Hello there friends! I hope you had a lovely start to the new year. While I was on my usual blogging break, the resort was pretty busy. We saw walls go up, walls come down, and a pretty rough period technology-wise. Let’s take a look back at January at the Disneyland Resort.
OUTAGES CAUSE MAJOR FRUSTRATIONS FOR PARK GUESTS
The resort suffered two major outages last month that caused a major headache for guests. First, on the 10th, all credit card machines went down. This issue was made worse by the fact that Magic Keys went back on sale that day, so the demand in the parks for those machines was even higher than usual. Lines for guest services wound down the street from the hub and City Hall, not to mention the crazy lines outside at the ticketing kiosks.
Credit card machines at Disneyland are currently down and the wait times at Guest Services are being quoted at 3.5+ hours. Magic Keys went back on sale at 9am this morning
byu/TheDisneyScoopGuy inDisneyland
Then, on the 14th, Genie+, Lightning Lane, and Disability Access Service (DAS) all went down too. This meant guests who paid for the add-on services had no access to them, once again causing insanely long lines for guest services checkpoints. Disney hasn’t offered any explanation for the outages throughout January, but here’s hoping they finally fixed whatever the problem was.
WALLS GO UP AROUND THE HAUNTED MANSION
After the conclusion of the holiday season, the Haunted Mansion finally began its extensive landscaping construction project, which will redesign the exterior gardens and see a new shop added to the grounds.
Source: Tangaroa Joel
Here’s a glimpse at the work in progress. It’s a little sad to see the red marks on the gravestones; I hope they do them justice with the new design!
Source: DJM (@DJME2WRCHSLC)
The Haunted Mansion currently has no specific reopen date, but I’m guessing they’re shooting for the Halloween or Holiday seasons later this year if possible.
MORE DETAILS EMERGE ABOUT DOWNTOWN DISNEY’S CHANGES
In January, the Disneyland Resort further teased the new offerings coming to the district. While the Disney Parks Blog had previously announced these new eateries, they finally released some concept art to help us visualize what’s coming.
Source: Disney Parks Blog
In addition to the concept art, we got three new dining updates:
- Earl of Sandwich will move locations…again. Yes, for the third time! The new spot will be a “two story location” TBA, with quick-service on the ground floor and a sit-down restaurant upstairs.
- Tiendita – To go alongside Paseo restaurant and Centrico bar, central Downtown Disney will also feature Tiendita, a quick-service spot for grab and go dining.
- Tortilla Jo’s – As many of us speculated with all the new Mexican restaurants coming in, Tortilla Jo’s will sadly close its doors. The restaurant’s last day of operation will be March 31. Based on the concept art, I’m thinking Parkside will take its place, but I’m not totally sure.
Source: Disney Parks Blog
PIXAR PLACE HOTEL OPENS
The Disneyland Resort’s third major hotel, Pixar Place, finally opened its doors to the public at the end of January, formally replacing the Paradise Pier Hotel.
Source: Disney Parks Blog
The redesign includes new restaurants, a reimagined pool and lobby, new character experiences (including Joe Gardner playing the piano and an exclusive Bing Bong meet & greet!), and Pixar details woven throughout. I personally thought the Paradise Pier Hotel was very poor value for the price, so I’m extremely curious to see how Pixar Place compares. I’ll draft a post as soon as I have an opportunity to stay in the new hotel.
Source: Disney Parks Blog
OTHER UPDATES
This month, Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood started making appearances on the second story of the Jungle Cruise boathouse. I love little character moments like this and I hope they continue sprinkling this kind of magic throughout both parks.
Visitors to the Lunar New Year Celebration – keep your eyes out for Mei and Ming from Turning Red. They’re celebrating the new year and meeting guests throughout the day.
And finally, this month marked the big return of runDisney events to the Disneyland Resort. For more information about upcoming races, check out the official site here.
When I think about crowds, outages, queues, and problems with access to premium facilities for those who have paid for them, I begin to ponder the prospect of Disney moving to a pre-booking system for entry at timed intervals and for a pre-determined period of time so as to control crowd numbers and channel access around closed attractions or places in the park suffering loss of power. It’s a sad thought, but it would be one way of making the parks less crowded and more enjoyable. Just a thought (or a fear, perhaps?)
I know – something’s gotta give. I would have been ok with the reservation system if it actually seemed to limit crowds, but crowds have not slowed down AT ALL. It’s so frustrating – especially as prices keep going up. I think having more virtual queues would help a lot, so you can do things while “in line”, but that’s all I can think of to help the way things are set up now.
I doubt they would have give you a prescribed period after which you have to leave—people would hate that and it would lose them money. However, I do think they need to look at why rides go down so frequently. The good news is they tend to be down for ten minutes, fifteen tops, bit why does it happen so frequently? Maybe they need to do some serious upgrades to the ride systems so they are more reliable. I would rather see them close a beloved ride for a month to upgrade the system and know that it will be more reliable when it reopens, than have them go down every day, even for short periods.
Indiana Jones is a great example. The constant going down has been an issue for YEARS. I’d rather they close it for a long, long refurbishment to fix the infrastructure issues than have daily disruptions.