What was the effect of having 2 firework shows?

[celiacla]

I realize the evening isn't over yet, but if anyone is there could you summarize impressions of having 2 fireworks shows. Did the park get less crowded afterwards? Was Main street gridlocked for a long time? Did they close fantasyland for the time between the two shows?

 

[Bud Ice]

The overall feeling was most caught offguard. For those that left, others filled in the slots.

 

[Angrose]

I am here now, but didn't watch the fireworks tonight. Well, I sorta did while riding BTMRR, but that doesn't really count I also think a lot of people were caught off guard though. Toontown closed for the day at 5pm and I heard quite a few people complain about that. I was going to ride Peter Pan before the first parade/show, but didn't feel like waiting. The CMs there said they couldn't guarantee that it would come back up between shows. The 2nd fireworks show was actually cancelled tonight because of wind. I was walking through the hub around that time and it was still a madhouse. I'm going to try to catch the first show tomorrow night (Sunday).

Oh, I arrived at DL at 4:30pm and there were TONS of curbside spots for the 5:45 PTN!

 

[celiacla]

It sounds like it will take a couple of days to see what the effects really are. I'm going to DL Thursday and want to get a feel for what to expect. Hopefully they will have the kinks worked out by then. I wonder whether they will do this again Christmas week.

 

[jpessa]

Fantasyland rides stayed closed between the two fireworks. But the second ones canceled so rides opened up at 9:35. The congestion caused by all the parades and shows was crazy. Trying to get between lands and having to circumvent the whole Park, yikes! Walked 36,500 steps yesterday. Zero guilt about the ice cream sundae I ate!

 

[BigCheese]

Good sized crowds throughout the day today. With a 3:15 (second) Christmas parade, Main Street was a hub of activity from the end of that parade until the end of the first fireworks. I thought the CMs did a great job. For the 5:45 PTN, curb spots were filled up by about 4:00 and there was a good sized stay over from the Christmas parade. After PTN it was the same routine on Main Street for the fireworks (the Main Street parade viewers got up and moved to the middle of Main Street for the fireworks). After the first fireworks I thought the CMs did a good job clearing out the crowds and things got back to "normal" on Main Street after about 5-10 minutes. They split Main Street into two halves: the west side were for guests heading out and the east side were for guests entering the park.

 

[calilou]

We're here now but my girls didn't want to stay inside the parks for fireworks (watched them from our room at the Grand instead - second show is going off as I write ). It's okay we've seen them before several times.

I will say the railroad stopped operating at about 5:20 in preparation the 6:30 fireworks. The conductor mentioned several times that they were shutting down during the fireworks tonight because of the wind direction so maybe they don't always? She also said they would most likely reopen in between the two shows and be able to make two loops before shutting down again for second show. Just thought I'd mention.

BTW it is super super crazy crowded.

 

[celiacla]

BTW it is super super crazy crowded.

I figured that it is probably pretty crowded since Thanksgiving week usually is. Do you think it is worse than last year?

 

[blondietink]

We were there on Saturday. California Adventure was fine. Went back to our room on Harbor for a break and were caught off guard by the fireworks at 6:30, but watched from our hotel anyway. Went back to Disneyland about 7 pm and it was a madhouse. Toontown closed, many rides in FAntasyland closed, including Small World, until we were told about 10 pm. Tried to get to Haunted mansion and that area of the park was a standstill due to the people getting ready for Fantasmic. With all the areas roped off it was practically impossible to find a way from one part of the park to another as the CM's kept telling you to go a different way than you wanted to. Tried to get on Jungle Cruise and couldn't. Decided to go to Main Street for fireworks at that point. got a good spot on the hub and finally at 9:35 the fireworks were cancelled. Lots of grumbling people. Took our time going out of the park and did some shopping.

Even with the problems on Saturday night, we absolutely loved our first trip to Disneyland! We will be back!

 

[calilou]

I figured that it is probably pretty crowded since Thanksgiving week usually is. Do you think it is worse than last year?

Yes I really do

 

[dotfurio]

Monday we avoided the Main Street area for most of the parades and fireworks and left around 9, but overall it didn't seem as bad as the summer as far as people camping out and blocking routes hours in advance. I could maneuver across the park with minimal crowd control redirection and I never saw the overflow passages behind Main Street open.

It's possible things were worse than I saw, though, and I just hit the congested areas at a good time.

 

[celiacla]

Both Mousewait and Touringplans said yesterday ended up being near capacity. I don't know if it hit capacity, but that sounds pretty crowded. Sunday wasn't quite as bad according to Touringplans. I'm guessing that's because APs were mostly blocked over the weekend. Since APs are blocked Thanksgiving - Sun, I'm hoping the crowds will be more like Sunday than Monday, but who knows....

 

[RemainSeatedPlease]

Both Mousewait and Touringplans said yesterday ended up being near capacity. I don't know if it hit capacity, but that sounds pretty crowded. Sunday wasn't quite as bad according to Touringplans. I'm guessing that's because APs were mostly blocked over the weekend. Since APs are blocked Thanksgiving - Sun, I'm hoping the crowds will be more like Sunday than Monday, but who knows....

I was there on Sunday and Monday and Sunday was not too bad. Crowded, definitely, but not unreasonable. I left on Monday around 3pm and it was already a madhouse, the most crowded I have ever seen the parks. Small World's queue was snaking into areas I didn't even know it could go (almost reaching Matterhorn). Apparently it only got worse into the evening. Tomorrowland was the worst, as you might expect. They had CMs out directing traffic even though there were no parades or shows going on at the time.

 

[crystal1313]

Interesting, I feel a bit differently than others. I was there Sunday and we didn't attempt to see the fireworks or any of the parades since we were only there one day. I felt a lot of people left after the first fireworks. I never thought it was crazy crowded. I expected much larger crowds. I was getting our photopass photo during the first show. Crowd control was really well organized. My DH and kids ended up watching the show from the exit of innoventions. (We had also watched it the night before from our balcony at HOJO) Then my 7 year old and I were riding the teacups when the second show started. We ended up watching them from Alice and had a pretty good view. I think the only thing that was a bummer for us, and bad planning on our part, was not realizing It's a Small World would be closed the entire time between the first and second shows. My youngest really wanted to ride it but just could not stay up late enough. Lesson learned for us to ride it earlier in the day.

We even felt like traffic was much lighter Monday morning while driving home. We took a gamble, hoping the parks would not be insane, and we were very pleased!

 

[asunutgirl]

We were there yesterday afternoon. Arrived at 4pm and Mickey and Friends parking structure was closed. We decided to park at DTD and eat an early dinner there before we went into DL. We arrived inside the park around 5pm and main street was already packed. Traffic flow was diverted into the overflow areas behind main street. We ended up getting on the train at the main street station and riding it around the park. Everything was jammed. Small world was over an hour wait and Space was two hours. We decided just to see the fireworks and bail on trying to ride anything else.

The early parade and fireworks were packed. We left after around 7pm because it just wasn't worth it. DTD was jammed as well. (We did not venture over to DCA.) We are long time pass holders and generally visit once the week of thanksgiving. This is the busiest I've ever seen the parks this time of year.

If you are planning to visit over the Thanksgiving or Christmas holidays, I suggest you bring plenty of patience with you. The cast members are friendly but I witnessed some bad guest behavior last night.

 

[3TinksAndAnEeyore]

We've been here since Sunday morning. All three days have been crowded, but today (Tuesday) definitely seems the most crowded with longer lines and fastpasses running out earlier in the day. On the other hand, we only stood in line for lunch for 10 minutes at Boudin at 12:30 in the afternoon! We are taking an afternoon break right now and head back for 6:30 reservations at Cafe Orleans.

Main Street is almost always crowded except first thing in the morning. We were directed down the back of the stores yesterday in the early afternoon. We took the train to avoid the parade crowds when we hopped back over from DCA earlier today. That worked pretty well.

 

[JadeDarkstar]

I sure hope these crowds are because thanksgiving. I know my days will be crowded but wow

 

[beachdreamr1229]

As a sidenote, how's DCA? I assume after going about 12+ times this year that Disneyland is mostly impossible after about 2PM, but the rest of the year, DCA has been rather pleasant. Is this the case?

 

[3TinksAndAnEeyore]

As a sidenote, how's DCA? I assume after going about 12+ times this year that Disneyland is mostly impossible after about 2PM, but the rest of the year, DCA has been rather pleasant. Is this the case?

DCA feels less crowded, I think in part because of the way it was designed. The waits for rides have been pretty long, but other areas like Olaf's snow fest and animation academy were walk ups. Fastpasses for RSR and ToT go pretty quickly, so be sure to pick those up in the morning hours. The standby line for ToT was hanging at about 80 minutes for a couple of hours this evening. When it showed a drop to 50 minutes right around 9:00, we hopped in line and I timed it at actually 30 minutes. By the time we got off, the park was clearing out.

 

[BryANDJessMom]

Tuesday seemed the worse. While there is shoulder to shoulder crowds in Disneyland even California adventure was packed. For instance All the line queues were even open for little mermaid (40 mins) and wait times were very long for most everything