Fun Facts of Disneyland…

All recorded music and sounds that you hear in the rides and throughout the park constantly run. It is more costly for Disneyland to shut the sound off and restart the system every day. The only time sound actually gets shut off is when there is an Emergency stop or large system failure, ie a massive power loss, emergency shut down or other sorts of emergencies. Most notable is It's a small world - the dolls may stop moving, but the music still plays and the Haunted Mansion - The buggies stop and the animatronics still move and the voiceover says there is a ghoul in the system with no music, but the when music does resume after the voiceover, it has been playing on. There was no pause in it at all. Luckily for cleaning and maintenance crews, they can turn it down so they won't go mad.

Main Street U.S.A

1. In one of the original plans for the park Walt Disney had the entrance of the park so you would have to walk over the train bream using stairs then you would walk through the train station and back down the stairs and on Main Street.

2. The ground is red in the entrance to give a red- carpet effect, but the real reason is that Walt wanted guests to feel as though they were stepping into a movie and they were the stars. So, like in Hollywood, he made the ground at the entrance red.

3. Ever notice how when standing on the sidewalks, it's difficult to see the Castle because the trees are in the way? The trees are deliberately placed in that fashion so that you look into the shops, where you are drawn inside! Conversely, if you're on the Street, the trees should be blocking your view of the shops, so you keep moving onward towards the Castle (weinie as Walt liked to say)! Note too, that the pavement is black on Main Street (and only Main Street). Why? Black pavement gets hot, which keeps people on the move. The pavement changes to calmer, cooler colours in the other lands. The idea behind this, I've been told by Disney Tour Guides, is to get people into the park, rather than bottlenecking the main entrance corridor.

Adventure Land

Indiana Jones - The Indiana Jones Adventure Ride cost the Disney folks about $100 million to make and took 7 years to design & build. The ride is physically big. The carefully prepared and aged artifacts and all the high tech necessary to operate the ride are housed in a 3 story building, (mostly underground) as long, and as wide as a football field. You can see part of the green building from the parking lot. You have to walk 1 KM before you board the ride itself. They did this so you could get a feel for the ride before even boarding it. The Disney ImaginEARS even brought in old National Geographic magazines for design ideas. They had to make the ride believable, controlled, and make it so no one else knows how they did it. The Troop Transports- Every 18 seconds one of the 7 ton, 12 passenger troop transports leaves for the journey. Each Transport has its own personality. There are 24 speakers per vehicle, 2 per person. They can travel up to 20 feet a second (but never do), have high beams & low beams, travel on rubber tires, and are front wheel drive.

New Orleans Square

Pirates of the Caribbean - Pirates of the Caribbean was originally going to be a walk through ride substantiated in "Disneyland Inside Story" by Randy Bright. Walt originally wanted to make it a walk through attraction but everyone advised against it because no one would want to walk through the attraction. Also "It's a Small World" was also planned this way. Walt finally made It's a Small World a boat ride. And, when they built Pirates, they used the same flat bottom boats as Small World.

Haunted Mansion - Walt Disney wanted the story to be told by the ravens in the attraction, although a few of the imaginers’ decided and convinced Walt that children would remember a story rather than the objects popping up at them., and it would scare them too much.

Critter Country

Splash Mountain- Originally Splash Mountain was supposed to be a water tunnel, but that couldn't be accomplished. Michael Eisner really wanted it to be as dry a ride as possible and stated "This is not Knott's Berry Farm!" (Referring to their log ride and Big Foot Rapids) That is why you still do not get completely drenched on Splash Mountain.

Frontierland - Big Thunder Mountain actually has a storyline to it. The mountain received it's name from an old Indian tale warning that if anyone was to deface this sacred mountain, a huge disaster would occur. The beginning of the ride is to show the natural beauty of the mountain and it's caverns. Yet it becomes pretty obvious that miners have now taken over the once peaceful mountain. The Indians' warning becomes reality when a huge earthquake strikes. The same storyline follows in WDW, with a flood replacing the earthquake.

FantasyLand

Matterhorn- When Disneyland first opened the Matterhorn wasn't there. It was just a patch of orange trees. The 1/100 scale 147 foot tall Matterhorn at Disneyland is set in exact geographical alignment with the real Matterhorn in Switzerland.
There is a basketball court in the top of the Matterhorn (there's a room up there that's about a half-court big). The climbers who used to scale the Matterhorn took their breaks there.

ToonTown

Disneyland launches their "Fantasy in the Sky" fireworks from the top level of the parking structure in the Disneyland TDA building. That is why this area, and Toontown, is closed down every night in the summer at 8:45 due to the fireworks fallout. The TDA building is located a few hundred meters behind Toontown (to the north to be exact). The cast members working at the TDA (Team Disney Anaheim) building are required to stay indoors while the fireworks are happenning.

TomorrowLand

Space Mountain- Because of its enormous size, Space Mountain was built 15 feet below ground to make sure it would fit the existing scale of Disneyland park's other structures.
Space Mountain goes below ground level not to maintain a scale with the rest of Disneyland. It does so to adhere to the City of Anaheim building codes. To go below ground level is very expensive and Disneyland tried for a wavier, but was denied. Space Mountain cost $20M to build - it cost more than the original park in 1955 dollars.

California Adventure

The site of Disney's California Adventure was originally a orange grove. Then, it took on a new life, flat and covered with asphalt, as Disneyland's main parking lot. Now, the Disney company had transformed it again. It has come almost full circle now containing a forest area and a orange grove. To do this Disney spent more than $500,000 on 136 smog-resistant Aptos Blue and Soquel redwoods from the Santa Cruz area to give portions of the park an authentic forest look and even more for the rest of the landscaping.