My Haunted Mansion BBS

NOTE: Unfortunately, the WordPress theme I am using does not expand, even on wide screens. I will replace the BBS text output with images soon.

Since I had so much fun describing how I shared photos using an internet FTP server in the mid-1990s, I thought it might be fun to share something from even earlier…

Before the World Wide Web came to be a thing in the 1990s, we had bulletin board systems (BBS) in the 1980s. I spent endless hours on my old Radio Shack Color Computer dialing in to other people’s computers where I would read messages from others and post my own. There were hundreds of these systems operating in Houston, Texas in the early 1980s.

Eventually, I ran my own BBS. It went through many incarnations over the years, with the final one running in 1995 in Des Moines, Iowa. That system was called DeltaBoard. The “delta” was for change, because the system had many different themes and you’d get a random one each time you called in.

One of the themes was Haunted Mansion. I recently found my old BBS software and thought I’d show you what it looked like.

Connection Established

When you dialed in, the first thing you would see was the system ID message:

When hinges creek in doorless chambers, and strange and frightening sounds
echo through the halls...  Whenever candlelights flicker where the air is
deathly still - that is the time when ghosts are present - practicing their
terror with ghoulish delight...
        .                .      .    \\  .  /--------------------------\
Welcome, foolish mortals, to the...  //.   / .  .  _  . . . . ___ _ __  \
   _   .  .  __________  .  .       /_     | |__| /_\ | | |\|  | |_ | \ |
  (_)     __/ ___  ___ \__   .   __/  \  . | |  | | | |_| | |  | |_ |_/ |
 .   .   /__\ |_|  |_| /__\   __/    /_    | .  .  _  . .  __ .  _  . . |
   .     |[]| .. __ .. |[]|  /  .   / /  . | |\/| /_\ |\| (_  | / \ |\| |
     . + |--| # |  | # |--| +        /_    | |  | | | | | __) | \_/ | | |
      _|_|__|___|__|___|__|_|_   .    / .  \                            /
 __---         /    \         ---__         \--------------------------/
 
I am your host.  Your ... Ghost Host.  Kindly step all the way in please and
make room for everyone.  There's no turning back now . . .
 
Please tell me your name, or type 'NEW' if this is your first visit.

Bad password

If you couldn’t remember your password, you’d see this:

Ah, there you are.  And just in time.  There's a little matter I forgot to
mention...  Beware of entering the wrong password.
 
Hurry back, hurry back.  Be sure to bring your real password if you decide to
join us.  Make final arrangements now.  We've been dying to have you...
 
 
 
 
 
The mansion door slams shut behind you...
 
                                                               Rest In Peace.

Welcome, foolish mortal!

Once you logged in successfully, you would be presented the message of the day:

Our tour begins here in this gallery where you see paintings of some of our
guests as they appeared in their corruptable, mortal state...
 
Your cadaverous pallor betrays an aura of foreboding, almost as though you
sense a disquieting meamorphosis.  Is this haunted room actually stretching? 
Or is it your imagination?
 
And consider this dismaying observation:  this chamber has no windows, and no
doors.  Which offers you this chilling challenge...  To find a way out!
 
Of course, there's always _my_ way . . .           ___-------___
                                                  /     RIP  _/ \
                                                  |             |
                                                  | Your        |
                                                  |\_   Name    |
                                                  |        Here |
                                                __|__:__.__.__:_|__

Orders, please.

After this, you would be presented with the main menu. It had all the various options you could do… It looked like this:

 
                  ..        /--------------------\        ..
                 _||_    @}| Haunted Mansion Menu |{@    _||_
                  ||        \--------------------/        ||
         ________/||\_______  _||____________||_  _______/||\_________  
        /                   \/                  \/                    \ 
       | {A} Solicitors        -}- Graveyard -{-   {L}ist Spirits Here |
       | {B}oo-letins...       {N} All Tombstones  {O}ther Mansions    |
       | {C}all Ghost Host     {P} Carve Tombstone {Q}uestionaires     |
       | {D}own/Uploads        {R} Read Tombstones {T}erminal Setup    |
       | {E} Playground        {!} List Crypts     {U} Spirit Listing  |
       | {F}eedback to Ghost     Private  Mail     {V}ideo Mode        |
       | {G}oodboo - Log Off   {M}orbid Mail       {W}orkspace         |
       | {H}elp                {S}end Morbid Mail  {X}pert Menu Toggle |
       | {I}nfo on Mansion     {K} Config Alias    {Y}our Vital Signs  |
       | {J}oin a Seance       {Z} Send File       {.} Today's Spirits |
       |                                                               |
       | {@} Change Password   {/} List Processes  {=} FAST Log Off!   |
       |_______________________________________________________________|

Ah, so punny. The message base was the “graveyard.” In case you were wondering what the other options where, here was the generic DeltaBoard menu:

                           ________________________
                           |                      |__
                           | DeltaBoard Main Menu | |
                           |______________________| |
                             |______________________|
       _________________________________________________________________
       |                                                               |__
       | [A)dvertisements       Public Messages    [L)ist Who's Online | |
       | [B)ulletins & News    [N)ews Reader/Net   [O)ther BBS List    | |
       | [C)hat with Allen     [P)ost Local Msg    [Q)uestionaires     | |
       | [D)own/Uploads        [R)ead Local Msgs   [T)erminal Setup    | |
       | [E)ntertainment       [!) List Msg Area   [U)ser Listing      | |
       | [F)eedback to Allen     Private  Mail     [V)ideo Mode        | |
       | [G)oodbye - Log Off   [M)ail Read         [W)orkspace         | |
       | [H)elp with System    [S)end Mail         [X)pert Menu Toggle | |
       | [I)nformation         [K) Config Alias    [Y)our Statistics   | |
       | [J)oin a Conference   [Z) Send File       [.) Today's Callers | |
       |                                                               | |
       | [@) Change Password   [/) List Processes  [=) FAST Log Off!   | |
       |_______________________________________________________________| |
         |_______________________________________________________________|

Farewell…

And lastly, when the user was done and logged off, they would see this final message:

Ah, there you are.  And just in time.  There's a little matter I forgot to
mention:  Beware of hitchhiking ghosts.  They have selected you to fill our
quota, and they'll haunt you until you return. 
 
     If you would like to join our jamboree,
     There's a simple rule that's compulsory:
          Mortals pay a token fee...
          Rest in peace; the haunting's free!
     So hurry back, we would like your company...
 
The ghost will follow you home...
 
Hurry back, hurry back.  Be sure to bring your death certificate if you decide
to join us.  Make final arrangements now.  We've been dying to have you...
 
 
 
The mansion door slams shut behind you...
 
                                                               Rest In Peace.

And more!

Other themes included Star Trek (parody), a hotel, a medieval castle, a groovy “den of iniquity”. It was such a great time back then, before point-and-click and pictures took over correspondence.

But who knows … now that I have found my old software, maybe I will resurrect this Haunted Mansion BBS sometime and make it available over the Internet.

Until next time…

Adventureland review from 1998.

I used to write articles for a technology and amusement publication based in California. I just ran across this one that I submitted in 1998. I do not recall if it was published (I’ll have to find my print copies and see), but I thought it would be fun to share now that my publishing agreement is long expired.

This was before they had a website! Wild.

FAMILY OWNED FUN

While corporate America continues to turn more and more things into mass produced, pre-packaged commodities, independent theme parks still draw an audience.  Just outside of Des Moines, Iowa in Altoona sits Adventureland Park, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and still owned by the man who started it all back in 1973.  This park sports three roller costers, including The Outlaw, ranked as a Top-40 woodie.  Each year the park tries to add something new, such as high-tech carnival rides or, for the past two years, the rather nice travelling Royal Hanneford Circus.

You won’t find any multi-million dollar attractions here, but the prices are great (only $2 to park, and less than $20 to enter) and even the choice of food is unique.  How many theme parks have a sit down cafeteria with fried chicken, salads, burgers and Jell-O(tm)?  The theming is loosly an old West setting with a Main Streat (including train station) tribute to Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdoms.  The employees are overall quite young but do a decent job at keeping things going.  You won’t escape reality here, but you can spend an affordable day on rides and watching shows.  For a special treat, find the rather mature lady who is the queen of guessing ages and weight and try to stump her.  A fantastic assortment of merchandise is available with virtually every ride in the park on some sort of shirt, hat, or beach towl.  There is even a nearby Adventureland Inn and Campground for those wanting to take advantage of the reduced 2-day passport.

Adventureland has no official web site and, although the domain name is registered and being held, no plans are known to add one any time soon.  A few unofficial fan sites can be found on the net giving other insight on this park.

1998 Operating Season:

Mostly weekends in May and September, with full time operation in June, July, and August.  Open daily at 10 a.m.

1998 Prices:

Parking:  $3 / General Admission: $19.50 / Children 4-9: $18.00 / Children Under 3: Free / Seniors: $15.50

Park Information:  (800) 532-1286 or (515) 266-2126/2121. 

Sharing digital photos in the 90s

A long, long time ago, I got my first digital camera and wanted to share photos online. The problem was, back then a website might only give you 512K (five thousands bytes, not mega, not giga) of storage. I could only put a few small photos online at a time.

To work around this, I would share photos directly from my computer by running a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server on it. I would dial in to my dail-up Internet Service Provider (ISP) that I dialed into with a dial-up modem (get the point?) and let it run overnight for folks to connect to and download photos.

I am confident I had the largest collection of Disney photos online anywhere on the Internet.

I had a script (a DOS .bat batch file) I would run any time I wanted to turn the service on. It would upload a customize web page to my website that had the current link to my computer at home. When I would shut it down, another script would upload a “the server is not available right now” page.

It was cutting edge.

When you’d connect, you’d see something like this:

Time travel commencing…

When a user would connect (all via a text interface, not the world wide web), they would see this:

[Welcome Before Login]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| INTERNET EXPLORER USERS!!!  Having problems?  Try NETSCAPE!  It works :)
| Also, PLEASE set your "ftp" configuration to send your e-mail address as
| the password.  If you don't know how to do this, try NETSCAPE!  :)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
           Welcome to the Al's Place FTP Photo Archives Server!

Hello, user connecting from [$origin].  Please login as "anonymous"
and use your COMPLETE e-mail address as the password.  Want your own
login account?  mailto://alsplace@pobox.com and ask!

It’s funny thinking back to the days when the Microsoft stuff was just not very good at Internet. Above, “[$origin]” was replaced with the IP address of the user visiting. All connections on the internet at tracked, and the same was true even 25 years ago.

I had a public anonymous account set up so anyone could connect. Once they entered the correct username, they would see this:

[Welcome After Login]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello, [$user], and welcome!  There is/are currently [$usersonline] user(s) 
online (out of [$maxusers] allowed).

7/3/98 *** Want your own private account here?  E-mail me for details!

Welcome to the *Al's Place* FTP server.  This site is only available
when I am logged into the network:

     WWW - http://www.pobox.com/~alsplace/online.html

Here you will over ***4,600*** digital photos (over 220 megs) from
theme park and amusement places such as:  Disneyland, Walt Disney World,
Kennywood, Six Flags Georgia, Paramount's Gret America, Adventureland,
Universal Studios, and many, many others.

Most images are in 640x480x16.7 JPG format and about 55K in size.  You
are welcome to use any of the images on your web site if you please give
me credit (such as a link back to my site).

Enjoy!  And please drop me a line if you encounter any problems
or have any specific photo requests!  mailto://[$email]

My ICQ number is 373286.  Page me if you need to.

Wow, 4600 whole photos back in 1998! The first generation digital camera I had would take a 640×480 resolution photo and store it at around 55K, which is why that many photos only took 220 megabytes. (Well, I say “only” today, but back then, that was a ton of space. It would have cost a fortune to pay for that much storage on a web host provider. Just getting a custom domain name was $75 back then – adjust that for inflation in 2020 and you’ll get the idea of how much it was then, compared to $8 today.)

And does anyone remember ICQ? “I Seek You” was an early chat program. I had started out using one called PowWow. PowWow is long gone, but some variation of ICQ still runs today (or did the last time I checked). My user number was pretty early considering they were in the tens of millions (wiki says 42 million daily users in 2010).

Now, although I had an anonymous account that anyone could use, I did ask that they use their e-mail address for the password just so I could know who was visiting. If they did not give it, they would see this:

[Anonymous Denied]

Anonymous users are currently not allowed to log in.  Please send e-mail
to [$email] asking for access.

You are likely seeing this if you didn't use your real e-mail address
for the password when you logged in.  Please be considerate and at least
let me know who you are -- thanks!

I could shut off the service at any time, and then users would see this:

[System is Closed]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Al's Place is currently closed.  Please try back later, or sent mail to
[$email] asking what the problem it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And anytime I needed to shut it down, any user currently online would see this:

[System Shutdown]
The system is being shut down.  Please check back again later, as
sometimes I just have to take the server offline to reboot the system.

Since I was running this on my 486 Toshiba laptop, and was using a very slow dial-up connection, I would limit the number of users that could be online at any time. It was slow enough as it was trying to download a 55K image over dialup.

[No More Users Allowed]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| INTERNET EXPLORER USERS!  Try NETSCAPE.  It seems to logout properly
| from FTP sites such as this.  IE seems to "hang" holding on to the
| connection.  Most of the time when the system says it is full is due to
| Internet Explorer apparently holding on to IDLE connections.  Sorry!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry, but the Al's Place FTP Photo Archive Server has a limit of [$maxusers]
users logged in at the same time.  Currently, there are [$usersonline] users
logged in right now ([$anonsonline]/[$maxanons] anonymous).  Please try back
again in a bit and see if the system is less busy.

NOTE:  If you are trying to connect using a web browser, each access
counts as a "user".  Please note that this site feeds off of a computer
that is connected to the internet by a 56K dialup modem (when I am
online) so doing multiple downloads is going to make things go much
slower for all connected.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I even had online help!

[Help]
Sorry, no help is available currently.  I hope to have some in the
future.  Until then, feel free to leave mail to [$email] and
ask any questions you may have.

Oh…

Well, at least I could ban troublesome users, and they’d see this:

[Your Class is Banned]
Your user class is currently banned from accessing the system.

I know you are stunned to know people were being jerks on the internet even in the 1990s.

And lastly, when the user was ready to disconnect, they would see this:

[Goodbye]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for visiting the Al's Place FTP Photo Archives server!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And that, my digital friends, is how folks were able to browse and download digital photos back in the 1990s before websites were able to handle large photo galleries.

Enjoy surfing in the 2020s! It’s much nicer than it was 25 years ago.

Until next time…

Park Hopping in VR

As an early adopter of digital cameras (my first was purchased in 1996), I am no stranger to adopting new tech before the rest of the world decides it’s useful.

In the early 2000s, I became fascinated with panoramic photography. I learned about special mirrors that let a camera take 360 panoramic photos with just one shot. Around 2005 I purchased a SurroundPhoto attachment and a Nokia camera specifically to use for this purpose. Here is what an image looked like:

SurroundPhoto one-shot 360 mirror lens.

If you’ve ever looked at the files that come out of a modern RICOH Theta VR camera, you will find this image a bit familiar.

Using special software, this weird image could be flattened out into a panorama:

Disneyland 2005 panorama taken with the SurroundPhoto.

I had already created a virtual tour of Disneyland by taking four pictures in each spot (facing north, south, west and east) and linking them all together as web pages with a custom program I wrote. I wanted to do the next version using 360 panorama VR-style photos.

Someday maybe I will.

I had also gotten my first digital camcorder in 1999 and was recording everything I was allowed to during my Disney trips. I have hundreds of tapes rotting away in storage. Some of them are in 3-D thanks to learning about the NuView camcorder attachment:

MuView 3-D camcorder attachment.

This odd device attached to the front of any pre-HD camcorder and used a special lens system to record what a left and right eye would see as separate scan lines in the old video signal.

I took this with me on a few trips and recorded a few hours of 3-D video, which I could later convert to red/blue anaglyph. I made copies of my 3-D home movies available on DVD (because I also was an early adopter of a machine that could burn DVDs). It’s hard to believe that burning DVDs was a big deal. (Somewhere I still have tons of the paper red/blue 3-D glasses.)

  • My its a small world holiday home movies in 3-D.
  • My Haunted Mansion Holiday home movies, in 3-D.
  • 3-D anaglyph still image converted from a NuView 3-D video.
My home movies . . . in 3-D!

After that, I was an early adopter of HD video (even though I wouldn’t own an HD TV until years later). I still have many tapes I have yet to even look at.

Someday maybe I will.

And as far as “real” VR goes, I did get to play Dactyl Nightmare, the first consumer VR experience, at a Dave and Buster’s near Dallas back around 1993 or so. I then saw a demonstration of VR at Epcot in 1995, then got to play DisneyVR at the Tomorrowland Starcade at Disneyland in 1996.

DisneyVR at the Disneyland Starcade on May 20, 1996.

Yet somehow I missed adopting VR at home, beyond playing with a “put your phone in this thing” Google cardboard device.

So apologies for this announcement being so late.

Ladies and gentlemen . . . ParkHopping.com in VR!

ParkHopping.com in VR.

You don’t seem too impressed.

Maybe someday you will.

Christmas at Universal Studios Florida in 1998.

NOTE: I believe I may be incorrect about the dates here. I think these photos are actually from 1999. I am not sure why I have a bunch of Universal Studios photos that are off by one year, but from looking at my Disney trips, I see I visited in November 1999. With that in mind, assume that “1998” below is probably actually be “1999.”

Today I am quite familiar with Halloween and Christmas events at Disney, but there was a time “not too long ago” (but longer than many of you reading this have even existed) when Halloween wasn’t really much of a thing in the parks.

Back then, there was a small Fall transition where you’d start to see some pumpkins or Fall decorations before Christmas would take over later. I went through my photo gallery trying to see if I captured any of this “before Halloween” stuff, but I find that the first trip I made in November with a digital camera was in 1998.

I found some photos from Universal Studios Florida, back when it was just Universal Studios (long before Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and before Islands of Adventure opened).

Universal was already in Christmas mode by November at that time. Let’s take a look.

The original movie-themed park had different areas representing different big cities. As such, they put up traditional city-style decorations.

Christmas decorations at Universal Studios Florida on November 17, 1998.

As a kid in the 1970s, I have fond memories of seeing the Christmas decorations like these candy-stuffed stockings on light posts.

Christmas decorations at Universal Studios Florida on November 17, 1998.

I don’t recall seeing any of these “across the street” decorations, though. I suppose it’s easier to decorate fake streets that don’t have actual traffic (other than parades).

Christmas decorations at Universal Studios Florida on November 17, 1998.

I *think* these “shooting star” decorations may have been from the Hollywood Boulevard area of the park.

Christmas decorations at Universal Studios Florida on November 17, 1998.

Of course the park has a Christmas tree.

Christmas decorations at Universal Studios Florida on November 17, 1998.

The tree was located just across the way from the Islands of Adventure preview center.

Christmas decorations at Universal Studios Florida on November 17, 1998.

Since Universal Studios was based on a movie backlot, its “lands” were supposed to be backlot filming sets based on different cities and such. Thus, the attractions were often placed in buildings that usually didn’t make sense. King Kong was an exception, since it was a public transportation ride located in a public transportation station building. It was decorated for happy holidays, in spite of giant gorilla inside…

Christmas decorations at Universal Studios Florida on November 17, 1998.

As I keep digging through my archives, I expect I may locate some photos of the in-between decorations the Disney parks had (Main Street and Frontierland, I think). Today, though, I think they go straight from Halloween to Christmas, with no room for anything in between like Thanksgiving or Fall.

Until next time…

My original web site in 1997…

My first “personal home page” (today we call them websites) was started in 1995 thanks to a site called GeoPages. They gave anyone who wanted one a tiny bit of space on their public web server. (I seem to recall it was about 512K of storage.)

GeoPages was later changed to GeoCities. My site, “Al’s Place”, stayed there for a few years before I got annoyed with the ads and needed much more space, requiring me to move to a different hosting provider.

But I digress.

Thanks to the Wayback Machine over at the Internet Archives, you can now see the earliest copy of my website they have indexed. It was archived on February 3, 1999. The content itself looks like it was last updated in 1997 since there is a note on the site explaining that I’d moved on to a different hosting location.

Take a look at how the web began…

https://web.archive.org/web/19990202065140/http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/1842/

My original “personal home page” circa 1997!

I am excited to find this snapshot, though sadly it doesn’t have any of the earlier versions. It’s at least a look at my site in its final form at the old GeoCities location. I had looked for this in the archives a few years ago and it wasn’t there, so I was surprised to find it.

Of special interest to me was my link to the “Banks Family Vacation” web page that inspired me to get a digital camera and start taking and sharing digital photos back in 1996.

Although the link on my archived site doesn’t work, it at least gave me what I needed to track it down in the Wayback Machine. Ladies and gentlemen, here may be the very first “take and post pictures from Disney” site that ever existed on the Internet:

https://web.archive.org/web/19990117025019/http://www.neosoft.com/sbanks/vacation/vacation.html

That capture was from January 1999.

In an upcoming article, I’ll share some more details on what was going on back then.

Until next time…

Circle-Vision in 1996

When I returned to Disneyland in December 1995, there were some thing I had “just” missed (like the PeopleMover and Skyway, that had closed a few years earlier). But, some things were still there, though they would close soon after.

One such thing was the Circle-Vision theater, showing a special presentation of America the Beautiful, which was supervised by Walt Disney himself.

Disneyland’s Circle-Vision on August 12, 1996.

For the kids at home, this was where the Buzz Lightyear ride is today. You can learn more at Yesterland.com or read the writeup at the Wikipedia.

My ancient digital camera did not do well indoors without using a flash. But, since there aren’t that many photos of this online, I thought I’d share what I have.

Disneyland’s Circle-Vision on August 12, 1996.

Yep. Glorious low resolution, low quality digital photos from 1996! Above was the pre-show area, leading in to the main CircleVision theater. Below I will share the other photos I took that visit — all of equal quality.

  • Disneyland’s Circle-Vision on August 12, 1996.
  • Disneyland’s Circle-Vision on August 12, 1996.
  • Disneyland’s Circle-Vision on August 12, 1996.
  • Disneyland’s Circle-Vision on August 12, 1996.
  • Disneyland’s Circle-Vision on August 12, 1996.

After this theater closed, it eventually would re-open and be used as part of the queue for the Rocket Rods. They created a new Circle-Vision film for it, which features some clips from other CircleVision films (on all screens) as well as clips from Disney’s TV series segments on transportation (including clips of Walt Disney). It was nice to be in a Circle-Vision theater at Disneyland again, even if it was just something you passed through while waiting for a ride.

Walt Disney World had Circle-Vision theaters at Epcot‘s World Showcase (and still does) and Magic Kingdom‘s Tomorrowland (Timekeeper, gone and replaced by the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor).

Disneyland no long has any theater, as the building was redone to become Buzz Lightyear and the Circle-Vision screens were removed.

At least I got to see the “end” of Circle-Vision at Disneyland — the original theme park that pioneered this type of presentation. It’s one of the things I have never seen anywhere else (though surely someone else has made them).

Until next time…

Missing new posts? So am I.

I moved recently, and no longer have home Internet access. I hope to find time to get my photo hard drive and laptop someplace with WiFi to write up and schedule new posts. Until then, have you read everything here?

Entering Disney in 1996.

Here is a real quick one… It recently dawned on me that someone could probably dedicate a whole series of articles to how admission to the Disney theme parks has changed over the years. Up until the 1990s, this would have only been a discussion about coupon books versus single and multi-day general admission tickets. Since then, however, there have been a number of changes to how admission is handled.

I will just contribute two photos taken in 1996 of how you used to get in to the Magic Kingdom in Florida.

First, notice the orange area in the following photo:

Magic Kingdom turnstile on August 26, 1996.

At that time, admission was a paper-plastic type ticket with a magnetic strip on it. At the turnstile you would insert that ticket into the orange slot and it would scan and allow (or deny) you access to the park.

Here is what my ticket, an annual pass, looked like in 1996:

1996 WDW Annual Pass (back).

And here is the front artwork:

1996 WDW Annual Pass (front).

Yes, my Walt Disney World annual pass was just a piece of plastic-paper with my name on it.

At the time, I thought this was quite cheesy compared to how Disneyland did theirs. They had an actual plastic ID card with a photo on it, and no magnetic strip that could become demagnetized. Here is the Disneyland pass from the same year:

1996 Disneyland AP (back).

And here is the back, promoting the recently opened Indiana Jones Adventure attraction:

1996 Disneyland AP (front).

Quite a difference in quality! In those years, it was said that Disneyland visitors were 70% locals from Southern California, while Walt Disney World was about 70% out-of-state tourists. I guess Disney just had more “regulars” to make feel special when they spent so much money on an annual pass. (After all, a one day pass to Disneyland in 1996 has just seen its price jacked up to $34!)

I never had a day pass to Disneyland, so I don’t know what they used for single day tickets at the time.

I recently found all of my Disneyland and Walt Disney World passes I’ve had since 1995. In a future post, I’ll do a photo essay showing the changes over the years.

One more thing before I go… The backside of the Magic Kingdom turnstile in 1996:

Magic Kingdom turnstile on August 26, 1996.

Ah, the things I took pictures of with my first digital camera.

Until next time…

My abandoned Disney theme park book project…

I recently stumbled across eight chapters of a Disneyland/Walt Disney World book I was working on a long, long time ago. Today, there are hundreds of such books, and many speciality book publishing companies (such as Theme Park Press) that publish niche books like these. But back then, well, we had some Disney history books, and official and unofficial guides, and that was about it.

I thought I’d share an excerpt from a draft of the opening to one of my chapters — Disneyland for Walt Disney World Fans — which, as I read through the whole thing, still seems as applicable today as it was back in the early 2000s. (This project was started in the late 90s as Disneyland was building Disney’s California Adventure and becoming a “resort”, and revisions where being made after that expansion.)

Let’s take a quick look… I’m commenting out some of the text due to it being laughably out-of-date (several places I mentioned back then don’t even exist today), but hopefully you’ll get the idea…

Chapter __ – Disneyland for Walt Disney World Fans

If you are a Walt Disney World fan, you should already have an idea of just what Disney World is, at least to you.

What the Disneyland Resort Isn’t

The Disneyland Resort is not a huge, sprawling entertainment complex sitting on 43 square miles or property with endless golf courses, outdoor activities, and resorts. It has no water parks, no nightclubs, and no campgrounds. Instead, it is two theme parks, three high end hotels, and a shopping district featuring touristy eateries.

If you could spend an entire week in Florida and happily never set foot on one of the four Disney theme parks there, a vacation to Disneyland may not be a fitting alternative.

But, if you cherish all things Disney, and enjoy rides and theming…

Augmentation

A Disneyland Resort vacation can be augmented with several non-Disney theme parks and experiences that are nearby.

  • Knott’s Berry Farm – Just fifteen minutes away is one of the original theme parks in America – Knott’s Berry Farm. (I’d visited Knott’s numerous times by then, and was considering devoting a small section to what it had to offer. Since then, Knott’s has been purchased by Cedar Fair and it has become much more of a coaster thrill park.)
  • Universal Studios Hollywood – Located within an hour away (depending on traffic) is the orignial famous Hollywood studio tour. (This was another area where I had a section dealing with the major “must see” offerings at Universal, as well as a comparison between the Hollywood and Orlando versions. With the addition of Islands of Adventure, I would have had to expand upon that quite a bit.)
  • Six Flags Magic Mountain – …(Since I grew up in a state that had, at one point, THREE Six Flags parks, I probably wrote a bit too much about Magic Mountain. Ultimately, it would have been a parallel to going to Busch Gardens or similar in Orlando.)
  • SeaWorld – …(Another bi-coastal comparison. The idea was to pitch “Disneyland + SeaWorld” versus “Magic Kingdom + SeaWorld” but ultimately, I would have also included things like the San Diego Zoo and other unique California offerings.)…
  • Legoland – …(I had not yet even begun to write about Legoland.)…
  • …(I had planned to do some visits to the various parks so I could speak about them with more knowledge than what a brochure gave me)…

Water Parks

Although none of the local water park attractions can come close to the immersive attention to detail that Disney’s Florida water parks offer, for those who just want to get soaked, slide or swim, there are plenty of Southern California generic water park experiences to be had.

  • …(list and disucssion of various nearby waterparks; again, without first-hand experience with them, there would have been some research involved)…

Touristy Attractions

Just like the nearby International Drive near Disney World is full of more tourist attractions, shows and experiences than you could comfortably shake a stick at (let alone expect to see them all even after many visits), the Disneyland Resort area is also home to similar experiences.

  • Medieval Times – …
  • …(there are so many of these around here; I was going to base this on a similar project I was planning to do on Wisconsin Dells. Likewise, there was a similar section about the touristy things to do near Walt Disney World)…

And so on…

Since I still have a chance to resurrect this project through a new publisher (sadly, the original went out of business years ago), I won’t go into further details. But, I will say that it mostly covered common things found at both resorts (i.e., the apples to apples comparison) rather than trying to compare a golf course in Orlando to a swimming pool at the Disneyland Hotel.

I certainly enjoyed spending a few evenings reading through my early ramblings, and I hope you enjoyed this quick peek at what could have been (and maybe one day still will be).

Until next time…