Grand Canyon Diorama Articles
California vs. Blackpool: General
Earlier in the year, I wrote an article for DLDHistory.com comparing the Alice in Wonderland ride in Disneyland to Alice's Wonderland at Pleasure Beach Blackpool (the most visited theme park in the United Kingdom).
As I have recently come back from a week's vacation in Blackpool (and seeing as my main article this month was shorter than usual) I thought I would compare Anaheim's Disneyland Resort as a ...
Class Action Of Blind Persons Against Disney
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On June 5, 2012, trial will commence in an action brought against Walt Disney Parks & Resorts by a class consisting of all blind visitors to the Disneyland and Walt Disney World resorts. In Shields v. Walt Disney Parks & Resorts, the class action pending in Los Angeles, the class alleges that the Disneyland and Walt Disney World theme parks refuse to accommodate the needs of blind visitors, in violation of ...
California vs. Paris: Welcome Foolish Mortals -- Part Two
In part two of my four-part comparison between California's Haunted Mansion (in its regular form, rather than its seasonal overlay) and France's Phantom Manor, I shall be looking at the first three rooms one encounters upon entering the building.
All three rooms feature audio being played over music. In California, the audio was provided by Paul Frees as the Ghost Host. In France, this was provided by ...
8 More Unanswered Questions About Star Wars Land
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Disney raised even more questions with the recent announcement of plans to temporarily close the Rivers of America, Tom Sawyer Island and the Disneyland Railroad to allow for construction of Star Wars Land.
Here's what we know so far: The new 14-acre land will feature two attractions set in a remote frontier town on the outer rim of the "Star Wars" galaxy. While no opening date has been set, ...
African Veldt
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Way down in Jungleland, below the Amazin' Disney line, there's news among the gnus. "The Trapped Safari" is the new headline feature and a bit of bright fun in Disneyland's far-famed Adventureland and the Jungle River Cruise. Jackals, hyenas and buzzards lay siege to a comical hunter and his retinue treed by the wild beasts. Disneyland adventurers drift safely past as lions devour an unsuspecting prey ...
Disneyland Capital Investment Grows
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During its first 10 years, Disneyland's capital investment grew from $17 million on opening day to more than $53 million.
In the next five months, the figure will jump another $20 million with the completion of four new gigantic attractions.
"What we will do by this summertime," Walt Disney said after announcing the new attractions last week, "is to raise our investment more than the whole of ...
Growth Of Disneyland Expected To Continue
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"Disneyland will continue to grow, to add new things as long as there is imagination left in the world."
So said Walt Disney when the world famous amusement park opened in 1955.
Disneyland has been growing ever since.
Since the facility opened in Anaheim 11 years ago, it has doubled its number of attractions and drawn more than 50 million visitors.
When it opened, Disneyland ...
58 Ways Star Wars Land Is Changing Disneyland
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The Walt Disney Company recently announced that an entirely new land based on the Star Wars universe would be coming to Disneyland, likely in 2019. The 14-acre mini universe will feature two major new rides and other attractions including a restaurant based on the Mos Eisley cantina in the films. I'm not a big Star Wars aficionado, but I hear that the designers working on it are, and genuine fans can ...
No Disneyland Branch
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Walt Disney says he will not open branch replicas of Disneyland despite offers from a dozen foreign nations and uncounted requests from this country.
Some organizations have gone so far as to offer complete financing, but Walt has turned them all down.
PERSONAL PROJECT
"Disneyland is a personal project with me, he says. "I must stay close to it, otherwise the park would no longer be fun.
...
Disney Dedicated His 308 Foot Wide Grand Canyon Diorama
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Disney, dedicated his 308 feet-wide Grand Canyon Diorama largest in the world, at Disneyland, on a very rainy for California day, to the damp delight of 80 odd rain soaked newsmen.
Speech by the Santa Fe Railroad's Fred Curley for whom Walt named the engine of his new excursion train through Disneyland, was rained out (or down?) to a mere "Thank you very much, Walt." Following which, some Indian ...
River Boat Ride Tops At Disneyland
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The jungle boat trip through the "Rivers of the World" in adventureland has been the most popular attraction this year at Disneyland, originator Walt Disney disclosed today.
As attendance at the $23,600,000 playground passed the 13,000,000 mark in its third year of operation, visitors gave their second largest patronage to the frontierland ships "Mark Twain" and "Columbia" Disney said.
Next in ...
Disneyland Railroad And Fantasmic Return Dates
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Much of the Disneyverse is craftily constructed around clocks and the nature of time, and a fan only need dip into a song, or story, to find references to the meaning, and passage, of hours and minutes.
From the stroke of midnight in "Cinderella" to Cogsworth the clock of "Beauty and the Beast" to "Step in Time" from "Mary Poppins" to the beloved doll clock at It's a Small World at Disneyland, ...
Disneyland Return Railroad And River Attractions
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The building of a space port in a galaxy that happens to be located far, far away doesn't normally prevent an earthbound train from traveling the route it has run along for decades. The port is somewhere deep in the cosmos, light years from this planet, while the train tracks? They've been placed on terra firma, and the engine that toot-toots along them will never be impacted by what happens in space.
...
50 Ways To Love Disneyland
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Mickey Mouse is planning a blowout as Disneyland Resort in California celebrates its 50th anniversary, starting Thursday.
Sure, it'll be hot, and the lines will be long. But you know you want to go: the Matterhorn; Mickey-shaped, chocolate-covered ice cream; mouse ears with your name embroidered on the back. Arizona is second only to California for the number of people who make the pilgrimage to the ...
Disneyland: A Parents' Survival Guide
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Disneyland, a monument to childhood, is also a test of how well you've grown up. Your first visit is guaranteed to be interesting, just as the first time you drive a car, have sex or spend a night by yourself is filled with wonder. But by the tenth or hundredth time you do it, amazement will elude you unless you apply an adult imagination to the experience.
The adults who have the least trouble ...
A Restless Dreamer And A Prolific Creator
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As Disneyland launches its 50th birthday celebration, it seems appropriate to consider the founding father who turned his last name into an enduring brand and created a media giant that bestrides the planet. Walt Disney, as many have noted with varying degrees of accuracy, was not always the kindly, genial Uncle Walt who cared only about making children laugh. He was much more complex and more interesting. ...
Babes In Disneyland
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"If you take me to Disneyland I will be your best friend," said the little girl who lives in my house. And the Crown Prince, who is going on five and lives there, too, allowed that he might put away his hammer, with which he alters the furniture, refrain from loud shrieks except an occasional one of joy, and generally act like the tall people if only he could go, too.
All it meant really was a ...
A Fantasy That Paid Off
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The place is surrounded by a berm, a high barrow of earth, that insulates it from the external world. There is a single gateway where admission is charged. This, the land of Disney, is more secure than ancient Troy. No Trojan horse will get into Disneyland. Guards at the main gate closely scrutinize all who enter. Not even an unseemly teenager will get past them, much less a Trojan horse.
Disneyland is ...
Intrepid Kids Of Disneyland
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It was a normal Sunday afternoon at Disneyland. The Gay Nineties show had just broken at the Golden Horseshoe, a make-believe salon located in the Frontierland area. The tourist-packed Mark Twain, a scaled-down reproduction of a nineteenth-century Mississippi river boat, was sailing around Tom Sawyer's Island. Stagecoach passengers were jolting through the Painted Desert, which, until recently, had been an ...
Dazzled In Disneyland
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In the third decade of this century America produced a young man of genius. He drew pictures with pen and ink and wash. Like other geniuses, such as Michelangelo, Leonardo and Bernini, he had a mechanical turn of mind; and, by means of all sorts of devices, he made his drawings into motion pictures which were works of art. He drew animals to perfection. With care and his knowledge of mechanics he made ...
How To Make A Buck
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Once upon a time, in the magic realm of California, there was a grown-up heady boy named Walt Disney who set out to create the happiest place on earth. So he went into his counting houses and to his moneylenders, and he collected millions of dollars. Then he ordered his royal artists and carpenters to build a whimsical wonderland of spaceships to the moon and Mark Twain river boats, of mechanical monkeys ...
Disneyland And Las Vegas
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This is written in Mexico, my home in recent years. I've just returned from a visit to the United States, and am now once more enjoying the taste of unfrozen orange juice and fresh fish, conversations lasting four or five hours in which all sorts of cabbages and kings are discussed, meetings with friends where no one asks if I watched TV last night to see Mickey Rooney do Oedipus Rex on the Benign ...
Disneyland 55 And Still A Major Force
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Disneyland The Happiest Place on Earth turns 55 this summer. Clearly, Walt Disney's dream of creating a family park where parents and children could have fun together is here to stay.
But that's not to say Disneyland hasn't seen its share of changes in 5½ decades. Indeed, one of the biggest overhauls in the Anaheim, Calif., resort's history is currently under way inside California Adventure.
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My First Long-Awaited Much Anticipated Wonderful Trip To Disneyland
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I had never been to Disneyland. When I was growing up, we watched "The Wonderful World of Disney" TV show and thought it looked like a magical place, but the idea of piling all seven of us into the 1953 Plymouth and heading for California was not something that occurred to us.
I didn't even know anyone who lived in California, and in those days our few vacations were generally to see family and friends.
...
Being A Tour Guide In The 60s Led To Many Surprises
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In 1964, I was a freshman at USC and worked as a Disneyland tour guide on breaks. Park visitors could spend $5 then for a half-day guided tour rather than $3.95 for a book of ride tickets. Those attending a tour would cluster around a girl in a red plaid skirt and blue velvet cap who held her riding crop high so you never lost sight of her and who could walk backward making you privy to the inside story ...
Roundhouse Boasts Four Pioneers Of Early Railroad History
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Boarding one of the four colorful trains in Disneyland is not just stepping aboard a train-it's actually stepping into a pioneer of early railroad history. It's experiencing a steam train ride of the past, at a time when the West was just really beginning to grow. The Santa Fe and Disneyland trains are the dreams and reflections of Walt Disneys love for trains -- an interest that dates from his days ...
Opening Day Attractions You Can Still Enjoy At Disney
Opening on July 17, 1955, Disneyland Park changed the world.
Over the past few decades since then, it has undergone multiple changes, including the addition of adjacent hotels, Downtown Disney, and Disney California Adventure Park. But let 's explore the attractions that were there from the very beginning.
The Mad Tea Party
Although the “teacups” is ride has been ...
