A Little Disneyland Fantasyland History - Magical Blogorail Blue

Welcome to those of you joining me from "Pursuing the Magic" and those of you just hopping aboard. I am the 5th stop on our Magical Blogorail.

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With all of the renewed interest in Fantasyland these days (due to the new Land coming to Walt Disney World over the coming months) it seemed a fantastic opportunity to look at the history of one of our own favorite spots at Disneyland!  We're not really sure if it's creepy or not for a couple of grown men to enjoy this particular place so much, but doggone it, we is what we is!

Fantasyland has always been an integral part of the Disneyland experience.  In fact, many have said it was Walt Disney's favorite place in The Park, and there's little doubt it was a place created to allow children who were visiting Disneyland to physically live out some of their favorite fantasies (see what he did there?) and to allow adults to pretend that they were children again, living out some of their favorite fantasies, Disney-style.

Not sure if being eaten by Monstro is an actual fantasy or not, but it sure is fun!

It's especially worth noting because unlike some of the other Lands spotting Disneyland Park, Fantasyland has been there since The Park's inception, and has always been seen (as it was by Walt) as a central (being located pretty much dead on in the middle of The Park), integral, and indispensable part of the Disneyland landscape.  Can you imagine Disneyland without Fantasyland?  And if you're still not convinced of its importance in Disneyland history, just take a look at some of these iconic Disney attractions that have been a part of Fantasyland since the very beginning.  We like to call them our "D55s":

• Casey Jr. Circus Train
• Dumbo the Flying Elephant
• King Arthur Carrousel
• Mad Tea Party
• Mr. Toad's Wild Ride
• Peter Pan's Flight
• Snow White's Scary Adventure
• and Storybook Land Canal Boats

In fact, of the 13 attractions still inside Disneyland that are a part of the original set, 8 of them (a good percentage) have always been a part of Fantasyland, which we think lends pretty good credence to the entire "importance" aspect of this area of The Park.

One of those D55s. Note the excessive use of skulls! Pretty darn cool and morbid for a child's attraction, but all's fair in the name of fantasy!

But the Fantasyland that is now is not the Fantasyland that has always been.  Even Walt Disney himself after The Park's opening wasn't always as enthused with one might think with his favorite part of The Park, and was constantly seeking new ways to improve both the look of the Land as well as the attractions themselves.  Though he never saw it in its current iteration, his drive to constantly better his first Park led to massive updates, upgrades, refurbishments and changes to the attractions beginning in 1982 including new attraction facades, Land decor, music inside and outside of the attractions, and voice-overs faithful to each film's original sound, the new Fantasyland we know today pulling into the proverbial station in the summer of 1983.  The event itself was such a grand occasion (with Mrs. Walt Disney in attendance) that it marked one of only two times in history the drawbridge of Sleeping Beauty Castle has been lowered (though it is in fact fully functional).

Fantasyland (and King Arthur Carrousel) shine and wait in the background

Fantasyland has since seen many changes and upgrades (such as Rapunzel's Tower) but has always managed to maintain the childlike quality about it that Walt Disney sought to infuse it with.  We don't think it's without merit to say that the upgrades coming to Walt Disney World and their Fantasyland, and the enthusiasm we see in that area, which has been quite substantial, is just further proof that children will be children, and adults should do their best to be children too, and Walt Disney gave us the perfect place to do that from the very beginning.   You can't look forward without looking back, and Fantasyland has been, and will continue to be, the heart of Disneyland and the childlike fantasies of us all.

Prepare for the sm... ah, you know the rest

Thank you for joining me today. Your next stop on the Magical Blogorail Loop is "The CanaDisney Blog".

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Here is the map of our Magical Blogorail should you happen to have to make a stop along the way and want to reboard:
1st Stop ~ Disney Babies Blog
2nd Stop ~ Cooking with Mickey
3rd Stop ~ Meet the Magic
4th Stop ~ Pursuing the Magic
5th Stop ~ Days in the Park
Final Stop ~ The CanaDisney Blog

Disneyland Storybook Land Canal Boats - That's Where We Were!

Each and every Monday we challenge our readers to guess "where we are" based on a random picture taken somewhere at the Disneyland Resort.  This week was no different, and we had tons of guesses thrown our direction, and for the first time ever, each guess we received was correct; not to mention we had more correct guesses than ever before.  A couple of people told us, "That was too easy!", prompting us to think that maybe next week we really need to throw the gauntlet down; so expect a nine or ten on the difficulty scale as a result.  But for this week, we had lots of people come check us out and guess, and that's really what it's all about.

This week's picture came to us courtesy of the Storybook Land Canal Boats inside Fantasyland in Disneyland Park:

As so many people correctly guessed, it's a picture of the coach that Cinderella took to the ball one fateful night, and is near the miniature version of Cinderella's Castle roughly halfway through the attraction.  While the picture was taken on the canal boats, several of our readers pointed out (correctly - though we hadn't thought about it) that you can in fact also see it from on board the Casey Jr. Circus Train, so we accepted either answer as correct on this one.

As always, we like to give a shout-out to everyone who came by and guessed, so here they in order of guess and by Twitter (or commenter) name:

• Ajackieo
• P.T. from 400 Miles to Disneyland
• Jory Hastings
• Disney Mama 6
• Granuaille
• Mommy Mylin
• ChevyBurnz
• Robinpoppins
• Mike Ludwig
• Chachalina55
• Rosalie Black
• (anonymous commenter)
• Chilebob
• Alyssa (Copy_Pixie)

And there you have them - lots of correct guesses!  Even though it might have been a bit easier than some of our spots, we also had several people tell us that it was a great picture and that they really enjoyed it, so we want to thank Harvickfan005 again for being willing to share one of her photos with us.

We'll be back next week with another brand-new spot for our readers to take a crack at!  In the meantime, if you have any suggestions for a spot you'd like for us to do, or a picture of your own that you would like to submit for us to use, drop us a line at daysinthepark@daysinthepark.com.  We love having reader submissions and would love to take a look at whatever spots you might have that you'd like to see here.

Until next week, keep those peepers open and be sure and take in all of the little details all over Disneyland; you never know what little details you might see that you never have before.

Magical Mystery Mondays - Where at Disneyland Are We?

It's time to get Days In The Park cranked up and rolling again!  You may have noticed that after the D23 Expo we've been on a bit of an imposed hiatus while we sorted through some things, but it's time to crank it up and hit the accelerator once again!

Monday has long been one of our favorite days of the week because we get to to do something easy but fun; challenge with you a picture.  Each and every week we come across hundreds of spots we think would make great picture opportunities, and each and every week we challenge you, our readers, to attempt to guess where we were in Disneyland when we took our pictures.  Some of them are easy, some of them are hard, but based on the number of people we have guessing on a weekly basis, people love playing guessing games and at least trying to participate.  It's a great way for us to get you involved and commenting on our blog more.

This week's photo is another submitted to us by a reader, and in fact she's submitted one to us before!  We think it's great that people like to participate in this way, so many thanks again to Harvickfan005 for being willing to share both with us and you.

So, do you know where she took this picture?

If you think you know where it is, let us know!  There are a couple of really easy ways to do so:

• Leave us a comment here! (probably the best way to do it)
• Send us a Direct Message on our Twitter account @DaysInThePark 
• Drop us an email at daysinthepark@daysinthepark.com

We try to keep your answers hidden as best that we can so that more people get a chance to guess.  We like to keep it going as long as we can and give everyone a shot.

We'll be back tomorrow morning to post up all the people who guessed correctly and give you the exact spot where this was taken.  Have fun, don't take it too seriously, and let the guesses fly!

"Almost" Wordless Wednesday: Into The Belly Of The Beast