney World to get a good, fresh, corn dog? The Disneyland Resort has several, you would think the same would work at WDW.

  • I went on Star Tours a couple of times since there was no wait and the Fastpass return times were really fast (within an hour). I sat dead center in the front row on the last trip. I had not been seated there before and the 3D really works well from that seat. You do feel much more immersed to with the large HD/3D screen filling up your entire field of view almost. Where as in the other rows and off center the rest of the cabin makes it into your eye lines.

  • One interesting note in the time schedule. The Muppet Vision 3D attraction is listed at the top of the DCA side. Guess because of the movie they want people to know about the early closing (it closes at 5pm so they can switch over to Tron clips for the evening). Also noticed something called iLLUMINATE from Tue-Thu at ElecTRONica. Anyone know what this is?

  • Unfortunately due to a larger than expected crowd entering Disneyland (actually the longest wait I had all day) I missed the start of the nightly snow fall. The Believe in Holiday Magic show was cancelled fairly quickly, no doubt because of the winds, and they went to a wintertime enchantment segment then the White Christmas Finale. I made it onto Main Street about 1/3 the way through White Christmas. The crowd looked fairly heavy on the street but not gridlock like many holiday evenings.

  • I closed my evening hanging around to watch The Magic, The Memories, and You!. I still think it is a very awkward time to only run the show once at 9:30pm. There was a decent crowd out in the area but it was hard to tell if it was for the show or because of Small World Holiday which had a good size wait by this point in the evening and those people stopped to watch the show while exiting or heading to the attraction. There is now a brief Christmas/Holiday segment in the show, same as the one added to WDW. I think it is a bit awkward to have it mid show. The regular show starts and then it goes to this then back to the regular show for the finale. I would have rather it been a preshow or separate show. The holiday projections themselves were OK but I still have the same complaint as the first time I saw the show. The guest photos are almost an afterthought compared to the scale look of what is going on at Small World. Because of this the purpose of the show really seems to be lost, at least to me. Also note because of the wind there were no fireworks and I thought the show worked OK without them. If you did not know they were supposed to be there you would not have noticed or minded.

Interesting Web Finds/Notes:
Below are some interesting links, notes, and rumors I found/stumble across/or have been informed of since the last Geekspeaks column.

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

Stop by the Geek's Forum to discuss this and other Disney topics.. click here

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

 

Quick Note

Check out the geek speaks archive for past updates.

 

Interested in Helping out?

If you are a fellow disneygeek and interested in sharing your insights, pictures, thoughts drop us an email here we are always looking for contributors.