Disneyland Dream Suite

As mentioned previously in my blog, Walt Disney never liked to stray far from his creation when Disneyland was being constructed and renovated, which is why he had an apartment created for him within the walls of the Magic Kingdom. However, his tiny apartment was not quite big enough to house his VIP guests.

His solution was to create a luxury apartment above the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in New Orleans Square, called the The Royal Suite. Disney brought in a set designer from Gone With the Wind, to design the apartment and left the decorating to his wife, Lilly.

However, Roy Disney brought the apartment's construction to a halt by in 1966 after the death of Walt. The Royal Suite was later transformed into the Disney Gallery in 1987 and remained open for guests to peruse through until it was shut down in 2007 in order to bring Walt's original purpose for the space back to life.

Disney's Imagineers got to work on creating the Dream Suite, using Dorthea Redmond's original drawing as their inspiration. However, this time the Suite was going to be for randomly selected guests to enjoy instead of Disneyland VIPs.

Throughout the year 2009, called the Year of a Million Dreams, Disneyland has appointed special employees to pick random visitors to stay for a night in the Dream Suite, and some families have been featured in Disneyland's Backstage Pass magazine to share their experience.

The Dream Suite includes two bedroom, two bathrooms, a living room, and an open-air patio that overlooks the park, each with it's own Disney theme. From the balcony, guests have the best view "in the house" of the Fantasmic water show.

Each winner of the giveway is given a free dinner at the Blue Bayou restaurant, act as the Grand Marshal of the parade, and also get a two-hour tour of the park after it is closed.

For those of you who want to see more of this $3 million project, here's a video tour for Disneyland's new (and gorgeous) Dream Suite.

Summer Nightastic

This summer Disneyland and California Adventure are upgrading a few of their existing shows and events for 10 weeks. Starting June 12, Disneyland will transform Fantasmic and the Electric Parade by adding more lights, fireworks, and adding new villians.

Maleficint will now evolve into a 40 foot dragon in the Fantasmic water show, and they are also bumping up Ursula's eels, Flotsam and Jetsam, to 34 feet long. Viewers will also notice the digital projections on the water are now in high-definition.

Disneyland have now added even more lights to the Electric Parade and adding a brand new opening scene starring Tinkerbell, and about 25,000 lights, to lead this classic through the park. Also the addition of two original Electric Parade scenes, the Seven Dwarfs' diamond mine and Pinocchio & the Pleasure Island Boys, will bring the parade to a grand total of 500,000 lamps and 5 miles of wire.

And, last but not least, the Summer Nightastic will showcase a new fireworks display that will now include Dumbo, a light display in Disneyland's new Pixie Hollow, and the TLT Dance Club in Tomorrowland.

"That's definitely an E-ticket ride!"

Once upon a time, Disneyland used to require tickets to get on the the rides and attractions located inside the park, something that we are used to with carnivals and fairs. I stumbled upon some very old booklets of tickets that once belonged to my mother and found it difficult to wrap my head around the fact that on top of the admission fare, visitors once had to pay extra money to get on the rides.

These tickets, or "coupons" as Disney liked to call them, were given with the admission ticket and guest could purchase more individual tickets or couponse if needed. The tickets ranged from "A" to "E," with "A" being the least expensive and "E" being the least. The E-tickets were for rides that were more popular or that were newer attractions. The Fastpass system that is now used gives you tickets for guests to skip ahead of the line during certain time slots, and is used on rides that would have required E-tickets to get on.

Even though Disneyland stopped using the "coupons" in 1982, it is still common to hear some describe rides as "E-ticket rides" today. At least my mother still uses that phrase anyway.

God Bless Us! Every One!

Disney has outdone themselves once again in preparing for the release of A Christmas Carol, directed by Robert Zemeckis. Disney will kick off A Christmas Carol Train Tour, on May 22 at the Los Angeles Union Station. The tour will give visitors a behind the scenes look at Disney's latest film, which opens in theatres November 6.

The train will travel more than 16,000 miles across the country, stopping at 40 cities along the way, and will end at Grand Central Station in New York just in time for the movies release. The train tour will allow visitors to take a sneak peek of the 3D film, and they can also participate in giveaways and listen to the music of Christmas carolers. The train itself will feature four custom-designed vintage rail cars, which will house actual artifacts from Charles Dickens Museum of London.

Not many details have been released about the actual movie itself, but Jim Carrey will be playing the infamous Scrooge, along with seven other characters, and he is joined by Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.

www.christmascaroltraintour.com

Walt's Home Away from Home...

When entering Disneyland, before stepping onto Main Street, visitors pass several buildings. What many don't know is that one of Walt Disney's apartments was located above the fire department inside Disneyland. Disney wanted to keep a close eye on the constructions of Disneyland while it was being built, and since his hometown was far away from Anaheim, he spent many nights there.

The apartment was designed with to look like a firehouse and included a kitchen, a bathroom, and a back patio area. Disney watched from the window in his apartment on opening day of Disneyland with his family. There are many pictures of the inside of the apartment, however, only one picture of Walt Disney inside of it.

Although, Disney did relocate to a new apartment above the Pirates of the Carribean ride later on, which was said to be his favorite ride, most of the original furniture remains inside the first apartment. At night, the Disneyland staff keeps the desk lamp on by the window in memoriam to Walt.

The Devil Went Down to Georgia...

I'm not usually one to sit and listen to bluegrass-country music, but that all changed this past Sunday while I was at Disneyland.

While meandering through Frontierland to get over to the Haunted Mansion, I heard loud music and commotion coming out of the Golden Horseshoe Saloon. I decided to take a peak inside to see what all the fuss was about and practically died laughing when I saw what looked like 4 inbred hillbillies playing their fiddles to a packed room.

They went on to introduce themselves as "Billy Hill and the Hillbillies." I decided I had to stay for the ENTIRE show because I was so enraptured with whether or not Billy Hill's teeth were real. He was someone in serious need of braces, or at least a dentist.

I was not disappointed. The show was very entertaining, and to top it off, they ended with one of my all time favorite fiddle-songs, The Devil Went Down to Georgia.

I have not once on any Disneyland trip stumbled upon what I now call my "new favorite bluegrass band," but it turns out that they have been performing there since 1986. After a four-year stint in Critter Country, they were relocated to The Golden Horseshoe.

I highly recommend stopping by on your next Disneyland trip, in the very least to find out the truth behind Billy Hill's teeth. I can't give away ALL of Disneyland's secrets on here. Personally, I am going to make it a point to catch a show everytime I go.

The Real Tink...

Although Tinkerbell bears a striking resemblance to Marilyn Monroe, with the curvy figure, blonde hair, and "sex appeal" (if it's possible for a cartoon to have "sex appeal), it may suprise you that the man who drew her did not take inspiration from Monroe when he put his pencil to the sketchpad.

Marc Davis, the animator of Tinkerbell, actually used an actress named Margaret Kerry as the basis for the hot-tempered fairy. Kerry, who had to audition for the "role," was asked to act out the different moods and movements of Tinkerbell in order to bring this fictional character to "life." Kerry was sometimes given large props to use while acting out different scenes that would later appear in Disney's cartoon version of Peter Pan.

It was very common for Disney animator's to have people act out scenes in Disney cartoons while they were drawing them out, and they often used the actors and actresses who did the voices for the characters themselves. Unfortunately for Kerry, Tinkerbell did not speak. However, they did use her again to act as the red-headed mermaid that is seen in the lagoon in Peter Pan.