Celebrating Disneyland's 70th Birthday - LATE EDITION

 Well folks, I screwed up. You know it, I know it, and Tom Cruise knows it. I neglected to mention Disneyland's monumental 70th birthday yesterday! My excuse is that I have been writing these blog posts months in advance, and the BIG DAY wasn't at the forefront of my mind in November (or whenever I wrote it). However, thanks to the generosity of some Junior Gorillas who went to Disneyland with me back in early June, who sent some photos from that trip, I can do a quick recovery. 

SOME people love to point out that the park actually opened to the general public on July 18th, and since I am one of those annoying people, that's what I'm going to use as my justification to share these photos. To be clear, these are photos not taken by me, since I failed in that regard. The shutterbugs that I was with were much more conscientious about recording scenes and details than I will ever be.

Starting with a walk through Downtown Disney, there were signs all over the place, just in case you (like me) forgot that it was a special occasion. Notice the June Gloom, which was nice because it kept the temperatures down in the early part of the day. The sun finally came out by 1:00 or 2:00.

Over at the Wonderground Gallery they had a book signing (more on that in a second), and they had this nice poster in the window. They chose a very specific color combination for the 70th, with a cerulean blue, lilac, purple, and gold (with some others hues sprinkled in for flavor).

Like I said, the sun did eventually come out, giving us glorious blue skies! Temperatures hovered around 80º, warm but not too bad.

One of the reasons we went to the park was to celebrate the release of "The Happiest Place on Earth: The Incredible Story of Walt Disney's Disneyland", by Chris Merritt and Don Hahn. Your old pal Major Pepperidge has a few photos in it, as does the Mysterious Benefactor, and Lou Perry (along with some other friends of GDB). Some of us wanted to be there for the book release and signing! After a failed attempt in Downtown Disney earlier (the Wonderground Gallery was not prepared for the number of people who showed up), we had much better luck at the "in park" signing later that day. 

Here's Chris and Don! No wonder they are so proud of their book, it is truly amazing, and for any of you fans of Disneyland history and "Walt's Disneyland", there is no better book to own! I highly recommend it.

Sue B. got an early copy (with a special cover) thanks to her D-23 membership, it's SO incredible that she could take this picture of her dad (Lou Perry) holding the book. We've seen MANY of his photos, some  going back to 1956!

The book was on display in various places around the park and hotels, an enticement for folks considering joining up with D-23.

Unsurprisingly, both days were very busy - I know that Friday was sold out (I assume that Saturday was as well), so it was plenty crowded, and yet we did still manage to do a lot of attractions. Some had lines that never abated, I missed out on "Rise of the Resistance", which is amazing, whether you like Star Wars or not. It made me waver on my self-imposed rule that I would never pay for "Lightning Lane" - by the time I'd spent what I'd spent, that additional cost would have really been negligible. 

Thanks to some extreme generosity from an unnamed person in our group, I got to enjoy a meal (sitting at a waterside table) inside the beautiful Blue Bayou restaurant. I should mention that we did ride "Tiana's Bayou Adventure" that first day; it is colorful and fun, with some good animatronics. I will always miss "Splash Mountain", but we had ourselves a very good time on TBA. I got good and wet, but it was OK!

The rest of these are night photos, and you can't go wrong with those. Here's City Hall. Sometimes I saw lines of people waiting to go inside; maybe they had complaints? Or did they all want their "This is my first trip to Disneyland" (or "Today is my birthday") buttons?

Our friend Bu used to work in City Hall. He ruled with an iron fist!

The Firehouse is best known as the location of Walt Disney's grilled cheese sandwich press.

Sleeping Beauty Castle has colorful lights in the "Disneyland 70" hues, but it is not as blinged-out as it has been in the past!

The Mad Tea Party, with those lanterns overhead, is certainly one of the prettiest sights in the park at night. Disneyland had officially "ended its operating day" when this photo was taken, you can see a Cast Member coming in from the right, about to spoil the scene with a sign that he plopped right in the middle of the turntable.

A bit earlier, we watched the late showing of the "Paint the Night" parade. The first showing was a complete mob scene, gumming up the Main Street and IASW areas with thousands of people. But by the second performance, a lot of guests had left the park, and you could comfortably watch it! One could argue that it is "over the top", but I admit that I ultimately enjoyed it.

These last three were taken as the final moments of our second night came to a close. We walked down Main Street (shops full of people buying those last-minute souvenirs), and lingered by the train station.

We even sat on a bench, watched people funneling toward the exit, and enjoyed the cool night air, the relative calm, the music loop, and of course the beauty of the lights.

And finally, this last one is super-nice; as you can see, it was past 1:00 AM, the park had been closed for over an hour, and there was hardly a person to be seen. I can't imagine any Disneyland fan not loving this view!

That does it for this tribute to Disneyland's 70th Birthday (late edition)! MANY THANKS to my fellow park-goers for sharing their nice photos. I realize that this is kind of a departure from the usual stuff you'll see on GDB, and I hope that you enjoyed it.