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View Full Version : DCA will be crowded until May 16th



Darkbeer
05-05-2003, 04:06 AM
In today's Al Lutz article at MiceAge.com, he takes a look at DCA's attendance, and the current SoCal promo...

http://www.miceage.com/allutz/al050503a.htm


But the "arrival pattern" for the vast majority of those locals for the past few months was to use the "first day" of their two-day ticket at Disneyland. And now that there's only ten days left in the program, the rainy weather of April and early May has finally cleared up, and there are hundreds of thousands of people who still have valid and unused DCA tickets for their family. Just how many SoCal Resident Tickets that are only valid for DCA are still outstanding you ask? As of late April that figure stood at just over 400,000! All it takes is for a tiny fraction of those 400,000 people to decide to head down to Anaheim with their "free" DCA ticket, and the Park becomes jammed full of visitors. And that is exactly what happened this Sunday, May 4th!
Readers of this column should take that all into heavy consideration if they are planning a trip to DCA next weekend as well, as that is the final weekend days of the offer before it expires on Friday, May 16th. The Park managers will be circling the wagons this week to come up with "worst case scenarios" for next weekend's crown control and capacity issues, just in case 50,000 or 100,000 of those DCA ticket holders show up just before the program ends.

hefferdude
05-05-2003, 11:09 AM
Will they still sell the So Cal Resident ticket on Thurs May 15th
if the special ends on the 16th?

Darkbeer
05-05-2003, 11:18 AM
I think the last day of sale is May 14th, with the second day to be used by May 16th, but I would call Disneyland Guest Relations to be sure.

hefferdude
05-05-2003, 11:41 AM
Thanks for the info. :)

ESS Heckler
05-05-2003, 12:37 PM
Nooooooo! I have had reservations for this very weekend for ages - having carefully calculated that this weekend would have low attendance (after Easter and Before Memorial Day!)

Any 'boomerang' affect on DL itself? Or is it pretty much limited to DCA on the weekend? If so, I can tailor my stay to hit DCA Friday and Monday, with DL on Sat and Sun (Mother's Day)

Yikes - what to do, what to do?

Darkbeer
05-05-2003, 01:13 PM
As someone else mentioned on another thread, people that have a SoCal AP also are coming up to when they have two months of blackouts, so that might be part of it. But that would be Sunday (since they are blacked out Saturday).

And based on Al Lutz's article today, he claims over 400,000 folks have not cashed in their second day at the park, and most of these folks used their first day at Disneyland, so they have a "free" day at DCA that expires May 16th.

So I would expect that both Saturday and Sunday will be heavier than normal at DCA.

Sorry for the bad news....

And yes, I would attend Aladdin on Friday or Monday.

SoCalSnowWhite
05-05-2003, 01:25 PM
I couldn't believe the crowds at either park yesterday!!:eek: I was looking foward to seeing Playhouse Disney and Aladdin, but the waits were incredible. I'm so glad that I have an AP and am able to go as often as I'd like. Hopefully we'll make it again on Friday to less crowded parks.

mad4mky
05-05-2003, 02:27 PM
Reading all this makes me glad that when we come down this weekend...we'll be staying until Tuesday night.

Hopefully the weekdays will be less crowded, and we will get to see everything we want to see.

If not...well, I guess I can start to plan another trip down again!;) :)

jtracy
05-09-2003, 11:05 AM
I just got back from DCA on May 7 and it was VERY crowded. Out of the five weekday trips I've taken in the past couple if years, this one was the most crowded.

I did like, however, that when they let you in at 9:30 they have Soarin Over California open.

Disneyland on the 6th was also very crowded. Generally the first/second week of May are good times to go, but you would have thought it was still Spring Break with the crowds (and that was on overcast days with some rain).

SoCalDisneyLover
05-09-2003, 05:40 PM
I was going to take my mom for Mother's Day, but am postponing a week because I have a feeling it will be packed this weekend with people using up their 2-Day Passes. As someone who procrastinates, I'm sure if I had one of those things, I'd be going on the last weekend possible. Add in those who will use Both Days this weekend, to take advantage of the special which is still being advertised, plus All 3 AP Levels on Sunday, and I think it could be bad.

SoCalDisneyLover
05-10-2003, 04:14 PM
I was at Downtown Disney today to watch just another Ducks 1-0 Double Overtime victory at ESPN Zone, and the traffic for the M & F Garage was backed up to Ball Road. Hopefully someone can provide a more firsthand report about what things were like at the parks today.

mousey_girl
05-10-2003, 07:42 PM
OMG it was horrible today!!! Luckily we got there just as the park was opening. We went straight to the Plaza Inn for breakfast with the Pooh characters. After that we went directly to Critter Country to try the ride. We waited for Pooh for maybe 5 mins. (boy liked it, we were not so impressed)

After Pooh we noticed things were starting to pick up. We got our FP's for Splash, went on the HM and then TSI. We headed back to Splash, then to BTMR. I talked to a couple for ducks while the guys rode the ride (pair of young drakes, they sought shelter with me after being scared by a pack of wild teens. They stayed with me for 15 mins or more).

Nickolas wanted to go to Toon Town so off we went. It was 10:30ish and FL was PACKED! He wanted to go on Mr Toad but when he saw the line he understood that it would have to wait. Little did we know we would be saying that alllllll day.

Nickolas and I ended up on Small World and hubby waited for us. We then hopped on the train for Main Street. Since we can only go on Saturdays we usually leave DL when things get too crowded and go to DCA.

The lines for DCA (this was 11:30) were past the thingy in the center of the Esplande. It took us 20 mins to get into the park.
Things got worse from there. We went to go get FP's for Soarin' and the line for the FP was blocking the entire walkway in Condor Flats. I heard later all FP's for Soarin' had gone out by noon.
We then went to GRR. It had a 100 min standby and a FP return time of 4:30. MM had a standby of 60 mins (hubby quipped that they forgot to factor in the hourly breakdown in their time). Even Jumping Jelly fish had an hour wait. It wasn't even 12 yet!!
We went to go see ITTBAB and it was the first time I have ever seen every seat filled, the same with the Muppets 3D. GRR had a 200 min wait time at 3 and they extended the park hours to 10pm.

The only comparison I can make is when we went to DL for Nick's bd (Dec 6th) during the first year of HMH when on a Saturday night there were 60k+ packed into DL. That was a cake walk compared to today. It was hot, and DCA tends to bring out the worst in people. I was elbowed in the chest, rammed in the back so hard I stumbled, shoved by almost everyone... it was not fun. We even saw a discarded diaper on the walkway from Ariel's Grotto going towards the Wharf area. We were in the car by 4pm.

The morning was great, but DCA is NOT a good place to be when things get crowded. I remember Al used to talk about the wide walkways... well, those wide walkways were no where to be seen today.

I am curious what the attendance people would say about today...

SoCalDisneyLover
05-10-2003, 08:07 PM
I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow is just as bad, Especially at CA Adventure.

mousey_girl
05-10-2003, 08:17 PM
Originally posted by SoCalDisneyLover
I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow is just as bad, Especially at CA Adventure.

The CM checking my purse made an under-the-breath comment that today was to get them ready for tomorrow. :eek:

Tigertail777
05-10-2003, 09:36 PM
well I guess I have the answer to my hypothetical, "would you like DCA just as much if it were super crowded?" question. Geez DCA has wide walkways, I have seen smalle walkways at DL on busy days (adventureland for instance), I REALLY don't want to see ANY park THAT crowded... thats nuts! Especially since DCA has very little shade, I feel very sorry for those susceptable to sunstroke (like my mom). Some parts of DL are bad enough when it comes to that.

mousey_girl
05-11-2003, 11:52 AM
All 3 of us ended up with sun burns... I would equate the crowd at DCA to being just like trying to get thru Adventureland on a busy day, but instead of just one area, the entire park was like that.

Icy Bacon
05-11-2003, 05:43 PM
If anyone wants pictures of the crowds, there's a bunch at Theme Park Source (http://www.themeparksource.com), it's pretty unbelievable.

What's sad is that a LOT of people are going to get the impression that DCA is a horribly-crowded slophole and never go back there again, or at best they'll go back another time with a park-hopper when they see how deserted it suddenly is after this rush.

MonorailMan
05-12-2003, 05:46 AM
Let's See, Yesterday:

SOarin' - 140 Min.
GRR - 160 Min.
Screamin - 70 Min.
Sun Wheel - 90 Min.
Mulholland Madness - 120 Min.


Need I say more? :eek:

uberfrau
05-12-2003, 05:45 PM
I saw the listing for GRR at 180 at one point on Sunday, and *heard*, mind you, that it got up to 210 minutes! I didn't see it with my own eyes, so I can't vouch for the truth of that.

There was even a line for Challenge Trail.

jtracy
05-13-2003, 08:24 AM
I like DCA for the main reason that it usually is not overcrowded. But when DCA is crowded, the fun quickly disappears and the experience becomes a nightmare. I'd love to see a theme park built around the idea that "we keep our lines short so that you have more fun". This doesn't mean bringing in lesser crowds, but rather building fun rides that have good crowd turnarounds (not movie based "attractions" mind you), queing the lines so that it feels like part of the ride, and maximizing ride cars.

Yesterday I went to Magic Mountain. It wasn't that crowded at all, but they made the lines long by running only ONE COASTER CAR on every coaster, including X. People were forced into long waits because Magic Mountain would run the minimum number of coaster cars, thus maximizing wait times. Heaven forbid they let you ride too many times!

justagrrl
05-13-2003, 08:32 AM
Are things settling down mid week right now?

I'm thinking I might take the kids for a few hours after school...