Disneyland famously opened on July 17, 1955. My first visit to the park was in 1977. I traveled from Arizona with my high school girlfriend’s older sister and her sons to Anaheim, California and met up with my girlfriend and the rest of her family. We spent several days there, and it was enormous fun. When I moved to California in the early 1980s, I continued venturing to Disneyland quite often, since a one-day ticket price was only $9.50 in 1981, but jumping to a whopping $16.50 by 1985. I began taking my kids with me in 1986, and by the time I moved back to Arizona in 1994, I had visited Disneyland over a hundred times. The abundance of trips to Walt’s playground allowed for plenty of mischief (see “Trouble in Disneyland”) and plenty of memories (see “Our Family at the Park”).
Our family became a Disneyland family. Each time I announced we would be going to Disneyland, my kids got very excited and prepared by watching home movies of previous trips and spending countless hours watching Disney movies and Sing Along videos on VHS tapes. They counted down the days until we left, struggling to fall asleep at night in anticipation of the magical times ahead. I became obsessed with the history of the park and amassed a huge collection of books and videos about the legacy of Disneyland (see “Yesterland, a comprehensive look at discontinued attractions from 1955 through 2020”), and accumulated an enormous amount of Disneyland memorabilia. My home is adorned with Disney, as can be seen in the following photos, as well as here.
In 2024, we purchased Magic Key passes and visited the resort over 45 times.
Throughout the year, I was able to tick off many things from my bucket list that I have never been able to do before in the hundreds of times I have gone to Disneyland, such as staying at the historic Disneyland Hotel (twice!) and enjoying club level access to its E-Ticket Lounge, which provides unlimited food, snacks, beverages, alcohol and desserts from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. on day of check-in through day of check-out. We swam in the heated pool, slid down the monorail themed water slides, and even came away with prestigious Disneyland Hotel robes. I was able to dine at the prestigious Blue Bayou restaurant, ride Tiana’s Bayou Adventure after it first opened, see the queue changes at the Haunted Mansion, and experience the park with both its Halloween and Christmas overlays. Instead of frantically trying to only ride the main attractions because of limited time, as we had done previously when visits were far and few between, we took the time to slow down the pace and enjoy the small and subtle details that make Disneyland special, go on the less popular rides, let the smaller kids have fun on the carousels and get knight and princess makeovers, sample various food and drinks at several Sip and Savor food festivals, and even tolerate agonizing attractions such as “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln” (tedious), “Casey Jr. Circus Train” (uncomfortable), and “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride” (pointless). My children decided to have silhouettes created, and included my late wife’s profile, then gave them to me for Christmas which was extremely heartfelt and touching.
This was definitely a magical and exhausting year, full of fun, food, fireworks, Fantasmic, and family, but so well worth the effort, and I documented as much of each trip as I could, as did my daughter. To see the many photographs of this time capsule of the Disneyland Resort, start here. And as Mickey would say, “Some imagination, huh?”
Disneyland 2024
Disneyland famously opened on July 17, 1955. My first visit to the park was in 1977. I traveled from Arizona with my high school girlfriend’s older sister and her sons to Anaheim, California and met up with my girlfriend and the rest of her family. We spent several days there, and it was enormous fun. When I moved to California in the early 1980s, I continued venturing to Disneyland quite often, since a one-day ticket price was only $9.50 in 1981, but jumping to a whopping $16.50 by 1985. I began taking my kids with me in 1986, and by the time I moved back to Arizona in 1994, I had visited Disneyland over a hundred times. The abundance of trips to Walt’s playground allowed for plenty of mischief (see “Trouble in Disneyland”) and plenty of memories (see “Our Family at the Park”).
Our family became a Disneyland family. Each time I announced we would be going to Disneyland, my kids got very excited and prepared by watching home movies of previous trips and spending countless hours watching Disney movies and Sing Along videos on VHS tapes. They counted down the days until we left, struggling to fall asleep at night in anticipation of the magical times ahead. I became obsessed with the history of the park and amassed a huge collection of books and videos about the legacy of Disneyland (see “Yesterland, a comprehensive look at discontinued attractions from 1955 through 2020”), and accumulated an enormous amount of Disneyland memorabilia. My home is adorned with Disney, as can be seen in the following photos, as well as here.
In 2024, we purchased Magic Key passes and visited the resort over 45 times.
Throughout the year, I was able to tick off many things from my bucket list that I have never been able to do before in the hundreds of times I have gone to Disneyland, such as staying at the historic Disneyland Hotel (twice!) and enjoying club level access to its E-Ticket Lounge, which provides unlimited food, snacks, beverages, alcohol and desserts from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. on day of check-in through day of check-out. We swam in the heated pool, slid down the monorail themed water slides, and even came away with prestigious Disneyland Hotel robes. I was able to dine at the prestigious Blue Bayou restaurant, ride Tiana’s Bayou Adventure after it first opened, see the queue changes at the Haunted Mansion, and experience the park with both its Halloween and Christmas overlays. Instead of frantically trying to only ride the main attractions because of limited time, as we had done previously when visits were far and few between, we took the time to slow down the pace and enjoy the small and subtle details that make Disneyland special, go on the less popular rides, let the smaller kids have fun on the carousels and get knight and princess makeovers, sample various food and drinks at several Sip and Savor food festivals, and even tolerate agonizing attractions such as “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln” (tedious), “Casey Jr. Circus Train” (uncomfortable), and “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride” (pointless). My children decided to have silhouettes created, and included my late wife’s profile, then gave them to me for Christmas which was extremely heartfelt and touching.
This was definitely a magical and exhausting year, full of fun, food, fireworks, Fantasmic, and family, but so well worth the effort, and I documented as much of each trip as I could, as did my daughter. To see the many photographs of this time capsule of the Disneyland Resort, start here. And as Mickey would say, “Some imagination, huh?”
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