Disney's Grand Californian Hotel & Spa - Arts & Crafts Décor

Disneyland Hidden Mickeys

Disneyland Summer Fireworks Tribute

Summer fireworks at Disneyland began way back in 1956. Five years later, the “Fantasy in the Sky” fireworks show debuted and ran until 2001. The next year a new show began, “Believe … There’s Magic in the Stars.” It ran for three summers. The summer of 2005 exploded with new fireworks in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Disneyland. Guests were treated to “Remember … Dreams Come True,” a nighttime spectacular, narrated by the legendary Julie Andrews, that took guests on a nostalgic journey through the park’s history. It was a touching tribute to 50 years of magic. Last summer a new show lit up the sky. “Magical” premiered, and that’s the show currently running. Check out this video of the summer fireworks past and present, and then come see them in person.

What Have You Celebrated at Disney Parks?

Meet the ‘Club 55ers’

Few people can say they worked with Walt Disney when he was launching his dream of Disneyland park. Those cast members have a special bond, and on July 17 a group of them known as “Club 55ers” joined the Resort’s 55th anniversary celebration.

Club 55 was officially founded in 1970 by Van France, a former manager of Disney University. The chief qualification for membership? A paycheck from Walt Disney dated 1955.

Over the years, club members have held reunions to share experiences and stay connected. Each Club 55er has a unique connection to the Disneyland Resort and personal memories of Walt Disney. Club 55 includes past Disneyland Resort leaders such as Jack Lindquist and Ron Dominguez, and entertainers Bill Sullivan and Wally Boag. The club currently is composed of approximately 20 members, and some were working at Disneyland park on opening day.

The Magic, The Memories and You - The Complete Cinderella Castle Show

A Look Back: Walt E. Disney Talking About the Abraham Lincoln Audio-Animatronic

A Breathtaking Look at ‘World of Color’ from 1,800 Feet Up

Behind the Scenes: Getting Down and Dirty with Pirates

posted at the Official Disney Parks Blog on May 4th, 2010 by Heather Hust Rivera, Senior Manager, Corporate Communications, The Walt Disney Company

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I’ll often stop, shake my head and then start laughing when I think about some of the crazy things we talk about here at the Disneyland Resort, and this is one of those times. There aren’t many companies that have to come up with a way to make clothes look dirty. Here at Disneyland park, this was a very real challenge for the costume designers in charge of the Pirates’ costumes.

When the Pirates were first introduced as regularly appearing characters in 2007, Entertainment Show Director Glenn Kelman worked with Walt Disney Studios to develop the concept for how the pirates would come to life in the Parks. They quickly decided the pirates needed to be unique, have a sense of humor and, of course, be very dirty. This was a problem because we do not like our Parks costumes to be wrinkled, dirty or smelly in any way. So, what could they do?

At first, the costume designers distressed all of the costumes, staining them by hand, putting in actual rips and tears. But this solution, while great for a few days, had two problems. First, the costumes had a short shelf life and would need to be rebuilt far too often, and second, no matter how we tried to stain the costumes, our terrific laundry facility kept washing the stains out. Nobody likes a clean pirate! Clean pirates just don’t seem real. 

So, the costuming team came up with a clever solution. They would pre-stain the fabric using a process called sublimation (where dye is added to the fabric in patterns) and then build the costumes using the “dirty” cloth.

The fun part was designing a pattern of “stains” that could be applied to the fabric. This relatively new technology was being used to add stripes or floral patterns to material, but we might have been the first ones to use it to permanently stain costumes. Since then, the Resort has invested in its own sublimation machine and trained a team to use it. Now we are creating our own unique patterned fabric for Disney Parks and Resorts around the globe. And, it was the Pirates who helped us find this new “technological” treasure.

Today’s video takes you behind the scenes and shows how this sublimation process works.

[Making Of] Paper May Fold into the Waters of ‘World of Color’

posted at the Official Disney Parks Blog on March 19th, 2010 by Valarie Sukovaty, Disneyland Public Relations

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Paper and water don’t seem like an ideal match, but throw in animation and it works in a very cool way. One type of art form being considered for “World of Color” is paper animation.

Local Glendale, California artist Megan Brain has created 3-dimentional paper sculptures of Disney characters that are turned into models or puppets with computer animation.

The result is very fun and very unique when it is projected onto a giant water screen. Heather Hust Rivera will give a more in depth update on “World of Color” next week, but in the mean time, take a look at this video and see for yourself.

Behind the Scenes: Making of ‘Mickey Notes’ at Disney Parks

posted at the Official Disney Parks Blog on March 26th, 2010 by Thomas Smith, Social Media Director, Disney Parks

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As you know, our “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day‘ program ended earlier this month when one million people volunteered or committed to volunteer in their communities.

But along the way, we created and launched something special to celebrate volunteerism called “Mickey Notes“- our first stop-motion video. It was five days of work at Walt Disney World Resort taking more than 4,300 individual still photographs of about 25,000 pieces of paper. And today, we’re sharing a behind-the-scenes look at how we did it.

A Glimpse of the Circle D Corral at Disneyland Park

posted at the Official Disney Parks Blog on March 30th, 2010 by Heather Hust Rivera, Manager, Social Media, Disneyland Resort

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We’ve all seen the horses on Main Street, U.S.A in Disneyland park, but do you know where these horses really live? Backstage, north of Frontierland in Disneyland park, there is a working ranch, called Circle D Corral.

Backstage, north of Frontierland in Disneyland park, there is a working ranch, called Circle D Corral.

Here are some fun facts to consider before taking a step “backstage” in today’s video to see the animals that live in Circle D Corral:

• The ranch is currently home to 28 horses, a jersey cow, two miniature donkeys, three turkeys and 15 goats.
• Forty-eight cast members work at the ranch.
• All the horses are large, “draft” horses (”draft horses” are horses that are adapted to pull heavy loads).
• The following breeds of horse are represented at Circle D: Percheron, Clydesdale, Belgian and Shire.
• No Disneyland horse works more than 4 hours a day, 3 days a week.
• And, like all cast members, the horses at Disneyland park always wear their name tags when they are working.

Town Square Theater Debuts at Magic Kingdom Park with Disney Princess & Mickey Mouse

"The theater officially opened its doors earlier today, and families have been busy lining up to explore the area and try out the park’s first-ever use of Disney’s FASTPASS tickets for a character meet-and-greet experience."