Los Angeles & Southern California - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [194]
Walk through the gates of Disneyland ( recorded info 714-781-4565, live assistance 714-781-7290, switchboard 714-781-4000; www.disneyland.com; 1313 S Harbor Blvd) and along the red-brick path – suggestive of a red carpet – a stunning floral Mickey Mouse blooms before you. A sign above the nearby archway reads ‘Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy’ – an apt but slightly skewed greeting that’s indicative of the upbeat, slightly skewed ‘reality’ of the park itself. A reality that’s an undeniable delight to the millions of children who visit every year. This is their park, but adults who can willingly suspend disbelief and give in to the ‘magic of Disney’ will have just as much fun.
MAIN STREET USA
Fashioned after Walt’s hometown of Marcelene, Missouri, bustling Main St, USA resembles the classic turn-of-the-20th-century all-American town. It’s an idyllic, relentlessly upbeat representation complete with barbershop quartet, penny arcades, ice-cream shops and a steam train. The music playing in the background is from American musicals. There’s a flag-retreat ceremony every afternoon.
If you’re visiting on a special day and want to embrace the Disney experience whole-mouse, stop by City Hall to pick up some ornamental flair in the form of over-sized buttons celebrating birthdays, anniversaries and the ‘Just Married.’ There’s also an Information Center here. The Disneyland Railroad, a steam train that makes a loop around the park and rolls into four different stations, stops nearby. At the time of writing, Great Moments with Mr Lincoln, a 15-minute audio-animatronic presentation on Honest Abe, was expected to re-open in the not-too-distant future.
There’s plenty of shopping, but wait until the end of the evening: Main St’s stores remain open after the park’s attractions close. Main St ends in the Central Plaza, the center of the park with five ‘spokes’ extending to the eight different lands (eg Frontierland and Tomorrowland). Lording over the plaza is Sleeping Beauty Castle, the castle featured on the Disney logo. Inside the iconic structure (which was fashioned after a real castle in southern Germany), dolls and big books tell the story of Sleeping Beauty.
Pay attention to the cool optical illusion along Main St. As you look from the entrance up the street toward Sleeping Beauty Castle, everything looks far away and big. When you’re at the castle looking back, everything looks closer and smaller – a technique known as forced perspective, a trick used on Hollywood sets where buildings are constructed at a decreasing scale to create an illusion of height or depth. Welcome to Disneyland.
TOMORROWLAND
How did 1950s imagineers envision the future? As a galaxy-minded community filled with monorails, rockets and Googie-style architecture, apparently. The retro-high-tech Monorail glides to a stop here, its rubber tires traveling a nine-minute, 2.5-mile round-trip route to Downtown Disney. Kiddies glide to a stop for the re-imagineered Submarine Voyage, debuting in 2007 as the new and improved – and more commercially attractive – Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. Look for Nemo from within a refurbished submarine and rumble through an underwater volcanic eruption. On Star Tours you are clamped into a StarSpeeder vehicle piloted by a dysfunctional android on a wild and bumpy ride through a big-screen, slightly nauseating deep space. Space Mountain, one of the park’s signature attractions and one of the best roller coasters in America, will take your head off as you hurtle into complete darkness at frightening speed.
FANTASYLAND
At the core of the park, behind Sleeping Beauty Castle, Fantasyland is filled with the characters of classic children’s stories, such as Dumbo the Elephant and Peter Pan. Children like whirling around the Mad Tea Party teacup ride. Kids and ironic hipsters get a kick out of the un-Disneyesque, Wind in the Willows–inspired Mr Toad’s Wild Ride, a loopy