“Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy.”
You pass under the stone bridge and, upon coming out the other side, are transported into an alternate world. Greeted by dinging trolley bells and the clacking of horse hooves, nostalgic smells of chocolate chip cookies and buttered popcorn, laughter and distant screams of excitement and an overwhelming feeling of being a kid again, you realize this is happiness in its purest form. You’re present and unconcerned with the trivial problems of everyday life. Your only stresses include booking your Lightning Lane passes for Indiana Jones: Temple of the Forbidden Eye and deciding which Mickey Mouse-shaped dessert you want to indulge in.
Disneyland Park, located in Anaheim, California is, objectively, the most well-planned, designed, engineered and executed theme park to exist. Disneyland Park, “The Happiest Place on Earth,” is the first theme park to be built under the Walt Disney Company and under direct supervision of Walt Disney himself. Its magic is showcased throughout nine themed lands: Main Street, U.S.A., Tomorrowland, Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, New Orleans Square, Bayou Country, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and Mickey’s Toontown. For a lack of more eloquent and impressive phrasing, Disneyland is the best theme park there is.
What makes Disneyland special compared to the countless other theme parks around the world? There is not one single decision or aspect of Disneyland that can answer this question. Instead, Disneyland is the best because Walt Disney was obsessed with the guest experience at a level of detail no other park has ever matched and that obsession is still baked into every inch of the park.
It is the accumulation of a thousand small decisions that most parks would never bother with. It’s the trash cans that are placed every 25 feet apart — no more, no less — because Walt Disney walked other parks with a stopwatch to figure out how far people would walk before dropping litter. It’s the smellitzers on Main Street, U.S.A. that pump the sentimental smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies into the air. Cast members never point with one finger because the gesture is considered rude in many cultures. No gum is sold anywhere in the park. Sight lines were engineered so you never accidentally see a parking lot or a roller coaster from the wrong land. There is even a tree in the exact shape as Matterhorn Mountain that blocks the view of the mountain for guests wandering around Frontierland. As guests enter the park in the morning, fast-paced, cheerful music plays on Main Street to move guests quickly into the park, increase their energy and encourage excitement for the day. In the afternoon and evening, the music transitions to slower, warmer and more nostalgic melodies to encourage guests to slow down and spend more time in shops and restaurants. To make the Jungle Cruise authentic, landscape artists planted over 40 plant species and 700 exotic trees, some of which are actually orange trees from the original lot — because Disneyland was built on a 160-acre orange grove — planted upside down to look like mangrove roots. In the Small World attraction, every single room has both a sun and a moon to remind riders that no matter where we are in the world, we all live under the same sun and moon.
Maybe none of these things alone would make you say “wow.” But together, they create something you feel, which is exactly what makes Disneyland so special. Disneyland was designed to make you stop being an adult for a few hours. It’s a place where the simplicity of pure amusement and the complexity of obsessive design coexist, and both are worth marveling at.
While many gripe about the crowds and waiting in long lines for rides that last mere minutes, the atmosphere and environment that Disney has built make these issues inconsequential. Waiting in lines with family and friends, playing competitive games of Heads Up and Imposter or sharing old memories from when we came to Disneyland as kids is what makes Disneyland so special to me. Undoubtedly, the Disneyland rides themselves are another reason the theme park is unparalleled in its attention to detail and grandeur. However, the moment at the end of a long day of park-hopping, when my feet are tired, my voice is hoarse and I’m sharing a warm cinnamon churro with my dad as we meander through the lit downtown of Main Street, is incomparable.
So, if you’re an avid Universal Studios or Six Flags fan or maybe you just haven’t had the desire to go to Disneyland, take this piece as your sign to book the trip. Go for the Mickey Mouse ice cream treat and leave understanding that childhood wonder, curiosity and unwavering optimism are traits that remain in everyone. It just takes a little Disney magic to remind us.
