The Sorcerer's Guide

  Walt and Lillian Disney celebrated their 30 th   wedding anniversary on July 13, 1955. Though Walt was spending hours preparing his park for opening day, Disney wanted to spend his anniversary at the park he had dreamed of building for so many years. With 300 guests in tow, the party took the maiden voyage of the Mark Twain Riverboat and enjoyed the unofficial first show in the Golden Horseshoe. Like most parties, there was a lot going on to prepare for that night. Admiral Joe Fowler, the man Disney put in charge of building the Mark Twain, was a little nervous. The ship had never gone around Tom Sawyer Island and Fowler later admitted that he had nightmares the night before that the river would dry up again like it had just a few weeks earlier. With an hour left until guests would start arriving, Fowler arrived to make sure everything was in working order. He was surprised to find Lillian Disney, broom in hand, sweeping the deck. With her help, the ship was ready to go when...

Holidayland was on the west side of Disneyland – about where New Orleans Square is today – from June of 1957 to September of 1963. The area had its own admission gate and was fenced off from Disneyland. It was close enough that you could hear the sounds of the Mark Twain as it floated down the Rivers of America. It wasn’t a theme park: but it was a park! Like most Disney attractions, there were several variations of the idea. It was one of the ideas dreamed up before Disneyland opened in 1955. Holidayland concepts morphed, at times being planned as a large area for group events, and at others as a small picnic area attached to Disneyland. © disneyhistoryinstitute.com So what could you do at Disneyland’s first “second gate” (I think I can call it that…) when it finally opened? There was baseball, volleyball, horseshoes, picnic areas, food service (including bottomless beer…), grassy areas, and playgrounds for the kids. The playgrounds were lightly themed to mirror the attractions insid...

Disney's new Lightning Lane Premier Pass for Walt Disney World  and Disneyland  is Disney's latest way to sell exclusivity. With a daily charge more than the price of a one-day ticket, this is a premium product for a premium price. While Disney's profits will love the new revenue stream, is it going to alienate even more guests? Even though Disney keeps building the narrative that it's expensive and confusing to visit, it's unlikely that standby lines will be noticeably longer because of the new product. Same Offerings, Higher Price Overall, the Premier Pass doesn't represent a new service being allocated to the park. The number of people that can ride each ride is essentially fixed. There are small variations based on breakdowns, guests taking extra time to load, or the number of ride vehicles being used. But the availability of a Lightning Lane Premier Pass does not  make a difference for that capacity. So, regardless of how many people buy the pass, the same ...

It was January 1924, and Walt was working on the Alice Comedies. He needed to hire a new “blackener”, also known as an Ink and Paint girl. He asked his employee Kathleen Dollard who recommended her friends younger sister, Lillian Bounds. Lillian remembers Dollard telling her, “I have a job for you, but I’m telling you about it on one condition: don’t vamp the boss.” The deal was, Lilly could apply if she didn’t marry the boss. We all know how well that worked out. The Interview Lilly decided to interview “since the studio was within walking distance from where [she] was living.” Her niece Marjorie Sewell walked her there so she didn’t get lost. When Lillian first met Walt, she remembers him wearing a brown coat, sweater, raincoat and pants. She recalls, “I had no idea of vamping him, I never had such a thought in my mind. He didn’t even have a suit.” She was offered $15 a week, which, according to inflation is about $213.75 a week today. She took it and began working for the Disney ...

Height restrictions keep kids safe, but they can be frustrating. If you have ever taken kids to the parks, you know what I mean. Every cast member measures a little differently, so sometimes you make it all the way to the loading zone and then get turned away. Other times your kids are just slightly too short, and you wish they would have worn taller shoes. One of the most difficult things, in my mind, is planning trips and figuring out how long it will be ’till your kids can meet height restrictions. Especially when some can ride and some can’t, the younger ones want to know how much longer ’till they’ll be big enough. I don’t know any parents that have memorized a growth chart and can say, “My child will grow 1 inch in the next 9 months, so we should plan a trip then.” When we plan trips with our kids, we just keep measuring them and telling them to eat a bunch in hopes they’ll be tall enough for more rides. Fortunately, the CDC (Center for Disease Control) has released  data ...

If you haven’t tried a Monte Cristo at Disneyland you definitely need to try one. They are by far our favorite meal at the park. And since we celebrated a birthday last week I thought I’d try my hand at making one homemade. After some searching I found this official Disney recipe: It only took a few minutes to make the batter. The batter is much thicker than I thought it would be, almost as thick as pudding, but it coated the bread easily and fried well. We used “Texas toast” instead of regular bread so the sandwiches were a little thicker. We don’t have a fryer so we just heated oil in a pan and that worked well. I realized I didn’t have any powdered sugar so I couldn’t put the finishing touch on. They don’t look nearly as pretty as Blue Bayou or Cafe Orleans, but surprisingly they tasted pretty good.

Disney has carved a strange place in the consumer’s mind. Few other brands command the love and respect of a group of fans the way Disney can. Not many people set goals to see every Six Flags park, collect every variation of Great Value pasta, or to decorate their homes like natural architecture symbols. But Disney fans try to visit each of Disney’s parks, impulse buy pins, plush, figurines, and hundreds of other collectibles, and decorate their homes to match Disney architecture. Simple themes – like the American Frontier, a European Village, or a Tropical Paradise – are instead labelled as Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Adventureland, whether they are actually connected to the Disney places or not. This is partly because of Disney’s skilled marketing teams. But the reason these teams have been so successful can be attributed to nostalgia. Disney thrives on nostalgia. Here are several websites that describe Main Street as nostalgic – one , two , three ,. It’s a common claim, but there...