Disneyland 1982

Good old Uncle Walt.
When Disneyland was opened in Southern California in July 1955,its founder Walt Disney said his park would never be finished "as long as there is imagination left in the world."
Although Walt Disney passed away in 1966, his declaration still lives in an ever-changing and constantly expanding park. Guests who haven't visited Disneyland in recent years will find that his successors are still using their imagination.
Many of the old familiar attractions have been updated or replaced. Remember the "Rocket to the Moon"? It has been supplanted by a journey to Mars. Guests are zapped through hyperspace while up-to-date NASA film footage gives vivid realism to the journey to the red planet. A major new attraction,Space Mountain,takes guests on a dizzying,lurching race through the blackness of the universe. The Matterhorn has been updated with special effects,including a menacing green-eyed adominable snowman.
Newest attraction is Big Thunder Mountain Railroad,a run-away mine train that plunges guests in and out of dark caverns and harasses them with earthquakes and rock slides. It took seven years and $15 million to create this realistically scary but safe attraction.(The original construction investment in the entire park was only $17 million.)
Not all new Disneyland attractions are fast-moving. One can grin and giggle at singing hillbilly bears at the Country Bear Jamdoree and follow the history of our country's music in America Sings (originally the Carousel of Progress). Exactly 999 ghosts,who seem more funny than frightening,inhabit the Haunted Manison,opened a few years ago. Walt Disney is honored with a special attraction called the Walt Disney Story.
Nearby Disneyland Hotel,linked to the park by monorail,also has undergone major changes in recent years. This four -diamond resort is now an entertainment complex in its own right. It offers a new Seaports of the Pacific shopping and amusement area,a video arcade,restaurant row and nightly "Dancing Waters" display.
Of course some things don't change-not even at Disneyland. The familiar Sleeping Beauty's Castle is still there,bathed in pastel light at night. The Disneyland-Alweg Monorail still glides effortlessly from the park to the hotel like a sleek BART of tomorrow. And the sharp-horned rhino still has those explorers treed on the bank of the Jungle Cruise.
But Disneyland planners are a restless lot. They're in the midst of a major rehabilitation of Fantasyland that will produce a virtually new facility by 1983. It is being acomplished in two phases: about half the attractions are continuing to operate while the rest of Fantasyland is being reconstructed. On the drawing boards of the future are plans -still tentative-waterfront complex called Discovery Bay and a "big top" attraction called Dumbo's Circus. At Disneyland,it seems nothing is as permanent as change.



DR LEE