* 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 a great afternoon/evening trip to the Disneyland Resort. The parks seemed alive with the crowds and the weather was picture perfect. Below are some thoughts and observations from the trip.

Trip logs and mileage reports are in thePark Miles section.

Disneyland & DCA:

• The crowds at both parks seemed a bit heavier than usual. Guess with the great weather and some places on spring break, add in some rehabs and the parks seemed crowded. Even with all the people the lines did not seem extrordinarily long, it all boiled down to timing. Both parks had several large groups of cheerleaders (or dance teams) roaming around. Seems another competition was going on at the resort, these seem to happen almost every weekend now a days.
  
  
• I saw an article in the Orange County Register that the new Security is here to stay. I saw this as a great opportunity to add another visual barrier before reaching the parks. To add to the "wow" moment as your excitement builds to enter the park. As for the new checkpoints reducing the lines to move between the parks it did not seem to put that large of a dent into the process. There were still substantial lines to get into the park. I wish for Annual Passes and maybe even some multi-day passes they would go to an automated system like Florida has. It seems to me that once CM watching several turnstiles really takes some of the load off and the lines move much much faster. Maybe someday this will happen.
  
  
• As you saw from pictorial update Disneyland has a lot of work going on for its upcoming 50th anniversary anouncement. Much of the work is long overdue, but the park should start to resemble its old self in some areas soon.
  
  
• The walls up around the Hub were a little sad. The nearly unobstructed view of Sleeping Beauty Castle seemed strange. As many of you know the Disneyland castle is much smaller than WDW's. I always thought the glimpses you could get through the trees then rounding the corner or walking by the partners statue to get the wide shot of the castle more than made up for the size differential. Where as WDW's is so large it towers over the street to get the same reaction.
  
  
• Big Thunder was up and running again. The line seemed constant at nearly an hour most of the afternoon. Fastpasses were scheduled for 4 hours or so from gathering them in the late afternoon.
  
  
• A very strange event occurred. During the afternoon both the Mark Twain and Columbia were taking guests around the Rivers. Then as night fell the Columbia was being rigged for Fantasmic out at the dock instead of the harbor. Then during Fantasmic the Mark Twain was absent from the show. Wonder what's up? Anyone know?
  
  
• Caught the Flag Retreat by pure chance. Seemed early to do it at 4pm. Good news was the Disneyland Band performed. Bad news was the early time and I still don't know why they do not list the event or at least have a sign for it.
  
  
• Around 8:30 or so we were wandering around Fantasyland and noticed the line for Toad looked short, we jumped in line and it was about 10 minutes only. We were all very surprised to see the trash can in the garden area was overflowing with trash on the ground and on top (as you saw in the photo). As we entered the front door there were two custodial CMs sweeping the queue and they said they were aware it was full...
  
  
• Another note about timing. After Toad, some road Casey Jr. The line stretched out to the photo area. I was able to walk to Frontierland, watch Fantastmic and then walk back and they were just getting off the train as I approached. Seems there was only one train running which made for a very long wait.
  
  
  

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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