Uncle Henry Visits Disneyland - Summer of 1966

Sixty years ago, my Uncle Henry came out to California (from Maryland) to visit my mom and dad.  He was my dad's younger brother and there was a 17-year difference in their ages.  During his stay, my dad took him to Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, and Marineland.  In the past, I've posted just a couple photos of him at each of those locations, but today, I am presenting all of the photos from his trip to Disneyland.  There are 24 shots, that's a whole role of film!

This is the first shot my dad took that day, and it appears to have been taken from the upper level of an Omnibus.  (Awww, rest in peace, E.J. Peaker!).  Based on the time on the clock, we know that they arrived at the park fairly late in the afternoon.

These were all scanned from slides, and I have never seen physical "prints" of any of these.  My family's slides were buried in the back of a bedroom closet for years, and were not "dug" out until I was in high school.  I remember being excited to see a hint of The House of the Future in this next shot, but also frustrated that more of it wasn't showing.  As a huge Disneyland fan, I was well aware of it's existence, even though I was too young to have experienced it.

In these next two pics, my uncle is standing on the Castle's drawbridge.

My dad lowered his camera a little bit for this next shot.  Maybe he wanted to capture my uncle's reflection in the moat?

Based on the numbering on the slide mounts, it looks like they headed over to the west side of the park, first.

I love my dad's Jungle Cruise pics!  Incidentally, all of these scenes have been altered to some degree, or removed altogether.

I wonder if this photo was a "whoopsie," or if it was intentional?  There were some large circular lines on the image.  I'm not sure where they came from, since there didn't appear to be a fingerprint on the slide.  Maybe they were caused by the bright sunlight coming through the bamboo and hitting the camera's lens?

It looks like my dad went on ahead of my uncle, so that he could snap a pic of him coming down the stairs of the Swiss Family Treehouse.  (That's my uncle in the blue shirt and jeans.)

 The Columbia was teeming with people!

This photo of the Friendly Indian Village was probably taken from the Mark Twain or a Keelboat, since it is too low of an angle to have been taken from the Columbia.  Just beyond the trees, we can see the abandoned right of way for the Disneyland R.R.  The tracks had been relocated further north very recently, for the construction of It's A Small World (which had opened just two months earlier).

Speaking of Keelboats, the Bertha Mae was passing by at just the right moment, as my uncle was crossing the pontoon bridge on Tom Sawyer Island.

Next we have the former Fort Wilderness.  I hope my uncle didn't lose a finger in one of the fort's blockhouses!  I am now realizing how many other things in my dad's photos no longer exist, or have been majorly altered.  Sad!

These next two photos are the only ones that my dad took in Tomorrowland.  I wish he had taken pics of other parts of the land, since it would be closing in just three months (October of 1966), for construction of the New Tomorrowland.  Oh, well.....beggars can't be choosers!  I'm just happy to have ANY vintage Disneyland photos taken by my dad.

Since there are just these two Tomorrowland pics, I can't help but wonder if they experienced anything else in that land, other than the Autopia and the Submarine Voyage.

They did catch the Skyway in Tomorrowland, and made their way over to Fantasyland.....

In this next pic, we can see that the Anaheim Convention Center was under construction.  It would open just one year later, in July of 1967.

Attn: "JB"......Pumpkin Coach Alert!

Here's another view of Cinderella's Castle, but taken from a Storybook Land Canal Boat.

This next shot was taken from the deck of Captain Hook's pirate ship....we can see some of the ropes and rigging on the far right.  We can also see Timothy Mouse holding his whip, and one of the Character Food Stands (Fan I).  At first I thought that the small specks of light in the sky (underneath the Skyway gondola) might the beginning or ending of a bursting firework shell, but it's actually a little too far south for it to be that.  After reading a comment from "Meet The World" follower, "JB," I now believe those lights are actually Tinkerbell, "sliding down her wire."  Back then, her landing platform was located behind the Mine Train thru Nature's Wonderland attraction, so everything lines up perfectly, here.  Also, I don't know why else my dad would have taken this photo.

The last two pics taken that day were of the fireworks.

I hope my uncle had fun during his one and only visit to Disneyland.  I do know that he never returned to California after this childhood visit.  He was averse to flying, and never flew in an airplane his entire life.  For this 1966 trip, he had shared a car ride across the country and back, with some "family friends" who were coming out to California to visit relatives of their own.

****BONUS****

I wanted to add something else to this post, so I searched on ebay and purchased a 1966 Disneyland Guidebook.  I've scanned every page, so here it is in it's entirety.

Since these were free to every guest (courtesy of INA), I wonder if my uncle saved his and took it back home with him?

Only .25 cents a day to board your cat or dog at Ken-L-Land, and it included food, too?  What a deal!

Since this isn't one of my own Disneyland Guidebooks from one of my own childhood visits, I find even some of the slightest differences very interesting.  For example, seeing the Mad Tea Party listed as a "B" Ticket attraction.  It was always a "C" Ticket, during my childhood and teenage years.

The new four-seat Skyway "buckets" were being touted in the attraction's description, and Pirates of the Caribbean was "Coming Soon!"

It looks like they were using the ticket booth built into the facade of the Opera House (the black star).  I don't think it was there very long and at some point, a poster was placed over the ticket window.  That ticket window can be seen here, in this post from Gorillas Don't Blog.

I don't remember Aunt Jemima's Kitchen, but when Aunt Jemima ended it's sponsorship at Disneyland (in 1970), the restaurant briefly changed names to "Magnolia Tree Terrace," before becoming the current Riverbelle Terrace.

New Orleans Square would have been brand-spanking new!  I bet the smell of fresh paint was still in the air.  Once again, Pirates of the Caribbean was listed as "Coming Soon."  It would open in March of the following year, just about six months after the summer season ended.

The Haunted Mansion was listed as a future attraction on the Frontierland map.  Construction on the exterior of the house had been completed in 1963, so it had already been sitting there for 3 years, and it would be another 3 years before the attraction ever opened!

It looks like Fantasyland had the most ticket booths out of all the lands.  I think it's interesting that they put one on either side of the Mad Tea Party.  The one to the east of the attraction was not there during my childhood visits.  And It's a Small World, which was only a couple months old, looks a little mispositioned here on the map.  It is shown sitting directly behind (and maybe even overlapping) Storybook Land.  That was corrected in later guidebooks.

It's fun for me to see the schematic layout for the original Tomorrowland, since all of my personal guidebooks are from after the opening of the New Tomorrowland.  Note that the Matterhorn Bobsleds were still listed as a Tomorrowland attraction at this time.  Apparently, both of the Autopias were also being listed as Tomorrowland attractions.

I also don't remember the Main St. train station's "Train Depot Snack Bar."  I wonder how long it existed?

So the Space Bar and the Yacht Bar had the exact same menus?

The Submarine Lagoon's live "mermaids" were listed in the guide's entertainment schedule.

Free Shows and Exhibits:

The back cover featured an ad for INA, the Insurance Company of North America.  They sponsored this format of the Disneyland Guidebooks for 10 years, from the very first one in 1965, all the way through 1974.

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!