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Visit Date: 10/26/12
Steps: 29,551
Parks Miles: 11.1
Time in Parks: 9

 
Trip Log:

Started off this warm October day walking to Downtown Disney. Spent some time looking at the new ice skating rink and then the progress on Earl of Sandwich. Did a pass by of the Paradise Pier Hotel to see how the painting project is progressing then cut through the Grand Californian and Downtown Disney on my way to the parks. First stop today Disneyland! STrolled down Main Street USA and spent some time in the hub before going through Adventureland and out to New Orleans Square to get a Fastpass for Haunted Mansion Holiday. Walked back along the Rivers of America and the Big Thunder Trail to the Halloween Carnival. Took pictures of the current carvings and then continued on through Fantasyland and out to Toontown. Circled Toontown then made my way to Tomorrowland. Stopped by the Starcade to see the Wreck-It Ralph gang then it was off to the hub to catch some of Soundsational. Made my way through Frontierland and back to the Haunted Mansion to use my Fastpass. After riding walked along the Rivers of America and then cut through Frontierland and the hub on my way back to Tomorrowland and a second pass to see Ralph. Made my way over to California Adventure. Roamed Buena Vista Street for a while then made my way to Cars Land. I cut through Flos and as I exited saw the DCA Today gang doing a contest. Decided to give the Racers a go, but unfortunately they went down. Walked by the Flying Tires, through Bugs Land and into Hollywood Land. Peeked into Dancin with Disney then continued on through Carthay Circle and into Condor Flats. Decided to grab a bite to eat at Taste Pilots since it was empty and so was I. After dinner stopped by the Redwood Creek Trail on my way to the Pier. Circled the Pier walking by Ariels, Screamin, Toy Story, Paradise Gardens and Little Mermaid. Then wandered through the Pier and Cars Land before making my way back to Buena Vista Street then over to Disneyland. Disneyland was alive with activity as guests arriving for the Halloween Party flooded the park. Took a look at some of the costumes as I walked down Main Street. Walked through Frontierland and along the Rivers of America and eventually out to Critter Country. Circled around then doubled back to New Orleans Square to take some Christmas decoration pictures. It was getting dark so decided to take some Halloween Party set up pictures. Strolled along the Rivers of America and then around the Big Thunder Trail. Through Fantasyland and around the Matterhorn to Tomorrowland. Hung out on Main Street for a while as the park closed and the party took over. Watched the scene for a while then it was back to DCA. Caught a performance by Five and Dime and hung out on Buena Vista Street for a while. Made my way down the Parade Route to the Wharf then into Cars Land. Walked down Route 66 then through Bugs Land and ended up in Hollywood Land so caught the Mad T Party Band before deciding to make one final pass through Downtown Disney. Paused by the ice rink then walked back to the garage, car, and headed home.

Other Interesting Stats:
* Moderate Walking Stats (meaning over 2.5mph): 22,645 steps, 202 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:


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My Thoughts & Observations:

Hello all,

Friday was a relaxing day at the Disneyland Resort for me. The weather was great, in the mid 80s with a breeze and not a cloud in the sky and cooling down to the 70s by the time I left. The crowds were on the light side until sunset when Disneyland closed for the Halloween Party. In the afternoon, for example, I walked by Soarin and it was posted at 15 minutes with no line in sight.. even Toy Story was under half and hour and the Radiator Springs Racers were posted at an hour, and the Flying Tires at 20 minues. Over at Disneyland much the same with the E-Tickets all well under an hour in the afternoon.

I always enjoy visiting the parks during transition times and right now the Christmas season is starting to take over as Halloween wraps up its last weekend. As you saw in the pictorial update snow has arrived on Sleeping Beauty Castle and Christmas decorations have been installed in New Orleans Square. Preparations are underway on Main Street, Small World, and over at DCA too. It is fun to walk around and see the sequencing of the transition.

Jason

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

Thoughts and Observations:

  • Walked through Downtown Disney to start my afternoon. The Ice Skating Rink to promote the new Fairy film is now open. I found it a little odd to be walking around in 80 degree weather in October listening to Christmas music and watching out door ice skating. The rink itself seemed to be holding up ok in the afternoon heat. Only a couple guests were on the ice when I walked by. Later in the evening on the way out I walked by again and there were quite a few more. Has anyone tried it out? What are your thoughts?

  • Earl of Sandwich now has an announced Grand Opening date of November 2nd. The exterior looked complete from what you could see over the walls. They were conducting training with quite a few of their workers and managers going in and out when I walked by.

  • Does anyone know the story with the Grand Californian lobby carpet? Temporary carpet is back in the lobby. Seems if they were doing a planned replacement of it they would have waited to pull up the old carpet until the new had arrived. Last time it made sense to have temporary carpet since there was an incident that damaged the original carpet and it needed to come out. Or is there a way to actually refurbish carpet? Or is something else going on?

  • Fastpass has returned to the Haunted Mansion Holiday. Wonder if the opening weeks were a test run and this was planned all along or if there was demand for it? I thought the lines moved better without Fastpass but on a selfish note I like its return because I will take advantage of it, as I did Friday, and visit where as the past couple trips I had not because I did not want to wait in the line.

  • I made one last pass through the Halloween Carnival for the season since it wraps up its run before my next planned trip. The area was alive with activity, especially considering I was there between Billy Hill sets when there was no entertainment going on. Seems word has gotten out, or is Halloween that big of a draw where it is succeeding where others have failed. Next up Christmas moves in starting November 12th.

  • The Wreck-It Ralph gang has taken over the back portion of the Starcade for a Meet and Greet which opened Friday. I stopped by twice so I could see both characters and thanks to the light crowds and the first day both times there was only a couple guest wait. I am sure come next week once the film is out and they promote the area the lines will arrive. I thought the area worked and the Ralph character was great to see. I would have liked to have seen them do something more with the Starcade. It is really a mismatch of things right now and seems a disjointed mess to me. You have this Meet and Greet that takes up the back 1/3 to 1/2 of it. Then you have a small area with some random arcade games then you have the small gift shop area which has Wreck-It Ralph items, which makes sense, as well as regular merchandise and then a rack of Christmas stuff too. Wish they would have spent some time to really rework the area a bit and maybe move all the arcade games upstairs or something and clean up the merchandise area a bit. Also it is a bit awkward because the Meet and Greet entrance is in the back, nearest the Space Mountain exit. So those entering the store run into the exit and have to go out and around to get in line.

  • One comment on guests... not sure if they are oblivious or just rude.. When I went to take a picture of Ralph I waited in line and when I got up there I went to stand by the PhotoPass photographer so I could get a decent picture of the backdrop and character. As I got ready to take the picture the guests behind me walked up to Ralph (these were not little kids, it was two adults). They shook his hand and started to talk to him. The two cast members by me and myself all shook our heads, not sure what to say. We let them finish and then the next group (this time teenagers) followed suit. Completely ignoring the cast member trying to control the line. Finally by the third group (again adults, which also seemed odd no kids in four groups if you include me) we managed to stop the group by asking them to wait a second for a picture.

  • Over at Disney California Adventure preparations for the new Christmas decorations on both Buena Vista Street as well as Cars Land are well underway. I am really looking forward to how the new additions look and from the rumors and cast member excitement it is all sounding promising.

  • As I was walking around Cars Land taking pictures ran into a contest from the DCAToday folks. Thought it was funny that the one time I happen to be in the same area as them the prize was something I had no interest in. For those that do not know, the official DCA twitter account, DCAToday, is used to share information about the park and from time to time they hold contests and if you find them/win they have prizes such as Fastpasses or treats. Fridays prize was a pie from Flos.

  • As I mentioned above the wait times were on the light side so I decided to give the Radiator Springs Racers single rider line a try. Got in line and it was about to the original spring which I figured meant about 20 minutes or so. After a couple of minutes a cast member announced the ride had stopped. I decided to bail at this point. I took some pictures and noticed it was running again within maybe 10 minutes. Seems the downtime was very short. Great to see, compared to some of the down times I have seen/experienced there. Unfortunately I did not make it back to give it another try this trip.

  • I still find it odd that on most nights the entertainment at the Paradise Garden Bandstand is done before dinner time. Friday the last set was at 4:45pm. Seems it would be good to keep them going through dinner. I saw in the time guide that on Mon through Thursday they have one additional set at 6:00pm (they start later too, closer to noon vs 11am). While on the subject of the time guide. It had the last set of Five & Dime at 2:45pm, but I saw them after 7:00pm.

  • I spent some time roaming around Disneyland as the park transitioned for the Halloween party. I still think the transition and mix in idea is great for party guests but for regular day guests I think they are getting short changed and for us annual passholders its just an inconvenience. What I mean by this is say you came to the park and pay your $87 for a one day one park ticket. You see the park closes at 7:00pm and still go for it. In reality though things start closing down and the party set up happens well before 7:00pm and a large influx of guests start arriving for the party in the afternoon. So you are missing out on your experience in favor of those who paid extra for the evening. Also I think it impacts the concept/quality of show to have the party roll out before the park closes. For example try walking through Frontierland. There are roped off areas for the party, queues set up, signs, etc... it completely takes over well before the party begins.

    For annual passholders, like myself, I view it as an inconvenience because we are loosing park time and it is making crowds elsewhere heavier than they normally would be. A good portion of the guests forced out of Disneyland at 7:00pm found their way over to DCA or Downtown Disney plus all the other locals that showed up in the evening and did not pay attention that it was a party night so they too ended up at DCA. On the plus side you can experience the costume parade as the party guests flow into the park which is fairly entertaining and you can hang out on Main Street for the first hour (till 8:00pm) and experience a little of the festivities without attending.

    I have nothing against the concept of an after hour party that gives the attendees additional access, benefits, etc.. since they are paying for it. But I am not a huge fan of it meaning those who are not are impacted. Walt Disney World has done this for years with their Christmas celebration at the Magic Kingdom and it really bothers me. For those of you not familiar if you visit WDW and want to see the Christmas Parade, Fireworks, or other shows at the Magic Kingdom your two options are to visit the week around Christmas during the madness or to pay extra for the Christmas Party. If you are a regular day guest during the weeks leading up to Christmas you are not able to experience any of these offerings with your regular admission. There are rumors out there that Disneyland is considering moving to this idea. I really hope not since Christmas time is one of my favorite times to visit the parks and limiting the offerings that have traditionally been part of your regular admission seems poor to me. I understand Disney is a company and the objective is to make money but seems they could offer a premium experience that goes above and beyond for party guests but still offer a baseline for everyone else. A model of how this works would be the Candlelight at EPCOT. If you pay for a dinner package you get a meal and seating. If not you can go stand by or watch from the back. Everyone still gets to experience it and Disney makes their money. Seems like a win win to me (except it makes getting dinning reservations at EPCOT even more challenging). It should be interesting to see what direction the Disneyland Resort goes in. Based on the apparent success of the Halloween Parties I see the rumors as being plausible. Should be interesting to see how the 20 days of Candlelight go this year at Disneyland and what tweaks are made to the offerings next year.

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
Pictures & Video From this Trip:


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