Disneyland Park Update

Update for July 3-9, 2006

Go directly to: News & Views | Current Refurbishment/Attraction Closures | Park Events | Park Schedule/Blockout Dates

News and Views

This week’s park update is pretty abbreviated as I write it between bouts of reminding myself that alcohol and fireworks (even the extremely lame ones that we are limited to these days) do not mix.

Getting back to normal

The park is quickly settling down into a post-party slumber following the premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and the debut of the new Pirates of the Caribbean ride. By the middle of last week all the risers, bleachers, and mess associated with the premiere had been removed and the Rivers of America returned to the standard summer schedule.

Long lines for the completely officially open Pirates of the Caribbean began forming first thing Monday morning following another press moment for the morning television news shows to kick it off. At one point the line extended all the way down Main Street to City Hall where it was, for a brief moment, unusually easy to file a complaint about long lines.

The massive capacity of the ride proved itself, however, and the real wait time was never much longer than two hours and the line moved very quickly. The only real source of complaint, however, was the difficulty in keeping the ride running so that all of those people could get on.

The purpose of the lengthy soft openings is to work out the kinks that crop up when operating under full load. So it is isn’t suprising that the insistence on secrecy before the movie premiere seems to be resulting in regular and sometimes lengthy closures of the ride. As the week went on, the number of incidents seemed to decline but several issues have come up that should be kept in mind:

• For the most part, when a ride goes down the focus is not on keeping the cast members working the queue informed of what is going on. They’re doing their best and frequently get bad information. While it may make you feel better to take your frustrations out on somebody, they really aren’t the appropriate outlet.

• Some rides take quite a while to evacuate when it becomes necessary to do so. As you can imagine, this is particularly true of Pirates of the Caribbean where they need to evacuate people from boats. Ideally cast members in the control booth will keep people stuck on the ride informed of what is going on and how long it should take, but even under the best of circumstances it can take 30-45 minutes to evacuate the ride. This can be lengthened by attempts to get the ride functioning without requiring an evacuation. Staff also needs to be arranged to help guide people from the backstage areas of the park back into the public areas. You can get upset by this or just go with the flow and enjoy eventually getting to see the ride with lights on and a short walk through backstage areas.

• You should never attempt to evacuate a ride vehicle on your own. Even if it seems simple and straightforward there are many potential hazards of which you may be unaware, and you could easily just get in the way of other evacuation efforts.

• Try to keep in mind that you could end up unexpectedly delayed. With long lines, a long ride, and possibly a long time stuck, if you can’t go another 90 or 120 minutes without using a restroom, it would probably be wise to make a pit stop before getting in line.

In other Pirate news (is it really possible that there is other pirate news still?) you’ll probably want to try to fit in a ride on the Sailing Ship Columbia if you visit the park this summer. In addition to walkaround pirate characters in New Orleans Square during the day, each sailing of the Columbia will be overtaken by a pirate scheming to find hidden gold. Along the way, passengers will learn about being a pirate. There will also be a pirate stage show on a somewhat-temporary new stage near French Market.

A new stage has been set up in New Orleans Square for performing pirates through at least the rest of summer. Photo by David Michael.

4th of July

Disneyland will be decorated for the Fourth of July, of course, but what else can you expect? In general, not a whole lot in the nature of “events.” The evening’s performance of the Remember…Dreams Come True fireworks will conclude with a special Fourth of July finale. If you’re in the Town Square end of Main Street near sunset you will probably be able to see a beefed-up version of the daily flag retreat. Otherwise you can expect to see plenty of patriotic merchandise throughout the resort.

…If you’re a user of Anaheim Resort Transit (ART), you may want to be aware that new routes have been added that include Disneyland. For complete schedule, fair, and route information visit the Ride ART Web site (link).

Main Street, U.S.A. is decorated for the Fourth of July. Photo by David Michael.

…Main Street Mad Hatter is once again open following its redesign and expansion. As previously mentioned, hand-embroidery is no longer available at this location, but rather, computer-operated machines are now in place. They will eventually be replaced everywhere, but hand-stitching is still available at other Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure park embroidery locations. The physical expansion ended up reducing the Opera House exit from a lounge area into a something more like a corrider with a new permanent wall constructed. Of course, they also changed it so that now you can’t get out of the Opera House without going through the Mad Hatter store; surely that was an unintended consequence… right?

As part of its redesign, Main Street Mad Hatter physically expanded into much of the space that was formally an lounge at the exit to the Opera House. Photo by David Michael.

…Over at Disney’s California Adventure, it appears the powers that be are trying a new tactic for getting crowds (heck, to be honest, they’d probably be happy with a loose congregation of people escaping the heat) into the Golden Dreams theater. New banners have gone up emphasizing rather strongly that the show stars Whoopi Goldberg. It isn’t clear, however, that there is much star power in that and the audience size seems unchanged.

New banners at Golden Dreams seem to indicate Whoopi Goldberg might be involved. Photo by David Michael.

Don’t keep it to yourself! Send us your news tips, rumors, and comments. E–mail us here.

Current Refurbishments and Attraction Closures

Disneyland

• Main Street Mad Hatter closed until June 30 for refurbishment and expansion.
• Fantasmic! dark June 17 – June 28, 2006, for activities surrounding premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.
• Sailing Ship Columbia closed June 17 – June 28, 2006, for decoration and then removal of decoration related to premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.
  
• Matterhorn Bobsleds closed August 28 – November 22 for complete refurbishment.


• Haunted Mansion closed September 5 – September 28 for installation of Haunted Mansion Overlay.


• Disneyland Railroad closed September 18 – September 22 for unknown reasons, probably general maintenance.


• Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage is currently under construction and will open sometime in 2007.

Disney’s California Adventure

• Francis’ Lady Bug Boogie closed June 17 – July 13 for general maintenance.

Note: Refurbishment schedules are estimates only. All information is subject to change without notice. To get the most recent updates, call Disneyland at (714) 781–7290.

Events

If you know of any events, official or unofficial, that should be listed here, let us know.

June

• Cars at El Capitan Theater. June 9 – July 4. The accompanying show is a demonstration of a real pit stop.


• Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp’s Adventure DVD rerelease. June 20 – July 15. DVD available for $5 off at Disneyland Resort stores.


• Leroy & Stitch DVD release. June 27 – June 29. DVD available for $5 off at Disneyland Resort stores.


• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. June 24. Presumptive date of world premiere of this new movie, to be held in New Orleans Square. Park will close early (5 p.m.) with celebrity red carpet arrivals earlier in the day. Has not yet been officially announced.

July

• Pirates of the Caribbean merchandise event. July 6 (link, all package levels now sold out.
  
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest at El Capitan Theater. July 7 – September 4. Accompanying the run of the movie will be props and costumes from the movie.
  
• 3 Christopher Radko ornaments released July 8, 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. (link).
  
• Disneyland’s 51st Birthday and MousePlanet’s 6th. July 17. Details of any special events unknown.
  

August

• Fantasia at Hollywood Bowl. August 18 and 19. Live orchestral performances of songs from Fantasia with video clips from movie. Conducted by John Mauceri. August 18 (linklink)
  
• 64th World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon). August 23-27 at the Anaheim Convention Center (link).
  

September

• Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend. September 15-17. For more information and registration see the official Web site (link, warning: horribly annoying embedded music)
  

October

• Gay Days. October 6 – 8. Unofficial event (link).
  
• Mickey’s Halloween Treat. October 13, 20, 22, 26, 27, 29, 30, and 31 at DCA. (See Disneyland AP page for details)

November

• Lion King returns to Pantages Theater. Beginning November 16 for eight week run. Call 323-463-4367 for details and tickets. Presale tickets are available to Annual Passholders and Disney Visa members through June 10.

Park Schedule/Blockout Dates

DL: Disneyland
DCA: Disney’s California Adventure
Annual Pass blockout dates:

• SL – Southern California Select Annual Pass
• SC – Southern California Annual Pass
• DX – Deluxe Annual Pass

Visit our Annual Passholders Blockout Dates 2006 page to see more dates. You can see future calendar schedules at Disneyland. As always, specifics are subject to change without notice (or occasionally, without us noticing) so when information conflicts between what is presented here and that presented by Disney, it is best to assume Disney’s information is correct.

Entertainment schedule: Go directly to the Disneyland Resort schedule for this week at Disneyland.com here.