Originally Posted By cstephens We were at the park very early today, already in line prior to park opening. When the gates opened at 8am, the lines to get into the park were well into the esplanade. After doing some shopping, we went to do rides around 9am. We walked to Space, but the standby line was already 50 minutes, and the Fastpass machine wasn't on, which we thought was curious, so we skipped that ride. We went to the Matterhorn, which didn't have a very long line. First time I've been able to ride Matterhorn in about 3 years, so it was actually fun. We then went on Small World, which didn't have a very long line, and then Storybook, which had somewhat of a line, but the line moved fairly quickly, and we ended up on the gold boat, which was cool. Our CM decided to take a bit of a Jungle Cruise approach to this particular ride. As we and a friend headed over to Main Street to do some browsing, another friend went to get Fastpasses for Haunted Mansion Holiday. The return time wasn't too bad on that, so after we were done on Main Street, it was 11:10 and time to use our Fastpasses. The standby queue was fairly long at that point. We decided to have an early lunch and headed to French Market, where the line was already considerably past the menu sign. After getting our food, we sat in the little area to the side of French Market, right outside the Sparkly Store. (How you know you've been going too much - I noticed that the tables were different. They've usually been round tables, which has always been a problem when we've got more than 2 or 3 people, but now, they're square tables, which work much better for a party of 4.) As we enjoyed our lunch, the line to get into the restaurant remained long. After we finished, we browsed around New Orleans Square for a while and then decided to head over to DCA. We were on the bridge over the Pirates queue at about 12:40 when we noticed the huge crowds in that area. We had noticed that Pirates (both sides into the entrance were being used) was being queued and going considerably far down past River Belle and the adjoining seating. Here's a picture of the left side of the queue, using the additional queue space in the back: <a href="http://www.colddeadfish.net/images/DLR/crowd3.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.colddeadfish.net/im ages/DLR/crowd3.jpg</a>. Here's a picture from the bridge looking out onto the Rivers of America: <a href="http://www.colddeadfish.net/images/DLR/crowd2.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.colddeadfish.net/im ages/DLR/crowd2.jpg</a>. You can see the line of people waiting for Pirates. This picture is slightly further right, where you can see the queue extending even further: <a href="http://www.colddeadfish.net/images/DLR/crowd1.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.colddeadfish.net/im ages/DLR/crowd1.jpg</a>. This is a picture from the bridge, looking at Adventureland: <a href="http://www.colddeadfish.net/images/DLR/crowd4.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.colddeadfish.net/im ages/DLR/crowd4.jpg</a>. When we had earlier headed to Haunted Mansion Holiday, I'd noticed that the Jungle Cruise line was queued out the entrance, even though the upstairs queue seemed to be in use. As we tried to make our way out, we headed toward Adventureland, but when it barely seemed to move, we cut through River Belle Terrace, noticing along the way that the Rivers of America side of the queue was really long, almost meshing into the Pirates queue that extended even past that restaurant. As we were walking down Main Street, many people were still streaming into Disneyland, and in the esplanade, the lines to get into Disneyland were still fairly long. The lines into DCA were long as well, so it took a while for us to get into that park. We headed for Soarin', but at 1:30, the standby wait time was 40 minutes and the Fastpass return time was 4:30, past the time when our friends would have to leave. We headed to Screamin' to get Fastpasses, and the return time was only about half an hour, but immediately after we got our Fastpasses, the ride broke down (we saw one train stopped on the track right before the launch and another train stopped on the track just after a back hill), so we then headed for Aladdin since one of our friends hadn't seen it before. It was pretty crowded, and we ended up at the mezzanine, which included a difficult hike up the stairs, but it was a good show. Another friend who was going to join us had called earlier and said that it had taken him half an hour to get into the parking structure. After the show, we met up with the other friend but ended up deciding to call it a day as everyone had other plans for the evening. /cs
Originally Posted By DlandDug I was by early on Saturday morning and was shocked to see the mob waiting to go through security check...
Originally Posted By ni_teach Yes, that is a good size crowed. That is why I normally don't go to the park on Saturday.
Originally Posted By Disneydanny the crowds were PROBABLY because ob the new Olzewski Disneyland peices coming out that day.
Originally Posted By cstephens Disneydanny wrote: > crowds were PROBABLY because ob the new Olzewski Disneyland peices coming out that day. Nope. There were of course people there for that, but there weren't nearly enough people there for the release to account for the huge crowds. And, most of that particular crowd was in line on Main Street outside Disneyana waiting for the signing. The purchase line never got terribly long. It is always funny to see the looks on people's faces as they see the line on Main Street, wondering what the heck it's for, especially at 9am. /cs
Originally Posted By Mrs ElderP something I forgot to say in my other thread is that a major home building company was having a company day that day.
Originally Posted By wolfchild I just posted my Saturday experience in the capacity prediction thread. My fiance and I are both fairly chatty people, and while waiting in a couple of different lines to day we chatted with some Cast Members about the previous day. On told us that they had several large groups scheduled for park visits Saturday and that is why it cot so busy so early. He is also the one that told us that _full_ capacity is around the 85,000-90,000 mark and that he had been told that morning that they had hit about 94,000. The second said that he had gotten an autograph book thrown at him the night before and when talking to people about today he was told that they were closer to 100,000 guests. Now, these are all numbers from the cast members that we happened to talk to today and I can't vouch for authenticity beyond that.
Originally Posted By Elderp It is hard to get real numbers till the next day and DL never releases them to the public. You can however guess pretty close by looking at the crowds and such.
Originally Posted By iluvdisneyland "He is also the one that told us that _full_ capacity is around the 85,000-90,000 mark and that he had been told that morning that they had hit about 94,000. " The fire marshal shuts us down at 72,000 (unless we shut ourselves down first, of course). I GUARANTEE upon my employment at Disneyland that there were not that many Guests in the park.
Originally Posted By SuperDry Also, there could be well over 72,000 guests in DL on a particular day - just not all at once.
Originally Posted By imadisneygal Even on a very busy day, a total Guest count for the day of 72K would be hard to reach. Most very busy days, even New Year's Eve and the like, end up at around 70K. So it would be unusual to have a total for the day of over 70K.
Originally Posted By pecos bill When you really think about it, Disneyland is not that big. The thought of cramming sixty-plus thousand people into this relatively small area sends shivers down my spine. I know it's sacrilege to say it here, but I would rather be at work than at Disneyland on a day like that.
Originally Posted By knightnfrees Sunday the 11th was apparently crowded as well. I showed up @ 6pm and they were parking cars along the driveways prior to the parking cashiers. It was insane. They were squeezing cars into any available space. I've never seen it that busy. However, once getting into the park, it was fairly managable.
Originally Posted By SuzieQ My parents are there right now. I talked to my mom this morning. When they checked in to their hotel (Embassy Suites) Sat. afternoon/evening there was a sign at the front desk saying the park was full. According to Mom, they got to the park about 1:30 yesterday and it was crowded, but not overwhelmingly so.
Originally Posted By wolfchild Sunday was definitely a lot better. We only spent a few hours there, leaving by around 2 or so. But while we were there we walked onto HMH, Pirates, Winnie the Pooh and had about a 15 minute wait for Star Tours and Indy. (and did all of our shopping before the stores got crazy) And we always start the day about an hour after the park opens since we hit Carnation Cafe for Mickey waffles The only ride that we didn't get on that we wanted to that day was Space Mountain. The FP machines were broken (as they were for a good part of the day Saturday) and we went over there at about 12:30pm or so and there was a two hour and 25 minute wait. Everything else still looked okay even by the time we left though.
Originally Posted By Darkbeer ^I seriously doubt it, I would predict that as of Friday, be prepared for capacity crowds every day until January 9th....
