GREAT visit yesterday.

Holiday season has officially begun at Disneyland. I don't exactly celebrate Christmas, but the decorations are beautiful. The park looks even more amazing this time of year.

First up was Peter Pan, then Storybook Land. The tiny wreaths, Christmas trees, evergreen swags, and wrapped presents adorning the mini landscapes are adorable (though the park had the good sense to leave the Aladdin scenes alone - since the film specifically mentions Allah, one may presume Aladdin and Jasmine are Muslim; decorating Agrabah for Christmas would be inappropriate). Alice's rowboat is back (with a couple of tiny gifts inside), though Mr. Mole's is still missing. Several of the big rope 'stitches' on the Giant Patchwork Quilt have popped loose and need to be reattached - I even saw one floating in the water.

Alice in Wonderland looks great. The new Cheshire Cat effect is perfect, and the timing on the hedgehog effect is a little better - it's only a couple of seconds off. The tea party scene at the end wasn't working, though (no motion or sound).

To my chagrin, the noisy teenage guests on the mine cart ahead of mine screamed all through Snow White (I could swear I spotted a different bird figure in the cottage scene)...then boarded the cart behind mine on Pinocchio. After rolling through the toy-shop finale, I beat it straight to It's A Small World Holiday. Gah, such cuteness. Plus the decorations at the entrance are newer (and, frankly, fresher-looking) than the regular panels, which, to be perfectly honest, could use a touch-up. Unfortunately three of the French cancan dancers are missing. The remaining ones are wearing sparkly Mardi Gras masks that a) clash with their attire (white or silver would have looked better), and b) are slipping. You can tell they're human-sized. The missing Dutch boy is back, giant tulip and all. Oh, and they could've sneaked in a menorah somewhere.

Marshmallow, last year's surviving pardoned turkey, is still missing from Big Thunder Ranch (currently hosting Santa's reindeer). Word has it that he, too, expired (probably from flip-over syndrome).

Overheard in Le Bat En Rouge:

Cranky mom snaps at cranky four-year-old daughter. Daughter whines "I don't like you!" Mom snarls "Good. I don't like you either." Um...what the hell?

Overheard in Haunted Mansion Holiday queue:

Older man telling companion that Walt Disney got the money to make Mickey Mouse cartoons by making wartime training films, THEN the full-length features, then using the profits for cartoons. What a freaking moron. America entered World War Two in the '40s. Snow White, the first full-length animated feature, had premiered in 1937. The first Mickey Mouse cartoon premiered in 1928. It's not difficult to figure out.

And incidentally, there were a few wartime Disney cartoons. Case in point: "Der Fuehrer's Face," starring a hapless Donald Duck. It's a shame the cartoon is somewhat controversial and rarely seen, since it's very funny and blatantly anti-Nazi. Yeah, it does depict Donald forced to salute photographs of Hitler, but I seem to recall him kissing a Statue of Liberty figurine at the end.

All the Halloween/fall decorations and props have been removed from store windows. Even the Snow White window in the Storybook Store has fake snow (though for a touch more realism, she could be wearing a tattered shawl or something - who wears short sleeves in the snow?).

That's enough for today...I've got a lot of work to do.

See you at Disneyland.