home > Disneyland Resort > Pictures >Trip Summary For 12/22/09
Disneyland ResortPicture Set

Visit Date: 12/22/09
Steps: 23,611
Parks Miles: 8.9
Time in Parks: 8

 
Trip Log:

Started off this windy/cool December day hiking to Downtown Disney because the tram lines were longer than my patience. The good news was I was in the garage with no parking headaches. After crossing the street to Downtown Disney we heard the rehersal of the Tubas for the afternoon event. Walked by the new boats at Rain Forest and then continued on through Downtown Disney and over to DCA. Decided to grab lunch first so walked out to the Pier. I ordered from the Farmers Market, sat down, ate, and moved seats before the others in the group made it through the line at the Wharf Cafe. After lunch took a quick peak at the World of Color work then strolled over to Soarin to grab Fastpasses then met up with some out of state company and wandered out to the Pier. Toy Story was posted at 45 minutes, we decided to wait and luckily it was closer to 35 minutes only. After setting the second best score so far (bet that did not last long) for the day we continued on past the Fun Wheel. The line was all the way up the exit ramp so we kept going. Stopped for a restroom break near Burger Invasion then took more pictures of the World of Color work from the Zephyr area. Finished our loop and headed for the Blue Sky Cellar. Afterwards walked back to the entrance and then down the backlot to check out the wait for Monsters. Way too long (40 min). I stopped by the Tower of Terror area for some pictures then we headed out to the Esplande. Split up with some heading for Disneyland and Nemo and others (including myself) hiking back through Downtown Disney to see if the Tubas were performing (I missed it they were done) then hopped on the Monorail to Disneyland. Once at the park saw the others in line for Nemo (they still had a good half hour) so wandered over to New Orleans Square by way of Frontierland and a quick stop in the Golden Horseshoe to watch the Showboat Jubilee. After the show waded through the masses and walked through Adventureland and back to join the group that was about to exit Nemo. At this point it was turning cooler and we needed to make a quick run out to the cars to exchange a couple Christmas gifts and get jackets. So most of the group headed for DCA and Soarin and the Lazygeek and myself out to the garage, car, and then back to join them. There was no line at Taste Pilots so I grabbed a burger for dinner and the others headed back to the Wharf for dinner. While they were eating I spent some time up on the Pier entranceway watching some World of Color testing. After they ate we headed down the Backlot and walked onto Monsters Inc. Then we headed for Disneyland. Made it onto Main Street right as the 7:30 Snow Event was starting. Watched the lights and snow then decided to check out Great Moments. After the show took some pictures with Mickey and Minnie and then headed for the tram, cars and home calling it an early (by Disneyland standards) evening since I had work on Wednesday.

Other Interesting Stats:
* Moderate Walking Stats (meaning over 2.5mph): 18,069 steps, 158 minutes.


For Comparisons to other trips or more park miles click here to visit our park Miles Section.

Note: These totals may be skewed because the pedometer is zero'd when we start and then left alone and read when we leave. So attractions, and other things may cause extra "steps" to be counted. The pedometer that we use basically measures up/down motion as a step, so if your standing in line and moving up and down it may be counting steps, etc.. so the total distances traveled and steps may be off.. so use these as rough distance comparisons between trips and they may not be accurate in terms of actual distance traveled.
Pictures & Video From this Trip:


Regular View 3 pictures per page

Choose how you would like to view the pictures:
My Thoughts & Observations:

Hello all,

I made a rare midweek journey down to the Disneyland Resort to visit with some friends that were in for the holidays from the east coast. I was pleasantly surprised by the crowd. I was expecting it to be worse than Friday but thanks to the cold/windy weather the crowds were management and most of the attractions we wanted to visit had normal wait times with just a few exceptions. The one that pops to mind is the Fun Wheel. The non swinging line was starting to creep up the final straight away of the exit ramp. By evening the crowds actually felt like they had stopped building (where as Friday they seemed to just keep pouring into the park). The weather was in the low 60s with a fairly constant wind and some chilling gusts. This really did not seem to stop people or activities (I am guessing if it kept blowing it stopped the Fireworks).

Jason

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

Disneyland & DCA Thoughts and Observations:

  • I was lucky enough to park in the garage again with no line at all, pulled right up and showed my pass. The other lanes on the far side were backed-up maybe 10-15 cars. I took the Ball Road overpass to get into the garage. The tram lines were long, probably close to two trams worth of people on both sides.

  • The new boats at the Rain Forest Cafe that you can pay to drive around look rather dinky to me. Its an interesting idea but the area you have to drive is very small and there is not anything too interesting to do with the boats, unlike the mini Jungle Boats at the Disneyland Hotel (and in Adventureland at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World). New Rain Forest boats interesting.. I walked by twice and both times saw no one in the area, except the cast member working there.

  • Due to the cool/cold weather the lines at the Wharf Cafe were long for lunch, it was over 20 minutes to get your food.

  • Not much happening in DCA.. even from an entertainment was cut back since it was a Tuesday (no Aladdin, no High School Musical). The wait times seemed to peak in the early afternoon with Toy Story having a posted time of 45 min, the Fun Wheel was 45 for either the non swinging or the swinging cars. Monsters Inc even had a 40 min posting in the mid afternoon (we walked on later in the evening with no wait).

  • We missed the Tuba Christmas concert in Downtown Disney. The Disneyland website said it was from 2-5pm in Downtown Disney, we showed up around 3:30 and they were already cleaning up. We were able to hear a couple songs during their rehearsal out in the parking lot and they sounded great! Moral of the story is if you want to see something you better confirm the times and not trust the website... I knew this but was too lazy to seek out a CM to verify the time when we first arrived.

  • Over at Disneyland we headed out to the Rivers of America because some in the group had not seen the Showboat show and I wanted them to see it to compare to the WDW version. There were quite a few CMs working the crowd trying to keep things moving. They even had a rope up on the lowest level to allow for a walkway and viewing area. This worked great during the show but as soon as the show ended things ground to a halt as everyone scattered and ran into each other, the Pirates line, and the stroller parking. The biggest problem seemed to be they wanted the lower walkway to be one way heading toward Haunted Mansion but those watching the show had their strollers parked in front of Pirates so they wanted to go that way. This caused a collision of the crowds and the CMs were stuck in the middle.

  • Those that had seen both WDW and Disneyland agreed with me that the Disneyland one just seemed to work better. It was a combination of things ranging from the better venue (easier to view, built in sound system, and for our late showing even lighting), fitting in with the surrounding area much better, the live singing, and even some of the staging. The Mark Twain just seemed to work better thank the Liberty Belle to me.

  • As you saw in the pictures they were working with the World of Color projectors in the evening. I really enjoy watching the work and listening to the reactions of the other guests as they see the Bay and testing. The one thing I could tell for sure is there are a lot of projectors and projection surfaces. Unfortunately I did not get to see any full scale tests, just a couple of piecemeal tests in the half hour or so I was in the area.

  • Stopped by to see Great Moments again. The theater was about 3/4ths full and the audience really seemed to enjoy the show. It was great to see!

  • The trams leaving were a little out of sync. We waited quite a while and two trams showed up and both stopped at the first station to load wheel chairs, then some regular guests jumped on and they pulled out and left.. not stopping at the load zone where everyone was waiting.


  • We post some announcements on:

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
Pictures & Video From this Trip:


Regular View 3 pictures per page

Choose how you would like to view the pictures:
Back to previous page