Post #346556 by tiki mick on Wed, Nov 28, 2007 6:22 PM

I am a huge fan of yesterland.com, because there is a fairly good amount of information on the past glory that was Disneyland.

From a personal perspective, my happiest memories were of Disneyland pre-1983.

I had my traditions and rituals I engaged in while there, like:

I always rode the train first, and last. Waiting at the end of the platform and trying to see the first lights of the train coming out of the diorama tunnel gave me a huge boner. Now of course, anyone just sitting and watching gets you extra disney security scrutiny, and you end up feeling like a criminal. Anyway, moving on..

Next was breakfast at the hills brother's coffehouse, which was right on main street next to the the employee entrance to tomorrowland. There was one oval shaped room in the back that was done in the style of the blue bayou restaraunt in that it had a fake night-sky cieling with stars. I peeked in there recently, and they have that room as a storeroom. Some times we ate at the carnation breakfast place. As Cammo said, there were many shops on main street that had non-disney products for sale. A look at Yesterland will give you a complete list. We always went to the sunkist lemonade store on the way out. The magic/joke store had the cool fake barf patty I used to enjoy so much, and there was not a whiff of any of those accursed buzz lightyear toys anywhere to be found.

Lunch was at the blue bayou restaraunt, because back then you did not have to book a table 6-8 months in advance. We also ate frequently at the pirate ship, and had killer tuna sandwhiches. But really, all the hamburgers in the park had that classic "early big mac" taste. They were delicious. Not the rain forest cafe texturized carboard with the unmelted cheese they have now.

The lands: What can I say? Tomorrowland was a googie/futurist dream come true. Rides such as inner space, the subs, america sings (and before that GE house of the future-with the huge cityscape diorama you saw when exiting), the peoplemover were some of the kitchy-ist awesome rides ever made. Especially the peoplemover. You got an almost "backstage" view of things when the track carried you through the upper levels of the buildings. Circle vision 3D. Again, I got a boner when they came to the colonial williamsburg, V.A. scene and you heard the fifes and drums, and again when you started hearing steel guitar and the film showed you flying over the canefields of Oahu. That first experience gave me a taste of wanting to go to Hawaii for real. The views of the great lakes were also wonderful.

Now, tomorrowland lies fallow. Painted a depressing NEGATIVE copper-brown, instead of the hopeful, positive atomic -age white it used to be. All the best rides gone. The only good thing is that Rocket rod pizza port is now the best food in the park. That's a sad testimony right there.

Fantasyland. You could walk through the castle. It had awesome dioramas from the sleeping beauty story. I think similar items are now in one of the windows on the right as you leave main street and are leaving the park. But anyway, you could walk through the castle, rather then being pushed and jostled by the huge picture taking, moving day care facilities/lazy parents that now can be found dominating the castle area.
They also had the swiss skyway terminal, which was located next to casey jones, and is now unused and obscured by trees. I am sure it is destined to become a trading card buying area soon. The storybook land boat ride was always open, not just during peak tourist/surrogate day care times as it is now. And the motorboat cruise was a great way to see more of Disney's wild areas. The cartopia and autopia were TWO differen tracks, and all the cars were painted only in primary and secondary colors. There was not the hour-long wait there is now, because you had TWO similar rides.

Adventureland: They had the tahitian terrace restaraunt. What more needs to be said.

Frontierland. Except for the big thunder mountain railroad, there is nothing there anymore. You used to be able to buy wooden and steel musket rifle copies and fake civil war swords. Now they are plastic. The frito lay restaraunt had great tasting fake mexican food. Cafe zoccala, the replacement has food that is consistently terrible and overly pretentious (and expensive). Before big thunder mountain railroad, there was the mine train through the wilderness ride. Simply awesome. Way better then the calico mine ride at Knotts. The rainbow caverns were awesome, and I even have a CD that contains the background music, which was a ghostly and magical choir singing some wordless exotica music full of chromatic chords and would have fit in on any star trek episode. Some of the original small scale buildings are now visible on the ridge above the line of big thunder railroad.

New orlean's square. The haunted mansion was never shut down for three weeks and then converted into something decidely un-scary for the entire fall and winter season, (thus doubling, even tripling the line wait time.) It also was not politically correct, as back then no one sued Disney. Therefore they could really dim the lights and make the place look creepy, without worrying about some jackass falling down. Even the doombuggy loading area was creepy. The attic: The screaming ghoul heads scared the piss out of me, as did the bride with the glowing heart. Nowadays, with all the exit signs visible, and the ulitarian office -style carpeting, my own workplace scares me more. Of course, I am 43 not 10, but you get the point.

Disneyland has changed, and not for the better. Somethings they have done right, but most wrong.

IMFO

(In my f-ing opinion)

[ Edited by: lucas vigor 2007-11-28 18:40 ]