King Arthur Carrousel: Part 2 - Relocation & New Fantasyland Construction

This is Part 2 of my Disneyland's King Arthur Carrousel posts. For Part 1, Click Here.

Today, we will be looking at the relocation of King Arthur Carrousel as well as some "New Fantasyland" construction. These first three photos show the "holes" in the ground that were left after the removal of The Mad Tea Party and Dumbo's Flying Elephants attractions from their original locations in 1982. Note the Big Thunder Trail from Frontierland to Fantasyland in the distance. It was closed to guests at this time.



These photos were taken from the Skyway, which at the time, due to construction, was a "round trip" ride only. During this time, guests could only board the Skyway in Tomorrowland and were not allowed to disembark when they got to Fantasyland. Instead, as the vehicles arrived at the Fantasyland Skyway station, they were greeted by cast members that pushed them through the station and back onto the cable to be sent back over to Tomorrowland.



Mr. Toad's Wild Ride was temporarily closed during this preliminary construction period, but would later reopen for a short time before being shut down once again for it's New Fantasyland rehab. Peter Pan's Flight continued to operate at this time, but Snow White's Adventures had already closed for it's rehab and The Fantasyland Theater had closed permanently to be replaced by Pinocchio's Daring Journey.



From this angle we get a better view of Dumbo's former location which was eventually replaced in part by the Village Inn (later Village Haus) restaurant. King Arthur Carrousel can be seen beyond the construction wall in the distance. It was still operating in it's original location.



Now in this next shot, the Carrousel has been moved and the spot where it had originally sat has been paved over.



The Snow White attraction was gutted leaving only it's roof and two walls. The Fantasyland Theater was completely bulldozed. What we cannot see in this photo is that the Carrousel has been moved to the former location of the Mad Tea Party and is just out of frame on the right.  Note the camera mounted on the roof to record the construction progress in these next two photos.



The sign on the construction wall reads, "Wish Upon A Brighter Star - A New Fantasyland Coming True in 1983.  This version of the sign did not remain for very long.  It was replaced by a much more colorful and detailed sign which can be seen here over at Gorillas Don't Blog.



And here we see just a corner of the relocated Carrousel on the far left.  We can also see what looks like a basement for what will become Pinocchio's Daring Journey.



This view was taken from the upper deck of Captain Hook's Pirate Ship.



And this was taken through a peep hole in the construction wall surrounding the Carrousel.  The view is looking west towards what's left of the original Snow White attraction.



The Los Angeles Times ran this photo in early 1982.  There was no accompanying article, just the caption beneath it, which mentions a reopening date of April 1st.



Here, we see three Disneyland icons that would not coexist in this close proximity for very long....Captain Hook's Pirate Ship, Skull Rock, and the Carrousel.



I wish this next photo had turned out better. It's a view of the Carrousel as seen from the cove behind Captain Hook's Pirate Ship. At the bottom of the photo is one of the many barrel-shaped stools that could be found in the cove's dining area.



Here's one of the versions of the guidebook that was available during the time that Fantasyland was under consctruction.



The Fantasyland pages of the guidebooks would change throughout the year as the various attractions would shut down for remodeling. This version shows that the Carrousel had already been relocated and reopened.



By the time this photo had been taken, the Carrousel had been shut down again. The planter around it had already been added, and workers were just beginning to paint a new design and color scheme on the roof. Note also, that the new facade on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride is nearing completion.



This last photo shows the Carrousel on the official opening day of the New Fantasyland. The "Sword In The Stone" ceremony is taking place in the foreground with Merlin being assisted by one of the "Make Believe Brass" band members. The band was also making their park debut that summer along with the New Fantasyland.



I hope everyone enjoyed this trip back in time, to the transitioning Fantasyland of 1982 and 1983!

Eighth Grade Disneyland Trip - 1978

Hey kids, it's time for another Vintage Disneyland Trip Report! Thirty three years ago today, my eighth grade class went to Disneyland for "Grad Party '78". This was different than the "Grad Nite" events. This event took place all day long up until park closing. Here is my ticket from that day.

I saved a copy of the parental consent form that was typed up and handed out to all eighth graders. That's right, typed as in on a typewriter and then Xeroxed.....or would it have been mimeographed? Well anyway, I'm pretty sure it wasn't copied on a ditto machine!

Tickets AND transportation only $8.00!!! Lunch can be bought at the park for $1.50!!!

I also saved my school receipt for the ticket. This really was an important trip for most eighth graders. It was something that many of us looked forward to all year because we would get to spend the day in the park without direct supervision. There were adults that accompanied us on the bus trip, but once inside the park, we never saw them again until it was time to go home.

I took my Kodak 126 Instamatic Camera on this trip and out of a roll of 12 exposures, I only took 6 pictures that day...I'm not sure why I didn't shoot the entire roll at the park. The rest of the shots on the roll were taken during my eighth grade graduation ceremony. Sorry, but those shots WON'T be seen here!

I mentioned in an earlier post that after Space Mountain opened, it was always the first attraction we headed for. In the shot below, it would have been only one year old and already part of the glow-in-the-dark decals on car number 5 had been peeled off! It was probably done by some eighth grader that was "not mature enough to meet the trip's conduct requirements" and "brought discredit to their entire class"! The flash cube really wasn't powerful enough to reach as far as I was hoping it would. I'm posting the original pic and a scan of the negative. It's weird how the cast member outfits came out looking red in the new scan when they were actually a horrible orange color.





We've met some of my childhood friends in my past Vintage Disneyland Trip Reports. Today we'll be meeting....well, let's just call her Carrie B. We had known each other since Kindergarten, but we had become even closer friends in Junior High. We had planned to go on this trip together since the beginning of the eighth grade school year. I actually located her about 10 years ago through Classmates and we exchanged emails for a while. Since she doesn't appear to be on Facebook, maybe I should go through my old email addresses and ask her permission to post her picture here. For now we'll just have to settle for Jane of "Dick and Jane" fame (that's actually BEFORE my time....I tried to find a decent picture of Janet from the "Janet and Mark" books, but didn't have any luck.)



I don't remember what it was that she bought that day, but it must have been a lot since she purchased the heavy duty Disneyland shopping bag with handles. I have one of those bags and I will eventually get around to posting it.



This next photo is probably a good place to tell my "New Matterhorn" story. Once again, the year was 1978, so most DL fans probably know that this was the year the "New Matterhorn" was unveiled. At this time, the 19 year-old attraction became more "enclosed" and special effects were added such as "glistening crystal ice caverns" and "howling winter storms". The bobsleds were also redesigned and were now tandem instead of single. And of course the Abominable Snowman himself began making an appearance within the attraction.

I had already been to the park twice since the beginning of the year and had seen the construction taking place on the mountain. I had saved the special color Disneyland advertisement from the newspaper and I had seen the "New Matterhorn" commercial playing repeatedly on TV. The new attraction was even featured on the front of the Grad Party ticket. It had opened almost 2 whole weeks earlier (May 27th) and I was soooooo ready to ride it. Then a friend's father who worked at the park told me just days before the class trip, that the Matterhorn had shut down because they were having technical trouble with it and they didn't know when it would be up and running again. AW NUTS!

Okay, so at least we knew before our trip that it was going to be closed, but then at some point during the day while riding on the PeopleMover, we noticed one of the brand new bobsled trains traveling down and around the mountain with people in it and we got very excited. We got off of the PeopleMover and immediately ran over to the Matterhorn, only to have a cast member tell us that they were just testing the ride and that it would not be opening to the public that day. Yep, at second glance we noticed that everyone riding in the bobsleds was wearing "office attire" and Disneyland name badges. DOUBLE NUTS!

Well, time goes by very slowly when your that age, so it seemed like forever before I was finally able to experience the new attraction, but the reality was that I got to see it within a month or two when my friend's father got us into the park. That will have to be a story for another post....but that friend's father worked on the construction of Big Thunder, so I have construction shots and backstage shots that I will be posting in the future!

This photo was taken while riding the PeopleMover and shows the "test subject" cast members going for a ride on the New Matterhorn.



One last New Matterhorn detail.....while riding the Skyway, we happened to notice that the Abominable Snowman was visible while passing through the Matterhorn. We passed by him too quickly though and I just had to get a picture, so we went on the Skyway again. Actually, we went on it two more times and I have a second photo almost identical to this one. Alas, my attempts to capture him on film were all in vain since I didn't know that the flash cube wouldn't reach that far. Of course I didn't realize it until I got the prints back from Photomat. TRIPLE NUTS!



Oh, and speaking of Big Thunder construction, this sign was hanging on the construction wall over in Frontierland so I had to take a picture of it. There was a more colorful version of this artwork that later replaced this earlier version. Note the geysers which did not end up in the attraction at Disneyland.



Other memories that I have from that day are, calling home from the "Chatterbox" speaker phones in the Bell exhibit in Tomorrowland and purchasing this souvenir book at The Character Shop across the way (now The Star Trader).



Here are a few scans from the inside of this 74 page hardcover book.





At the time this book was purchased, these Matterhorn pictures were already outdated. The piece of Matterhorn track seen below, was an outdoor portion that became enclosed after the remodel.




If you have read this far, I hope you enjoyed the trip down memory lane....and thanks for going with me!