I've been talking about going to the "Day Of" celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the opening of Disneyland for months. The idea has been suggested on this blog, on mailing lists, and in person. Ultimately, no one wanted to go or could afford to go.

I still wanted to go, but even that was jeopardised.

San Diego Comic-Con happened to fall on the same weekend, so it became a hard choice of whether or not to do San Diego Comic-Con, Disneyland, or both. In the end, I elected to go the crazy route and do both.

The amount of walking and the weight I had to carry on my back on Saturday at Comic-Con nearly wiped me out. By the time the day was done, I was severely sleep deprived and my body hurt all over the place, in particular my right hip, which made walking painful. I wasn't sure I had the physical ability to follow through with my plan.

Sunday morning rolls around and I miraculously feel all better, all clear, although I overslept by an hour and I wasn't sure if I'd get in the park. It would have been so easy to roll right back into bed for a few more hours of blissful sleep, but I chose to follow through and at least try to get in the park.

I did.

What follows is a pictorial and anecdotal record of a fantastic day in the Happiest Place on Earth for the Happiest Birthday on Earth.

General Stuff

The first picture goes in the "Remember Where I Parked" department. I arrived at the parking structure around 9, owing mostly to a late start from home. I had intended to leave in time to get to the park an hour before the gates opened, but ended up arriving an hour late. I thought it would have been busier, but to my fortune, lines weren't an issue.

By the time I cleared the turnstiles to drop me into the the actual park, it was already 9:45 and there was some kind of ceremony to take place at Sleeping Beauty's castle at 10:00, so I just hung around Main Street USA until it was time. The ceremony started off well with Art Linkletter, who had been one of the TV hosts when Disneyland opened 50 years ago. Not only was it Disneyland's birthday, but it was his birthday, too. At 93, he was "happy to be here, but I'm happy to be anywhere."

Once the business folks started talking, though, it went downhill. Iger was alright, but Eisner sounded flat and Schwartzenegger sounded terrible. Everything he had to say was about money, economics, tourism, and what fiscal role Disneyland plays/played in California. Ew.

The ceremony was capped with a speech from Walt Disney's daughter, Diane. I can't help but feel the entire thing sounded flat and uninspiring. Maybe it's because I'm comparing it to the 30th or 35th anniversary extravaganza that I saw on TV back when I was still in grade school. I was hoping for more special events than speeches and replays of historical footage. I wanted special events.

This, by the way, was a bench that I noticed on the way out of the park at night. It was located between Disneyland and California Adventure. For lack of a better place to put it, I stuck it here.

Jumping back to the morning, once the ceremony was over, I headed toward Big Thunder Ranch, which was where the special area was set up to sell the special edition items for the 50th Anniversary. One look at the line stretching all the way down to the Rivers of America and I decided I'd give it a pass and try again later in the day. So a burned through Frontierland and headed to...

Fantasyland

Arguably, Fantasyland is the best part of the park, particularly for the younger kids. From a photographer's point of view, I liked this section the most and mostly on account of the Mad Tea Party, which was my first real taste of the challenge of shooting moving objects.

I didn't go on any of the rides. My objective for the day was pretty clear: take pictures and talk to people. The way I saw it, the people that would show up at Disneyland on the day of the actual 50th anniversary were a special breed and I wanted to find out who they were.

Among the various characters I ran into, I met a woman who had worked there longer than I'd been alive. I met a man that she used to know who did watercolour portraits until they were stopped, but came out of retirement when they were recently re-introduced. I met the 10,000,000th guest through the gates, who got a lifetime pass to all Disney parks for the honour.

However, for this part of the morning, I just talked to my camera.

One of these things is not like the other...

The odd one out is a Storybook Land Canal Boat that just left dock and was coasting toward imminent peril in the maw of a whale.

My friend, Scott, had shot the Mad Tea Party in low light earlier this year and I wanted to take a look at what shooting this ride was like. It's a definite challenge as there are a lot of things moving around, but it had to be one of the most fun shooting adventures that I had for the day.

It became even more fun when Alice, the White Rabbit, and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum showed up to ride with the kids. The smiles on the kids' faces were fantastic and they played around a lot, so I was lucky in getting some shots of them having fun. There are a few places where I wish it could have been different--like that blurred chunk of hedge in the foreground of the closeup of Alice--but given the alternative of shooting lots of tourists, this was much better.

I had to wait for quite awhile outside It's A Small World to get the picture with the Disneyland Railroad running through it. I saw the train pull into the station and went to set up the shot, having no idea how long it would finally take before the train actually left the station. Let's just say my arm got really tired. I could have just taken the picture of It's A Small World and ran, but I wanted the train in the shot for interest.

Alas, I wasn't around when the climbers allegedly scaled the Matterhorn, but I was able to find a slightly unusual angle for a picture. This was taken between the Mad Tea Party and the Matternhorn. The mountain itself is pretty small, which says a lot about the forced perspective tricks that the Imagineers employ to make things appear larger than they really are.

A very cute Mulan. I really had to wonder what etiquette has to say about flirting with Disney theme park cast members and, in the end, did nothing.

Melificent, Snow White's wicked queen, was fun to listen to as she coached each of the kids that came up to her to look strong and powerful. I caught her with a cute little girl in what appears to be a Belle dress. I have a great statue of this character but it's been sitting in a box since I moved out of Hoboken, lacking in an appropriate place to display it. I'm debating whether or not I should sell it off.

I found this Cheshire Cat absconded in a little nook on the side of a ride. I'm not quite sure which ride it is now, but it was somewhere between the Matterhorn and the central square in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle. Oh, right, the ride's just called Alice in Wonderland. I thought there'd be something more clever.

Frontierland

I actually went through Frontierland twice, nay three or four times, but the only time I really stopped to take pictures was the second time through. That was when I thought I'd give the swag line a try, to see if I could get into the special area where they were selling the limited edition pins and stuff.

These were all pictures taken on the shore of the Rivers of America while waiting in the swag line. The waiting in line didn't last long though. It was hot. It took about half an hour before someone was bright enough to head to the front and ask. Turns out they had sold out of all but the special edition keychain. The rest was available in other stores, so I bailed out on the line. Got a few good pictures while I was at the water's edge, though.

I hadn't really quite figured out how to get my camera to snap these pictures fast enough as it's obvious that the train in the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is blurred as it shoots around the corner. Later in the day, I figured out how to activate the burst mode on the camera, so I'll come back and try this one again sometime.

The Trashcan Trio are three apparent groundsmen who come together to take a percussive break. I first heard about them from Scott, but didn't think twice about them until they showed up outside one of the stores in Tomorrowland. Fun show to watch, but anyone who's seen Stomp or Blue Man Group are likely to have seen better.

Sleeping Beauty's Castle

Sleeping Beauty's castle is the centerpiece of Disneyland, of course, much like Cinderella's castle is the centerpiece of the Magic Kingdom at Walt DisneyWorld. Didn't try anything particularly special taking these pictures, though some were taken late in the day so there were the beginnings of sunset effects.

I had tried a bunch of pictures to try to get a long depth of field (clearly focused statue and castle) but they didn't turn out.

How do I look in golden Mickey ears?

The Parade of Dreams

The Parade of Dreams was introduced to Disneyland specifically for the 50th Anniversary celebrations, which began in early May. It runs twice each day at 3:15 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. The first time through, I didn't have a very good vantage point and a bunch of my pictures were ruined by the presence of a prominent foreground head. However, the experience left me with a good idea of what to expect for the second pass, and I resolved to get a much better vantage point.

Alas, the 7:00 parade suffered from one major flaw: diminishing sunlight. Obviously, by this time of the evening, the sun was beginning to set and I was able to get some light for the parade, but the circumstances weren't ideal and I ended up with darker images than I'd like. On the other hand, I didn't have as much trouble with severe shadows.

I haven't been to Disneyland since I was 6 and I really don't recall what the parades were like at DisneyWorld, but I'm told that Tinkerbell is not a common person to have in the parade. Yet, there she was atop the first float, cute as punch.

The opening float was followed by dancers from the dinner scene of Beauty and the Beast, followed by Belle and the Beast and the other key characters on their own float. I didn't get a lot of the dancers, and I suspect I'd have to do a series of parades to catch all the elements. I rather like the one picture with Belle and the Beast embracing in the setting sunlight, though.

The Pinocchio float was next, along with its screen of dancers. I didn't get very many memorable shots of this as they passed through fairly quickly, but I got a pretty good one of the marionettes. I glad to have gotten Jiminy Cricket when the toy soldiers were bouncing around in the air on their bungee cords.

The Little Mermaid had two floats, one for Ariel and her friends and one for Ursula and her entourage. Dancers for both skimmed around with silvery balls that looked like pearls, but I couldn't get a good snap of them doing their thing. I was rather surprised that I was able to get such a close-up of Ariel. I was surprised again to see that she appears to be wearing some kind of microphone.

Alice in Wonderland came after that. I'm told that each of these floats reflects some kind of dream or another, but I don't remember where I saw that on the web anymore. There was so much going on in and around the Alice in Wonderland float that it was very challenging to even get a few shots that had good composition without hand jitter. I think my image stabilizer was off.

My favourite of all the floats was the Lion King float, much because there were some really cool things that the dancers did with bird kites on sticks and the various animal-like dance moves, and the guys on stilts, and--let's be frank--the cute girls in cat suits.

The tail float of the parade was the one with the Holy Trinity of Disney princesses, Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty. Mickey and Minnie and friends were also around this float. Basic and classic, but nothing that special about it.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable parade and I was surprised at how quickly I grew to like the "Welcome" song that was interlaced between the songs specific for each float. Later research says that the song is from the Brother Bear soundtrack. I might have to start considering recreating my disney collection on DVD.

"Remember... Dreams Come True" Fireworks

Between the second run of the Parade of Dreams and the beginning of the fireworks show, there was about two hours and I'd really pretty much exhausted myself by this point, so I took a few more pictures of Sleeping Beauty's castle and drifted throug the shops on Main Street USA for a little bit before settling down on the curb to wait for the pyrotechnics. I took this time to clear out some of the crappier photos I'd taken and to set up my tripod and experiment a little with framing my shot for the show, but didn't have the presence of mind to figure out how to work the manual shutter. That was something I'd come to regret later when I really had no control over how long my exposures were.

While I was waiting--and basically staking out a shooting lane so that no one stood right in front of my camera--a really nice family from New Zealand popped up and we talked. Only three of the seven were there, four of the children having gone back to the hotel to rest. Turns out they had been to Universal Studios during the day and Mom, Dad, and their daughter had come to the park one last time to see the fireworks before they left for home the next day. They didn't even know the significance of the date.

Had a great little chat with them. I learned more about the dairy industry than I ever thought I would, and I hope they had a great trip home.

From a technical standpoint, the fireworks photos kinda suck. I didn't have a shutter remote and I didn't have fine control over the exposure length. What resulted was somewhat random and occasionally jittery. The smoke from the prior explosions was a little annoying, but I have notions on how to resolve that on my next try. That said, however, there some cool effects with the red burst against the smoke cloud, as well as the one picture where it's hard to tell if it's Baghdad or Main Street USA.