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Photo TR: Disneyland's 50th - July 17th, 2005


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Just as a note: As you read through this TR, I will have introductory paragraphs, but a lot of the detail will be in the photo descriptions. This is just a subset of my pictures. The rest can be found at my Epson gallery, but without descriptions.

 

Well, since I am not crazy, I decided that I would wait until 6am to get up and go to the resort. I left at 6:15, but unfortunately I realized at about 6:25 that I had left my pass at home. Anyway, long story short, I arrived at the resort at 7am, and was parked near the front of the 1st (Daisy) level of the parking structure.

 

I was happy to see that the large Block Party Bash cone in the tram area had been turned off (the screen was replaced with a poster).

 

When I got the Downtown Disney tram stop, we were hearded to the front of the tram, and told that the line began there. The line started at the front of the tram stop, went to the far end of the tram stop, doubled back, passed La Brea bakery, headed down DTD to the LEGO store, and finally headed back to the bag check.

 

The line moved pretty steadily until 7:45 where it stopped (I was on the home stretch in front of the candy store). The line moving away from the park kept moving, so I can imagine that it easily extended all the way to the hotel. At 8:30 the line started up again. (continued in next post).[/url]

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And back through Downtown Disney.

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Out to the LEGO store.

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It then passes La Brea Bakery before heading down Downtown Disney.

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And doubles back towards the park.

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The line starts at the park end of the tram stop and heads to the far end.

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Once through the bag check, the lines were quite short. I got into the park, had my hand stamped when they scanned my pass, and was directed to a table to pick up my hat and map.

 

The hat was different from the normal hats, and the logo on the front appeared to be a sticker.

 

I then went in search of a cupcake. It turns out that all the food service locations had lines dedicated to handing out cupcakes, and there was maybe a one person wait at most. (continued in next post)

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DETAIL SHOT!!!

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Cupcake.

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Note the fine stickerage.

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Hat Back.

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Hat front.

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All the tables lines up. There were similar tables in DCA and the Downtown Disney Monorail station.

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Here are the guys giving out goodies.

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Lines in the esplanade weren't that bad.

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I got into the park and passed a bunch of camera crews doing interviews to head into Tomorrowland to pick up a Space Mountain fastpass. There was about a 15 minute wait just for the fastpasses. I snapped a shot of the Jumbotron there, walked around to It's a Small World to check out that Jumbotron, and then found a spot at the Train Station to watch the ceremony. On my way, I passed though the Little Mermaid area outside tomorrowland and quite literally bumped into Marty Sklar. I didn't quite realize who it was until I had started to walk away and notices his handlers. At the Main Stree station, I stood behind the reserved seating area, and just as I had expected, once the ceremony began the area was opened, and I got a nice front row bench seat.

 

It was cloudy and dark down main street, but right before the ceremony began the clouds broke, and Main Street became a dazzling sea of golden mouse ears.

 

I won't rehash the ceremony, since I'm sure videos will be up on countless sites by tomorrow, but it was very nice.

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As a nice touch, there was confetti shot from all the Jumbotron locations, including inside DCA.

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And then the obligatory daytime fireworks.

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Doves are released.

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The screen shows a clip of Art Linkletter while the camera people all film the crowd. Note the trumpeters on the Castle balcony.

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The crowd on Main Street. Just before the ceremony, they have everyone wave for a big photo op, and the photographers are on those two lifts about the jumbotron.

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It's a Small World Screen

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Tomorrowland Screen

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By the time the ceremony ended, the crowds became more reasonable. I escaped via the train, and to my surprise, I got to ride the Ward Kimball. I can't explain it, but I just love the sound of the Kimball. It has a really deep, powerful sound that is unlike the other four engines.

 

By this point, there were no lines at all to get in, and there were still plenty of giveaways. I rode Buzz and Star Tours, which were both 10 minute waits, and wandered around the park a bit. It was at this point that I saw the merchandise line which stretched from the Festival arena, though New Orleans Square, and all the way to the canoe dock.

 

Most of the pictures below are from my wanderings.

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As you can see, Space Mountain fastpasses sold out at about 12:30pm.

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Ham radio operators were set up outside Innoventions "sending birthday greetings around the world".

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Mickey on the Matterhorn.

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Moutain Climbers were scaling the Matterhorn all day, including during the ceremony. In fact, almost every single entertainment group was out in full force.

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One of the local TV stations was doing a broadcast from here.

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Here's a peak of where they are going (taken later in the day).

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These people are insane. This is the line that went from the Canoe Dock to the Fesitval arena. It wasn't a fast moving line either. At least it kept people off the rides.

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This is the only photo you'll see of me in my ears.

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Engine #5, the Ward Kimball

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It's 11:00. Where did the lines go?

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During the day, the large screens were used to rebroadcast Walt's dedication speach, the ceremony from that morning, and theCast Member window unveiling ceremony. At 4:45 was the official rebroadcast of the dedication, which was followed by the "Remember When" music video and the release of more doves from the castle.

 

After that, I went home. People were grabbing handfulls of maps and ears on their way out (they didn't check handstamps when they gave out ears) so there should be plenty on eBay tomorrow.

 

I have just put a small selection of my pictures here. There are much more at http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=4318173&a=31830570&vt=vp (and I have even more that I didn't upload there either).

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The poster next to the window. There are a lot of funny details in here, and CMs were stopping by all day to read it.

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The cast member window, located next ot the Main Street Cinema.

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The unveiling.

 

Ditto on the blurring.

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The only time I saw resort president Matt Ouimet was when they replayed the Cast Member ceremony.

 

As a technical note, my camera captured every single LED in the jumbotron which made the filesize balloon up. Therefore, I had to use photshop to blur th

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Ahect, those are GREAT pics! Thanks for posting them! The crowds were insane! I would have been one of the people that said "screw the merch and the ceremony and I'll go ride stuff while the lines are short!"

 

I'm still laughing so much at the fact that the park didn't close to capacity and that it wasn't really necessary to wait until 2am. Although I guess the people over at Westcoaster aren't laughing because they deleted my post about it!

 

I still say that it doesn't matter if you're a Disney geek, and ACE member, or a trekkie. As long as you can have fun and even laugh at yourself if you need to, that's what's important! I still laugh at myself for waiting 3 hours for Dragster! Yes, it was stupid, but it was also fun!

 

Looks like if you didn't care about the ceremony or ther merchandise it would be a pretty damn nice day at DLR!

 

--Robb "Glad to see we have smart people here who had all the fun of the celebration!" Alvey

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I'm still laughing so much at the fact that the park didn't close to capacity and that it wasn't really necessary to wait until 2am.

 

They lady next to us started waiting at 2, and got in at 7:00. We started waiting at 7, and got in at 8:30. It wasn't unnecessary to me, because it got 7,000 people out of my way.

 

The lines were excellent (with the exception of Space!). I got on BTM in 15 minutes, Pirates in 3, HM in 5, Matterhorn in 20, a few fantasyland dark rides in 10, (Indy, Splash, Space, and Buzz I FPsed), and the longest wait of the day was 25 min for Winnie the Poo, as it broke down.

 

The merchandise line got to 5 hours long. I personally wanted to enjoy the 50th anniversary, and celebrate why we like the park: the expirences. Not spend 1/2 of the day waiting for a 10 buck pin that says that I participated in the expirences.

 

Anyways...nice pics! Very artsy. And I ate too many cupcakes.

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The merchandise line got to 5 hours long. I personally wanted to enjoy the 50th anniversary, and celebrate why we like the park: the expirences. Not spend 1/2 of the day waiting for a 10 buck pin that says that I participated in the expirences.

Exactly. We still have all our opening year DCA sitting in a closet somewhere collecting dust. Even our bags of Millionaire pins are buried somewhere.

 

I think what people don't realize is that when they make something that is 'collectable' how often is it really? It's usually the stuff that no one ever thinks will be worth something that goes for a million bucks!

 

Glad to hear you had a good time.

 

--Robb "The DCA stuff still goes for no money on Ebay!" Alvey

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