Walt Disney's 160-acre paradise for fantasts in Anaheim, California, is an enterprise of monstrous scope and ingenuity, representing an investment of $34,500,000. Since its opening in ’55, Disneyland has enticed more than 25,000,000 escapists from every state and 100 foreign lands through its gates. They come to wish upon a star or rocket to the moon; to picnic and play amid scenes suggesting a part of everyone's big dream.
[img]Disneyland boasts Indians, wooden and live. Its shaps house jewels, crazy hats, candy canes. Its 20 places of refreshment offer sodas, fried chicken, tortillas, what you will.[/img]
[img]The Disney rides run the gamut by gentle stages from most mild to very vertiginous.[/img]
MORE various than life itself, Disneyland affectionately embroiders on the past, fills the present with fun, and confidently invades the future. To explore the diversities of Main Street, Adventureland, Frontierland, Tomorrowland and Fantasyland takes two eight-hour days of determined doing, going and gawking. The average visitor folds after spending six hours and $3.66 (not counting ice-cream bars, assorted candies and fancy hats) and comes back another day to finish the orgy of amusement.
[img]Within the big show that is Disneyland there are a dozen others, including a big marching band and a little German one. There are eight rides on or below water (one is a do-it-yourself Indian warcanoe trip). Balloon hawkers flourish in Disneyland, too.[/img]
[img]The ride through Nature's Wonderland is made on docile burros. The Mad Hatter's tea party becomes a set of giant whirling cups. Disney doesn't forget his old friends. Here is one from deep in the past, Grumpy of 1937's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."[/img]
[img]The monorail intersects the course of the Disneyland skyway. Atomic-submarine builders helped design Disney's realistic 60-footers. Disney's TV program inspires a horseless horse opera. Antique auto is piloted by a chauffeur in linen duster.[/img]
WHEN the park first opened there were 22 major attractions; now there are 45, most of them dreamed up by Disney himself. Ten art directors labor to give them form and 3650 Disneyland employees keep them in working order and spanking trim. The current favorites: submarining under the Disneyland lagoon; bobsledding down Disney’s private 146-foot snow-clad Alp, named for Switzerland's majestic Matterhorn; riding the first U.S. monorail (cost $3,200,000); and cruising down the jungle river in Adventureland.
[img]Adventureland's jungle river ride with yawning hippopotamus and chanting head-hunters is Disneyland's most consistent draw. Rides, food, souvenirs, balloons and cartoons all come to life. Sometimes it is almost too much for a small boy to bear.[/img]
[img]Dumbo, the flying elephant, and Mickey Mouse, Disney’s oldest and best friend who gave
his fabulous career its initial big boost, continue to participate in the fun at the park.[/img]
IMITATIONS of Disneyland have risen everywhere. Japan’s Kurokamiyama Park is an exact replica which re-creates each thrill and attraction down to its minutest detail. Now building, the Russian duplicate will be called, naturally, Sovietland. Nevertheless, the one and only original Disneyland seems destined to go on forever, its delights undiminished. Disney calls his land "The Magic Kingdom.” Few who explore it, even those who come to scoff, depart disputing his astute definition.
[img]From its midget Alp to its midget rockets, the Disney signature marks everything.[/img]
