Mirror Disneyland: One Final Edition (Seriously)

[MANEATINGWREATH]

Take your Time @MANEATINGWREATH and you will deliver, And hope to a fantastic walkthrough!!!

Thanks! Should be coming out tonight.

 

[MANEATINGWREATH]

Sorry, guys, OCD really got the better of me on this one, it took way longer than expected. And for such a boring area of the project, too! Haha.

I ended up having a lot of fun with this, taking inspiration from Walt Disney's EPCOT pitch film.

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The Disneyland Resort

“The important thing is family. If you can keep the family together - and that’s the backbone of our whole business, catering to families - that’s what we hope to do.” - Walt Disney ​

It is July 17, 2025. Disneyland is 70 years old.

At the opening of Disney-Universal Studios on June 7, 1990, Michael Eisner announced the next ten years for Disney: The Disney Decade. This started with Disney-Universal Studios and the $2 billion Disneyland Resort as the first pitch, and ended with the arrival of Disneyland Paris as the home run. Nationwide, Disneyland and Walt Disney World would see several dozen new attractions, hotels, shopping centers, and water parks, and what debuted here in 1990 was just the beginning.

“It (Disneyland) took an area of activity - the amusement park - and lifted it to a standard so high in its performance, in its respect for people, in its functioning for people, that it really became a brand-new thing.” - James W. Rouse​

The touchstone to Disneyland’s success has been its concern for people, a wholehearted dedication to the happiness of the people who visit here. People and vehicles are constantly in motion at the Disneyland Resort. Here people travel aboard almost every method of transportation man has ever designed. Disneyland Resort vehicles have carried more than 600 million passengers in comfort and speed, and have traveled millions more in miles in unequaled safety. James W. Rouse, real estate developer and urban planner, described Disneyland as “The greatest piece of urban design in the United States today.”
Walt’s plan for EPCOT centered around an urban core, where a city center would house shopping streets and a transportation lobby. 60 years later and 2,500 miles away, Walt’s model for EPCOT has been revisited, and served to Imagineers as the guiding principle for the Disneyland Resort. Disneyland Plaza stands where the old Parking Lot once stood, located in the almost-geographic center of the resort. The air is filled with atmospheric music of the Disney Canon. Gardens, trees, waterfalls, and streams set an inspired threshold to the Main Gate of both Disneyland and Disney-Universal Studios, held opposite one another by about 800-ft. In between the two parks is a compass rose of mosaic tile, a standout centerpiece among the thousands of handcrafted tiles that already craft the meticulous grounds of the Plaza.

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A network of transportation systems radiate from Disneyland Plaza, carrying visitors to and from the heart of the resort, including underground roads, spacious walkways, shuttle routes, and more. These transportation systems circulate to and through the main points of activity throughout the resort and surrounding the Plaza. First, Disneyland Plaza. Next, Disney’s Boardwalk Village & Hotel District. Then Fantasy Lagoon, Parking Facilities, and the Vacationland Campground. Finally, Harbor Boulevard, our main entrance to the Disneyland Resort from the City of Anaheim. There are two other destinations within the Disneyland Resort not mentioned here, but we will visit those another day.

Buried roads disguise the vast and continuous flow of commuting vehicles, supply trucks and shuttles, with parking facilities located throughout the resort, hidden from view. Roadways are reserved for specific types of vehicles, so you’ll never see a hotel shuttle on the same street as vacationers in their rental car. When motorists arrive from the entrance gates along Harbour Boulevard, Ball Road, Katella Avenue, or Interstate I-5, few ever realize that the tunnels they have just entered and are now traveling through are directly below some of their favorite attractions and entertainment at Disneyland.

The Transportation Lobby, located mere feet from the Plaza, plays a key role in the resort’s ability to meet the needs of its guests. Two separate but interconnecting transit systems move millions of guests each year in speed, safety and comfort. The swift, ultramodern Disneyland Monorail became the first of its kind in the Western Hemisphere when it first debuted in 1959. The “highway in the sky” has enjoyed five generations of monorail trains, a romantic rebirth of mid-century futurism. Today, this genuine, bona fide, electrified, six-car monorail is a high-speed train, used for longer distance travel through the resort and into neighboring Anaheim. The silent, all-electric WEDway PeopleMover is the enclosed “train of the future” - it never stops running. The PeopleMover travels above pedestrian paths for shorter distance travel, with its most frequented stations held at each of the main Parking Facilities. The Parking Facilities - multilevel structures above or below the ground - are named for different themes and characters: Mickey & Friends - Pooh & Pals - Muppet Motorists - Toontown Travelers - and lastly, Jungle Cubs.

Disneyland Plaza holds the promise of opportunity, to entertain and reassure. Disney Legend Marty Sklar said that “As a visitor, you know where you are, and every detail reinforces the time period and the experience. Even though you may have never been there, somehow you and your family are at home here.” The Plaza can lead to a great adventure, one threaded with romance, thrill, and fantasy. These adventures often begin at one of the 12 Victorian-era-inspired Ticket Booths that grace the Plaza, or at the digital ticket booths that grace the worldwide web on guests’ smartphones and internet browsers.

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Hotel Buena Vista has all the leisure and grace of the beach resorts that once stood along the nineteenth century Florida Coast. When it first opened in 1988, the Hotel del Coronado-inspired resort matched the same gabled roofs and Victorian balustrades of Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa (also opened in 1988). The hotel is resplendent with Victorian-era elegance and design. It breathes beauty and nostalgia, with picturesque views of Fantasy Lagoon, hot-air balloon rides with a birds-eye view of the Disneyland Resort, spacious lawns and beaches, bandshells and rose gardens, fine dining and shopping, convention facilities, and a generations-popular wedding pavilion. These attributes mark Hotel Buena Vista as a lasting atmosphere of warm, yesteryear elegance and prosperity, welcoming and iconic all the same.

Between destinations at the Disneyland Resort are desert terrains, dense forests and hills, where trees tower and cluster around lakes and streams. It didn’t take long in 1955 for the local wildlife to move in with the saplings and mounds of dirt, and one could encounter real animals if strayed too far from the path. This saw the debut of Rafiki’s Planet Watch West in 2000, a nature preserves and research space where Disney’s Animals, Science and Environment (ASE) team works towards conservation efforts and education. Planet Watch instills lifelong conservation values, inspiring its visitors to protect the magic of the natural world. This sanctuary has seen the rehabilitation of California condors and other species native to the aboriginal lands of Southern California.

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As the tale is told, an overeager investor demanded Walt construct Fantasy Lagoon, a real beach and “ol’ fishing hole” that would complement his “Mickey Mouse Park.” Walt was uninterested. When the investor threatened to withdraw funding for Walt’s “Jungle River” ride, he had a change of heart. Ground was broken not long before Disneyland’s debut, and Fantasy Lagoon opened a day later on July 18, 1955.

Fantasy Lagoon is described as “winding streams, stately stands of cypress, and a white ribbon of beach on a sparkling lake,” home still to the same white-sand beaches and watersports of 1955: fishing, parasailing, water skiing, and swimming. The Fantasy Lagoon Hiking Trails and Vacationland Campground are in the woodlands and hills close by. The Campground, a 1955 original, is able to accommodate everything from tent caravans and large recreation vehicles to those seeking the seclusion of a cabin in the woods. Gold Rush-era San Francisco inspired the settlements and cabins nestled betwixt the towering pines and native oaks of California, setting for campers the adventure and romance of a yesteryear boomtown.

Vacationland Campground is also home to Circle-D Ranch, home to the “Happiest Horses on Earth.” Cinderella’s horses and the horses that travel Main Street, U.S.A. call Circle-D Ranch home. They offer to visitors carriage rides through the elegant Boardwalk Village and surrounding wilderness, to lessons in horseback riding on the ranch proper. Walt Disney himself founded Circle-D before Disneyland, knowing the horses that would service his Magic Kingdom would need the utmost in housing and care. The ranch is home to other animals, too, like goats, sheep, cows, and chickens. A dedicated agricultural team cultivates many of the crops used in Disneyland Resort restaurants here at Circle-D.

Nestled on the southern shores of Fantasy Lagoon is the impressive Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa. Inspired by the famed Arts and Crafts movement, the Craftsman-style hotel captures what one would associate with California’s State Parks. Many of the items throughout the hotel have been crafted by modern practitioners of the movement, a style which dominated Southern California from 1905 into the 1930s. Exposed rafters, handcrafted stone and woodwork are among the design elements that highlight the rich and cultural diversity of the Golden State. Welcoming rooms boast textured-copper detailing and countertops incorporating pieces of green glass from wine bottles. The Tenaya Stone Spa and rich dining experiences offer impeccable service and attention to detail. Amidst the forested grounds and rugged boulders, the Redwood Pool features a companion hot tub and private cabanas; not forgetting a thrilling water slide down a collapsed redwood tree and into the icy waters below.

Just outside of Disneyland Plaza and off the shores of Fantasy Lagoon, the Boardwalk Village welcomes visitors from near and far with a comfortable and exciting amalgamation of the old and new in what appears to be a waterfront town, one the likes of the memorable or bygone, unified by the straits of Fantasy Lagoon that flow through its three districts: Pleasure Landing - Market Shore - Curious Cove. The villagers welcome weary travelers and enthusiastic adventurers alike, treating their guests with a collection of unique shops, eateries, and attractions that are as diverse as the cultures they came from. The varied creative and architectural styles work together and create an intriguing destination built on a meaningful past, a past that is here told in the curious, nonsensical tale of Merriweather Adam Pleasure.

Pleasure, a well-renowned oceaneer, “grand funmeister,” and industrialist, founded the former “Pleasure Lake Village” that is the reestablished Boardwalk Village we visit today. Each “refurbished” building once held an operation of the Pleasure Family in this one-time retreat for world travelers. A plaque at the entrance to each shop or restaurant recalls in detail the structure's former use, from a former pony stable to a fireworks factory. Each entrance to the Boardwalk Village has a plaque to establish this fictional lore:

Pleasure Lake Village
Founded December 31, 1915

“Come In a Stranger, Leave a Little Stranger”

A living monument to “the wise fool, the mad visionary, the scoundrel, the scalawag, and the seeker of enjoyment,” Merriweather Adam Pleasure, who discovered Fantasy Lagoon, then named “Pleasure Lake,” on December 31, 1915. His successful Pleasure Island operation of Lake Buena Vista, Florida inspired him to build a vacation home here for his family and closest comrades on the West Coast. Here they would discuss, discover and experiment in the exotic, the supernatural and the unexplained.

Known as the Grand Funmeister, Pleasure vanished during his 1941 circumnavigation of the Antarctic. His estranged daughter, Betty Luck, took over the Village and its assets This ended after an ill-fated run-in with a grizzly bear in 1955; thereafter, the old Pleasure Lake Village was abandoned, left to rot in the Anaheim sun. Odd when considering Disneyland opened mere inches away that same year.

In 1988, archaeologists uncovered the site, and as had been done with a rediscovered Pleasure Island in 1987, a large-scale reclamation project into Disney’s Boardwalk Village had begun. By 1990, the old Lake Village was reopened and dedicated to the life and legacy of its vanished Lord & Master.

“Fun for All, and All for Fun”
Placed here by the Pleasure Lake Village Histerical Society​

A hot-air balloon ride over California is how Merriweather discovered Pleasure Lake, which Walt Disney would rename Fantasy Lagoon in 1955. The Pleasure Family built a summer home here among their other resort facilities, a fine mansion which would later become Hotel Buena Vista. The Pleasure Family spent their summer months here at Pleasure Lake Village, while the rest of the year was spent on Pleasure Island in Florida, operating their lucrative sail and canvassing business.

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Isabella Pleasure gave her husband an ultimatum to relocate his bicoastal collection of artifacts and treasures from around the world, or else she’d do it herself. Pleasure built a library on both coasts to stow everything he had gathered in his seafaring years, folding his membership from the Society of Explorers & Adventurers, better known as S.E.A., and forming his own society: The Adventurer’s Club.

Under a towering, 19-foot Balinese-inspired thatched pagoda, and providing for us the warm, nostalgic atmosphere of a lush evening in yesteryear Polynesia - a standout bit of architecture when compared to the rest of the American-Victorian Boardwalk Village - is, fittingly, the home of the Adventurer’s Club, an eclectic bar, restaurant and nightclub. Inside it is New Year’s Eve, 1937.

“It came out of our collective, shared love of the world of the pith helmet and all that circled around it. It was the place we always wanted to go, but it didn't exist.” - Craig McNair Wilson ​

While the Anaheim chapter of the Adventurer’s Club has an exterior with inspiration from the Enchanted Tiki Room and Sunshine Pavilion of Walt Disney World, the interior borrows little from the Orlando original. In fact, inside is an entirely different selection of rooms and exhibits. What stays the same from Orlando - the walls of each room in the club are festooned with ancient artifacts and exotic treasures, flags, fossils, photographs, mementos, masks, trophy heads, oddities - the pagoda outside even has the skulls of former humans and beasts scattered between levels, with bamboo torches aglow come nightfall.

We are welcomed inside by Colonel Critchlow Suchbench, Club Glee Meister, played here by a rod and stick-controlled puppet. The Colonel welcomes us from a maestro box in the Entrance Hall, a smaller chamber reminiscent of the Enchanted Tiki Room, right down to the totem poles and flowered baskets overhead. Mysterious, mid-century exotica music sets the mood in each room of the clubhouse, a tribute to the famous tiki bars around the United States following World War II. We shout the Colonel’s favorite phrase: “FREE DRINK, COLONEL!” He awakens, leading us in the New Member Induction Ceremony, a sing-along of the “Club Salute,” ending with the club’s famous slogan: “KUNGALOOSH!” Inducted or returning, all members enter the club’s elevator through a secret passage behind the Colonel’s box.

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The large elevator is decorated with murals that recall the life and adventures of the sinister Harrison Hightower III, an addition to the Adventurer’s Club made in 2007. As the elevator attendant shares, Merriweather Pleasure and Hightower did not see eye to eye, the latter being a notorious graverobber and pillaging hotel magnate. Hightower disappeared on New Year’s Eve, 1899 at his Hotel Hightower. Merriweather acquired his rival’s assets some years later on a trip to New York, bringing them to California. This very night being New Year’s Eve, 1937, the ghost of Harrison Hightower III materializes in and around the elevator, begging and bartering for us to find the cursed Shiriki Utundu Idol he had stolen from a village in Africa and bring it to him - if not the idol, at least a martini.

The haunted elevator opens into the underground Grand Salon, a stories-high atrium that is consumed by the aforementioned artifacts and adventurous décor across the walls. The Grand Salon is the club’s hub, with each wing of the establishment branching off from here, interconnected. The main bar is in the Salon, built around a statue of Mara, Goddess of the Forbidden Eye. Naturally, someone has wrapped a polka-dotted beach towel around her fatal field of vision. Said someone’s skeleton, an unlucky maintenance worker, dangles from a ladder at Mara’s shoulder, clutching the ends of the colorful towel.

Now with a drink at hand, we can explore the other rooms of the club, not forgetting an encounter or two (or three, or four, or five, or six, or seven, or eight, or) with the storied members of the prestigious society. Each has an intricate, built-in backstory, and each will happily share said backstory over a cocktail. All the characters connect to the lore and happenings of this most remarkable New Year’s Eve celebration.

The Creature Room: Filled with cryptid fossils and taxidermic beasts, this “Natural History knockoff” (their words, not mine) is the Tiki Room of singing, talking skeletons. Throughout the night, the bizarre fossils instantaneously spring to life, where the maid, Priscilla Pickwick, leads everyone in a sing-along. “Let’s all sing like the Yetis sing, UGH-GRUG-GRUG-UGH-GRUG!” “Mystery of the Lost Expedition,” an exhibit in the Creature Room, recalls the following through decimated artifacts and photos:

“The remains of the ill-fated Matterhorn Mountain Expedition of 1929. The only clue to the disappearance of the entire party may be contained in these photographs, recovered from a shattered camera found at the ruined campsite. But don’t believe everything you read.”​

The Nautilus Room: Built in the elaborate captain’s quarters of an eighteenth century shipwreck, this steampunk speakeasy is a secondary bar and so-called “grog grotto” run by Cap’n Meno, a washed-up tour guide with a passion for piracy - she speaks in pirate speak. In fact, if you don’t speak in pirate speak while addressing her or the bartenders, you’ll be “walking the plank” - er, umm, doing the chicken dance or conga in front of everyone. Verne, a giant squid, lives above the bar and pours all the shots - literally.

The Pharaoh’s Room: Professor Carl Loff, a renowned Egyptologist, holds court in the Pharaoh’s Room, a room so dedicated to the club by the ancient King Ramses himself (not really). The room is filled with ancient Egyptian artifacts and sarcophagi, walls adorned with hieroglyphs and drawings. Carl Loff’s lectures always end in an appearance from King Thing, a talking mummy of indeterminate species.

The Opera Shell: Lastly, and the largest room by far, the Opera Shell is the club’s mainstage with ample seating and tables, physically carved into the backside of a gargantuan seashell. The Opera Shell is home to the most characters by far, an odd crew of strange individuals, each involved in the continuous live performances, the most popular being a “radiothon” to salvage the money needed to determine what mummified species King Thing is. Of course, half the members announced in the radiothon are not in attendance, so members of the audience will have to suffice as said absentees.

Once 11:55PM hits, the clubhouse attention is gathered to the Goddess Mara in the Grand Lobby. The countdown to midnight ends in the beach towel falling from her eyes, blasting multicolored lights and lasers all throughout the club and bringing in 1938 as chaotically as one could possibly hope for.

As with most establishments, there are house rules at the Adventurer’s Club:

“House Rules! Please Read:
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1. Blow Dart Guns Are Not to be Used as Drinking Straws​
2. Do Not Touch Cursed Artifacts!​
3. *This rule has been vetoed*​
4. Do Not Provide Alcohol to On-Duty Jungle Cruise Skippers! NO EXCEPTIONS!!!!​
5. Call Bartender if Schweitzer Falls​
6. No Poison Dart Games or Wild Animals on Premises​
7. Management is Not Responsible for Loss of… ​
8. Headhunting is Strictly Prohibited!​
9. If Marcel the Ape-Man is Spotted, Call Management​
10. Do Not Look Into the Eyes of Mara!”​

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When Disney-Universal Studios opened in 1990, the Boardwalk Village came too. Featuring a variety of seasonal events, street performances, boat rentals and carriage rides, a carousel and hedge maze, the Village is divided into three districts, each themed to a former outfit of the Pleasure Family. The shops, restaurants and attractions are modern, but the “adaptive reuse” model of the buildings share common ground with the abandoned factories and warehouses across America repurposed into breweries and bars.

Pleasure Landing
Pleasure Landing is located nearest to Disneyland Plaza, as marked by the statue of Merriweather A. Pleasure. The Landing houses many shops and restaurants designed in the early 20th Century Arts & Crafts architecture, the once-dominant architectural style of California. The luxury Grand Californian Hotel & Spa is located near the Landing. World of Disney, the largest Disney gift shop in the Western Hemisphere, is located here, as is the Universal Studio Store.

Market Shore
Market Shore is the Village’s business district and bazaar, with Spanish Revival architecture from the 1920s. Market Shore also features the district’s exposition center, having been developed to showcase Pleasure’s oddities and amusements, like the Elias Carousel and The LEGO Store, complete with an outdoor Miniland in recreation of famous Disney Film locations. An outdoor farmer’s market permanently looks out to the shores of Fantasy Lagoon. A selection of bars and nightclubs, including the Adventurer’s Club are also here.

Curious Cove
Curious Cove is the Village’s transportation hub and marina. It features nautical-themed restaurants and shops, including the famous Rainforest Café - housed in a Mayan pyramid - and Jock Lindsay’s Hangar Bar - an aviation-themed dive bar based on the character from the ‘Indiana Jones’ films. The Broadway-style Walt Disney Theatre, based on the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, is here, host to a number of professional touring productions, film premieres, and special events. Hotel Buena Vista is located here, and the following attraction… ​

Though first intended for a location in San Francisco, the Walt Disney Family Museum opened in the Boardwalk Village on October 1, 2009. The Museum is owned, operated and funded by the Walt Disney Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization established by Diane Disney Miller, Walt’s daughter and founder of the museum.

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Walt Disney might have done more to touch the hearts and minds of millions of Americans than any other man in history. He brought joy, happiness, and a universal means of communication to people of all nations. Certainly, our world shall know but one Walt Disney. The Walt Disney Family Museum is a stirring exhibition that uses technology, historic materials, and artifacts for us to revisit Walt’s achievements, with galleries that include early drawings and animations, rare film footage, listening stations, priceless memorabilia, and a 12-foot diameter model of Disneyland, as Walt last envisioned it before his unexpected passing in 1966.

In the entrance lobby are 248 awards that Walt had won through his career, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and several Academy Awards - including the honorary award for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which consists of one full-sized Oscar alongside seven miniature ones. Walt’s actual formal and working offices are on display. All the furnishings were transported here from the Burbank studio intact, displayed as he had left them. In all, there are ten permanent galleries, starting with Walt’s ancestral history and ending with his death on December 15, 1966.

“It's a collection of ideas and documents, a diverse array of archival, filmic, and pop-cultural texts that historicizes Disney's work and compels us to think twice about how we appraise it. The museum energizes the fascinatingly charged scholarly debate that the Disney phenomenon has provoked, shaking the worn, staid, sometimes cynical images we have of Disney and his empire, bringing to them renewed color and motion." - Randy Malamud, Chronicle of Higher Education ​

The Elias Hotel, which opened in 1955, was replaced by the Grand Californian in 2001. While we won’t visit the fourth Disneyland Resort hotel today, opened in 1990, we will visit the third, and it’s the first.

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Opened on October 5, 1955, The Disneyland Hotel has always been an attraction all in itself, first owned and operated by oil tycoon turned film producer Jack Wrather. Walt desired having a second hotel to accommodate Disneyland visitors to stay overnight, but after the combined construction fees of Disneyland and the Disney-owned Elias Hotel, he’d need a business partnership to make the dream into a reality. The Wrather Corporation owned and operated the Disneyland Hotel until the corporation itself was purchased by the Walt Disney Company in 1988.

Still today we are immersed in the spirit of Disneyland’s past and present. The mid-century, ultra-modern design brings modern accommodations and state-of-the-art amenities to the world’s first hotel to ever bear the Disney name. The four towers - Adventure, Frontier, Fantasy, Discovery - pay homage to the original four lands of Disneyland - Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland. Scattered throughout these spacious grounds are many recreational areas, where guests of all ages may enjoy games and social activities, all embroidered in the nostalgia and magic of Walt’s original Magic Kingdom.

Now that we’ve checked in at our hotel and had a glimpse at the Disneyland Resort, it’s off to Disneyland!

 

[DisneyManOne]

Good Lord, this is beautiful! Your attention to detail is incredible! If these are the wonders that await us in the main plaza alone, I can't wait to see what wonders await once we pass through that train station and onto Main Street!

 

[MANEATINGWREATH]

Good Lord, this is beautiful! Your attention to detail is incredible! If these are the wonders that await us in the main plaza alone, I can't wait to see what wonders await once we pass through that train station and onto Main Street!

Thank you! I always found inspiration in the many retrospective books about Disneyland and WDW that have been released over the years, typically for anniversary milestones. I always felt that something should and could be done with armchair Imagineering projects like this. KingMickey was the first to really accomplish a project on this magnitude so many years ago, and I have to give him credit as well.

I will try and have Main Street up by the end of this coming week.

 

[HomeImagineer]

Just one question to this.

Could this Mirror Disney Project not only had attractions from Universal at the Disney-Universal Studios Project but could some new, custom or same universal attractions fit at Disneyland Park as well? & i mean like not alot of it, just saying

 

[MANEATINGWREATH]

Just one question to this.

Could this Mirror Disney Project not only had attractions from Universal at the Disney-Universal Studios Project but could some new, custom or same universal attractions fit at Disneyland Park as well? & i mean like not alot of it, just saying

I hadn't thought about that. Because they are separate companies in this universe and only have a partnership on the one theme park in California, there is a rule in place in their in-universe contract that Universal characters are not allowed to appear outside the gates of Disney-Universal Studios or at Disneyland. I.E Dracula can't have his own meet 'n' greet in Fantasyland.

That being said... Original, non-film IP attractions Universal has made, like Poseidon's Fury or the Lost Continent overall, could hypothetically appear at Disneyland. But I have not put much thought into that as of right now. Who knows.

 

[MANEATINGWREATH]

Next update (Main Street, or at least the beginning of Main Street) should be coming, I'm hoping, no later than Easter Sunday. I'm going to strive to do one update a week moving forward. That's my goal! I did start a new job this week, and today being my first day off has been much more tiring than I had believed it would be. In the meantime, why not enjoy one of my favorite things to do... Try to figure out an obscure hint at something I have not revealed yet for this project and won't reveal until much later.

 

[MANEATINGWREATH]

Main Street, U.S.A.​

“Many of us fondly remember our small hometown and its friendly way of life at the turn of the century. To me, this era represents an important part of our nation’s heritage. On Main Street we have endeavored to recapture those by-gone days.” - Walt Disney

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Walt’s lifelong love of trains resulted first in a scale model that wound through the backyard of his home in Holmby Hills. Introduced to the hobby by Ward Kimball and Ollie Johnston, Walt delighted in showing his “Carolwood Pacific Railroad” to friends and family alike. There are some who suspect Walt built his famed Magic Kingdom as an excuse for expanding his train hobby.

The Disneyland Railroad, formerly known as the Santa Fe & Disneyland Railroad, was an Opening Day attraction and is a complete line with automatic block signals, crossing gates, warning lights, bells, and a rectangular roundhouse held just out of sight from guests. This 3-foot narrow-gauge heritage railroad is not just hopping aboard a train, it’s stepping into an authentic pioneer of rail history. Trains arrive every 10 to 15 minutes for a Grand-Circle Tour of Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom.

The first four steam locomotives to enter service on the Disneyland Railroad (1955-1959) are named for former presidents of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, the fifth for a Disney Legend in 2005.

• Engine No. 1: C.K. Holliday, Cyrus Kurtz Holliday, Founder of the Santa Fe Railroad
• Engine No. 2: E.P. Ripley, Edward Payson Ripley, First President of the Santa Fe Railroad
• Engine No. 3: Fred Gurley, President of the Santa Fe Railroad from 1944-1957
• Engine No. 4: Ernest S. Marsh, President of the Santa Fe Railroad in 1959
• Engine No. 5: Ward Kimball, Disney Legend, Animator & Rail Enthusiast

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“Your attention, please - The Disneyland Limited, now leaving for a Grand-Circle Tour of the Magic Kingdom, with stops at Main Street Station, New Orleans Square, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland. All passengers - BOOOOOARD!”​

The entrance to Disneyland is formed at the first sight to greet us, the elegant, two-story building of 1890 vintage, the Second Empire-style brick and clock tower of Main Street Station. In the foreground is the famous “Floral Mickey.” The centered sign above reads the elevation of 138 feet above sea level and the population of Disneyland, the latter which reflects the number of guests who have visited since 1955.

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The benches and details throughout the lobby and the waiting area are reminiscent of a bygone era, with railroad memorabilia and period details reflecting Walt’s love of the rails. Front and center is a to-scale reproduction of Walt’s original Carolwood Pacific locomotive, the Lilly Belle. An authentic handcar of the Kalamazoo Manufacturing Company has sat on the passing track out front since 1958.

Along the Grand-Circle Tour of Disneyland, the Disneyland Railroad will encounter, pass by and through a number of fascinating sights and sounds, from a settler’s cabin ablaze on the frontier, to the underground ruins of a jungle civilization. Our conductor’s “favorite part of the tour,” inspired by the Columbia River Gorge, holds the picturesque waterfalls of Frontierland and its panoramic Rivers of America. The gorgeous rocks, towering trees and high bluffs transition into what was called at its March 31, 1958, debut, the largest diorama in the world.

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“Going from the bright, natural light of the park inside the tunnel plunges you into darkness, and that gives way to the enthralling Grand Canyon Diorama,” as PR Director Michele Himmelberg put it, the 306-foot-long, 34-foot-high, 45-foot-wide south rim of the Grand Canyon is revealed on a seamless, handwoven canvas, one of the largest in the world. Wildlife of Arizona’s “Great Abyss” examines our train with hesitant caution, curious as to the unusual visitors riding by on an iron horse. A thunderstorm, a snowfall, a sunset and a rainbow illuminate the various critters that scatter the mysterious, natural landscape, including deer, bighorn sheep, skunks and a mountain lion. Once static taxidermy, the animals became Audio-Animatronics figures to coincide with Disneyland’s 50th Anniversary in 2005.

“In writing 'Grand Canyon Suite' I drew from notes I had made during my constant visits to the rim of the mighty work of nature. I had watched the Canyon in all seasons, in all its moods.” - Ferde Grofé​

Inspired by the Academy Award-winning True-Life Adventure subject, The Grand Canyon, Walt Disney and Fred Gurley, the namesake of Engine No. 3, dedicated the attraction outside the tunnel that houses the diorama, with the blessing of Chief Negangnewa of the Hopi tribe. Imagineer Claude Coats and artist Delmer J. Yoakum designed the iconic diorama which covered an area that once was visible warehouse buildings between Fantasyland and Frontierland, something Walt had always disliked. The theme music is an arrangement of "On the Trail," from the “Grand Canyon Suite,” written by Ferde Grofé and perhaps more famously known from a western fantasy sequence in 1983's A Christmas Story.

It’s a long drop to the canyon floor, so please, stay seated!

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On the exact opposite side of Disneyland, in Tomorrowland, are a second set of dioramas, and they don’t look a day over 250 million. Having both appeared first at the New York World’s Fair two years earlier, the Primeval Worlds were relocated from an attraction called the Ford’s Magic Skyway, which debuted in a long tunnel on the journey from Tomorrowland to Main Street, U.S.A. on July 1, 1966.

“To those just joining us, welcome aboard! If you spent time here in Tomorrowland, you learned that everything is possible in the future. Walt Disney himself hoped for Tomorrowland to signify man’s achievements, with predictions of constructive things to come,” our conductor remarks. “But what of the things that have already happened? The next leg of our journey will take us back in time, back to the spectacular Dawn of Man and the last great Ice Age: The Fantastic Primeval World!”

​

Some futuristic-looking packages addressed to an individual named “The Timekeeper” at a certain “Tomorrowland Metropolis Science Center” sit near the entrance to a railroad tunnel. In a flash of lightning, color and magic, we have traveled through a temporal rift. It is cold. Freezing, in fact.

The winter winds howl as our train travels back 200,000 years. This is a world that trembles under the tread of mammalian feet. Here in a world that is always winter, huge and unusual mammals roam, graze, and hunt on the frozen tundra. More science-fiction than science-fact, the creatures here come from all years and locations of the Pleistocene Era. Though the cavemen and some animals were taken from the Ford’s Magic Skyway, more animals and scenes were added when they made the move to Disneyland, beginning with the temperate tundra we see on the edge of a dense forest.

A mural, reminiscent of those seen in the world’s Natural History Museums in exhibits recalling such a time and place, serves as the backdrop to this strange world. The tall grass and trees of the tundra meet the mouths of steppe bison, musk oxen, ancient camels and horses, and a wooly rhinoceros. Dire wolves, mastodons, reindeer and Irish elk populate the far fields and hills, frozen in the mural. Vultures and other birds fly overhead. The giant ground sloth and a towering Paraceratherium share the leaves of a taller tree, and though the latter’s calf is too short to get his share, he’s certainly trying! A sneering, snarling saber-toothed cat has locked in combat with a ferocious cave lion over a fallen caribou, the saber-tooth latched to the higher rocks that form the mouth of a jagged canyon. The cries of their battle transition the scene to early human hunters who have trapped a trumpeting mammoth in a pit. Never were the exploits of primitive man depicted with such realism or good humor as through Audio-Animatronics; the huge boulder held aloft above the trapped mammoth is levied by the silliest-looking caveman this side of La Brea Tar Pits. This was a strange, new world, but man embarked on his adventure with a new power: the ability to think and reason.

The walls of the canyon become the walls of a large, fire-lit cave. At first, caveman wasn’t much of a man, but he had a home, be it ever-so-humble. This cave tells the story of his achievements. Cheerful artists record their great deeds through simple paintings of animals and hand-prints on the walls, while others craft their paints from mud, colored dirt, and flowers. One fearful fellow shows his skills in early communication, grunting things that must translate to “look out” to his companion roasting a mammoth leg over a fire, blissfully unaware that a very hungry cave bear is lingering just behind his craned neck.

A family of hulking, hairy Gigantopithecus inhabit the brief stretch of bamboo forest outside the warm cave. The gargantuan apes play, groom, and feed on bamboo, while two cavemen, ironically more ape-like in their faces and gestures than the apes they’re staring at, blankly stare in shock at the huge beasts, scratching their heads and sides like a couple of cartoon monkeys. On a rocky outcropping, a charming salesman grunts and growls in glee about his invention: the spinning, stone wheel displayed by his younger colleague. As we can see, it was a trial and error process: square wheels and oblongs abound the floor. Cavepeople watch in absolute awe - the birth of transportation. Two Macrauchenia appear in the foreground foliage, watching the train go by.

Now at last, man is free! Unchained from his cave, free to ride into the future, provided his skeptical wife supplies the “horsepower” on their foot-powered journey. Two mammoths curiously watch the humorous sendoff, where the local cave-dwellers wave goodbye to their grinning comrade, the latter grunting “Bye Bye!” Snow has begun to fall through spectacular special-effects, transitioning us into the next diorama.

The Ice Age is behind us, we travel through more lightning, more color. The temporal rift has worsened. Our conductor continues, “That was the world of early man as we imagine it today. But even this prehistoric world had a prehistory of its own… Quiet now, as we travel back in time, back to the Land of the Dinosaurs!”

This is the world that was. Our train has traveled back further, forth millions of years in time to the dawn of life on land, to the warm seas and jungles that once covered Earth. Here dinosaurs ruled the swamps, rivers and deserts of this fantastic kingdom. Our ancestors never heard the sounds we hear, nor witnessed the sights we see. It was always summer here, even in Alaska, and a swamp like the one we see attracted tours of roaming Sauropods. ​

The Edaphosaurus and giant insect-filled jungle fades for the steaming waters of the Brontosaurus-filled bayou. Pteranodons glide and roost on the rocks of a thundering set of waterfalls, one being so close to the railroad tracks we can hear its bird-like cries. Two Iguanodon and a duck-billed Hadrosaur drink from the shore. Mother & Father Triceratops welcome their hatchlings to the world, while the lush vegetation and forests give way to the significant drought and famine of the coming mass extinction. Bleached fossils and stones litter the cracked sands of a diminishing watering hole visited by desperate, thirsty Gallimimus. Lastly, on a rocky outcropping, lit only by churning rivers of molten magma, flashes of lightning, and the eruption of an active volcano, a Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus Rex duel to the death, all that’s left of the Primeval Worlds before our return to the Present.

There are numerous paleontological mistakes across both the Primeval World dioramas. Both were, of course, created in the 1960s, and the dinosaurs in particular took clear inspiration from the “Rite of Spring” sequence seen in 1941’s Fantasia. The music played during the dinosaur section of the Primeval World diorama was written by Bernard Hermann (Psycho, Taxi Driver) for The Mysterious Island (1961), a film based on the Jules Verne novel of the same name. The Ice Age diorama is scored by, if not ironically, Max Steiner’s classic theme to King Kong (1933).

Now let’s join the crowd passing through the tunnels of the main entrance, one on either side of Main Street Station and beneath the railroad tracks. This is where the world of today is left behind, for now we enter the land of yesterday and tomorrow, and of course, the land of fantasy. A plaque above either tunnel reads a now famous sentiment:

“HERE YOU LEAVE TODAY
AND ENTER THE WORLD
OF YESTERDAY, TOMORROW
AND FANTASY”

***
​

Happy Easter! My first week at the new job was a bit more demanding than I had anticipated, so the rest of Main Street will have to wait! I figured going into detail on the new Ice Age diorama would be a good substitute in the meantime.

For reference, in case it wasn't clear enough in the overview, the Grand Canyon Diorama is in between Frontierland and Fantasyland and Mirror Disneyland (which imho is where it should be IRL) and the new Ice Age Diorama is where the Grand Canyon Diorama is IRL. Mirror Disneyland's Grand Canyon will also run through and disguise the show building for Western River Expedition, which will exist here, just maybe not as what you're envisioning.

Stay tuned for the next update!

 

[Disney-Universal Fanboy]

Main Street, U.S.A.

“Many of us fondly remember our small hometown and its friendly way of life at the turn of the century. To me, this era represents an important part of our nation’s heritage. On Main Street we have endeavored to recapture those by-gone days.” - Walt Disney

​

Walt’s lifelong love of trains resulted first in a scale model that wound through the backyard of his home in Holmby Hills. Introduced to the hobby by Ward Kimball and Ollie Johnston, Walt delighted in showing his “Carolwood Pacific Railroad” to friends and family alike. There are some who suspect Walt built his famed Magic Kingdom as an excuse for expanding his train hobby.

The Disneyland Railroad, formerly known as the Santa Fe & Disneyland Railroad, was an Opening Day attraction and is a complete line with automatic block signals, crossing gates, warning lights, bells, and a rectangular roundhouse held just out of sight from guests. This 3-foot narrow-gauge heritage railroad is not just hopping aboard a train, it’s stepping into an authentic pioneer of rail history. Trains arrive every 10 to 15 minutes for a Grand-Circle Tour of Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom.

The first four steam locomotives to enter service on the Disneyland Railroad (1955-1959) are named for former presidents of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, the fifth for a Disney Legend in 2005.

• Engine No. 1: C.K. Holliday, Cyrus Kurtz Holliday, Founder of the Santa Fe Railroad
• Engine No. 2: E.P. Ripley, Edward Payson Ripley, First President of the Santa Fe Railroad
• Engine No. 3: Fred Gurley, President of the Santa Fe Railroad from 1944-1957
• Engine No. 4: Ernest S. Marsh, President of the Santa Fe Railroad in 1959
• Engine No. 5: Ward Kimball, Disney Legend, Animator & Rail Enthusiast

“Your attention, please - The Disneyland Limited, now leaving for a Grand-Circle Tour of the Magic Kingdom, with stops at Main Street Station, New Orleans Square, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland. All passengers - BOOOOOARD!”​

The entrance to Disneyland is formed at the first sight to greet us, the elegant, two-story building of 1890 vintage, the Second Empire-style brick and clock tower of Main Street Station. In the foreground is the famous “Floral Mickey.” The centered sign above reads the elevation of 138 feet above sea level and the population of Disneyland, the latter which reflects the number of guests who have visited since 1955.

​

The benches and details throughout the lobby and the waiting area are reminiscent of a bygone era, with railroad memorabilia and period details reflecting Walt’s love of the rails. Front and center is a to-scale reproduction of Walt’s original Carolwood Pacific locomotive, the Lilly Belle. An authentic handcar of the Kalamazoo Manufacturing Company has sat on the passing track out front since 1958.

Along the Grand-Circle Tour of Disneyland, the Disneyland Railroad will encounter, pass by and through a number of fascinating sights and sounds, from a settler’s cabin ablaze on the frontier, to the underground ruins of a jungle civilization. Our conductor’s “favorite part of the tour,” inspired by the Columbia River Gorge, holds the picturesque waterfalls of Frontierland and its panoramic Rivers of America. The gorgeous rocks, towering trees and high bluffs transition into what was called at its March 31, 1958, debut, the largest diorama in the world.

​

“Going from the bright, natural light of the park inside the tunnel plunges you into darkness, and that gives way to the enthralling Grand Canyon Diorama,” as PR Director Michele Himmelberg put it, the 306-foot-long, 34-foot-high, 45-foot-wide south rim of the Grand Canyon is revealed on a seamless, handwoven canvas, one of the largest in the world. Wildlife of Arizona’s “Great Abyss” examines our train with hesitant caution, curious as to the unusual visitors riding by on an iron horse. A thunderstorm, a snowfall, a sunset and a rainbow illuminate the various critters that scatter the mysterious, natural landscape, including deer, bighorn sheep, skunks and a mountain lion. Once static taxidermy, the animals became Audio-Animatronics figures to coincide with Disneyland’s 50th Anniversary in 2005.

“In writing 'Grand Canyon Suite' I drew from notes I had made during my constant visits to the rim of the mighty work of nature. I had watched the Canyon in all seasons, in all its moods.” - Ferde Grofé​

Inspired by the Academy Award-winning True-Life Adventure subject, The Grand Canyon, Walt Disney and Fred Gurley, the namesake of Engine No. 3, dedicated the attraction outside the tunnel that houses the diorama, with the blessing of Chief Negangnewa of the Hopi tribe. Imagineer Claude Coats and artist Delmer J. Yoakum designed the iconic diorama which covered an area that once was visible warehouse buildings between Fantasyland and Frontierland, something Walt had always disliked. The theme music is an arrangement of "On the Trail," from the “Grand Canyon Suite,” written by Ferde Grofé and perhaps more famously known from a western fantasy sequence in 1983's A Christmas Story.

It’s a long drop to the canyon floor, so please, stay seated!

​

On the exact opposite side of Disneyland, in Tomorrowland, are a second set of dioramas, and they don’t look a day over 250 million. Having both appeared first at the New York World’s Fair two years earlier, the Primeval Worlds were relocated from an attraction called the Ford’s Magic Skyway, which debuted in a long tunnel on the journey from Tomorrowland to Main Street, U.S.A. on July 1, 1966.

“To those just joining us, welcome aboard! If you spent time here in Tomorrowland, you learned that everything is possible in the future. Walt Disney himself hoped for Tomorrowland to signify man’s achievements, with predictions of constructive things to come,” our conductor remarks. “But what of the things that have already happened? The next leg of our journey will take us back in time, back to the spectacular Dawn of Man and the last great Ice Age: The Fantastic Primeval World!”

​

Some futuristic-looking packages addressed to an individual named “The Timekeeper” at a certain “Tomorrowland Metropolis Science Center” sit near the entrance to a railroad tunnel. In a flash of lightning, color and magic, we have traveled through a temporal rift. It is cold. Freezing, in fact.

The winter winds howl as our train travels back 200,000 years. This is a world that trembles under the tread of mammalian feet. Here in a world that is always winter, huge and unusual mammals roam, graze, and hunt on the frozen tundra. More science-fiction than science-fact, the creatures here come from all years and locations of the Pleistocene Era. Though the cavemen and some animals were taken from the Ford’s Magic Skyway, more animals and scenes were added when they made the move to Disneyland, beginning with the temperate tundra we see on the edge of a dense forest.

A mural, reminiscent of those seen in the world’s Natural History Museums in exhibits recalling such a time and place, serves as the backdrop to this strange world. The tall grass and trees of the tundra meet the mouths of steppe bison, musk oxen, ancient camels and horses, and a wooly rhinoceros. Dire wolves, mastodons, reindeer and Irish elk populate the far fields and hills, frozen in the mural. Vultures and other birds fly overhead. The giant ground sloth and a towering Paraceratherium share the leaves of a taller tree, and though the latter’s calf is too short to get his share, he’s certainly trying! A sneering, snarling saber-toothed cat has locked in combat with a ferocious cave lion over a fallen caribou, the saber-tooth latched to the higher rocks that form the mouth of a jagged canyon. The cries of their battle transition the scene to early human hunters who have trapped a trumpeting mammoth in a pit. Never were the exploits of primitive man depicted with such realism or good humor as through Audio-Animatronics; the huge boulder held aloft above the trapped mammoth is levied by the silliest-looking caveman this side of La Brea Tar Pits. This was a strange, new world, but man embarked on his adventure with a new power: the ability to think and reason.

The walls of the canyon become the walls of a large, fire-lit cave. At first, caveman wasn’t much of a man, but he had a home, be it ever-so-humble. This cave tells the story of his achievements. Cheerful artists record their great deeds through simple paintings of animals and hand-prints on the walls, while others craft their paints from mud, colored dirt, and flowers. One fearful fellow shows his skills in early communication, grunting things that must translate to “look out” to his companion roasting a mammoth leg over a fire, blissfully unaware that a very hungry cave bear is lingering just behind his craned neck.

A family of hulking, hairy Gigantopithecus inhabit the brief stretch of bamboo forest outside the warm cave. The gargantuan apes play, groom, and feed on bamboo, while two cavemen, ironically more ape-like in their faces and gestures than the apes they’re staring at, blankly stare in shock at the huge beasts, scratching their heads and sides like a couple of cartoon monkeys. On a rocky outcropping, a charming salesman grunts and growls in glee about his invention: the spinning, stone wheel displayed by his younger colleague. As we can see, it was a trial and error process: square wheels and oblongs abound the floor. Cavepeople watch in absolute awe - the birth of transportation. Two Macrauchenia appear in the foreground foliage, watching the train go by.

Now at last, man is free! Unchained from his cave, free to ride into the future, provided his skeptical wife supplies the “horsepower” on their foot-powered journey. Two mammoths curiously watch the humorous sendoff, where the local cave-dwellers wave goodbye to their grinning comrade, the latter grunting “Bye Bye!” Snow has begun to fall through spectacular special-effects, transitioning us into the next diorama.

The Ice Age is behind us, we travel through more lightning, more color. The temporal rift has worsened. Our conductor continues, “That was the world of early man as we imagine it today. But even this prehistoric world had a prehistory of its own… Quiet now, as we travel back in time, back to the Land of the Dinosaurs!”

This is the world that was. Our train has traveled back further, forth millions of years in time to the dawn of life on land, to the warm seas and jungles that once covered Earth. Here dinosaurs ruled the swamps, rivers and deserts of this fantastic kingdom. Our ancestors never heard the sounds we hear, nor witnessed the sights we see. It was always summer here, even in Alaska, and a swamp like the one we see attracted tours of roaming Sauropods. ​

The Edaphosaurus and giant insect-filled jungle fades for the steaming waters of the Brontosaurus-filled bayou. Pteranodons glide and roost on the rocks of a thundering set of waterfalls, one being so close to the railroad tracks we can hear its bird-like cries. Two Iguanodon and a duck-billed Hadrosaur drink from the shore. Mother & Father Triceratops welcome their hatchlings to the world, while the lush vegetation and forests give way to the significant drought and famine of the coming mass extinction. Bleached fossils and stones litter the cracked sands of a diminishing watering hole visited by desperate, thirsty Gallimimus. Lastly, on a rocky outcropping, lit only by churning rivers of molten magma, flashes of lightning, and the eruption of an active volcano, a Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus Rex duel to the death, all that’s left of the Primeval Worlds before our return to the Present.

There are numerous paleontological mistakes across both the Primeval World dioramas. Both were, of course, created in the 1960s, and the dinosaurs in particular took clear inspiration from the “Rite of Spring” sequence seen in 1941’s Fantasia. The music played during the dinosaur section of the Primeval World diorama was written by Bernard Hermann (Psycho, Taxi Driver) for The Mysterious Island (1961), a film based on the Jules Verne novel of the same name. The Ice Age diorama is scored by, if not ironically, Max Steiner’s classic theme to King Kong (1933).

Now let’s join the crowd passing through the tunnels of the main entrance, one on either side of Main Street Station and beneath the railroad tracks. This is where the world of today is left behind, for now we enter the land of yesterday and tomorrow, and of course, the land of fantasy. A plaque above either tunnel reads a now famous sentiment:

“HERE YOU LEAVE TODAY
AND ENTER THE WORLD
OF YESTERDAY, TOMORROW
AND FANTASY”

***
​

Happy Easter! My first week at the new job was a bit more demanding than I had anticipated, so the rest of Main Street will have to wait! I figured going into detail on the new Ice Age diorama would be a good substitute in the meantime.

For reference, in case it wasn't clear enough in the overview, the Grand Canyon Diorama is in between Frontierland and Fantasyland and Mirror Disneyland (which imho is where it should be IRL) and the new Ice Age Diorama is where the Grand Canyon Diorama is IRL. Mirror Disneyland's Grand Canyon will also run through and disguise the show building for Western River Expedition, which will exist here, just maybe not as what you're envisioning.

Stay tuned for the next update!

Wow! Those W.Alternate train scenes are fantastic @MANEATINGWREATH! The Grand Canyon should have always been inbetween Frontierland and fantasyland, and the prehistoric scenes are also a delight to have, I think this is how the train will go in this timeline:

• Debark from main street
• Lost Expedition View
• New Orleans Marti Gras & Station (The PATF ride better go here)
• Splash Mountain Riverboat
• Folktale forest overview
• Rivers of America view (No SW:GE
• Grand Canyon
• Fantasyland Station?
• IDK on the way to tomorrowland station
• Tomorrowland station
• Primeval Dinosaurs scene
• The Ice Age
• Back to Main Street.

Also I swear if Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is used over Splash I’m gonna try to get banned from New Orleans.

 

[MANEATINGWREATH]

More Main Street coming this Saturday or Sunday, maybe even Friday!

And yes, you're pretty close to accurate with the Disneyland Railroad assessment. Maybe not 100%, but close. And there'll be a lot more to see than what I had even outlined above. The Ice Age does come placement-wise before the Dinosaurs.

 

[MANEATINGWREATH]

“HERE YOU LEAVE TODAY
AND ENTER THE WORLD
OF YESTERDAY, TOMORROW
AND FANTASY”​

​

Since 1955, Attraction Posters have been the critical means of communication between Disneyland and its visitors. Eye-catching, enticing build-ups for the action and adventure ahead, means of continuous and exciting development and marketing to the Disneyland formula. Anyone who has visited Disneyland can recognize that magical moment when they first hear the music on Main Street, first smell its popcorn and vanilla candies, and first see the colorful posters that line either tunnel beneath the railroad tracks.

The Posters today are electronic, an attraction all their own, interchanging one from the next to show not one but all the attractions waiting for us to explore. The oversized images have color and flair, they appeal to the young and the young-at-heart, with enough intrigue to stir the imagination and be the difference between interest and action. This is, if you will, a “theater lobby.” As Imagineer Tim Delaney said, “Like a lot of things at Disneyland, attraction posters are storytelling without saying words.” Thanks to the digital upgrades, each poster has simple animation; i.e. the Hitchhiking Ghosts wag their thumbs whilst bats pour out from the Haunted Mansion’s cupola, an autumn moon rises behind it all from a dark hill.

“Disneyland is a place where people forget their everyday cares and immerse themselves in lands of fantasy and adventure, yesterday and tomorrow. You find the magic of Disneyland in the soft pastel lighting on ‘Sleeping Beauty Castle’ as evening approaches, in the dancing eyes of a grandfather wearing an orange-billed Donald Duck hat, and in a child kissing Mickey Mouse while Dad fumbles with his camera.

Disneyland is the emotion that wells up within you when the ‘Mark Twain’ stern-wheeler churns ‘round the bend, twinkling with pin lights from stern to stern, while nearby a Dixieland band blasts out ‘When the Saints Go Marching In.’ It is the pride you feel when the band renders the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ at the Main Street Retreat Ceremony each evening, as a flock of white doves encircles Town Square.

But to describe the real meaning of Disneyland is to unfold its story from the very beginning - from the time when it was merely a twinkle in the eye of its creator. It is to Walt Disney, ‘Showman of the World,’ that we dedicate this tribute to his Magic Kingdom.”

- Dedication to Disneyland - The First Thirty Years ​

​

“I love the nostalgic myself,” Walt Disney said. “I hope we never lose some of the things of the past.”

Walt made good on his admiration for the past by building Main Street, U.S.A. With inspiration from his childhood hometown of Marceline, Missouri, among other small towns at the turn-of-the-century, we find America at the crossroads of an era, 1890-1910. A romanticized vision of a time when the gas lamp yields to the electric, Main Street is infused with rural smalltown America, with its fanciful ornamentations, hitching posts, and gingerbread Victorian architecture. Our journey begins here in Town Square, the beginning of Main Street, U.S.A. The only real trouble in this town would be a pool table. “Never was a Main Street like that,” Imagineer John Hench said.

Along Main Street, as everywhere in Disneyland, the modes of transportation are many. In Town Square, we can board an old-fashioned Horseless Carriage or Horse-Drawn Streetcar. There’s even a double-decker Omnibus for those who prefer to see the sights from the heights. The two Newsstands located through the tunnels carry a wide assortment of souvenir items for guests, including the popular newspaper, The Disneyland News. In the Guided Tour Gardens, tour attendees wait in an elegant garden for their guide who will take them on a tour of Disneyland. Guided Tours are an excellent means by which first time visitors can enjoy Disneyland. City Hall serves as the headquarters for guest services and is also where children can inquire about “Lost Parents.” Located next to City Hall is the Disneyland Fire Station. Authentic down to the brass pole and fire hose, the station houses a fire wagon that at one time rolled down Main Street, but with the coming of the automobile, the fire wagon gave way to the gas-driven Fire Engine. A tradition started by Firehouse Five Plus Two, a Dixieland band made up of Disney Animators, the Hook & Ladder Co. continues this familiar jubilation here at the Magic Kingdom.

Located above the Fire Station, Walt's Apartment gave him the ability to work late and rise early the next day. A lamp in the window burns in his honor, a symbol that he is still with us at Disneyland today. The interior furnishings have been preserved just as he left them half a century ago. Main Street is known too for its second-story window advertisements. From Alice Davis to Rolly Crump, the windows are named for the Cast Members, Imagineers and artists who left an indelible mark on Disneyland, or those with significance to Walt, like his father, Elias Disney. “Elias Disney, Contractor, Est. 1895.” Other windows indicate shops like one would have encountered in the 1890s, such as a "Painless Dentist."

Helping to create the first impression of Main Street are Disneyland’s Custodial Hosts. With a main concern for cleanliness, they work day and night to keep the show on the road. Working as a team, Custodial Hosts greatly contribute to the high standard of cleanliness that is a cornerstone of the Disneyland show. Should guests misplace any of their items, Lost & Found is located in Town Square, where Locker Facilities, too, are available to rent.

The harmonies of the Dapper Dans (the resident barbershop quartet of Main Street) and the oomp-pa-pa of the Disneyland Band are always present to serenade guests with their turn-of-the-century repertoire. The Disneyland Band is an Opening Day tradition, marching down Main Street for daily concerts in Town Square. An especially nice place to hear the band is on the patio of the Great American Egg House café where we can watch the charming characters out on the Square.

A War Memorial stands in tribute to the men and women who have served in America's Armed Forces. Though the soldier here is that of a Union lieutenant in the American Civil War, all those who serve or have served, are honored here. As dusk signals the end of the day at Disneyland, the Dapper Dans and Disneyland Band join together for the lowering of the flag at Town Square, the traditional Flag Retreat Ceremony. Activity in Town Square ceases as the “Star-Spangled Banner” is played. The stirring ceremony is a reminder of “the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts that have created America.”

Since the first “Christmas Bowl” in 1956, the Yuletide season has always been a major Disneyland celebration. But the most dramatic of all the festivities is the Candlelight Procession. This parade of carolers has illuminated Main Street with the glow of a thousand candles and the music of a thousand voices since 1958. The moving presentation is held in Town Square, where the choirs assemble in front of Main Street Station and, accompanied by a live orchestra, join a celebrity narrator in telling the Christmas Story in word and song. Through the years, such respected performers as James Earl Jones, John Wayne, and Dick Van have lent their narrative skills to this fond holiday tradition.

“Ever since I was a small boy in Illinois, I’ve had a great personal admiration for Abraham Lincoln.” - Walt Disney​

In 1956, Disneyland guests encountered a sign in Town Square announcing the coming of Liberty Street in 1958. A tribute to the freedoms that made it all real, Liberty Street debuted as the Boston of Johnny Tremain, a salute to the Revolutionary War. Liberty Street would house all the Presidents, as “The Hall of Presidents” was advertised to headline the new land. But when Liberty Street opened off of Town Square on November 21, 1958, it only had one attraction: The Hall of the Declaration of Independence. Patrons found it underwhelming to say the least. Visitors watched as dramatic paintings of the American Revolution were illuminated with programmed spotlights and dull narration. The presentation would end in a viewing of the Declaration of Independence itself (a copy). Walt was never pleased with the end result of the attraction, and neither were the Imagineers. Still, the Hall remained open until 1964. Walt did something unusual for his character - he settled. But we'll visit our founding fathers and the ongoing story and history of Liberty Street later in our day at Disneyland.
The Disneyland Story Presenting Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln (originally just Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln) celebrated the arrival of Disneyland’s 10th Anniversary when the attraction opened at the Main Street Opera House on July 18, 1965. Great Moments was first shown at the 1964-’65 New York World’s Fair at the State of Illinois Pavilion. Oddly, Lincoln’s placement at the Opera House came of necessity - the former Hall of the Declaration of Independence had been grazed and replaced with the Carousel of Progress and its rotating theater from the ground-up, another World’s Fair attraction. But that, too, is another story for another time.

No other historical figure inspired Walt Disney more than Abraham Lincoln. The Imagineers created in 1964, for the first time, an Audio-Animatronics figure that embodied human realism, one that would also maintain the dignity and grace of our 16th President. With Lincoln’s own life mask used by Imagineer Blaine Gibson to mold the face, the next-generation technology of today has brought Lincoln to life with more realism and emotion than ever before. Even at the time of the World’s Fair, the end result was so life-like that National Geographic magazine called the figure “alarming” in its realism.

The Disneyland Story is a treasure trove in the lobby of rare memorabilia and artifacts from the Happiest Place on Earth, past and present. Rare illustrations, behind-the-scenes photos, scale models, and even a carousel horse from the Griffith Park Merry-Go-Round fill the exhibit. The smaller space preceding the Great Moments show has a collection of artifacts and a film showcasing Walt and his fascination with the Great Emancipator. The Opera House has a split-exit corridor not just into Main Street, but also Liberty Street. The exit is filled with portraits of many inspirational Americans, each representing a different “Spirit of,” such as the “Spirit of Imagination,” represented through Mark Twain and Jim Henson.

 

[Disney-Universal Fanboy]

@MANEATINGWREATH a quick question: If the real life Disneyland is 500 acres and this Disneyland is 5000, how big of a difference does it make?

 

[MANEATINGWREATH]

It makes a big difference. When you consider Animal Kingdom is 580 acres, that means you could fit the entire real-life DLR into Animal Kingdom.

 

[MANEATINGWREATH]

The Mad Hatter and Walt’s Hobbies round out the Town Square amenities, whether we’re personalizing a set of Mickey Mouse Ears at The Mad Hatter, or admiring the collection of model trains, planes, miniatures, and other related hobbies at Walt’s Hobbies, where we also find an HO Scale model railroading layout that portrays what Disneyland would have looked like had it been built in Burbank, California as intended. Disneyana, an art exhibition and a shop unto itself, is connected to the Opera House with its limited-editions, original artworks, and statues available for purchase and admiration.

​

Main Street is famously known for its use of forced perspective, an optical illusion that makes an object appear farther away, closer, larger or smaller than it actually is. The ground-floor buildings are built on a 9/10 scale, with the second and third floors progressively smaller. Main Street and the other lands are worlds to be entered, of sights and sounds, touch and smell. Main Street is unlike the Main Streets of yore. Everything is always fresh and new. The air is filled with the enchantment of song, songs true to the Gay Nineties and Edwardian eras, some even adapted from Broadway musicals like Hello, Dolly!

At the Magic Shop, witches and wizards demonstrate baffling tricks and illusions. The materials used in these magic shows are available in the shop, as well as other gag tricks, masks, and magic souvenirs on display, and is even the location where legendary comedian Steve Martin began his career. An organist performs next door at the Wurlitzer Music Hall and is oftentimes the underscore to a romantic evening on Main Street. Instruments for sale are complemented by an assortment of rare Disneyland audio files and digital downloads, and the world’s largest library of Disney sheet music available for purchase.

​

The Main Street Cinema has always been a distinguishable Magic Kingdom landmark. With its dazzling marquee and its chasing lights, the cinema is an authentic reproduction of a 1900 movie house, where inside we are surrounded by six silent movie screens filled with popular classics on a continuous loop. One of the shorts, Steamboat Willie, is the short that made Mickey Mouse a star - and introduced the world to synchronized sound.

NOW PLAYING:

• Steamboat Willie, 1928
• Plane Crazy, 1928
• Cops, 1922
• The Great Train Robbery, 1903
• Gertie the Dinosaur, 1914
• Liberty, 1929

The largest gift and souvenir shop in all of Disneyland, the Emporium is modeled to the grandeur and nostalgia of a yesteryear department store. Inside the Emporium are balcony-set vignettes of life at the turn-of-the-century, charming animatronics recreating a visit to the old barbershop, the tailor, and hatter.

In the late ‘60s, the Emporium began a tradition of creating animated storefront windows inspired by the latest Disney film release. When The Little Mermaid debuted in 1989, the windows it brought for the Emporium included detailed figures, sophisticated animation, and for the first time, music. Today, the storefront windows at the Emporium mesmerize viewers with miniature dimensional scenes of the Disney Canon, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Treasure Planet, and The Jungle Book.

“With every cup, with every conversation, with every community - we nurture the limitless possibilities of human connection.”
- Starbucks Coffee Mission ​

The Market House was designed to recreate the old general store, where many would sit around the pot-bellied stove on father’s knee, while mother would gossip on the “party-line phones” mounted on the walls. “The old Market House filled with penny candy and fat, juicy pickles right out of the barrel,” wrote Martin A. Sklar in 1969, brought guests “the personal adventure of examining, shopping, and inhaling the nectar of nostalgia.” The Market House today is a combo-general store and Starbucks Coffee - if Starbucks had been around in 1900.

Center Street, halfway up Main Street, is formed by two side alleys, one of which leads to a Locker Facility and Liberty Street, and is also home to the most beautiful sight thus far: the Flower Mart. An elegant collection of various rings, bracelets, necklaces, and other personal trimmings is available at Main Street’s Fortuosity Shop. A Main Street institution, Carnation Café has begun many a Disneyland visitor’s day with breakfast under its candy-striped umbrellas and lunch in its Victorian dining room. Soda jerks serve scrumptious ice cream treats at the Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor.

Founded in 1910, Hallmark is the oldest and largest manufacturer of greeting cards in the United States. The Hallmark Card Shop is perhaps the most beautiful of its kind in the world. In fact, it is very much so themed to a fictitious “first ever” Hallmark shop in history, opened right here on Main Street. Among the greeting cards, stationary, and paper goods, are Hallmark’s famous Keepsake Ornaments, all Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, and Pixar, of course. Next door, appropriately, Frosty’s Cabinet curates seasonal housewares, linens and accessories, ornaments, nutcrackers, wreaths, and more, 365 days a year. The year-round décor and the warm holiday music is a suited escape from the “off-season.” The shop is also famous for its massive holiday village, designed by Department 56. Department 56 and Disney have collaborated to offer a collectible village series exclusive to Disneyland: “Christmas at Disneyland,” a miniature portrayal of Disneyland and its many lands and attractions dressed for the holiday season.

Disney Clothiers Ltd. specializes in all manner of Disney clothing. Crystal Arts is a showcase for hand carved crystal goods. In fact, the artist cuts the glass to order right in the shop. The Silhouette Studio offers one of the most unique souvenirs in all of Disneyland, where a talented silhouette artist cuts out accurate likenesses for personal framing. The China Closet is perhaps Main Street’s most delicate specialty shop. Fine, imported and domestic China and crystal gifts are attractively displayed in graceful wall enclaves. At the Candle Shop the scents of different candles and vanished flame fills the air, while colorful candles of every shape, size, color, and smell overfill the shelves and countertops.

"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates' loot on Treasure Island."
- Walt Disney​

Walt Disney was passionate about the value of books, and a bookstore was a component of Main Street from its earliest designs. The friendly Neighborhood Bookstore has a fine selection of bestsellers, old classics, modern magazines, and the world’s finest selection of Disney books anywhere. The inside has the theme of a 1900 explorer’s club and could fit right at home in Adventureland. Some plywood dolls that are very familiar to us, even know this “small world” over, decorate the entrance to the aptly named Davis, Crump, Gibson, & Blair: Toymakers to the World.

​

Coke Corner has served refreshing glasses of Coca-Cola to thirsty diners, in addition to hot dogs and other snacks since 1955. A ragtime piano player entertains onlookers, often joined by the Dapper Dans, with their favorite tune. The Candy Palace is a child’s dream come true. It is hard to decide among the glistening suckers, chunks of rich, creamy fudge, sour worms, and caramel-drenched apples that line the shelves. The old-time Penny Arcade is always a beehive of activity as anxious boys and girls of all ages try their luck at vintage arcade games from the early 20th Century, with turn-the-crank kinetoscope machines, the mechanical fortune teller Esmeralda, and other tests of strength and skill. The arcade houses over 130 machines, from 19th Century nickelodeons to motorized kaleidoscopes. Since 1960, the Sunkist Citrus House has offered fresh-squeezed Sunkist orange juice and ice cold pink and yellow lemonade, not forgetting coffee, dessert rolls, lemon tarts, cheesecake, and the famous Sunkist frozen juice bar. Cast Members here also deliver juice and lemons to various food outlets at and around Disneyland.

With all the shopping and dining opportunity on Main Street some in which we didn’t even explore, the single souvenir we remember most is the considerate smile and competent service that the Cast Members of Main Street, U.S.A. provided us - free of charge.

***
​

Two updates in one week, not bad!

Jack Wagner's Cast Member Orientation for Main Street, U.S.A. was the guiding basis for much of today's post (and Town Square's from the other day). I believe @DisneyManOne is the one who came up with the Small World-themed toy shop.

 

[Disney-Universal Fanboy]

The Mad Hatter and Walt’s Hobbies round out the Town Square amenities, whether we’re personalizing a set of Mickey Mouse Ears at The Mad Hatter, or admiring the collection of model trains, planes, miniatures, and other related hobbies at Walt’s Hobbies, where we also find an HO Scale model railroading layout that portrays what Disneyland would have looked like had it been built in Burbank, California as intended. Disneyana, an art exhibition and a shop unto itself, is connected to the Opera House with its limited-editions, original artworks, and statues available for purchase and admiration.

​

Main Street is famously known for its use of forced perspective, an optical illusion that makes an object appear farther away, closer, larger or smaller than it actually is. The ground-floor buildings are built on a 9/10 scale, with the second and third floors progressively smaller. Main Street and the other lands are worlds to be entered, of sights and sounds, touch and smell. Main Street is unlike the Main Streets of yore. Everything is always fresh and new. The air is filled with the enchantment of song, songs true to the Gay Nineties and Edwardian eras, some even adapted from Broadway musicals like Hello, Dolly!

At the Magic Shop, witches and wizards demonstrate baffling tricks and illusions. The materials used in these magic shows are available in the shop, as well as other gag tricks, masks, and magic souvenirs on display, and is even the location where legendary comedian Steve Martin began his career. An organist performs next door at the Wurlitzer Music Hall and is oftentimes the underscore to a romantic evening on Main Street. Instruments for sale are complemented by an assortment of rare Disneyland audio files and digital downloads, and the world’s largest library of Disney sheet music available for purchase.

​

The Main Street Cinema has always been a distinguishable Magic Kingdom landmark. With its dazzling marquee and its chasing lights, the cinema is an authentic reproduction of a 1900 movie house, where inside we are surrounded by six silent movie screens filled with popular classics on a continuous loop. One of the shorts, Steamboat Willie, is the short that made Mickey Mouse a star - and introduced the world to synchronized sound.

NOW PLAYING:

• Steamboat Willie, 1928
• Plane Crazy, 1928
• Cops, 1922
• The Great Train Robbery, 1903
• Gertie the Dinosaur, 1914
• Liberty, 1929

The largest gift and souvenir shop in all of Disneyland, the Emporium is modeled to the grandeur and nostalgia of a yesteryear department store. Inside the Emporium are balcony-set vignettes of life at the turn-of-the-century, charming animatronics recreating a visit to the old barbershop, the tailor, and hatter.

In the late ‘60s, the Emporium began a tradition of creating animated storefront windows inspired by the latest Disney film release. When The Little Mermaid debuted in 1989, the windows it brought for the Emporium included detailed figures, sophisticated animation, and for the first time, music. Today, the storefront windows at the Emporium mesmerize viewers with miniature dimensional scenes of the Disney Canon, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Treasure Planet, and The Jungle Book.

“With every cup, with every conversation, with every community - we nurture the limitless possibilities of human connection.”
- Starbucks Coffee Mission ​

The Market House was designed to recreate the old general store, where many would sit around the pot-bellied stove on father’s knee, while mother would gossip on the “party-line phones” mounted on the walls. “The old Market House filled with penny candy and fat, juicy pickles right out of the barrel,” wrote Martin A. Sklar in 1969, brought guests “the personal adventure of examining, shopping, and inhaling the nectar of nostalgia.” The Market House today is a combo-general store and Starbucks Coffee - if Starbucks had been around in 1900.

Center Street, halfway up Main Street, is formed by two side alleys, one of which leads to a Locker Facility and Liberty Street, and is also home to the most beautiful sight thus far: the Flower Mart. An elegant collection of various rings, bracelets, necklaces, and other personal trimmings is available at Main Street’s Fortuosity Shop. A Main Street institution, Carnation Café has begun many a Disneyland visitor’s day with breakfast under its candy-striped umbrellas and lunch in its Victorian dining room. Soda jerks serve scrumptious ice cream treats at the Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor.

Founded in 1910, Hallmark is the oldest and largest manufacturer of greeting cards in the United States. The Hallmark Card Shop is perhaps the most beautiful of its kind in the world. In fact, it is very much so themed to a fictitious “first ever” Hallmark shop in history, opened right here on Main Street. Among the greeting cards, stationary, and paper goods, are Hallmark’s famous Keepsake Ornaments, all Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, and Pixar, of course. Next door, appropriately, Frosty’s Cabinet curates seasonal housewares, linens and accessories, ornaments, nutcrackers, wreaths, and more, 365 days a year. The year-round décor and the warm holiday music is a suited escape from the “off-season.” The shop is also famous for its massive holiday village, designed by Department 56. Department 56 and Disney have collaborated to offer a collectible village series exclusive to Disneyland: “Christmas at Disneyland,” a miniature portrayal of Disneyland and its many lands and attractions dressed for the holiday season.

Disney Clothiers Ltd. specializes in all manner of Disney clothing. Crystal Arts is a showcase for hand carved crystal goods. In fact, the artist cuts the glass to order right in the shop. The Silhouette Studio offers one of the most unique souvenirs in all of Disneyland, where a talented silhouette artist cuts out accurate likenesses for personal framing. The China Closet is perhaps Main Street’s most delicate specialty shop. Fine, imported and domestic China and crystal gifts are attractively displayed in graceful wall enclaves. At the Candle Shop the scents of different candles and vanished flame fills the air, while colorful candles of every shape, size, color, and smell overfill the shelves and countertops.

"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates' loot on Treasure Island."
- Walt Disney​

Walt Disney was passionate about the value of books, and a bookstore was a component of Main Street from its earliest designs. The friendly Neighborhood Bookstore has a fine selection of bestsellers, old classics, modern magazines, and the world’s finest selection of Disney books anywhere. The inside has the theme of a 1900 explorer’s club and could fit right at home in Adventureland. Some plywood dolls that are very familiar to us, even know this “small world” over, decorate the entrance to the aptly named Davis, Crump, Gibson, & Blair: Toymakers to the World.

​

Coke Corner has served refreshing glasses of Coca-Cola to thirsty diners, in addition to hot dogs and other snacks since 1955. A ragtime piano player entertains onlookers, often joined by the Dapper Dans, with their favorite tune. The Candy Palace is a child’s dream come true. It is hard to decide among the glistening suckers, chunks of rich, creamy fudge, sour worms, and caramel-drenched apples that line the shelves. The old-time Penny Arcade is always a beehive of activity as anxious boys and girls of all ages try their luck at vintage arcade games from the early 20th Century, with turn-the-crank kinetoscope machines, the mechanical fortune teller Esmeralda, and other tests of strength and skill. The arcade houses over 130 machines, from 19th Century nickelodeons to motorized kaleidoscopes. Since 1960, the Sunkist Citrus House has offered fresh-squeezed Sunkist orange juice and ice cold pink and yellow lemonade, not forgetting coffee, dessert rolls, lemon tarts, cheesecake, and the famous Sunkist frozen juice bar. Cast Members here also deliver juice and lemons to various food outlets at and around Disneyland.

With all the shopping and dining opportunity on Main Street some in which we didn’t even explore, the single souvenir we remember most is the considerate smile and competent service that the Cast Members of Main Street, U.S.A. provided us - free of charge.

***
​

Two updates in one week, not bad!

Jack Wagner's Cast Member Orientation for Main Street, U.S.A. was the guiding basis for much of today's post (and Town Square's from the other day). I believe @DisneyManOne is the one who came up with the Small World-themed toy shop.

Nice update @MANEATINGWREATH ! I doe have some questions:

1. Do t forced perspective Main Street buildings happen here even with light magic not occurring here?
2. Do the magic emporium windows here as well? what would be the changes between the scenes?
3. Could you list the order of venues from both sides when exiting the train tunnels into the park? It’s a little chaotic to figure out what venues are placed.
4. I thought the wertlitzer music hall was in the place of great moments if that was moved to Liberty street. Since that’s not the case, how is the music hall placed and built out?

 

[MANEATINGWREATH]

Nice update @MANEATINGWREATH ! I doe have some questions:

1. Do t forced perspective Main Street buildings happen here even with light magic not occurring here?
2. Do the magic emporium windows here as well? what would be the changes between the scenes?
3. Could you list the order of venues from both sides when exiting the train tunnels into the park? It’s a little chaotic to figure out what venues are placed.
4. I thought the wertlitzer music hall was in the place of great moments if that was moved to Liberty street. Since that’s not the case, how is the music hall placed and built out?

1. Forced Perspective has always been a part of Main Street with or without Light Magic, it has been since 1955!
2. The Emporium windows switch out over time, those were just what I mentioned in the current overview. But yes, they would be animated like the Magic Windows.
3. Yes, I will right now.
4. Wurlitzer Music Hall is a shop that is at the beginning portion of Main Street's right-hand side. Lincoln is still on Main Street, not Liberty Street. I clarified that in the Town Square overview that Lincoln was placed in the Opera House because they ended up putting Carousel of Progress on Liberty Street, oddly enough.

Town Square East:
1. Newsstand
2. Disneyana
3. Opera House (The Disneyland Story Featuring Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln)
4. Walt's Hobbies
5. The Mad Hatter

Main Street East
1. Liberty Street Entrance
2. Great American Egg House Cafe
3. Wurlitzer Music Hall
4. Magic Shop
5. Main Street Cinema
6. Market House
*Center Street Bisects Here*
7. Locker Facility
8. Flower Mart
9. Disney Clothiers Ltd.
10. Hallmark Card Shop
11. Frosty's Cabinet
12. Silhouette Studio
13. China Closet
14. Crystal Arts
15. Baby Care Center
16. First Aid

Town Square (West)
1. Newsstand
2. Guided Tour Gardens
3. City Hall
4. Walt's Apartment/Fire Station

Main Street (West)
1. Locker Facility
2. Emporium
3. Fortuosity Shop
4. Candle Shop
5. Neighborhood Bookstore
6. Davis, Crump, Gibson, & Blair: Toymakers to the World
*Center Street bisects here*
7. Carnation Cafe
8. Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor
9. Penny Arcade
10. Candy Palace
11. Sunkist Citrus House
12. Coke Corner

 

[MANEATINGWREATH]

Liberty Street​

“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision.”
- Ayn Rand ​

Despite the blessing of size, the first few decades at Disneyland saw new additions that packed the Park to its gills. As it had no precedent before it, Disneyland was a learning experience. A series of ideas and designs have come and gone, some more successful than others. Many of these elements remain today.

Walt Disney once said, “Disneyland will never be completed as long as there is imagination left in the world.” Through the years, Walt himself would provide sneak previews of new additions to Disneyland on television and in print. The early success of Disneyland meant that his Magic Kingdom would need more capacity and fast. In an effort to ease traffic through Main Street, it was decided early on that the first new “land” at Disneyland would follow along Main Street’s eastern half with an entrance from the Town Square. A street in celebration of early America and its independence began development after a number of ideas were discussed, an obvious choice for a thematic extension of Main Street, U.S.A.

“As you know, Disneyland Park is a sort of a monument to the American way of life. But after reading ‘Johnny Tremain,’” Walt said to his audience, “we realized we had overlooked one major item in the blueprint - a memorial to the freedoms that made it all possible. Well, we're busy putting it in, right here off the Town Square. We're calling it 'Liberty Street.' Everything is in the planning stage, of course. But our research has taken us back to a period we like to recreate as a reminder that the liberty story is a story without end. In fact, Liberty Street will be Johnny Tremain's Boston of about 1775.”

​

In the two years it took building and conceptualizing Liberty Street, Imagineering devised an entirely separate offshoot behind Main Street and north of Liberty Street. Edison Square would tell the story of the way in which one invention by Thomas A. Edison influenced the growth and development of America and the world. “Harnessing the Lightning” would showcase the American family and how they felt the impact of electricity across four generations. Budget, however, scrapped the Square, and Liberty Street, also devised as a Square, became a straight thoroughfare to the Central Plaza.

When Walt announced Liberty Street in 1956, he excitedly discussed an elaborate attraction called “One Nation Under God.’’ The attraction would tell the dramatic story of our young republic before finishing with a visit to The Hall of Presidents. “The Circarama for the ‘One Nation Under God’ showing will have a 200-degree screen,” Robert de Roos wrote. “After the Circarama showing, a curtain will close, then open again to reveal the Hall of Presidents. The visitor will see all the Chief Executives modeled life-size. He’ll think it’s a waxworks—until Lincoln stands up and begins to talk.”

The attraction featured an impressive gathering of every President of the United States (up to that time) - from Washington to Eisenhower - lifelike and animated. Such animated figures, however, were not possible in 1958. So instead, Liberty Street opened with The Hall of the Declaration of Independence.

Housed inside a version of Independence Hall called Liberty Hall, visitors watched as paintings of the American Revolution were shone upon with spotlights and described by dull narration. The showcase ended in a viewing of the Declaration of Independence itself (a copy). A sign assured visitors that this was just a placeholder for future improvements, and that within a few years time, One Nation Under God and The Hall of Presidents would open in 1963. This would never happen. The Hall of Presidents was finally realized at Walt Disney World after fifteen years of development in their own version of Liberty Street: Liberty Square. But never at Disneyland.

​

One Nation Under God directly influenced the toast of the 1964 - 1965 New York World’s Fair: Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. Despite the attraction having more than enough theming to match Liberty Street, Walt chose the intimate Main Street Opera House so that guests could easily find the attraction they had heard such buzz about from the East Coast. He had other things in mind for Liberty Street.

Rather than building Edison Square for the Carousel of Progress, Walt selected Liberty Street as the home for his typical American family enjoying the advent of electricity and the other advances of the American industry through the 20th Century. While some would argue Tomorrowland a more suitable location (or even the Opera House), the Hall of the Declaration of Independence had long overstayed its welcome and held a large footprint. The innovative Carousel Theater, a combination theatrical venue and rotating ride system, was built affixed to Liberty Hall, the latter now the entrance to this musical journey through the science and advancements made possible by the American Dream.

​

The original show building was demolished in late 1966. The Carousel Theater opened on July 2, 1967, and was brilliantly concealed behind Liberty Hall. No one would ever expect that the theater “inside of” the newly reopened Liberty Hall would rotate a full 360°.

The unbuilt Harnessing the Lightning laid the groundwork for the beloved Carousel of Progress, which also premiered at the 1964 - 1965 New York World’s Fair. Its sponsor, General Electric, turned Liberty Hall’s museum-like lobby into an exhibition for their latest products and ideas. The star of the exhibit was the animated, three-dimensional model of “Progress City,” an early predecessor to Walt Disney’s EPCOT. This model remains intact today, showcased now in Tomorrowland.

The Carousel of Progress lasted six years at Disneyland. Its final guest left humming Richard and Robert Sherman’s “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” on September 9, 1973. The show moved to Walt Disney World the following year, once again leaving Liberty Hall and Liberty Street without an attraction.

​

When Liberty Square debuted at Walt Disney World in 1971, it quickly became the most popular area in the Magic Kingdom. This might have had something to do with the upcoming American Bicentennial in 1976, which commenced officially in 1975. Liberty Street at Disneyland enjoyed the same decade-long popularity and enthusiasm with the arrival of America Sings on June 29, 1974.

The public reaction to America Sings was the result of undiluted and absolute Marc Davis Imagineering. A salute to the Great American Songbook, America Sings gave the Carousel Theater and Liberty Hall complex a second lease on life. A fun-loving look at our musical heritage, the attraction’s theme song “Yankee Doodle” carried across the introduction to several acts: Going South - Heading West - The Gay Nineties - Modern Times. Sam the Eagle (voiced by Burl Ives) and Ollie (an owl), led the all Audio-Animatronics cast of 100+ critters through a tuneful tour of popular music, featuring such American institutions as “Bill Bailey Won’t You Please Come Home?” and “Down by the Riverside.”

The former General Electric exhibit in the Liberty Hall lobby was turned into an exhibition on the history of music and dance in the United States. The Progress City model was replaced by a pre-show featuring Audio-Animatronics figures of Henry from the recently opened Country Bear Jamboree and Jose from the Enchanted Tiki Room talking about the new musical act guests were about to see in America Sings.

Following two years in development, “the first Disneyland ‘mega-musical’” was considered exemplary and the purest representation of Marc Davis’ unique eye for anatomy, caricature, animation, staging, and humor. Using the same revolving carousel technology as its predecessor, hundreds of musical cues and moving set pieces, America Sings presented more programming, timing, and technical challenges than any other attraction to that date. The attraction introduced clever theatrical techniques to make the animal performers appear onstage, such as having characters rise up into view on one side of the stage while lighting directed the viewer's attention elsewhere.

Once the Bicentennial was over, interest dwindled in America Sings. Liberty Street overall became more of an alternate Main Street when the Main Street Electrical Parade began its second run in 1977. Guests walked right past America Sings in their efforts to bypass the crowds on Main Street.

In 1983, Imagineer Tony Baxter dreamt of a water flume ride that would require a whole menagerie of critters to fill its colorful cast. Nearly a hundred of the various animal figures seen in this attraction were relocated from America Sings when it lowered the curtain for the last time on April 10, 1988. Two geese were removed from the attraction and “skinned” to become droids in the queue to Star Tours, opening at Disney-Universal Studios in 1990. The majority of the remaining cast found a new home in Tony Baxter’s aforementioned flume ride; but we’ll tell that chapter of the Disneyland story another time. Liberty Street was once again without a headlining attraction.

​

The Carousel Theater was demolished in 1989. Liberty Hall received extensive remodeling inside and out. A new theater was built from the ground-up, one that did not rotate, but had plenty of technological achievements to claim. The lobby became the American Heritage Gallery, a stunning rotunda and collection of corridors filled with engaging exhibits on various aspects of American culture and history. The Smithsonian-caliber exhibits highlight the rich histories and cultures of Indigenous Americans, African Americans, and classic Americana. The walls contain quotes from iconic Americans, and paintings of historic events and achievements across the United States’ storied history.

The American Adventure, an attraction that has anchored EPCOT’s World Showcase since 1982, filled the vacant new theater at Liberty Hall. The ideal attraction for Liberty Street and an obvious successor to America Sings (and Mr. Lincoln), The American Adventure was built in record time, opening on July 17, 1990, Disneyland’s 35th Anniversary. A feat of entertainment and engineering, ten different sets are stored under the stage and are moved forward and backward on cue by groundbreaking stagecraft and computer-based technology.

A hallmark of The American Adventure is its stirring and unforgettable theme song, “Golden Dream.” The song underscores a grand finale montage filled with historic moments and figures from throughout the American Dream’s countless true-life adventures and achievements. Robert Moline and Randy Bright wrote the song specifically for the attraction, but today, it has become an unofficial anthem for Liberty Street, too. Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln was given a unique dual-exit to accommodate the new attraction up the street. One exit corridor leads into Town Square, the other, decorated with the flags of all 50 States, leads directly into the lobby of Liberty Hall, forever uniting The American Adventure with its humble inspiration: Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. One could consider Great Moments a “preshow” to the stirring panorama of American history shown at The American Adventure, always nostalgic, always optimistic.

Main Street, U.S.A. has vanished. The gas lamps and hitching posts are now candlelight and lanterns’ glow. The shutters on each building are hung by leather straps - metal hinges were melted down and turned into ammunition by soldiers. The gatehouse-entrance from Town Square has two lanterns in the highest window. These signal the advance of the British to Paul Revere - “one if by land, two if by sea.”

Liberty Street is as A Portrait of Walt Disney World described Liberty Square in Orlando, “a panorama of times (pre- and post-American Revolution), locales, and architectural styles - that range from the Dutch New Amsterdam designs of New York, to the Georgian style of Virginia, the Federal influences of Philadelphia, and to the New England character of Massachusetts. Although visitors to the area may not be fully aware of it, their senses encounter a layering of detail that fully informs their experience, providing touch points of authenticity and triggering a nostalgia for an era they never experienced but are aware of from educational and entertainment sources.”

​

The town is filled with merchants and trades in reflection of the era. A flag for each of the 13 Colonies lines either side of the main thoroughfare. Both the Liberty Tree and Liberty Bell are replicated here. In fact, the mold for the Liberty Bell was taken from the real thing in Philadelphia. Disneyland was the first ever to copy the mold, and has proudly displayed its own Liberty Bell since the land opened in 1958.

​

"The original Liberty Tree, a stately elm, was a rallying point for pre-revolutionary activities. The open space under its branches was called 'Liberty Hall' and a flag pole was erected through its branches with a hoisted flag, the symbol for action. Countless inflammatory cartoons and verses were nailed to its trunk and many Tories hung in effigy from its branches. Perhaps its proudest moment was the repeal of the Stamp Act when innumerable lanterns blazed among its branches for all to see."
- A Sign Near the Liberty Tree​

The impressive live oak that makes the Liberty Tree was transported to Disneyland amidst construction in 1957. Walt himself was on hand to select and relocate the proud tree. The tree is well over two centuries old and is a worthy tribute to the real Liberty Tree in Boston. Historically, the real tree was a beacon for the American Revolution. Those rallied against the oppression of the British Empire would gather here in protest or plotting. As such, one lantern for each of the original American colonies hangs from the tree.

One of our first stops is the New England Print Shop which began editing Disneyland's still popular newspaper, The Disneyland News, in 1958. The newspaper can be purchased here (for $1), as well as at the Newsstands in Town Square. The proprietor uses a Washington hand press like the one Ben Franklin used more than 200 years before. Samuel Osgood, Postmaster General was at first a false facade with a replica post office inside. Walt soon took to the idea of having an operational United States Post Office at Disneyland. Since 1961, "Samuel Osgood'' has serviced the mailboxes found throughout the Disneyland Resort, and still processes resort and personal mail today. Colonial Mercantile is similar to your run-of-the-mill “country store.” The merchandise and décor specializes in stuffed toys, kitchenware, clothing, hats, and “vintage” signs reminiscent of the Old South and Midwest.

Liberty Street’s pavement is red, but a brownish-gray stripe runs right down the middle. This streak interestingly travels to or from the only restroom facility on Liberty Street. Indoor plumbing did not exist in the colonies, so our forefathers simply tossed their waste out the windows, and, well, you get it.

The Blacksmith Shop has a skilled metalsmith who creates grills, railings, lamps, and horseshoes, also the location responsible for shoeing the horses that travel Main Street, U.S.A. every day. Paul Revere’s Silver Shop has a silversmith who crafts all the available wares in-store, while Ye Olde Antique Shoppe is filled with authentic antiquities and collectibles from across the United States’ history. Crates of tea from Boston Harbor are among the details outside this one-of-a-kind antiques retailer.

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In 1990, amidst the opening of Disney-Universal Studios, The American Adventure, and the ongoing construction for Disneyland Paris, Michael Eisner visited Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. This visit inspired in him a passion for a new East Coast Disneyland. Only it wouldn’t be a Disneyland.

Disney’s America was the pitch, and 3,000 acres outside Haymarket, Virginia was the setting. A 40 mile excursion from Washington, D.C. would bring visitors from around the world to the gates of what Vice President of Disney Bob Weis called “Not a Pollyanna view of America. We want to make you a Civil War soldier. We want to make you feel what it was like to be a slave or what it was like to escape through the Underground Railroad.”

Called a “commercial blitzkrieg” by protesters and historians alike, Disney’s America never made it off the page. Direct competition with existing historical attractions, overwhelming demands on the roads and freeway infrastructures, and perhaps the idea of having a park without Disney characters or familiar IPs were the nails in its coffin. Even an idea to purchase Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, California, six miles northwest from Disneyland, fell by the wayside. Disney’s America was never built.

In the late ‘90s, Eisner requested the addition of a thrill ride to Main Street, U.S.A. or Liberty Street, either or, and to preferably “dig up” an idea from the Disney’s America project. The Imagineers knew that neither land really needed the thrill, nor the extra capacity, but the addition of a thrill ride to Liberty Street wouldn’t hurt attendance at The American Adventure. When the Liberty Street location was chosen, Imagineers chose the real estate once occupied by a large picnic area and a matte painting of Griffin’s Wharf.

The first idea wasn’t from Disney’s America at all, but was for a coaster-dark ride themed to the latter segment of The Adventures of Ichabod & Mr. Toad. The would-be attraction would have had guests aboard hollowed-out pumpkins spinning 360° through the banked curves and slopes of a haunted forest, chased by the cackling Headless Horseman. This, of course, would have been costly to build given the attraction’s need for multiple Ichabod Crane and Headless Horseman Audio-Animatronics. Eisner pushed for something from Disney’s America. “How about that Industrial Revolution ride?”

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Although not entirely appropriate to the 1770s-set Liberty Street, the historic Industrial Revolution began in 1760 and ended between 1820 and 1840. The Industrial Revolution changed the American way of life in every way, and is considered as significant to historians as the domestication of animals and plants. The first Industrial Revolution in the United States occurred during the latter half of the 18th Century (when Liberty Street is set), and the second occurred following the Civil War, almost a century after the first.

Best of all, Eisner loved The Industrial Revolution “E-Ticket.” The idea was a favorite of his from the Disney’s America project. Eisner had a lifelong love for factories and assembly lines as documented in his autobiography Work in Progress: “Watching as razor blades were being manufactured in my grandfather’s factory during my youth mesmerized me. For some reason, I’ve always found drama in assembly lines - the excitement of watching products take shape.”

Intended for an area of Disney’s America called “Enterprise,” The Industrial Revolution is a coaster-dark ride hybrid quite unlike Space Mountain in neighboring Tomorrowland. Housed within a New England factory of tall smokestacks and a waterwheel affixed to the calm waters of a reflecting lagoon, we board a minecart and travel inside and out of the historic facade. The steel coaster looks into miniature dioramas and to-scale mechanisms and machines in action. The looping coaster was the first of its kind at the Disneyland Resort and set the precedent for future thrill-seeking attractions to come.

The Industrial Revolution celebrated Liberty Street’s 40th Anniversary when it debuted on July 4, 1998.

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"Liberty Street presents a more serious side of our heritage. Perhaps the greatest dream to ever fire the imagination was the dream of a new nation founded in freedom. The birthplace of this dream is recreated on our Liberty Street. Here is a vision of colonial life as seen by Paul Revere, Patrick Henry, and Benjamin Franklin. Here, patriots have assembled to reaffirm their faith in liberty and justice for all."​

Venerable entertainment since 1958, the Fife & Drum Corps recollect the spirit and celebration of the American Dream. The musicians, clad in the uniform of Revolutionary America, have been integral throughout Disneyland's history of live entertainment. Conceived as a salute and celebration honoring the American Bicentennial, "America on Parade" began its daily performances down Main Street in 1975 at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World, and continued until September of 1976. The Fife & Drum Corps led the beloved America on Parade, and have performed in the "encore" for the Main Street Electrical Parade since July 4, 1976: "To Honor America."

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Although a ride-through attraction based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was never built, Sleepy Hollow Tavern is a barroom befitting of both our inner patriot and our inner grim, grinning ghost.

The menu is in celebration of all things Americana, from smoked turkey legs and cheeseburgers to pumpkin pie and New England clam chowder. This stately colonial home is Liberty Street's original dining hall. The tavern itself is a replica of Baltus van Tassel’s farmhouse seen in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. A weird portrait of the Headless Horseman hangs above the fireplace, and - did that portrait just cackle? A sign indicates an upstairs establishment: “MUSIC & VOICE LESSONS - BY APPOINTMENT - ICHABOD CRANE, INSTRUCTOR.”

When Disney-Universal Studios began its Halloween Horror Nights event in 1991 as a 3-night event, Imagineers began dreaming of ways to counter the more adult-oriented event within Disneyland itself. Although it took years to hit the ground running, a seasonal walk-through attraction, The Revenge of the Headless Horseman was introduced for the October season in 2011. It has since become a staple of the Halloween offerings and has been updated each season since, serving as Disneyland’s “adult labyrinth.”

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The walk-through (which also ran out of Hong Kong Disneyland’s Adventureland from 2011 to 2014) attraction is held within an old carnival sideshow, one that mysteriously lives on the outskirts of Liberty Street, but only appears to visitors in the autumn season. Thaddeus Oswald, a disgraced member of S.E.A., has run his turn-of-the-century “Amazing Traveling Sideshow” for years now, but his latest exhibit, the supposed “Head of the Headless Horseman,” has caused more than a few technical difficulties amongst the guests and his performers… Mind thy head.

In recent years, the seasonal attraction has gone on to include a foreboding scene of decaying puppets and antique dolls, where the iconic (and chained) Pinocchio and sinister clown of Hong Kong Disneyland’s “Nightmare Experiment” walk-through steal the show. The Headless Horseman remains an integral element to the attraction, but has also gone on to represent Liberty Street and Disneyland during the Halloween season. The dreaded phantom follows Ichabod Crane at the beginning of the seasonal Parade of Screams, and even has a statue in his likeness in Town Square.

The Town Crier calls for the attention of Liberty Street citizens, gathering us before the storefronts near Liberty Hall. The Muppets - consisting of Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Sam Eagle, and The Great Gonzo - appear in the second-floor windows, bringing with them their fuzzy view of American history.

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The Muppets Present...Great Moments in American History is a reverent, most sensational, inspirational, historical performance retelling the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the midnight ride of Paul Revere, told only as The Muppets can; a unique “window” into our nation’s past, if you will. The Regal Eagle Smokehouse celebrates the regions of American backyard barbecue and craft beers and ciders from around the United States and is filled to overflowing with subtle nods and details referencing The Muppets. Sam Eagle is integrated into the design of just about everything (subtly, of course), and has reference to “Sam’s Centennial Cook-Off - A Salute to All Cook-Offs But Mostly Barbecue.”

"What our show says is that the American adventure will always be a struggle, but if we can apply ourselves in positive ways and deal with reality, we can move forward to a better future.”
- Disney Legend & Imagineer Randy Bright
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When the curtain falls on a performance of The American Adventure, there is applause, inspiration, often tears. This moving production, the dramatic thesis statement of Liberty Street, features 35 Audio-Animatronics figures, a 72-foot screen with rear-projected images, and a stirring musical score, all achieved through technological stagecraft. As put by A Portrait of Walt Disney World, “The ambitiousness of its execution is undeniable. Condensing over 390 years of history into a twenty-eight-minute presentation that inspires, awes, questions, reflects, entertains, and informs - through unprecedented technology and imagination - remains an unparalleled achievement…even for Disney!”

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The American Adventure endures as the same groundbreaking triumph that took Imagineers five years to develop for its first performance at EPCOT Center in 1982. Once inside the Liberty Hall rotunda, visitors are serenaded by the Voices of Liberty. Their soaring voices fill the rotunda with outstanding beauty and purified acoustics. The American Heritage Gallery is a suited background to their exquisite vocals.

The American Adventure began with a number of sketches from Marc Davis. One of his pieces, “Men of Humor,” featuring Ben Franklin and Mark Twain, was the basis for Imagineer Randy Bright’s draft that he pitched and developed for EPCOT Center. Following the pitch, CEO Card Walker slammed his fist on the table and said, “It’s worth the price of admission to Epcot.” Today it’s even worth the price of admission to Disneyland.

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Liberty Street (West)
1. Gatehouse Entrance (Paul Revere Lanterns)
2. Blacksmith Shop
3. Colonial Mercantile
4. Sleepy Hollow Tavern
5. Samuel Osgood, Postmaster General
6. Liberty Street Farmer's Market
*Center Street Entrance to Main Street*
*Liberty Tree in Middle of Walkway*
7. Revenge of the Headless Horseman Show Building
8. Liberty Street Parasol Cart

Liberty Street (East)
1. Liberty Bell Display (Opposite of Gatehouse)
2. Paul Revere's Silver Shop
3. Ye Olde Antique Shoppe
*The Muppets Present...
4. Liberty Hall (Featuring The American Adventure & American Heritage Gallery)
5. Regal Eagle Smokehouse
6. New England Print Shop
*Liberty Tree in Middle of Walkway*
7. The Industrial Revolution (Coaster) ​

 

[HomeImagineer]

Hey @MANEATINGWREATH i bet if Halloween Horror Nights comes to Disneyland then i got one maze idea that would be fit, Then how about an Runaway Brain Maze based on the 1995 Mickey Mouse short either at Disneyland or The Disney-Universal Studios Park for HHN

that could be another great halloween maze idea

 

[DisneyManOne]

Wow...that Industrial Revolution coaster sounds incredible! Sure am glad Mirror Disneyland has enough size to do it justice! By the way, how big would you say the ride is -- on par with the Indiana Jones looping coaster at Disneyland Paris or, like, California Screamin'/Incredicoaster big?

 

[WaltWiz1901]

Wow...that Industrial Revolution coaster sounds incredible! Sure am glad Mirror Disneyland has enough size to do it justice!

I was thinking the same thing upon reading about it! And it's great to know that part of Disney's America wouldn't go to waste in this alternate reality.

By the way, how big would you say the ride is -- on par with the Indiana Jones looping coaster at Disneyland Paris or, like, California Screamin'/Incredicoaster big?

Considering MEW said it was an E-ticket, I'm wagering it's on a similar scale as California Screamin', or at least between that and Temple of Peril