Vintage Artwork from Disneyland Little Golden Books

Who doesn't love a Little Golden Book? The little board books with the bright illustrations and the foil binding were a big part of Mom & Dad's childhood and we have shared that love of these books with our boys. 

Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle usually looks enormous in vintage illustrations

Recently we found two old "Disneyland" Little Golden Books from 1955 at a Toy Show and thought it would be fun to look at some of the Disneyland Artwork inside.

The first book is called "Walt Disney's Little Man of Disneyland". Apparently a Leprechaun lived on the Anaheim orange grove that would become Disneyland. Mickey, Donald & Goofy run into him during the demolition of the site. They take him to Imagineering and show him all of the plans for the park. He is so impressed by what they plan to do that he agrees to relocate to another location of his choosing in the park. Rumor has it he lives there to this day in the roots of an old tree in Adventureland. The book has wonderful illustrations of Imagineering and of Disneyland under construction. There is also a great drawing of the finished Jungle Cruise. 

Not sure what they are building behind Main Street Station

Mickey and Goofy with all the great plans for Disneyland at Imagineering in 1954. One of those sketches even looks like California Adventure's California Screamin' (soon to be Incredicoaster) and the Funwheel!

Jungle Cruise

Enormous castle at the end of Main Street USA, from a 1955 storybook

The second book is "Walt Disney's Disneyland on the Air". It tells the story of a grand premiere television special filmed live from the Main Street USA Opera House. We have included a very striking image from the book of the Main Street USA Opera House being used as a premiere venue for the live television special. Sleeping Beauty Castle looms over Main Street in a fashion that is not particularly realistic and that frankly feels more like Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom than the original Disneyland. Its been written that Walt Disney wanted the Disneyland Castle to be scaled in a way that was "less intimidating" than a real medieval castle. When they started planning the Florida park it was pretty much established that the castle would be much larger. The first concept sketch for Magic Kingdom Cinderella Castle is dated January 1967...just a few weeks after Walt Disney's death in December of 1966. But there are lots of fanciful illustrations that portray Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle at a scale that is much closer to what Walt Disney World ended up with. While it would be a travesty to remodel or replace the original Disneyland Castle...Dad often wonders if its size was more a factor of budget and schedule than what was really desired given how often it was depicted in illustrations at the heroic scale in which the Florida Castle was ultimately built. Just an observation really. 

The scale of Disneyland's Castle looming over Main Street in this 1955 illustration looks more like what Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom would achieve in reality

A Kids Perspective on Disney Pin Trading

Pin trading is a very fun thing to do but it can be super addicting. You can find pins of your favorite Disney Character doing something silly! It can be a very expensive hobby and confusing. So I'am going explain the lingo and tips for starting.

History of Pins
Pins have been around for years in some way or another. Button Patents have been around since at least 1896. The oldest Disney pin we own is from around 1970 and is themed around Orange Bird. But Official Disney Pin Trading didn't start until 1999. During the Countdown to the millennium they started a pin promotion and they have been making pins ever since.

Steps
1. Go buy pins. The cheapest pins you can get at the parks are usually in mystery packs or pin sets and they will end up costing around $5-$6 per pin.

2. Go find pin lanyards and boards. Most Cast Members have them and a lot of sit down restaurants have them. You can also find them at shops & hotel front desks. Be sure to ask nicely.

3. Once you find a pin you like, you ask for the pin that you want and offer them one of your pins in exchange.

Some Pin Terms
NFT/NFS-Not For Trade or Sell

OE-Open Edition

HM-Hidden Mickey, note the small Hidden Mickey emblem somewhere on the pin. These are issued to cast members, so you get them by trading!

LE#-Limited Edition of #, these are only made in a certain number and are usually for special events

Ways to Wear or Display Them

I have been exploring quite a few ways to display them and I'am going to go over some of the main ones!

The first thing that comes to mind are lanyards. While lanyards are functional and can have cool designs, I find that after a while they can start scratching my neck and make me itchy. You can wear them on your clothes but you don't won't to wear too many or your clothes will have a lot of holes.

Some of my favorite pins on one of my lanyards

 So one of my favorites are pin boards, you can hold a lot of pins and you can even decorate them with cool designs.

I had an old cork board lying around so I covered it up in some fabric I found. It is kinda hard to see them, but it looks so cool.

But I like the portability of a backpack, you can take them anywhere and can show of some of you best pins. The downside is they can easily get a little scratched. I was online looking for a better option for storing pins when I found something called a Pinfolio. I went on etsy and looked them up. On their etsy site they have a bunch of designs so I looked through them and I found a Figment one. I was so happy. I really like it, it holds quite a few pins and the pins don't feel like they are going to fall out. The only problem is that the back pocket does not have a zipper. But I really love the design and I feel like the pins are protected in there.

The front of my Pinfolio! I picked the Figment one because he is one of my favorites.

These are my Limited Edition and my figment/orange bird collections.

This page is full of mostly Attractions pins and Traders.

The only downside is it can kind of be expensive after awhile. Overall pin trading is a really fun hobby. Especially for a person who goes to Disney World a lot!

I give Pin Trading 4 and half, because it is super fun even thought it has it hiccups!

I give Pinfolio a 4 stars because it is a really solid display unit.

Review: Magic Kingdom After Hours

If you had the opportunity to ride many of Magic Kingdom's headliner attractions with little to no wait, but you had to pay "extra", would you?

In the past year we have found ourselves deciding to give Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom Park "hard ticket" after regular hours parties a shot. In the past much of this entertainment was considered part of general admission, but due either to greater crowds or perhaps just a desire for more sales there has been an increase in these events. We have attended Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party (Halloween in September, we went for Labor Day Weekend!), Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party (we went Thanksgiving Weekend), and most recently "Magic Kingdom After Hours" which happened select nights in the period between New Year's and the beginning of Spring Break. They ended up having more of these after hours parties during the Summer 2018 season.

Magic Kingdom is getting increasingly crowded, some believe this is due to a combination of surge pricing and staffing levels. Generally the park "feels" more crowded than it has in the past to many people. We have only been going to Walt Disney World since 2015 and anecdotally we'd have to say that it does feel more crowded. We've spent Thanksgiving several years in a row there now...and while it continues to be manageable it "feels" like more people are "discovering" that time of the year. Due to that perception of increased attendance we'd thought we'd see if we liked the separate admission evening parties.

They have been having some version of this "Magic Kingdom After Hours" party for 3 years now. It was originally at a much higher price point, but they have since tweaked both the hours of the party and the charge for the event. The event we participated in was priced within the current ranges of a one day ticket. We are not really ones to say whether any activity at Walt Disney World is "worth it", that is a very personal determination to make. What we will always share with you was whether we were satisfied or if we feel an experience had value. In this case we were satisfied and we largely felt the experience provided some value.

We decided the "Magic Kingdom After Hours" party would be a terrific way to kick off the celebration of Tweenage Son becoming Teenage Son. The final Spring "Magic Kingdom After Hours" of 2018 would be a 13th birthday party for Agent P.  Possession of the ticket would entitle you to official admission at 7PM for an event that would run between 9PM-12PM. Since this was the last party of the season they had streamlined the process and allowed party ticket holders to enter the park at 6PM. We figured 6 hours of park time was acceptable value for the price. When Dad was in Junior High School the highlight of the year was a school trip to Disneyland. His school would attend an evening party that was not open to the general public. Often they were there to pad out the attendance of a company family night event...one year Dad specifically remembers it being essentially the company picnic of the TRW Corporation. Similarly while Mom & Dad were in France for a college educational exchange program they took advantage of an evening ticket promotion for Disneyland Paris. So we had a history of jumping at a chance for limited admission events. To sweeten the pot admission to the "Magic Kingdom After Hours" event included unlimited bottled soft drinks, select Ice Cream Treats, & Popcorn .

We were in the park by 6:30. We rode the Walt Disney World Railroad to Fantasyland, by the time we got to Fantasyland it was 7PM & Toddler Son had fallen asleep. Pre-purchased tickets to the party were sufficient to obtain fast passes for use between 6:00 and 8:00. We had managed to secure them for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, and Teenage Son rode twice due to rider switch (Dad & Mom rode once each). We then rode Peter Pan via Fast pass. After that we rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Teenage Son again rode twice due to rider switch (Dad & Mom rode once each). The line for Big Thunder was minimal as we hit it just after the fireworks had finished. 

Day patrons without separate admission were not allowed on the attractions after 8:00 PM. At 9:00 PM the party itself officially began. Also at 9:00 PM toddler son woke up from his nap. Much like our dinner at Chef Mickey's the previous night he slept for exactly 2 hours and then was up to enjoy the event. Our strategy was to hit the headliners Mine Train & Peter Pan before the party with fast passes freeing us from having to use party time for these two attractions. Even on a night like that night they still tend to have longer lines. Time was precious and we had to keep moving if we were going to maximize our time in the park.

We made our first snack stop at Liberty Square picking up our first order of Cokes, Mickey Ice Cream Treats, & Popcorn. We then headed to Adventureland through the Frontierland breezeway where we rode Aladdin's Magic Carpets twice without getting off the ride. We had never been on this ride because it never seemed worth the wait, but since this was a walk on and we were the only ones on the ride we gave it a chance. We were surprised by how much we enjoyed the ride and loved the view of Adventureland from it. Unfortunately from ground level we think that the ride takes up to much space. After that we headed for Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room followed by The Jungle Cruise. We were one of three parties onboard. Our shipmates weren't enjoying the humor as much as we were, so we loved it when the Skipper joked that he would definitely save our family first if the need arose. We then hit the Liberty Square Snack Stop again.

At 10:00 PM we were in line for the Floating Lanterns Tangled Photo pass, and then we rode The Haunted Mansion. After that we enjoyed our 3rd snack stop outside of Haunted Mansion. Then we sailed on It's A Small World, followed by Winnie The Pooh and then the Mad Tea Party (Our Family was in one Teacup and we were the only ones on the ride).

We had made our way through Fantasyland and would head into Tomorrowland in the 11:00 PM hour. We rode the Astro Orbiter followed by Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin and then the Tomorrowland Speedway. We really took advantage of typically slow loading rides that tend to have longer waits. Our 4th & final snack stop was near Tomorrowland Speedway. We were encouraged to take as much as we liked so we started stockpiling Cokes pretty much at castmember insistence. They were extremely friendly and willing to give you as much as you cared to take, and many people had bags of extra treats with them. We closed out the 11:00 hour milling about Main Street U.S.A. enjoying several editions of "The Kiss Goodnight". The event was officially over at Midnight and the rides stopped taking people into line at that time, but we were not rushed off of Main Street. We were on the bus back to our Hotel by 12:45 AM.

We really had a great time! Since our objective was to maximize ride time once the party started we felt a sense of urgency to keep up an exhausting pace. We really had to be systematic and do what we wanted in each land and then move onto the next land to not waste our time. We started in Adventureland and moved north through Frontierland/Liberty Square, on to Fantasyland, down into Tomorrowland and then through the hub and down into Main Street. It was delightful to walk on to so many attractions.

The west side of the park was really the only part of the park that felt empty when we were there, and Fantasyland & Tomorrowland had quite a few people. I don't think Peter Pan or Mine Train were ever close to walk-ons. They seemed to have 20-25 minute posted waits(although waits seemed to be closer to half the posted times). There were longish lines for photo passes and snack carts although none of the carts we went to had much of a wait.

 

We had done the biggies with fast passes before the party started so we always went toward walk-ons. We feel we did a lot and had a blast, but the event rarely felt like an "empty" park. We did 14 unique attractions (and several re-rides) in 5 1/2 hours which really was a full day in arguably half the time. Like we said the pace was exhausting but it was such a unique experience it is very likely we would attend again.

Sketch: Orange Bird and the Tiki Room

Welcome to the Tropical Hideaway you lucky people you! Imagine watching the Tiki Birds with Orange Bird.

Being Californians we were not familiar with "The Little Orange Bird", but we pretty much fell for him from the moment we saw him! He was developed by Walt Disney Productions as a mascot for the Florida Citrus Commission- the original sponsors of the Magic Kingdom Tiki Room. At Walt Disney World the Tiki Room show was called "Tropical Serenade" from 1972 through the 1990's. The version of the show you will find today is a slightly truncated version of the current Disneyland show and goes by the name "Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room".

We think of  "The Little Orange Bird" as a mascot for our youngest son since he too is an East Coast creation. He's a big fan of the little guy and we dressed him up in a homemade Orange Bird costume for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party and in the sketch he can be seen wearing the costume.

Sketch: Plaza Inn at Disneyland

Imagine a cool evening dining under the stars at Disneyland's Plaza Inn! Savor the legendary Chicken Dinner while you wait for the evening fireworks. The Plaza Inn opened in the 50's originally as "The Red Wagon Inn" but was elegantly remodeled into the Plaza Inn in the mid 60's and was one of Walt Disney's favorite places to eat.

We've dined there many times, Dad is partial to the Pot Roast, while Mom 's favorite is the Fried Chicken. When oldest son was a baby/toddler we enjoyed going to Minnie's Character Breakfast several times. The character lineup was very impressive, and the food was great too.

Character dining in Victorian Splendor

During the "What will you celebrate?" promotion we spent Agent P's 4th birthday there. The party was led by master of ceremonies "Chef Pat E. Cake" and a visit by Minnie Mouse.

Make your own cake beneath the spires of Sleeping Beauty Castle

With Chef Pat E. Cake

Harmony Barber Shop: A First Haircut at Walt Disney World

Flashback to June 2016 for Baby’s First Haircut at Walt Disney World.         

We were on a mission, our 9 month old son's hair was growing way too fast and it was getting harder to style it in a way that kept it out of his eyes. It was driving the poor little guy nuts.He was born with a full head of hair...the ultrasound tech could see his hair swaying in the amniotic fluid(and no Mom did not have heartburn!)  We discovered that there was a Harmony Barber Shop at the Magic Kingdom that had a wonderful First Haircut package so on a whim we decided to try and see if we could make Baby's first haircut memorable(for us anyway...but he'll have pictures). There were several constraints, we only had a weekend, we'd really only have time to hit one park...but we rationalized that would be okay. After all we grew up in Los Angeles and throughout our childhood Disneyland was a one day thing.

Dueling Haircuts

Cast of Characters:

Dad & Mom., Big Brother(11 yrs old at the time), Little Brother("The Baby" he was 9 months old) We live in Charlotte, NC but "Home" is Southern California

Thursday-

Big Brother was in rehearsals for our town's children's theater production of "Disney's Jungle Book Kids" and he only had the long weekend free. We picked him up from rehearsal, had a quick dinner at McDonald's and were on the road by 10 PM. We drove all night stopping for gas as needed, luckily The Baby pretty much slept the bulk of the trip, and when he was awake we had Zootopia and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on the DVD for entertainment. Split driving duties with Mom so no one had to drive more than about 4 hours each. Thought that was pretty good.

Friday-

We arrived in Orlando around 9AM, our plan was to spend the morning/afternoon at Disney Springs, and then head over to our offsite hotel.

Disney Springs-

We got to Disney Springs soon enough that there was plenty of parking but by the time we left later that day the lots were near capacity. We swore we'd never come back to Florida in the summer(our first trip was In June 2015) but what can we say...we were on a mission! World of Disney right at opening was our first taste of Disney Magic on this trip and it was the shot of adrenaline we needed after that long trip. It also was a much needed air conditioned environment, We can not stress how hot and uncomfortable summer in Florida is, something that doesn't come across in photos...after all it's supposed to be Disneyland on the east coast, right? California gets hot but there is no significant humidity and that is a big difference. We lived in Washington, DC, now Charlotte, NC so we thought we knew what humidity was until we experienced Florida. Oh well...it's Disney World...it's worth it!

Dad modeling his Retro Fantasyland T-Shirt while we visit Roy & Minnie

We love retro stuff so Dad picked up 2 T-Shirts at World of Disney a red Fantasyland shirt and a blue Tomorrowland shirt. They had vintage artwork and "Walt Disney Productions" on them. Dad loves them. We had lunch at  the "Bongos Cuban Cafe" takeout window, We love Cuban food...Mom Had the Picadillo plate(seasoned ground beef), Dad had the Ropa Vieja(Shreded Beef) and Big Brother had the Cuban sandwich(Ham Sandwich). It was a fun but exhausting morning; we parked at the Lime Garage...walked to the West Side, then to the Village Marketplace, them back to the West Side! Crossed the Town Center 4 times! that place is enormous!

Offsite Hotel-

Checked into our hotel late afternoon, it was a villa type place with a studio over near Sea World. It did the job but we definitely were missing the Disney bubble. We were able to get our tickets Friday at our hotel and we were planning to go to Magic Kingdom the next day.  Linked our tickets to our magic bands and we were ready to arrange what we were sure would be awful fast passes. To our surprise and delight we were able to arrange Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Peter Pan's Flight, and Space Mountain! We thought that was a pretty good line up to set up the day before. We rested in the room and then went to dinner. It turns out Orlando has Del Taco, a Southern California based fast food place…sort of like Taco Bell but with fresher ingredients. It's one of our favorites and not very common in the east coast so we were happy to eat there. It was over near Universal. We tried to get an advance reservation for Baby’s First Haircut, after many tries to get through Dad finally reached an agent who informed us that there were no further reservations available, so we went into the trip not knowing for sure If we could get a slot at the barber shop. Hopefully tomorrow would work out.

Highway In The Sky

At the time we weren’t really rope droppers, we think we had successfully pulled it off once previously and only because we were staying at the Disneyland Hotel and we could walk there.  This trip would be no exception…it seemed like we always ended up walking through the Magic Kingdom arches at 12 noon. But what a way to arrive! We still find the whole procession from Orlando via World Drive to the TTC and then across the Seven Seas Lagoon to be an enchanting experience.  Those first glimpses of the Castle looming over the lagoon gets to Dad every time, there really is no approach quite like it in his opinion. This time we took the local monorail to the park as it had the shortest line.  The stretch of track that elevates above the canal feels like you are flying, it really is a highway in the sky.  We have no complaints with the Magic Band system, love being able to walk right through the gates without passing through turnstiles or having to insert tickets.  This made it super easy to get in after passing through security of course.

                  

                                                                                               

It was “Talk Like a Whale Day” in honor of the release of Finding Dory but in order to receive a souvenir button you had to exit the park...so we did, got our buttons and then came back in! We then briskly walked over to the Harmony Barber Shop…would they be able to accommodate our little guy? We were afraid they would be all booked up, but as it turned out they did indeed have an opening!

 Big Brother wanted a Disney World Haircut too so we arranged for a double haircut at 3:00, which worked out perfectly with our fast passes. We did not realize it but a 3:00 appointment meant we would also have a great view of the Festival of Fantasy Parade.

The barbers were fantastic, they kept baby entertained with a Lightening McQueen toy and lots and lots of Mickey stickers. The first haircut package includes Mickey Ears, a Certificate and a souvenir bag for a lock of hair. There also was a splash of pixie dust (glitter confetti) should it be desired. We were very happy with the haircuts (Big Brother looked good too!) and when we were done we walked outside and watched the parade! We did not know going into it whether it would work out but as it turned out our mission was a success and we enjoyed a parade in celebration!