The Happiest Place on Earth

“To all who come to this happy place: welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America, with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.” Walt Disney at the opening of Disneyland, July 17th 1955

My wife and I have a special attachment to Disneyland, the original theme park and grand vision of Walter Elias Disney. In fact, the three of us were ‘born’ in the same year, 1955. My relationship goes back farther than when I got married, though. I can remember Walt describing new features and characters that would be included in the park on ‘Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color’. My family visited in the 60s and I stopped there in 1974 while traveling from Phoenix to Seattle with a friend. For my wife and I, among our dozen trips to Disneyland, we celebrated the 35th, 45th, 50th and 60th anniversaries of the opening of the park and our birthdays. It has usually been a good experience.

There have been good additions and changes to the resort over the years. Fast Pass, Splash Mountain, The Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Indiana Jones and the Forbidden Eye among them. (Star Wars land opened after our last trip.) The addition of California Adventure was a fun thing also, especially after they did the major update some years after it opened. They deserve credit for how clean the park is kept, made even better after they did away with the ticketing system. At least in our view, the guest relations have been pretty good.

Though I don’t miss the A-E ticket system among other things, there are things I find disappointing these days. My first apprehensions came when Swiss Family Robinson’s Treehouse was rebranded to Tarzan’s Treehouse, after the Disney animated feature. Of course, Swiss Family Robinson was a Disney movie, but it had ties to classic literature which expanded its scope beyond merely a Disney property. Then Cars Land opened in California Adventure. Along with A Bugs Life, it began to feel like things might be moving toward more ‘branded’ and less generic theming.

Well, so be it, I thought. Then came the ‘unkindest cut of all’. They re-themed Pirates of the Caribbean. Originally the blockbuster movie was loosely based on the ride at the park. Fine. But then they re-themed the ride after the movie with Jack Sparrow and Barbossa which removed the timeless nature of the ride, locking it to a 21st century movie. Even worse, as time went on, they took away many of the ‘piratey’ elements and replaced them with rather banal sequences. I mean really, pirates bidding on chickens instead of wenches? Hah! The ‘kinder, gentler’ Disney was slowly losing the ties to history and literature that made up Walt’s vision and made for interesting conversations with my kids.

The process of tying the park to the brand continued with the re-theming of Paradise Pier to Pixar Pier. Paradise Pier could have been any amusement pier or park anywhere, but now it’s tied to Disney intellectual property. ‘Brand fatigue’ is really starting to set in for me at this point. And if that’s not enough, Finding Nemo as a theme replaced the Submarine Ride and Splash Mountain was unnecessarily replaced by Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. By the way, the story telling in Splash Mountain seems better than that of Tiana. Splash Mountain has something of a hero’s journey story arc, and it makes some sense that you go down the water plume drop when Brer Rabbit is thrown into the briar patch. Tiana is this rather bland search for musicians in which I guess you are shrunk in size at one point. The drop is supposed to be when you are restored? Critter Country is now ‘Bayou Country’, tying everything that made Critter Country unique to Tiana. This all seems very sad to me.

What, you might ask, about the Indiana Jones ride and Star Wars land? I don’t include the Lucas Film properties because, though they are now Disney owned, they had a life in the consciousness of the public long before they were Disney’s. This separates them in a similar way to the literary and historical connection of other things. I suppose you can agree or not, but there you go.

We’ve not been to Disneyland since 2016, and there are things we have not experienced personally. Because of that, it’s likely we’ll make the journey again, possibly for the 70th anniversary. Hopefully it will be worth the effort.

Though I haven’t been there for a while, thanks to some YouTube videographers, I have virtually toured the parks and been on the new and updated rides. There are a number of interesting Disney vloggers out there, but those I have appreciate the most are LMGVids https://www.youtube.com/@LMGVids, Document Disney https://www.youtube.com/@DocumentDisney, and Attractions 360 https://www.youtube.com/@Attractions360. Check them out (and others that will undoubtedly be recommended by the YouTube algorithm) if you have a desire to relive ‘the good old days’ or if you want to see what’s going on in the parks today. It’s nice that they have captured things which are no longer available like the old Pirates ride and Splash Mountain. Incidentally, some of these folks travel the world documenting rides, roller coasters and theme parks. It’s pretty interesting.

Have you been to Disneyland lately? What’s your experience been? What do you think of the changes that have been made? Am I just being a grumpy old guy? Let me know what you think.

If you’d like to know when I post these random bits, put your e-mail address in the box and touch ‘Subscribe’. It’s free.