Posted: May 05, 2021

Yesterday was a big day for theme park lovers and Californians alike. The Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California finally reopened after more than 13 months of pandemic closures. California residents were the only guests permitted to visit on reopening day, so I hopped on a plane (my first flight since last March!) from my home in the San Francisco Bay Area to be among them. The last trip I took before the world shut down last spring was to

Posted: May 05, 2021

Let's get this out of the way first: Snow White's Enchanted Wish, the revamped ride that replaced Snow White's Scary Adventures in Disneyland, is really good. The attraction preserves much of the charm of what originally opened in 1955 at the park's debut, but gives it a more cohesive storyline that's true to the 1938 movie. It also adds in the movie's biggest problem - but we'll get to that in a minute. DISNEYLAND'S NEW SNOW WHITE

Posted: May 05, 2021

Standing at the Disneyland gates at 8:30 on Friday morning, we heard a sound in the distance. A sound no one had heard in more than 400 days: a long, friendly whistle, followed by the chugging of a steam train engine. A rousing cheer erupted from the thousands of people waiting in line. The Disneyland railroad emerged from the trees and pulled into the Main Street Station. Some waved and whooped. Some cried. Some held up phones to take

Posted: May 03, 2021

Welcome to Disneyland 2.0. After a pretty much uninterrupted run of nearly 65 years, Disneyland is returning after a break of more than 13 months. It 's been a hard reset for the resort, which now will be forced to operate in ways different than it has before. Some of these changes will be temporary. But some might endure, as Disneyland adapts to operate within a new reality. The pandemic has been just one of several factors shaping this new

Posted: May 03, 2021

Walt Disney Imagineering 's Dave Caranci remembers feeling a mix of trepidation and excitement about riding the Snow White dark ride in Fantasyland for the first time as a 5-year-old visiting Disneyland with his family. “The first time I rode it was in the early ‘70s and it scared me to death,” said Caranci, Imagineering 's manager of creative development. “It was always one of those that you wanted to ride, but as you went to get on it you didn 't want

Posted: May 03, 2021

It only seems appropriate that the first visitors to step foot inside Disneyland and Disney California Adventure after the coronavirus closures that shuttered the Anaheim theme parks for more than a year would be some of its 15,000 cast members, Disney parlance for employees. “It was honestly so great to spend a full day back at Disneyland after well over a year,” wrote on Twitter. “It 's a true sign that we 're on our way back to some level of

Posted: May 03, 2021

Magical touches added before the reopening of Disneyland, Disney California Adventure After the longest closure in its 66-year history, Disneyland will reopen Friday with magical changes to one of its original rides. In Fantasyland, Snow White 's Scary Adventures has been reimagined as Snow White 's Enchanted Wish. Visitors will see new scenes such as a dancing figure of Snow White joining the dwarfs as the scent of a pie baking

Posted: May 03, 2021

Disneyland has returned after a yearlong coronavirus closure with a rethemed Snow White 's Enchanted Wish, updated Haunted Mansion and refreshed King Arthur Carrousel to the delight of die-hard fans who waited hours to snag tickets for the reopening of the Anaheim theme park. Fans anxious to ride the wildly popular Rise of the Resistance attraction and the soon-to-change Splash Mountain log flume had their wish granted when Disneyland finally swung open the