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I know, I know, it's been a little longer than usual between
updates. But we need to make sure things are right, and that
takes a while sometimes. Rest assured any delays are for good
reason. Before we start today the kind folks at the El
Capitan Theater have asked me to relay the following:
We just wanted to let the MiceAge readers know about
some of our upcoming events at the El Capitan. After
Disney’s Enchanted Experience (we extended the engagement to
run through January 13th), the El Capitan Theatre is proud
to present the exclusive run of the original classic 101
Dalmatians - digitally restored with enhanced picture and
sound. It will only be playing at our theatre from January
18th to the 30th. As a special treat before each showing we
will also be playing the all new Goofy short "How to Hook Up
Your Home Theatre" along with a special LIVE appearance by
Goofy himself. We are also very excited to announce a
special opening night Filmmaker Panel that will be hosted by
Leonard Maltin on Friday, January 18th at 7PM. As with all
our previous panel nights, we will most likely have some fun
surprises up our sleeves. For more information about the El
Capitan Theatre,
visit our Web site.
The holidays at Disneyland are finally over, and when the rain moved in over the weekend
and sent the last of the holiday crowds back home, you could almost hear
a collective sigh of relief from all the cast members. While the Christmas swarms put
an exclamation point on yet another huge year for Anaheim, the flip of the
calendar to 2008 is what planners in Team Disney Anaheim building out back (TDA) and the Imagineers in Glendale are
most excited about.
2008 is the year when California Adventure's (DCA's) extreme makeover begins in
earnest, and when more of the plans in store for Anaheim are firmed up and put
in motion. Even some of the ideas and facilities announced for DCA's makeover
this past October have been changed, or scrapped entirely, and their replacement
ideas will move off the drawing board and towards reality in 2008. Before we
fill you in on things, we'll recap the big holiday season that
Disneyland just survived.
Got that yogurt opened and fruit up from the bottom mixed in
yet? Stashed that granola bar for later on in your top desk
drawer? Well let's get started with the update then! - Al
Math-a-magic-land
The weeks around
Christmas and New Year's have been the busiest time of year to visit the park
for going on a decade now, and yet it still comes as a surprise to some folks
when they arrive in Anaheim that the happiest place on earth is as packed as it is. When the
electronic signs around the Resort area flicker to life in late morning
announcing that Disneyland is now sold out, but that tickets to California
Adventure are still available, there's a surprisingly large number of people who
expect that admission to the original park must somehow still be available.
But repeatedly this past year Disneyland
has had to stop selling
one day tickets nearly every day during the two weeks around Christmas and New
Years. And on several occasions Disneyland hit its last and final phase in the
ticket restriction plan and simply wouldn't let anyone in regardless of what
type of ticket you may have purchased.
It was on those busiest of days that California Adventure took on its role of overflow park, when Disneyland bound tourists were forced to
head into DCA until their specially created ticket would then let them in to
Disneyland later in the day. Using a relatively new system, the Main Entrance
ticket booths are now selling tickets to Disneyland that don't actually become
valid until 6 p.m. or later. Prior to their stated entry time, the tickets
sold to some Disneyland visitors allow them to wait in DCA during the day before
they are allowed to finally enter Disneyland in the evening.
This is a change
from prior years when Disneyland reached capacity and the response was to simply offer a ticket good only for DCA.
That alternative never sat very well with the tourists who had
their hearts set on Disneyland, and the Guest Relations department would feel the full wrath of thousands of
tourists when all they could offer was a full priced ticket to DCA. But with the
new ability to sell a Disneyland ticket that required a visit to DCA first, the
line of upset visitors was eased somewhat at the Guest Relations counters
this year.
On the busiest of days, this new ticket actually helped bolster DCA's
numbers by forcing a few extra thousand guests into DCA first, bumping up the official attendance numbers for the overflow park several days
this holiday season. While the managers at DCA were happy to see its daily attendance bump up a
few days from 15,000 to 22,000, Disneyland was pretty much maxed out every
single day from December 20th through January 4th with 60,000 to 66,000 paying
visitors entering each day. But with DCA acting as sort of a holding pen for Disneyland, the usual pain of limiting
entry to Disneyland was lessened somewhat this year.
Eisner, Pressler and Braverman
may never have thought DCA would be relegated to the theme park equivalent of
watching Mr. Johnson explain mission control in a pre-show for a few minutes before
boarding the Flight To The Moon attraction, but that's a major reason
why the parking lot carnival is getting a Billion dollar fix-it budget to begin with.
Turnstylings
The other change this holiday season was the ability for Disneyland to hold
more people at one time than it has in prior years. Several years ago when
Disneyland was preparing for the 50th and had several E-Ticket attractions
closed during peak Christmas weeks, the total in-park attendance was
generally capped at around 42,000 people. Once the 50th was underway and Tomorrowland came back to life with a reopened Space Mountain and the new Buzz
Lightyear ride, the total attendance allowed in the park at any one time was
edged up to around 45,000. And now with the Nemo Submarine Voyage open and
still generating a long line, the total in-park attendance figure was allowed to
swell to 47,000.
On a couple of occasions this December the in-park number was
actually just over 48,000, as the ability to cap the in-park attendance is not
an exact science. However, the park overall handled the huge crowds remarkably
well, even though some out-of-towners not used to peak Christmas crowds
may have felt the place was dangerously overcrowded. But such is the thankless
job of working at Disneyland during the holidays, when some folks complain and
whine about the huge crowds inside the park, while others scream bloody murder
out at the main gate when they are told they can't get in due to overcrowding.
Disney's Changing Adventure
But with the holidays over the DCA overhaul will be taking center
stage. We'd been filling you in on the Billion dollar makeover coming to DCA
throughout 2007, even though both TDA and Burbank were keeping a tight lid on
the work going in to fixing DCA later this decade. And then in October we let
you know that the big announcement was just days away, and Jay Rasulo and Bob
Iger didn't disappoint when the announcement finally did arrive. While the
material released to the press was a little light on WDI artwork and specifics,
enough images and info leaked out from the in-house updates given to company
employees that the message boards were a frenzy of excitement for weeks.
Some of
the components of the DCA plan released in October have been changed however,
and while none are truly huge (The attractions themselves just
keep getting bigger and better, for the most part), there's likely to be a few
folks disappointed with some of the deletions or changes made recently.
The first change in the original plans is the removal of the DCA Preview
Center from the San Francisco buildings across from Golden Dreams. Throughout
the summer and fall plans and designs were being finished at WDI for a lavish
and rather large preview center that would not only showcase all of the new
stuff coming to DCA, but also be able to plug the new Disney Cruise Line ships
headed to California and the new hotels and development coming to the rest of
Disney's Anaheim property.
When Jay Rasulo made his October announcement, it
included mention of the Preview Center for those San Fran buildings. But the
plans have changed and the currently vacant space is now slated to become a new
larger set of restrooms to handle the crowds drawn to the World of Color lagoon show. The current restrooms directly across from the San Fran buildings are now
going to be swallowed up by the expanding Little Mermaid ride.
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