Happy 55th Anniversary Disneyland!

Everyone knows I love Disneyland. It’s a fact, not an opinion.

My friend Sam Branson, who just had her first baby girl (congrats, again!!) calls me Disneyland Sam.

I know every nook and every cranny of that place, except the backstage. I like to say that I don’t care about seeing the backstage because that would ‘ruin the magic,’ but that would be a lie.

People ask how I can go to Disneyland so many times and still want to go again.

To mass-answer that question… I love going to Disneyland because I am in love with the details. And there are so many details that one can not see them all in a lifetime because they are forever changing. When I go with my friend and their babies, I love to see the twinkle in their eyes as they meet their favorite character. I love when I find a new Hidden Mickey. I love when a cast member goes out of their way to make my day just that more special. I love the love in the park: romantic love, family love, friendship love. I love to see the result of the sweat and tears of every detail the Imagineers have ever created. I love to learn more history, more trivia, more random facts that I can shout out during lighting round at girls’ night. Most of all I love sharing my love for Disney with others.

Disneyland helps keep my creative light burning. It keeps me striving to do more but still relish the details of each design. I always wanted to be an Imagineer at Disneyland. Techinically, I wanted to be the one who chooses where the Hidden Mickey goes in each attraction. I have finally learned that I don’t have to work for Disney to have that same ambition, talent, or ingenuity. Now I just ask myself when I come into a design problem, “What would an Imagineer do?” For all you Imagineers out there, I see your details and I thank you for them!

So in honor of Disneyland’s 55th anniversary, I just want to give a shout to the first Imagineer, Mr. Walt Disney. And here’s a rather famous photo, and my favorite, of the man who started it all…

I like to wonder what Walt was thinking as he walked into Fantasyland… what idea he was mulling over… or was he just enjoying the details too?

*Random Disneyland Sam Fun Fact: the crest hanging on the back side of Sleeping Beauty’s castle is the Disney family crest.

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.

Walt Disney