For a change Jason didn’t go to the parks, so you get a Disneyland update from me instead. 🙂 It won’t be as thorough or have nearly as many photos, though. I didn’t make it to DCA since I was with a friend who didn’t have a park hopper ticket.

We arrived at the Toy Story lot about 11:40. I was surprised that we were still able to park in the “Woody” section – though we were in the last row. While I would rather park in Mickey and Friends, I have found that when coming in from Ball Rd. I more often than not am diverted south on Disneyland Drive over to parking at either Garden Walk or Toy Story, so I just go straight to Toy Story now. I avoid a lot of traffic and aggravation that way.

I was pleasantly surprised that there was no line at the security checkpoint. We presented our bags and breezed through. We were not randomly selected to walk through the metal detector.

A number of Disneyland attractions were closed – the Rivers of America attractions will be closed for an extended period of time (at least into spring of 2017) because of Star Wars land construction:
Disneyland Railroad
Mark Twain Riverboat
Davy Crockett Explorer Canoes
Sailing Ship Columbia
Pirate’s Lair on Tom Sawyer Island
Fantasmic!
Jungle Cruise
Autopia

Tomorrowland was the most crowded area of the park – Season of the Force is still very popular. Still, we were able to get a Fastpass for Hyperspace Mountain with a return time of 3:15 – a little over three hours later.

We walked into Path of the Jedi just a couple of minutes before the show started. Kristin was happy for the refresher, since she was planning to see “The Force Awakens” two days later. And she’s told me since then that seeing Path of the Jedi helped her enjoy the movie more.

Star Tours had a standby wait of 50 minutes, but we were able to pop across the way and blast some astros at Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters.

Though it’s not running, the Mark Twain was at the Frontierland dock and open to visitors, though apart from wandering around on board there wasn’t anything to do. I heard later that there are sometimes characters on board for meet and greet opportunities, such as Princess Tiana and Louis. On other days the Sailing Ship Columbia is at the dock instead.

Big Thunder Trail is now closed. On the Frontierland side it’s closed just beyond the exit of Big Thunder Mountain.

Outside the Jungle Cruise there are skippers who interact with guests and pose for photos. They also conduct Skipper School several times a day.

When Lee and I were there a couple of weeks ago we had more of an opportunity to talk to the skippers about this and what’s going on with the attraction. Guests who participate get to tell a Jungle Cruise joke and receive a Skipper certificate. When the attraction reopens (April?) you can bring your certificate to the attraction exit and use it as a Fastpass.

And, again according to the skippers, among the changes being made are modifications to the load/unload process. Instead of using ropes and “skipper power” to hold the floating boats next to the docks, the boats will go into some kind of dock container that will compress and hold them in place for loading and unloading. This should be safer and hopefully speed up the process.

Part of the Adventureland bridge/walkway was closed though the Enchanted Tiki Room and the Dole Whip stand were still accessible from the Main Street side.

Here’s a look at attraction wait times at 12:50.

By this time we needed to head over to the Disneyland Hotel for our Classic Afternoon Tea (follow the link to read my review on that). It was a lovely experience.

After tea we took the monorail back from Downtown Disney – I haven’t done that in a long time.

You can see the train pulled up at the Main Street station – although the railroad is closed, Disneyland has a train available at the Main Street station where guests can talk to one of the engineers about them.

First stop was to get Fastpasses for Star Tours and Buzz Lightyear. The Fastpass machines for those two attractions are co-located. Since the Buzz Fastpass machines are not linked to the rest of the system, you can get a Fastpass for Buzz even when you have a Fastpass for something else!

It wasn’t quite time for our Hyperspace Mountain Fastpasses, so we went on Holiday “it’s a small world”. This was the final weekend before the short refurb period to remove the holiday overlay. I was surprised that it was a very short wait – 5 minutes, maybe.

After that it WAS time to ride Hyperspace Mountain! It was great – I really enjoy this attraction and all of the new visuals, and especially the music. I think you really want to be in rows 4-6 and not 1-3: there are a few effects that you don’t see very well if you’re in the front.

We went from battling one evil empire to battling another, as we then used our Buzz Lightyear Fastpasses to defeat the Evil Emperor Zurg.

The Haunted Mansion had just reopened that day after the holiday overlay was removed. I always find it strange to ride this attraction when it’s not in holiday mode. The Fastpass machines were in use, which is unusual, as they are typically only used during the holiday period. The Standby line was posted as 20 minutes, but I don’t think it took that long.

We wandered back to Critter Country. The Hungry Bear restaurant is surrounded by scrims and looks closed. But there’s a cast member out in front with menus so that guests will know that it’s open.

Splash Mountain was basically a walk-on – I haven’t decided whether it’s because no one wanted to get wet (it had been a sunny day, though by then the sun was behind clouds and the temp was around 66) or if people thought nothing back there was open because so much of the Rivers of America area is closed. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh was a walk-on for us. We both love Tigger.

Tigger, Rabbit, and Pooh were outside Pooh’s Corner greeting guests, and there were quite a few guests waiting in line. So at least there was something in the area that was drawing more of a crowd. Otherwise, Critter Country seems a little sad right now.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad had been down earlier, and now had a long standby line, but we could get a Fastpass with a return time of less than an hour later. We still had an hour to go before our Star Tours Fastpass was valid, and we went to Redd Rockett’s Pizza Port for dinner. I wanted to try one of the Season of the Force specials – the Dark Side Chicken Curry Pizza. It had curry chicken, roasted cauliflower, Gouda and mozzarella cheese, cumin, pickled vegetables and fried beans. The sauce was a little too spicy for me, which is unfortunate, because otherwise I enjoyed it. But because of the spice level I wouldn’t get it again.

There are a couple other Season of the Force specials: The Fields of Naboo salad and Forest of Endor pasta. There’s also a Chewbacca Cheesecake. And this is one of the locations where the BB-8 beverage container is available for purchase.

Redd Rockett’s Pizza Port Menu

I liked the Season of the Force posters in the dining area.

Time to take a trip on Star Tours! During Season of the Force most of the random elements have been removed and the first planet visited is always Jakku, and BB-8 is the holographic character in the next scene. All three times I’d done it before I’d seen the security droid as the first scene, and Naboo as the final scene, so I was wondering if that was the only configuration. But this time Vader was the opening scene and Coruscant was the final scene, so I saw something a little different.

For our final attraction of the day we used our Big Thunder Mountain Railroad Fastpasses. This ride is so much more fun at night!

We had a great day. Even though we didn’t arrive until noon, and had a two-hour break, we still managed to get four Fastpasses and experience 10 different attractions before we left at 7:00. It’s always fun for me to visit Disneyland with someone who isn’t a frequent visitor and experience it through their eyes. Even with all of the construction and closures there’s still a lot to do, and there were a number of other things we would’ve done if we’d had more time.

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