We just got back last night. We arrived late Tuesday so had 4.5 days in the parks.
I expected Wednesday and Thursday to be our best days, with the lowest crowds. Wednesday was packed. As mentioned earlier it might have had something to do with Wednesday being the last day to use certain CM passes. I wish I had some idea of that going into it. Definitely not what I expected, and not something I could have anticipated reading the blackout calendar in advance.
We stayed for fireworks Tuesday night. Maybe 10 minutes prior to the show they announced that Believe might not happen (I guess because of high winds?). Then the show started right on time, so just a few minutes after the announcement. But it wasn't the full show. It was a dumbed down version. I sort of felt like that had been planned all along. Very odd. And not worth the time we had waited.
The rain Thursday wasn't fun. I expected an empty park after trudging through the rain. No such luck. Not regular busy, but far busier than expected for the conditions. After taking a few photos, Peter Pan was already at 30 minutes. Rain stopped late morning, but they still only did the rainy day cavalcade. Also characters on Main Street were in regular attire that day. I was told that was because of rain. Not sure why. Maybe they just don't have enough copies of the Christmas outfits to risk getting wet.
Rainy Day in Disneyland by
mom2rtk, on Flickr
Friday morning EMH at DCA was 7 AM. We were up and at the gates by 7 with the intention of riding Incredicoaster and Toy Story as many times as possible. So much for that. The CM's at the entrance to the pier said it wasn't open. We checked back later and still not open. So irritating when that's the entire reason we were up early. EMH really loses value fast when that sort of thing happens. We ended up on Soarin, where only 1 concourse was operating, so very slow moving. Once again, a poor use of EMH. Checked back again later and Incredicoaster still down. Tried to meet the Cabelleros and came back when they expected them, only to be told it was only Donald. Never did meet them. Tried to meet Elena, only to sit and sit and wait while she was 20 minutes past her expected time.
Very disappointing not to have evening entertainment in DCA. Makes it hard to fill a day there. Frozen was awesome as always. So glad we stopped to see it again.
Saturday in DL was busy as expected. I had not seen the parade at night yet and hoped to catch it on Saturday, only to realize mid day that the schedule was changed because of CP. No night parade for me this trip.
We used part of our EMH Saturday in DL for photos. They had 3 photo spots set up by the castle. Ours were fine. But the photographer on one end was apparently shooting at an angle where she was getting the other photopass group in her shot. The people mentioned it to her and all she said was "It's Disneyland, that happens". Well, yeah that happens. But during EMH with lower crowds you don't expect one Photopass group to be shooting where they include the other photopass group.
Everyone is commenting on low crowds on Sunday. We were in DL at rope drop until noon and I thought crowds were pretty high. Not peak, but definitely not light.
At one point on Sunday we scanned our FP for Space, only to immediately see people coming down the FP entrance back out, because the line was down. Just a few steps into the line, I turned and asked the attendant if he could put our FP back or give us a re-entry pass so we could come back (we only had 90 minutes until we had to leave to catch our flight). He flat out said no. But we were welcome to wait. Really? That's nice of him. Even though he knew it was down and let us scan in anyway. I ended up asking the
DAS attendant out front if there was anything she could do and she happily agreed to give us a new time (in spite of the fact that we are not DAS users).
In spite of the hiccups, we still had a great time. EMH makes all the difference in the world to me during higher crowd times (in spite of the one off day at DCA). And MaxPass continues to rock. We rode headliner after headliner. We scheduled FPs, cancelled them, picked up new ones, and lined up some great days. We would never be able to have this sort of headliner access at WDW. No contest. I loved being able to watch for Small World FP times right after sunset. The system rocks. You know, until they raise the price enough to make me question buying it. May they never move to prescheduling like WDW!