Swiss Family Treehouse Articles
Disneyland Memories
Two months ago, I was warned that my article for the July issue would be about my first memories of Disneyland.
I knew from the outset how hard this would be.
If I had been asked about my first visit to Florida's Magic Kingdom this would be easy. It was November 18th 1988, which was Mickey's 60th birthday. I could write reams about my memories: the parades; my first trip on a monorail; finding ...
Reflections On My Trip To Disneyland
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I was a little worried about our trip to Disneyland, which took place last week.
Last time I went with my older son, then 4 years old, and misjudged the scariness of Pirates of the Caribbean by a factor of about 10. He didn't want to go on rides after that, pegged me as a complete liar (it was going to happen some time ) and stayed in the fetal position for the rest of the month.
Adding to ...
Walt Disney King Of Fantasy
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Walt Disney and friends.
Walt Disney, whose Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck brought laughter to the world and whose Disneyland is a playground for the world's people, calls his home at Smoke Tree Ranch, "my laughing place."
Whimsical, as always, he refers to the Uncle Remus story where Brer Rabbit oh-so-casually mentions his "laughing place" and makes it sound so intriguing that Brer Fox insists on ...
California vs. Paris: Adventureland
This month, I shall be comparing the Adventurelands found in the two Disneyland parks closest to my heart (California and Paris).
Standing in front of the castle, with your back to Main Street, U.S.A./World Bazaar, the first land you encounter clockwise in four of the five Magic Kingdoms is Adventureland. Internet rumors abound that in Shanghai, Adventureland will take up the ...
California vs. Paris: The Treehouses
This month, I shall be comparing the treehouses found in the Disneyland parks closest to my heart (California and Paris).
Both treehouses can be found in Adventureland and are walk-around attractions with a set path to follow. They both feature beautiful views (including of their parks' respective Indiana Jones attractions), hand-painted leafs and more steps than you remember until it's too late.
...
Still Returning After 36 Years
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Having first visited Disneyland as a 2-year-old, Fairfax journalist James Croot reflects after his recent sixth visit.
"To all who come to this happy place: Welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savour the challenge and promise of the future."
Walter E Disney's words when he opened his theme park in July 1955 have never felt truer than ...
Lunch With Disney Legend Marty Sklar In Disneyland's Club 33
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I have to admit, I was getting a little nervous.
It was 1:20 in the afternoon of Nov. 22. I was standing -- actually, pacing back and forth - near the steps of City Hall in Town Square at Disneyland.
Rain was falling pretty steadily, as it had been since daybreak, and it was downright chilly, a far cry from the "warm California sun" we've been hearing about for decades.
I was scheduled to ...
Password Safari
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If you're tired of freeways, or looking for something really different to do, Walt Disney has come up with the solution: a "trip far from civilization."
The password is"Safari," and summertime visitors at Disneyland will be validating their passports, stepping aboard steamers and sailing off on a grand new tropical adventure that may set jungle exploration back to the days of "Dr. Livingston, I ...
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 ...
Swiss Family Tree Burns At Disneyland
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A portion of the Swiss Family Tree House at Disneyland received minor damage from fire Saturday.
Flames broke out about 7:50 p.m. near the Crows nest at the top of the tree located in Adventureland.
Three units from the Anaheim fire Department controlled the blaze within 20 minutes, a. spokesman for Disneyland said.
There were 12 persons in the lower part of the tree when the fire broke out ...
Disneyland Houses Giant 70-Foot Tree
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Walt Disney advised visitors today to go climb a tree his latest addition to the magic kingdom.
Disney and his magicians have built the first high-rise treehouse in the world, towering 70 feet over the jungleland area of Disneyland. To build the treehouse it was necessary to build a 150 ton tree to hold it.
"The poem says 'only God can make a tree,'"' Disney said. "After my experience with this ...
This Is How Disneyland Looked And Changed In The 1960s
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It was the '60s, a decade of change. And just like society, Disneyland would change too - in dramatic fashion.
1960
Just like previous years, Walt Disney was constantly tinkering with Disneyland as the decade started. The first year of the decade, he added more scenes to the Rainbow Ridge Mine Train, and changed its name to the Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland. The mules got a new name, ...
This Is How Disneyland Changed In The 1990s
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It was a "Fantasmic!" start for Disneyland in the 1990s, and the decade ended with a new Tomorrowland and the disappearance of the parking lot.
1990-92
Not much happened for the first two years in terms of changes or additions of new attractions until 1992. Mission to Mars had its last flight and was grounded. In New Orleans Square, something new was coming to the waterfront of the Rivers of ...
Adventure Awaits
When "Adventureland" was first conceived, it was to be based on Walt's award winning documentaries on Africa and Asia. "Jungle Cruise" was the star attraction until "Swiss Family Treehouse" opened in 1962. The inspiration for the "Jungle Cruise" includes the True-Life Adventure documentary, "The African Lion" and the film, "The African Queen" (the name for the Land was to be "True-Life Adventureland" ...
Disneyland Announces 7 Million Dollar Expansion
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A two-year expansion program involving an expenditure of $7 million for new attractions at Disneyland -- including a complete new Adventureland area opening next summer -- has been announced by officials at Walt Disney's Anaheim park.
The development, one or the biggest projects undertaken at Disneyland since its opening in 1955, is now underway in the Adventureland and Frontierland areas.
...
More Progress On Star Wars Land Halloween Arrives
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Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge topped out, and Halloween is making its presence known around the Disneyland Resort as the weather finally cools in September.
The heat wave's back finally broken, and many kids have returned to school, making the first few weeks of September less crowded at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure.
Of course, with the end of the summer season, many refurbishments are ...
12 Fun Things You May Not Know About Disneyland
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Test your Disney trivia mojo here. How many of these items do you already know?
1. King Arthur Carousel. The lead horse on the iconic Fantasyland carousel is named Jingles. Walt Disney wanted all horses on the carousel, and he wanted them all to be leaping, so when a classic carousel was purchased, it was supplemented with other horses and those that had straight legs were redesigned.
2. Main ...
Don Edgrren, 83 Engineer Helped Create Disney Parks
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Pirates of the Caribbean was already being built as a walk-through attraction at Disneyland when Walt Disney decided to transform it into a boat ride that would open in 1967. Suddenly, Don Edgren and his engineering crew had to figure out a way to take the expanded ride deeper underground.
"Don knew it was an engineering challenge, but he had that can-do spirit. Nothing was impossible," Marty Sklar, ...
Disney Fairy Tale Isn't For Everyone
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The job description is simple: Make the customers believe that Disneyland is "a magic kingdom where life is a fairy tale and dreams really do come true."
But at the end of the workday, many of the people who work at the "Happiest Place on Earth" sleep on air mattresses, in by-the-week motel rooms and in apartments shared with other families.
"I've been at this motel since 1997," said Derrick, a ...
Will I Love Disneyland As Much As Disneyworld?
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Some years ago, we took our two young boys to Disneyworld in Florida. They are grown up and my wife and I are going to California next year. Should we visit Disneyland, or is it a squib after the Florida park?
It's true that the Disneyland complex in Anaheim is smaller than the newer Disneyworld in Orlando, even the iconic Disneyland Castle and the peaks of Big Thunder Mountain are a tad teenier. ...
Disneyland In One Day
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The First Hint that my mission will be daunting: I tell the cast member in Guest Relations the title of the article I'm researching, and she starts to giggle. Disneyland in a day? Who am I kidding? "It might be a little hard," she says, handing me my tickets, "to do it all in a day."
Disneyland has its own special feel, and nostalgia is only part of it. Yes, it's the only park Walt Disney lived to ...
Magical Memories
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Disneyland was built on a dream. And it was Walt Disney's dream that has made millions of wishes come true during the past 50 years.
Hundreds of millions of wishes, really. And also special moments - first dates and honeymoons, birthdays and anniversaries, and fun days spent with kids and later with grandkids.
Several weeks ago, we asked readers to recall their favorite Disneyland memories.
...
Fathers Treehouse
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I believe this: When we begin to lose those closest to us, we receive an aura, like the forewarning of an illness, just before it happens. One day my father started building a treehouse -- an elaborate Disney-inspired fantasy -- in our backyard. That was the day I knew our family would eventually shatter like a hot marble dropped in ice water.
A third-generation Californian, something rare in a state ...
New Fun For The Whole Family At Disneyland
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Imagine it's 200 years ago and you're a passenger on a small boat picking its way carefully along a dark and treacherous stretch of coastline on the Spanish Main. Suddenly pandemonium breaks loose. The air resounds with the roar of cannons and the crack of muskets. A band of pirates is attacking a town and you're right in the middle! The rogues are everywhere-taunting the town council, auctioning off the ...
Disneyland Turning 50
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Here's the deal with Disneyland. The two women ahead of me in line were Elizabeth and Lexi, twins fromWinnetka, Ill. Elizabeth is a communications and political science major at the University of Southern California. Lexi is a philosophy major atYale.
They knew the words to ''We Can Fly,'' a song from Walt Disney's ''PeterPan.'' It's the song the chorus sings when Wendy, John and Michael,powered by ...
Do You Believe In Magic?
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Once upon a time in a popular tourist destination called the Magic Kingdom, there lived some very prosperous characters. They were happy all the time (except for Grumpy, but it was his job to be that way). They produced souvenirs, cartoons and movies that were the delight of families around the world. But one day a great disenchantment fell over the kingdom, for the magic no longer worked. Tinker Bell's ...
A Considerable Town
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Pam Wells has been to Disneyland, she estimates, 50 times in her 43 years. In fact, she's going again this weekend, for her 44th birthday. She can still remember being too excited to sleep the night before a Disneyland outing. And she can list all the places you used to be able to make out and/or smoke pot (Monsanto, the Sky Buckets) back in her teenage days. She talks of the days of E Tickets. She can ...
Tarzan's Treehouse
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A Disneyland landmark welcomes new tenants this July, when the 70-foot-tall tree that once housed the Swiss Family Treehouse reopens with a Tarzan theme. Visit the home of the Lord of the Jungle by scaling a staircase made of items salvaged from a shipwreck, then crossing a rickety suspension bridge. Nestled high among the leaves, vine-covered huts are filled with the personal effects of Tarzan. Guests who ...
Onward And Upward With The Arts
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One day last year in Los Angeles, as I was about to step aboard a helicopter that would take me to Disneyland with my teen-aged son and daughter, these two, smiling wanly, nodded toward a tourist poster that gave equal billing to our destination and to Forest Lawn cemetery. Their gesture reminded me that in earlier years they had wasted hundreds of child-hours vainly urging me to bring them on this very ...
For Disneyland's New Indiana Jones Adventure, Waiting Is Half The Fun
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Imagine you run a theater and you're faced with 21,000 people in line every day expecting nothing but the best. There are 2,400 eager customers queued at any given time waiting to get in. Your venue seats 180 people for each performance.
Those impossible numbers would make most producers with any sense throw in the towel.
But not Disneyland. The Magic Kingdom has spent the past 40 years fine-tuning ...
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 ...
