As we light up the Jack-o’lanterns for tonight’s festivities, we’d like to welcome you to MiceChat’s weekly Disneyland news and photo update. Let’s dive one last time into spookiest season of them all with a little mood music from Disneyland Paris:
| This is Halloween! |
As tonight marks All Hallows’ Eve, I want to reflect over this Halloween Season and how well the parks did during Disney’s hard ticket evening events.
Mickey’s Halloween Party is a highlight of the Halloween season but what it does to crowds throughout the resort is horrendous. Disneyland operated the parties this year mostly on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. If you were a day guest, these were also the days you should have avoided during the Halloween season as the result was some pretty awful crowd conditions. On Monday and Wednesday nights, DCA was only open until 8 pm, and on Fridays DCA was open until 11 pm, causing crowding in Disneyland after 3 pm, since party guests were allowed to enter the already-busy park early; DCA would crowd after party start times, especially on Friday nights as Disneyland’s APs flooded to the resort after work.
Hopefully TDA(Team Disney Anaheim, Disneyland Resort’s management) can rethink party nights to streamline guest traffic and bottleneck problems. Perhaps the hard ticket party should switch back to DCA and create a holiday attraction overlay for DCA as well as a special World of Color for party nights (Radiator Springs: Ghost Light anyone?) and let Disneyland play Halloween Screams fireworks show and keep its Halloween attraction lineup. That could help distribute crowds and keep Disneyland from grid-locking. Or would it be silly to move the Halloween party away from the park with all of the Halloween attractions and spectaculars? What are your suggestions to help Disneyland get through the popular Halloween Party and overcrowding issues?
| “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” |
Halloween will be plucked out of the park beginning tomorrow as the transition into the Christmas Season is upon us. Below is video of how Magic Kingdom over at Walt Disney World does it literally overnight. It doesn’t work quite that way at Disneyland, but we’ll see Christmas roll out over the next week and be fully merry by November 10th.
Sleeping Beauty’s Winter Castle
Disney has done it again, they have snow blanketed the castle a full week before Halloween. The remainder of the 60th diamonds have now been removed. In order to change the castle from the regular castle to the winter castle, Disney has to bring in a crane to place the roofs that have lights embedded into them to place over the actual castle roof.
And on Saturday the snow crystals lights started to appear on the castle as well.
it’s a small world Holiday
The always popular “it’s a small world” Holiday is currently down for its holiday install. The popular holiday attraction (and its earworm of a theme song!) will return in just over a week on Thursday, November 9th.
Jingle Cruise
The world famous Jungle Cruise will close tonight to begin the change over to the Jingle Cruise. The attraction will reopen on Thursday, November 9th.
| Farewell to Halloween |
As we say Hello to Christmas we should also say goodbye to Halloween.
First off we need to say goodbye to Space Mountain: Ghost Galaxy as by November 4th, it will be back to the insanely popular Hyperspace Mountain. Classic Space Mountain purists get zero respite. Expect long lines and early runs on Fastpasses. Your best bet, as Darth Daver says, is to get there at rope drop if at all possible.
Haunted Mansion Holiday is just here for a mention as it will not experience any downtime between holidays. Haunted Mansion Holiday will continue to operate through January 8th.
And now for the photographic part of the tour…
| Disneyland |
Let’s move away from Holiday specific news and lets go through the park land by land as the changes keep coming.
Main Street
Welcome to Main Street as one season ends and another is most definitely making its presence known.
Trees around the Hub already have their snow-topped lights.
Over near the Hub, the Coffee stand has added some doughnuts to its lineup.
As a part of the growing trend, turnstiles are disappearing from attractions. First Haunted Mansion, then Tiki Room, and now the Main Street Cinema.
Over at Plaza Inn the hedges around the dining area has been replanted with new shrubbery.
And now a few shots from a fireworks show that has been lighting the skies over Disneyland on and off in one form or another since 1958, considered a gift from Walt to his guests. Sadly, this shortened version of the show is just four and one half minutes long. Don’t blink or you might miss it.
Fantasyland
Adventureland
Let’s duck into Indiana Jones.
New Orleans Square
Christmas has already begun celebrating with wreaths and garland decorating the land.
Critter Country
As Critter Country is still experiencing variable weekday closures, there’s not a lot to say. Splash Mountain will reopen from refurbishment November 4th, therefore ending those weekday closings.
I know I am ready for the Disneyland Railroad to reopen and really excited for Star Wars Land. The river and train will reopen this coming Summer!
Frontierland
Over on Tom Sawyer’s Island work continues on the Fantasmic! stage.
The re-docking has been completed next to Harper’s Mill
Over at River Belle Terrace, the patio has been divided from the open seating section from Stage Door by these fake hedges. While slightly better than the ugly barricades we previously commented on, these particular plastic hedges look weird, out-of-scale and need to be replaced with a more pleasant solution. Planters with flowers and real hedges would be lovely and would make for a nicer dining environment.
Speaking of Stage Door, it has reopened from its short refurb.
Mickey’s Toontown
Moving into the cartoon world where the last of the Halloween stuff is coming down as Christmas is already up, for Halloween party nights, Mickey’s Toontown opens early for Trick-or-Treating: I guess they’re early for everything!
Gag Factor’s scrims have come down with just a wall and scrims over the Powerhouse section in Downtown Mickey’s Toontown.
Onto Neighborhood Lane.
Tomorrowland
Seagulls are missing from the buoy.
Check back Friday for more from the Disneyland Resort with our Disney California Adventure, Star Wars Land and Downtown Disney update!
| Get Disneyland Wait Times with Mouseaddict |
Get Mouseaddict Here You can keep track of the wait times and even where in the park people are congregating by downloading the app (iPhone only at this time).
| Thank you ! | |
| All of us on the Disneyland Photo Update crew would like to thank you for joining us today. Each week we’ll feature different photographers and commentators (often more than one). Today’s MiceChat Disneyland Update was shot and assmbled by Brian Pinsky, with additional photos by Dusty Sage and edited by Shelly Valladolid. |
| Are you a member of the MiceChat Sunday Meet-up Facebook group? If you are interested in meeting up with fellow theme park lovers in the parks, please be sure to follow this group: MiceChat Sundays in the Park. And please follow the MiceChat Facebook Page for news and updates from the Disneyland Resort and beyond: |
That’s it for the Disneyland portion, check back tomorrow for California Adventure and Downtown Disney article. Are you a photographer? Do you love the parks? Would you like to contribute to the Disneyland Update or other MiceChat columns? Contact Dusty Sage: [email protected]