It’s the spooky season folks. Ghosts and Ghouls of every age will find something to delight them at the Disneyland Resort this year as Disneyland prepares for its final Mickey’s Halloween Parties. Next year is sure to bring lots of big changes. But what’s really hard to believe is that we are just a few weeks away from the Christmas season at the resort. Holiday lights start going up shortly and we may see snowfall on the rooftops of the castle before Halloween, if history repeats itself. Let’s take a look around Disneyland park and enjoy the tricks and the treats.
Main Street USA
We hope that even if Mickey’s Halloween Party moves to DCA next year that they continue to decorate Main Street for Halloween. Got to love the yellow and orange bunting and all the pumpkins everywhere.
Might I suggest that you watch this video from Dusty as a soundtrack to today’s update:
We still love all the various pumpkins around Main Street.
The Pixar Play Parade is moving to Disneyland next year. That means that the excellent but aging Soundsational parade will be going away. The parade was built so that the bases could be recycled to speed the building of new parade units. So Disneyland will have DCA’s old parade while we get a new one. Will you miss Soundsational? Thoughts or ideas on what you’d like to see replace it?
Tomorrowland
Let’s venture into Disneyland’s most challenged land. There’s a lot of rumored changes on the way, and an early bit of Star Wars land rolling around as well.
Jake the droid seems to be the hit of Tomorrowland lately.
Jake can be pretty expressive at times. Some kids in this crowd weren’t letting him move freely so his “eye” turned red and he made a “beep beep” sound followed by an aggressive motor sound to tell them he wasn’t amused.
Ok, let’s get in line for Ghost Galaxy. This could be the final year for the overlay, and I want to tempt fate one more time.
The Peoplemover tracks have seen better days. Take a look up and this is what the platform currently looks like:
Small World
One thing is for sure, MaxPass is making lines at Disneyland worse than ever. That’s why we were sad to see new scanners have been added to it’s a small world. The attraction frequently needs to use the parade viewing terrace for overflow queuing. We expect that to become the norm once MaxPass is turned on for this ride.
Siemens officially ends their sponsorship of various Disney attractions this month. That means that small world needs a sponsor. . . could it be you?! Just think . . . “is’s a small world, brought to you by the Smith Family.”
Christmas is just around the corner. You can tell because lights are already going up on the facade of it’s a small world.
New Orleans Square
We’ve been reporting on the over-the-top FastPass lines at Mansion Holiday this week, and Friday was no better. The line stretched from the entrance to nearly the exit. Of course, this is due to MaxPass. Many guests seem to be struggling to understand scanning their park tickets or phone. What makes this line even odder is that this is the only attraction that has four scanners instead of two…two of them often go unused.
Something I hadn’t noticed before are these lanterns around the graveyard.
Over at the Harbour Galley, they’re still displaying their Fantasmic summer promotional menu items. They don’t have any Halloween promotional items, so that’s understandable.
Construction continues at the River Belle Terrace and still, no re-open date has been set yet.
I feel like I miss out on Pirates a lot lately because the line looks like crazy more often than not these days. On this particular day the line ONLY wrapped up onto the bridge instead of across the main New Orleans Square walkway, but that extended queue was set up just in case. This is one of the main reasons that New Orleans Square becomes gridlocked so often. When the Pirates queue spills out into the walkways, and then strollers get parked along the railings and paths, things can just suddenly stop. . . It’s not unlike the SoCal freeways.
The more I look at this sign the more I see that it’s just a cheap flat printed signboard. Imagine how great this would look if it were for real (like the old signs were).
Adventureland
We’ve just crossed over into the land of Moana. She’s a very popular “not a princess.”
Has anyone tried the Bengal Rice Plate at the Bengal Barbeque? It doesn’t seem like a good deal to me, it’s like you’re paying around $5-6 extra for rice when you could just get three skewers for less.
This lamb dish sounds interesting, though, I may try it on my next trip.
Also, I’ve noticed that the previously standing-room-only tables at the Bengal Barbeque now have stools. I’m glad that I have a better chance of being able to sit down if I’m eating here now.
Frontierland
Things are quiet in Frontierland lately since Big Thunder Mountain is under refurbishment. So much, in fact, you can really hear the background noises and take in a lot of the scenery, at least more so than usual.
I first noticed this campsite a few weeks back, but before that, I can’t remember ever seeing this on Thunder. It’s near the second to last turn.
Rancho del Zocalo has some adorable Dia De Los Muertos decorations to accompany the ones in Zocalo Park.
They also have a promotional barbacoa torta!
I tried it and it was pretty good, but it was really bread-y. That guacamole mayo and the little barbacoa I had were very tasty, though. The barbacoa was also surprisingly spicy, I was expecting the torta to be very sweet. But, just like most everything at Zocalo, the food is good but in California you can get great Mexican food anywhere, so it may not be worth it for some.
It looks like the ribbon on these decorations has been replaced. A few weeks ago I posted that they were looking rather shabby and washed out. They’re bright again.
Fantasyland
The carousel was lively with not only the Pearly Band, but Belle and Beast taking a ride!
And just a little bit of breaking news to tide you over until part 2 of our Disneyland Resort Update later this week . . .
The old Chapel hat store in Downtown Disney has been replaced with what appears to be a temporary dress shop. The new sign is essentially a sticker. The had to apply it twice last week.
And the first signs for the new Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire have been placed in the window of its future home. I have a ticket on the first day of operation.
Well folks, that’s our update for today. There’s still a lot to cover, so we’ll be back soon. My sincere thanks to Brian and Dusty for their help this week with photos and commentary.
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And please join me at an amazing event Dusty is throwing with the help of the folks from Garner Holt for the launch of the Dick Van Dyke Foundation for the Performing Arts. It’s going to be a very rare opportunity to see inside Garner Holt’s animatronics factory and I can’t wait to see it!!!
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