Your Fondest Disneyland Memory

If you could only choose ONE Disneyland memory, funny moment, something poignant, amazing or special that happened on one of your visits, what would it be?

 

Fun topic, 2oony.

So many great memories to choose from.

- in 1979, as drum major of my high school's marching band, leading them down Main Street USA, then heading to Tomorrowland and conducting the band in a short concert - they were standing on the second level of 'America Sings' I was on the Rocket Jets landing. My parents and grandparents were there too. It was thrilling.

- In 1996, performing in the 'Mickeys Christmas Fantasy Parade' with a really cute fellow performer, Dianne.

- a year later, proposing to Dianne when we were Disneyland Christmas Carolers - and she said yes.

 

If I have to pick the fondest I always flash back to my first time on the Matterhorn in my dad's lap with him holding me snuggly. It really bothers me that you can't
do that anymore.
(That being said, I was really disappointed; as I was already a roller coaster connoisseur at 10 and it was much too tame. My father did explain to me what bobsleds were which is another fond memory.)

 

In 1996, my parents and I took my then 80-something year old Grandma to Disneyland for the MSEP Farewell. She had been to Disneyland a couple of times, approximately 1967 and 1970, but not since then. There are lots of great memories from that trip, but my favorite is when the Alice in Wonderland started its outside descent. You would have thought we had taken my Grandma on the most thrilling of thrill rides every the amount of exclamations she was making.

 

I've got a million of them. But the one that jumps out is the 50th anniversary morning. Standing in line with other LPers at 4:30 a.m., the line snaking through California Adventure. And then we were moving, and through the esplanade, where tens of thousands of others were behind ropes watching us parade into Disneyland, through the tunnels, and all the cast members lining Main Street -- applauding and high-fiving us, the guests, for 50 years of appreciation, saying "Welcome home!" It was so unexpected and perfect.

 

For me it would be the little mini remembrance ceremony we had for my sister on her birthday in March. We placed a glass heart in the greenery outside POTC (the same as ones previously left at POTC in DLP and WDW) then we rode the ride itself and had a Monte Cristo for lunch. My mum was wearing a "Happy Birthday" button so the waiter brought out a free dessert so we left it at a spare seat for my sister willing the candle to blow out. It got very low, but didn't go all the way.

 

Wow, iamsally, that's in MY top 5 too.

The first time or two we went to DL when I was very young, I was too scared to go on the Matterhorn. I'd never been on a roller coaster before. And they called them bobsleds, but I could see them splashing into the water, and they couldn't fool me. That was a roller coaster!! Teenagers might like stuff like that, but they were crazy. Plus, we glided by the bobsleds in the skyway, and that made the splashdown look tame. Those things were a kid-killing accident waiting to happen.

I fell in love with DL on that first visit, and the one thing I asked my parents to buy as a souvenir was the wall map. And I spent the next 7 months in between that first visit and my grandparents' visit for Christmas (when I thought we'd probably go again - and we did) staring at that map and thinking about it, looking at that imposing mountain, and figuring it might just be something I had to be older to enjoy, but on the other hand it had to be fun or nobody would do it, and it was an "E" ticket so it had to be great, but would I be brave enough? Would I be brave enough?

Was I brave enough?

Nope.

Flash forward another interminable 15 months before the next visit. Reports were coming back from my school, of kids in my class who had ridden. "Fun," they said. "Super fun," opined others. Even "my favorite thing there." So how bad could it be? And I had missed it!! Well, no more. I resolved that whenever I went back again, I would ride. I would be brave enough. I would conquer that big white mountain. Being afraid of it was soooooo Kindergarten.

Back in the days when it was the only coaster in the park, and it had single bobsleds, lines could wrap around the mountain and move glacially. (See what I did there?) So after I made it clear to my Dad (a couple of hundred times over several months) that when we went again I wanted to go on the Matterhorn, he said "Okay. But we're doing it first thing, before the park gets busy."

And so, on the morning of March 10 (my sister's birthday), we marched right up Main Street and had less than a chalet's worth of wait. Just enough time to get a little scared, but not long enough to scare myself out of it.

I made sure I rode with my Dad. Would my Mom have been strong enough to pull me back the sled in if those awesome forces of physics (which I had seen with my own eyes from the skyway on more than one occasion by then!) exerted themselves on me? Maybe. But why take chances?

So I rode with my Dad. Who, like iamsally's Dad, held me snugly.

And...

I thought it was the greatest, funnest ride EVER!

It started my lifelong love of coasters, which continues to this day. And I still can't ride it without thinking of that first ride and how secure I felt even while the 2 1/2 minutes of blissfully scary "Oh my God, this is why people love roller coasters!!" experience was happening.

I mean, seat belts are nice. Dad arms are better.

 

Did you know this? (See above)

 

Oh yes, up there at the top!
The line in tram drop off area when we got there.



Oh those cupcakes!



Folks asleep on the Pier. That's the DH on the left.


I cried like a baby. Still chokes me up. What a special day it was.

 

Spirit of Pocahontas. Subbed in a few dozen times during the 1996 holiday season.

 

You make a good Pocahontas...

 

My daughter was obsessed with Pocahontas. We saw the show multiple times when we visited. I wonder if we saw you then? FUN FACT: Mrs. Jim in Pasadena (who is also an amazing singer like Jim) is in the Disneyland Christmas Sing-Along video, too! We watched that tape a million times.

 

Do I have to pick just one???
A few highlights:
- the 50th. All of it. The long, cold night in DCA. The never ending pin line. Cupcakes and more cupcakes. "Welcome Home!"
- Getting proposed to in front of the castle after fireworks 13 years ago
- Feeling my little guy kick in my belly for the first time while surrounded by LPers at the "Meet the Preggos" meet
- Watching that little guy get passed around from LPer to LPer in the Tiki Room waiting area

 

I think I would also have to go with the 50th as my biggest stand-out memory. Although I wasn't at the LP meets (though I did make it into a crowd shot in one of the photo updates!), I had a great time waiting all night with my aunt in DCA, and then being in the park the next day for the big ceremony and general park-ness. The atmosphere in the park was just so alive that day, with the Disney-nerdiness everywhere. It was just such a unique experience, and a really fun time too!

A strong second choice would have to be my first time performing in the park. At the time I figured it would be my only chance to ever do it (or even go backstage for that matter), so it was just a really exciting day. I even managed to shake then-DLR president Ed Grier's hand in the middle of the performance. The handler standing next to him had a look of terror on his face as I came running up, and then bewilderment when he realized that I knew who it was

 

It seems to be tradition in my family to try to scare the hell out of the youngest members of the family while on rides at DL. I say that laughingly. We've had some wonderful times at DL both when I was a kid and now with my own kids. My Dad, when I was about 5 or 6, and the first time I had been on the Matterhorn, I was sitting in the front, my dad right behind me, and as we started out, he told me it was my job to steer. HOW?! I was in such a panic until I heard him laughing. Then, POTC, as cannon balls are splashing around our boat, he tells me to duck down. I believed we were going to be sunk. I guess you could say I was kind of gullible. Anyway, to carry on the family tradition, when I grew up and brought my own son to DL, the first time we road Indiana Jones, I made sure he got the steering wheel seat. "You know, it's your job to steer." That panicked look on his face both took me back in time and brought a feeling of great satisfaction.

 

Mine will seem odd. My dad took me on my sixth birthday. We were riding in the now long gone skyway buckets, or whatever they were called, at night. I could see all of DL below me and it looked very magical and my dad gave me a piece of chocolate. It must have been some nice chocolate he bought in the park, and not some wretched Hershey's, because it tasted like heaven.

I don't remember a whole lot from that day (even though it was my first visit), but that memory is etched into my brain.