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

It was a last minute decision to head to the parks today, due to the threat of rain. Of course we decided to give it a try and made it till 7pm without a drizzle and we lasted until around 9 when it really started to rain. The crowds were more than I expected with the threat of rain all day. When the first drizzles came around 7pm a large portion of the crowd headed for the exits.

Found an interesting note in the park guidemap as I was waiting for a show. Did you know they have a Disney's Digital Coloring Book, with Mousekemeal purchase, for $1.49 with the purchase of a kids meal a select place you get this CD-ROM digital coloring book. Has anyone out there gotten one? Curious how it is. The price seems extremely reasonable, which is rare...

For dinner we headed to the ESPN Zone. They have a new program called the Season Pass for frequent diners. This trip we tried something new, the recliner chairs in the screening room. The chairs were fairly comfortable, except for the button in the middle of the back, it hit me just right.. Eating down there was easier than I thought. I figured that the sitting and leaning might be annoying, but it was not. One drawback is if your on one of the sides you cannot easily watch the TV feeds on the other side. Go figure that the games I would like to see were opposite, luckily some people left and they let us move.

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

Disneyland Items:

• Disneyland had quite a few people wandering around the park, but the lines were not too bad. I do not remember seeing any that were posted over an hour..
• Tom Sawyer Island seems to be moving along. There is alot of work going on with the caves and rocks as you approach the Fort. No signs of work on the Fort though. They are re-routing a couple of the stair cases in the rock area, it looks like there is going to be a bridge connecting the two high points also. As of now the entire front half of the island is open, including the Treehouse and Fantasmic stage area.
• Disneyland in the rain is always an interesting experience. My biggest complaint is that Southern California rains are always cold.. I always enjoy going around WDW in the rain, mostly because its warm.. Its a blast to slide your way down Main Street with huge splashes around you. (This is easy to do with Sandles and a Poncho. just don't pick your feet up and slide away... not fun to do when your freezing though).
• I did not get a picture because of darkness, but our "stupid person of the day" goes to two people who were running and then sliding in the NOS train station. Even after falling a couple times they kept going. A CM announced no Slidding in the station please...
• I was surprised to see the number of attractions that closed early Friday. I understand that some should due to rain, like Alice in Wonderland, but others like Snow White did not make sense to me.. Also they kept Pooh running through the rain, even with its un protected load/unload areas.. makes sense to me.. I guess you can say the same about Dumbo too, but that has never dawned on me.. not sure why..

DCA Items:

• Over at DCA the crowd seemed much more than we would have guessed. Usually you can count on it to be much lighter feeling than Disneyland, but today it did not seem proportional. Not sure why.. the lines were not bad at all..
• We went to see Playhouse Disney, Live on Stage, for the first time. The line was only filling half the queue about 10 minutes to show time so we got in line. Upon entering the show building we were surprised by how small it appeared.. we were trying to figure out how the restuarant and store fit in here. Upon further review it was larger than it looked..
• The show itself was a well done production. The kids in the audience went crazy for the most part. They all seemed to love the show. I am not that familiar with Playhouse Disney, but found it tolerable.. if I went with small children I know it would be a must stop every visit probably.
• On the geek side, the lighting, sound, and stage setup seemed great. We were commenting on how it would be cool to see a concert in there.
• The CMs who were working the show seemed to be on top of things and great with kids, and we went to a show late in the afternoon too. For example next to us was a small child who decided to cry as soon as they sat down and the lights went down. A CM came over 2-3 times to talk with her and even went a brought a flashlight over for the kid to playwith on another trip.. nothing worked and after about 10 minutes the parents gave up and left...

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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