More Disneyland Hotel
It's time for even more November 20th, 1980 photos from the grounds of the Disneyland Hotel - photos taken by Lou Perry, and scanned and shared with us by his daughter, Sue B. It's hard to believe that these are over 45 years old!
The Marina was built in 1970, and changed the look and feel of the Hotel in a major way - it's fairly incredible that they devoted so much space to this miniature "ocean". But I love a good water feature. Especially a swamp; I told Jack Wrather that people want to see smelly swamps full of alligators and snakes and nutria, but he had other plans. FINE!
It's hard to get a sense of scale, but those boats look kind of teensy - maybe they were built at 5/8 scale? I also wonder how deep the water is in the Marina - my guess is that it is several thousand feet deep. There were giant squid and gulper eels at the bottom.
The next two photos were taken from what looks to be a 5th or 6th-floor height, presumably where Lou's room was. He had a nice view of the Marina! It's not exactly bustling with guests, but I suppose that, being November, it might have been a bit chilly? Well, not necessarily... "Jason's Disneyland Almanac" tells us that the high temperature was 81º that day, which is very pleasant. However, it did drop to 44º at night, so there might have still been a morning chill in the air.
Different time, probably a different day (boats have moved around). The Hotel buildings cast large shadows across the area at certain hours. I see those paddleboat, which look fun, but are in fact a real workout.
From this angle, the Marina looks a little odd, a mash-mash of building styles and a variety of objects added for visual interest, like that buoy nearby. I'll bet it all looked great at night though!
THANK YOU, Lou and Sue! There is one more installment of photos from the Disneyland Hotel from Lou's November 1980 trip.
4 comments:
Major-
The addition of the Marina really did change the feel and energy of the hotel property, making it even more unique than it already was.
"Different time, probably a different day (boats have moved around)".
Not so, Major. In actuality the building towers have moved, constantly confusing hotel guests. (You know that Jack Wrather was a great practical joker-!)
Thanks to Lou and Sue and The Major.
Man, Disney really missed out when they opted to not use your gator and nutria infested swamp idea, Major. Think of the guest immersion factor! (Even more so if they included quicksand in the swamp.)
1) Hmm, this is either a catamaran with an outboard motor or two boats side-by-side. I'll go with the latter. Does anybody know why they had such diverse types of watercraft in the Marina?
2) That sailboat IS pretty small, but big enough for a couple of people. Most of the other craft are peddle/paddle boats, where you exhaust yourself peddling the darn things as fast as you can and get practically nowhere. I like those colorful domed structures in the background. (Looking ahead, I see Major mentions the paddleboats and their deceptive appearance of being 'fun'.)
3) Are those boats with the arches "glass bottomed boats"? Probably not, as there isn't much to see on the Marina floor. I guess they're traditional Mexican boats that are usually covered with flowers.
4) This pic really does look like a table-top model! Not sure why.
5) Those buoys serves about as much purpose as that ship's wheel attached to the flagpole. Actually, I suppose the wheel might be used to raise and lower the flag?
Nanook, those moving building towers must've been an "E" ticket!
Thank you, Lou. And you,Sue.And to you, Major.
In the third and fourth pics, we can see the Disneyland Hotel Convention Center in the upper left corners. We can even see cars parked on the roof of the Convention Center, in that third pic.
To quote Eddie Cantor in Porky's Naughty Nephew......."At last, A BUOY!"
Thank you Lou, Sue, and Major!
The first pictures show some of the Mexico City lake boats — these were used for entertainment for many of the themed events the hotel offered in big scale convention packages .
The 1980 image shows so many kinds of water craft because of the hotel’s 1979 Wonderful World of Water and The Seaports of the Pacific re-theming of Marina from the “boat show “ theme . That’s also the reason for all the different architectural themes .
Post a Comment