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

Hello all,

This was our first trip to the Disneyland resort, during the "Summer" season, and in over a month. There were a lot of guests milling about, but still most lines under an hour except for Splash, Tower, and Indy. Fastpasses for the big E-Tickets seemed to disappear well before sunset, which I took to mean more guests are starting to understand the system.

Below are some comments and observations regarding this trip.

Trip logs and mileage reports are in thePark Miles section.

Disneyland & DCA:

• As you walk around Disneyland you might think its the off season with the amount of work that is being done and attractions that are down. The work on Main Street is reaching the end of the block with the camera shop currently underwraps. The Annual Passholder processing center has been moved to Space Mountain. Over in Adventureland the Bazaar is getting new thatch, out in New Orleans Sqaure most of the wraps are down, but new ones have sprung up on the remaining buildings. The entrance sign for Haunted Mansion is missing in action too. Out in Tomorrowland all the walls have come down and a new railing and pavement area have been revealed. Still no visible signs of progress on Buzz. (We had shots of all this work in the pictorial update,but I wanted to list it again).
• In the pictorial update you saw some paint samples on Sleeping Beauty Castle. The rumors I have seen say this were to demonstrate the final color scheme and get final approvals before the castle gets its wrap in late July.
• Over at DCA we caught the last three minutes or so of the new "show" out in front of the Animation Building. It consisted of three CMs playing artists, Peter Pan, Mickey, and Cinderella made appearances too, then everyone headed into the building (we did not have time to follow this time, but some day we will catch the whole show)..
• We had heard of two changes to the Haunted Mansion since our last ride on it, one good, one bad. First the bad, they installed extremely bright exit signs throughout the attraction. I would say at least half of them are extremely annoying and distracting. Why did they do this? Seems to me the signs should only be lit whenever the attraction stops or has a problem, not all the time... Now for the good. They have modified the ride controls and now instead of stopping everytime someone needs assistance boarding and disembarking the ride can go into "slow-motion" or a creep mode to allow that guest to enter or exit their doombuggy without stopping the entire attraction. This happened a couple times on our journey and seemed good, we did stop once though.
• Disney's Imagine... A Fantasy in the Sky Fireworks, powered by HP - what a disappointment. We did not see any new shells really, just the ones we have seen for Believe. The show has many fewer than Believe though. The music score for this was a rehash taken from several old shows with a couple new elements. The main portion of the show is the Fanstay theme from the WDW 100 Years of Magic celebration. There were also some score moments from the original Fantasy in the Sky we thought and one segment sounded like it was from Believe. Overall the audio mixing was terrible, with some really strange cuts. The flow of the show seemed jerky at best and definetly not that cohesive.
• In the evening they had swing dancing at Plaza Gardens, a nice addition to the line up to see it back on Friday and Saturday nights.
• About a month ago I emailed contacted Disneyland via the contact page on the website. I usually do this every year and ask the dates and show times of the college band for the summer. Usually within a week a get a friendly reply from Disney with the dates and times. This year however my first response was an email that told me to check the website. Well I did, and as usually it does not list the times for most of the "smaller" entertainment offerings, just the "bigger" parades and shows. So I replied again asking for the college band and explaining that their website does not list things such as the Trash Can Trio, the Firehouse Band, College Band, etc.. and that I would like to find out the dates and times for the College Band and Flag Retreat. I received an email asking for my home address so they could send me the "information". So I replied thanking them and asking why it could not be emailed to me. In the mean time I we stopped at Downtown Disney for dinner on the way to an Angels game and I had to go to the Bank on Main Street for an errand so I decided to ask that CM too. He said I should look in my guidebook for the times. I went through the routine again that the band is not listed there, but it is listed in their time schedule (CM's get a booklet with all the entertainment times and various hours of the restaurants, etc.. each week or two). He said they were not "allowed" to look in there and tell guests directly what it says. I was completely shocked by this answer. I know CMs usually will refer to it and answer a direct question from a guest.. it really shocked me what he said. Anyways I gave up and went about my day... back to the email saga.. I received a followup message saying the times of the flag retreat and the days the college band performs, no show times though (well I knew one was the falg retreat so that helped a bit). Then in the mail a few days later I received an envelop from Disneyland with a generic brouchure in it and a park hours sheet. Nothing else. So they never did answer my question.
• Friday we found out the College Band performs at Plaza Gardens at 3:00pm, in front of the Castle at 4:45, and the Flag Retreat at 6:45 (Tuesday -> Saturday we think). I know they play at least one more set, but we did not get the time and location yet.
  
  
  

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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