Holiday Throngs Throw Disneyland a Curve

Call it the busiest place on earth.

Surprising even Disney insiders, Anaheim’s grande dame of amusement parks has been logging hundreds of thousands more guests than expected this season. Whether it’s the holiday-themed fireworks and machine-made snow or winter discount promotions, Disneyland crowds have been so heavy in recent weeks that workers are straining to attend to the throngs and keep rides going.

On Friday afternoon, parking attendants and tram workers estimated that people were waiting up to 45 minutes just to park their cars; some visitors called that guess conservative.

“It took me that long just to get from the [freeway] exit to the corner of the parking garage,” said John Weins of Texas, who is visiting relatives in the San Fernando Valley and made his first trek to Disneyland. “Is it always this bad? I mean, this is terrible. It better be worth it.”

Nationally it’s been a good year for theme parks, with attendance up by 3% at the 50 biggest parks despite an unusually cold and wet summer in the East and Midwest, according to Amusement Business magazine. But Disneyland wasn’t supposed to be setting attendance records in the usually slow October-December period--not this year.

Officials had expected many patrons to delay visits until a second Anaheim park, Disney’s California Adventure, opens on Feb. 8. Construction-related traffic snarls, higher ticket prices and the lack of any major new attractions all were seen as deterrents to visits.

But even before public schools got out, parkgoers flooded Disneyland this month. And the extra guests--about 400,000 more than Disney expected for the current quarter, one insider says--have helped push Disneyland attendance up by 3% to 13.9 million for the year, Amusement Business estimates.

“It was a zoo. . . . There were about 15 billion people in there,” said Ann Kistner of San Mateo after a hectic Sunday night visit. She and her grandchildren tried to get a good spot to watch the 9:30 p.m. fireworks, which end with snow flurries, but they were cut off by a jostling wall of humanity.

“There were so many people we could barely get down Main Street,” said Kistner’s granddaughter Meghan Green.

The nightly snowfall has indeed been a big draw. “I saw some tourists from Arizona the other night who said they drove all the way in to see the snow,” said Dave Koenig, author of the “Mouse Tales” series of unauthorized Disneyland yarns.

But if crowds get any thicker, some may not be able to get through the gates. The 45-year-old park has rarely closed its turnstiles because of excess visitors; it did so during the last flickerings of the Main Street Electrical Parade in 1996.

Inside the park late Friday afternoon, the average wait for most attractions was at least an hour, and many visitors said that even the “FastPass” provision, which gives preset “appointment” times aimed at reducing the wait in line, was troublesome and confusing.

“It’s like impossible to figure out where you’re supposed to be for that,” said Hillary Michelson, 16, who waited 90 minutes to ride Space Mountain. “There’s too many people all crowding around everywhere. It’s like they can’t control everybody or something.”

People waited in long lines to use the phone, the bathroom, the water fountains. Along a festively decorated Main Street, Samantha Kramer, 43, clung to a lamppost in front of the camera shop and scanned the sea of bodies moving every which way below her. “My boys are supposed to meet me here at 3 p.m.,” the Virginia woman said of her two teenagers. “But I wouldn’t know it if they were right here beside me.”

Attendance this year is also up at Universal Studios Hollywood and Six Flags Magic Mountain, but has been flat at SeaWorld San Diego and off a bit at Knott’s Berry Farm.

For Disneyland, getting ready for the new park’s opening hasn’t made things any easier. Those inside the park report that Disneyland shifts lately have been going unfilled and rides have sometimes opened late, operated at less than full capacity or--in the case of minor attractions--closed entirely because of a shortage of workers.

“The overtime is unbelievable--people working sixth days, seventh days,” said a supervisory worker.

Compounding the crunch is FastPass, a popular new ride-time reservation system that cuts by thousands the number of people standing in lines--but in so doing can make the park seem even more crowded, the source said.

Observers credit Disney with conducting an expert advertising blitz for its Christmas entertainment, including the fireworks show, “Believe . . . in Holiday Magic.” Disney also has offered a popular discount program: a $49 ticket got patrons in for one full day, plus after-4 p.m. admission good every night in December until this weekend.

Bob Ochsner, a theme park marketing expert, speculated on another possible source for the recent Disneyland crowds: locals getting in last visits before the new park opens.

All that spells holiday crush.

On Friday, some families took a lunch break at their hotels, hoping the crowds would thin out when they returned. Rory Maxwell of Tacoma, Wash., took a three-hour break at the Disneyland Hotel with his wife and three children, ages 12, 10 and 7, but when they hopped on the tram and returned to the front gate shortly before 3 p.m., their hopes were dashed.

“It’s not any better at all,” Maxwell said. “It’s worse.” His oldest son, Jordan, said: “This is so lame. You can’t do anything in here.”

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Staff writer Leslie Earnest contributed to this story.