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View Full Version : “Bizarre-O Day” at Disneyland



Techie7
10-12-2002, 09:39 AM
It truly was “Bizarre-O Day” at Disneyland last night. Traffic in the area was bad enough with the Angels game getting ready to start so I ended up taking surface streets to get near the resort from the 57. At 5:00 the bridge into the parking structure was still open and they were running 8 gates in the parking structure. Each gate had at least 4-7 cars.

Proceeding up the parking ramp they were parking in a weird pattern that I had not seen them use before. Fill half of the row with cars. Then double-park half of that. They then would open a new row and park the first half of that. At random they would open up the lanes that were only half filled and fill them in. Maybe there is a reason for this???

Trams were coming up one after another and every one was leaving full to the front gate. Both load/unload sides were being run in DTD and they could not load and unload the trams fast enough. Disneyland had lines past the monorail and DCA past the letters as NA noted. At least 6 planes were circling in the area with banners promoting all kinds of things.

Crowds inside Disneyland resembled a Saturday afternoon with 6 or 7 people deep to see POTS. After grabbing fastpasses for POTC we walked under the bridge to hear the roar of a military jet fly-by. (presumably for the Angles game). For a second people looked slightly panicked as the jets buzzed the park. The Pooh attraction was covered in green mesh so that you could not see in again but the sign had been uncovered causing even more questions from guests.

Heading over to DCA we found that the lines for FFF attractions was healthy with wait times ranging from 20 to 45min for attractions. At one point all of the atmosphere lighting on the clovers turned off. No fade no audio warning they just all shut off leaving people thinking that the park had closed and the rest of us in line standing and walking in the dark. Our best guess was that this had something to do with the Electrical Parade.

Back to Disneyland to see HMH and it was again strange to hear the old music in the ER. So nice to hear it though as it is a much better start to the attraction. The group in the elevator was small (20 or so people) with at least half never seeing the makeover before as they all commented on the Stained Glass being new to the HM. As the doors opened the guests in the elevator applauded the music and presumably the change. All 7 monkies were functioning as well We got out about 10:05 to find Fantasmic running and since it was posted that the park was closing at 10:00 we decided to watch the rest of it rather then running off to another attraction. At the end of Fantasmic we wandered over to Fantasyland to find the shops and attractions still open. A CM informed us that they had found out earlier in the day that hours had been extended an extra hour. One last trip on the Jungle Cruise (with a good skipper) and it was a great end to a VERY strange day at Disneyland.

Kudos to Disney for keeping the park open later when they have that many guests. Extra special thanks to all of the unsuspecting CMs who ended up working later then they had expected.

mkyears
10-12-2002, 09:54 AM
I was also there and witnessed about everything you did. It was funny when the planes flew over everyone stopped and looked like they were gonna crap themselvs I know I was one of them lol.
Yeah I thought it was strange too that the park was still open. I watched the first fantasmic and then I saw on the map there was another one . Well It was fun the old music in the elevator sets the mood much better.

tod
10-12-2002, 10:15 AM
Originally posted by Techie7
Crowds inside Disneyland resembled a Saturday afternoon with 6 or 7 people deep to see POTS.

POTS? Whazzat?

--T

Not Afraid
10-12-2002, 10:40 AM
Originally posted by tod
POTS? Whazzat?

--T

Pirates of Tom Sawyer (Island) ???;)

SzczerbiakManiac
10-12-2002, 11:21 AM
Parade of the Stars?

Ghoulish Delight
10-12-2002, 01:25 PM
Think about the ammount of money pouring into the Disney coffers last night. A summer style crowd at the resort, and a playoffs frenzied crowd down the road at the stadium?! Disney's got an absolute monopoly on big ticket entertainement this month. I'd bet that at least some of the extra crowd at the parks is due to people who have tickets for today's or tomorrow's game and are making it an extended vacation. Plus, of course HMH. Disney couldn't have asked for anything more (well, okay, I guess they could have asked for DCA to be successful).

Techie7
10-12-2002, 01:34 PM
Originally posted by Ghoulish Delight
Think about the ammount of money pouring into the Disney coffers last night. A summer style crowd at the resort, and a playoffs frenzied crowd down the road at the stadium?! Disney's got an absolute monopoly on big ticket entertainement this month. I'd bet that at least some of the extra crowd at the parks is due to people who have tickets for today's or tomorrow's game and are making it an extended vacation. Plus, of course HMH. Disney couldn't have asked for anything more (well, okay, I guess they could have asked for DCA to be successful).

I will say that FFF was actually doing quite well with some of the longest wait times in the park. Not sure how many of those were APs though. Thew money was definatley rolling in. The majority of people coming into the parking structure at 5:00 were paying cash for entrance as opposed to APs that normally enter the parks at that time. The three families in front of me going into Disneyland were "day guests" and it was their first entrance of the day.

HBTiggerFan
10-12-2002, 02:59 PM
Originally posted by Ghoulish Delight
(well, okay, I guess they could have asked for DCA to be successful).

DCA may have had its highest paid attendance yet...If the lines were past the CA letters, and a many people were paying from out of town (if they went to DCA).

I wonder how DCA did for attendance? If it met/exceeded projection we're in trouble :eek:

Darkbeer
10-12-2002, 06:39 PM
Originally posted by Ghoulish Delight

Disney's got an absolute monopoly on big ticket entertainement this month.



With a name like that, I am surprised you forgot about Halloween Haunt at Knott's. :eek:

Looks like they had a sellout crowd last night!!!

DJ_MENTOS
10-12-2002, 07:07 PM
Yesterday, the Gas Company had something arranged in DCA for their employees. My friend went with her husband. It was from 4-8, so that was probably why there were a lot of people for the first time that day in the afternoon.

-DJ_MENTOS

Laffite
10-12-2002, 08:10 PM
I was there Friday and it was like a very cool during during the summer (crowd speaking). I was also in DCA checking out FFF, riding 2 rides but had to go back to DL after that because suddenly I missed DL so much for some reason :confused:

Anyway, very good to heavy sized attendance both parks. HMH was good. I did it twice, once in stand-by line to get the full atmosphere and the second with FP. They advertised it 80min stand-by, and the line went outside the mansion's gate, though I think it was hardly an hour (and that "warm-up" guy was great! That looks like something Maynard would like to do, lol :D)

I didn't see that many changes though, whether the overlay or the music. I have a (poor) recording of last year's spiel and music. I'll listen to it tonight and see how is it different. (and then watch NBC dvd! :D)

ErikBsandiego
10-12-2002, 08:42 PM
Busy today also. Both parks had over hour waits on most lines. Did HM twice - early wait at 10 a.m. only 20 minutes but had to fastpass toward end of the day for 2.5 hours later. Autopia about 45 minutes standby.

Ace
10-12-2002, 09:32 PM
What are these monkeys in the HM I keep hearing about?

Laffite
10-12-2002, 09:52 PM
Originally posted by Squinky
What are these monkeys in the HM I keep hearing about?

Telling what it is exactly will ruin it for everybody. If you must know, you have pm somebody that's been there I guess.

Cadaverous Pallor
10-13-2002, 12:23 PM
Originally posted by Squinky
What are these monkeys in the HM I keep hearing about? Monkey spoiler:
They have placed numerous little toy monkeys in the attic. They are the kind that have a cymbal in each hand and clap them together. Creepy enough when you have one, but I think there's 7 or so in the attic, all banging away! :D

Morrigoon
10-13-2002, 03:49 PM
Somebody's a Twilight Zone fan.... ;)

Ghoulish Delight
10-13-2002, 08:23 PM
Originally posted by Morrigoon
Somebody's a Twilight Zone fan.... ;) Or a MST3K fan. Or an Ernest Borgnine fan :D (okay, I'm sure no one knows what I'm talking about).

Morrigoon
10-13-2002, 08:53 PM
Wasn't that a Twilight Zone? Something about the cymbal monkey clapping his cymbals when bad stuff happens...

Nigel2
10-13-2002, 09:08 PM
Well I know the movie that GD is talking about... what an evil little toy. I always found it funny how easy it was to stop the toy.:D

Morrigoon
10-13-2002, 09:13 PM
Maybe I'm wrong about it being a Twilight Zone then - what was the movie called?

I just remember getting freaked out by those monkeys because of the film.

Nigel2
10-13-2002, 09:41 PM
Oh, god I don't remember. But it was the one where Bornine is telling the story right? I think it was also a compliation of a bunch of short stories with really bad endings, I think merlin was involved.

Oh I found it
Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders (1996):D

Baloo
10-13-2002, 11:27 PM
as an answer to the parking layout.

I believe the reason they park one row of cars and then continue to the next lane is to allow all the guest getting out of the cars to walk safely throught the lane without having to worry about cars trying to park behind the first row of cars. Once they have filled one row of cars in each lane they return to fill the second cars that park behind the first row.

Normally they do two rows at a time to help speed things up or the entrance route is devided and the route closer to the outer perimiter of the sturcture gets parked in one tower of the sturcutre while the other route gets parked in the second tower of the structure.

Basically it is done that way for

1) safety reasons for the pedestrains
2)to cut parking time and avoid a back log of cars

hbquikcomjamesl
10-14-2002, 09:28 AM
Somebody's a Twilight Zone fan....
Or a MST3K fan. Or an Ernest Borgnine fan
. . . or maybe even a Dr. Gene Scott fan (you know, the goofy TV preacher with the "bureaucratic monkey band"?)

SzczerbiakManiac
10-14-2002, 09:43 AM
Ghoulish Delight wrote:
Or a MST3K fan. Or an Ernest Borgnine fan :D (okay, I'm sure no one knows what I'm talking about).Oh come on GD, you knew at least I would know that one...! ;)

And to think that was going to be a TV show...! :eek:

Ghoulish Delight
10-15-2002, 01:01 PM
By the way, I am proud to say that I am the first person on the board to mention Ernest Borgnine! Unless, of course, he came up in the association game and got pruned :(

To adress Baloo (and meander back on topic)....
If you read Techie's description of what they were doing, though, they were double parking a row that they just half filled, thereby sending cars to where people who just parked were walking. Were I to venture a guess, they seem to be doing the half row thing a lot (I guess trying to keep people from having to park in K for as long as possible). They probably filled half the row you were in, then the guys directing people into the correct row messed up and let too many in, so they decided to double park them rather than go past half a row. Then they realized their mistake and moved on to the next row (thus why they only half double parked that row).