Last Week at Disneyland Resort (8/5/2012 – 8/11/2012)
Massive summer crowds are making their final seasonal assault on the Disneyland Resort, but there was still plenty of news coming out of the Anaheim area last week.
Crowd Calendar
Quietest Day: Friday 8/10 was a 9 out of 10 at the resort, with DCA crowds at 9.1 and Disneyland Park at 7.7.
Busiest Day: Saturday 8/11 was a 9 out of 10 at the resort, with DCA crowds at 9.3 and Disneyland Park at 8.5.
Subscribe to the TouringPlans.com Disneyland Crowd Calendar for details on predicted crowds for the next 30 days.
Special Events
- Disney released a quarterly earnings report, confirming a massive increase in attendance at Disney California Adventure since the relaunch in June.
- The Destination D fan event celebrating 75 years of Disney feature animation was held August 11-12 at the Disneyland Hotel.
- A temporary exhibit of sets and props from the upcoming Tim Burton stop-motion film Frankenwenie was announced for DCA's Hollywood Land, opening in September.
- Reservations are now being taken for the temporary Pirates League makeover boutique being set up in Disneyland's Court of Angels for the Halloween season.
- Disneyland announced that the Glow With The Show ears sold for DCA's World of Color show will soon also interact with Fantasmic at Disneyland Park.
- A video released by the Disney Parks Blog depicts how “Owen,” one of the resort's newest horses, was trained to work on Main Street USA.
- Special discounted tickets and hotel rates are available to active and retired military personnel and their families from August 17 through September 2013.
- Tickets for the August 2013 D23 Expo in Anaheim went on sale on August 9.
- Bookings are now open for the new “Walk in Walt's Disneyland Footsteps” VIP tour. Begining September 9, the new tour (which replaces the popular “Walk in Walt's Footsteps” tour) includes visits to the Club 33 lobby and Walt's private Main Street apartment. The tour price will increase to $108.
- The Disney Parks Blog announced an opportunity to meet Imagineer Tony Baxter and the authors of the new book “Poster Art of the Disney Parks” at Disneyland's Disney Gallery on August 18.
- Another blog post highlighted Chef Jean-Marc Viallet, creator of the “ugly” pies served at Flo's V8 Cafe in Cars Land.
- Newly released videos feature the Goofy “Instant Concert…Just Add Water!” and “Dancin' with Disney” shows at DCA.
Openings, Closings, and Refurbishments
- Additional concept art was released of the under-construction Princess Fantasy Faire, due to be completed in spring 2013. The current Princess Royal Walk closed August 12 to transform the Fantasyland Theatre back into an entertainment venue; the princess meet & greets have been temporarily relocated to the Small World mall.
- Al Lutz shared rumors that Big Thunder Mountain Railroad will close soon for a major refurbishment, to last through most of 2013.
- Many of the beach balls have been removed from Luigi's Flying Tires in Cars Land, in an apparent effort to improve the slow-loading ride's throughput.
- Construction of the Earl of Sandwhich restaurant in Downtown Disney is slowly progressing.
- No other scheduled attraction closures were reported last week.
I see Disney’s renewed the military tickets for the year (with a price hike, of course). But I have a question. We’re moving from FL to CA, so now we’re going to be using Disneyland tickets vice Disney World. The old military 4-day park hopper at Disney World could be use non-consecutively and was good the whole year (you could use 2 days in Oct, 1 in Jan, 1 in May…). But it appears from Disney’s website that a normal 3-day park hopper has a 13-day time limit. Does this apply to the military 3-day park hopper also? Is there really a 13-day time limit? Because that makes the ticket a lot less of a good deal, quite frankly.
Details on DLR military Tickets are here: http://disneyland.disney.go.com/special-offers/military-tickets/
Normal DLR parkhoppers do expire after 13 days, but according to the fine print the military tix appear to be valid through Sept 2013. Ask for confirmation while purchasing if that’s important to you.
Thanks! It does make a bit difference in how much the ticket is worth, in the end-
Hi, Has anyone done the “Walk in Walt’s footsteps” tour? I am planning a trip to Disneyland in January and am curious to find out if it is worth the extra money. It certainly sounds interesting.
I’ve taken the tour about six times over the last dozen years and it’s a little different each time.
It’s definitely worth it if you’re interested in learning about the culture and history of Disneyland. If you want to learn a little more about how the park was developed, built and run in it’s early days then definitely take the tour. If you’ve been on everything and have seen the shows and still want to learn more about the park then do it.
If you think of Disneyland as a bunch of rides for kids and are hoping that the tour gets you to the front of the line, don’t bother, you’ll be disappointed.