Disneyland Paris – Day One
Tuesday, October 14th, 2008
The Sons of the Desert convention was now over on the morning of Sunday, July 13, 2008 – but there were even bigger fish to fry in Europe. We had spent a wonderful week in Holland, preceded by a day in Germany, and stops in Belgium and Luxembourg – all of which were fabulous (with the sole sore spot being that I never found a magnet in Belgium). We had arranged for a cab to pick us up at 11am that Sunday morning from the Hotel Avifauna. Originally we were going to leave from the train station in Alphen ann den Rijn, but due to some maintenance going on, the station was closed that morning. Read the rest of this entry »
Over a decade before I had ever even heard the expression ‘The Happiest Place on Earth’ when I first visited Disneyland in 1988, I had determined that the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World was in fact the happiest place on Earth. Words cannot adequately express the nostalgic chunk of memory firmly rooted in my brain when it comes to my second visit to Disney World in the early Summer of 1977. At the age of five, my mind was made up: this was my kind of place. 
Betty Lou Gerson was a character actress who could be seen in numerous televsion shows throughout the 1950’s and 60’s – most notably in one of my favorites The Twilight Zone, in which she starred in the episode Ring-A-Ding Girl. But Ms. Gerson really sealed her fame when she was cast to voice the evil vixen Cruella de Vil (To see her is to take a sudden chill) in Walt Disney’s 1961 animated feature 101 Dalmations. 
Most people would have thought it a little strange – in fact even I thought it a little strange. As I approached Adriana Caselotti at the Hollywood Collectors Show on June 24, 1995 to purchase an autograph, she began singing to me Someday My Prince Will Come. Of course this wasn’t quite as bizarre as it sounds if you know that Adriana Caseloti provided the voice for none-other-than Snow White in Walt Disney’s very first animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Now as a professed Disneyphile, this is an incredible memory to have, even though it was a bit strange and off-putting at the time. 
Since it had been eight years since I had been in California, obviously it had been eight years since I had been to Disneyland. Thursday, October 6, 2005 would mark my fourth visit to the park. This would also be my first time to Disney’s California Adventure which had opened in 2001 – built in the former Disneyland parking lot. Jimmy and I woke up that morning, had a bite to eat, and then made a brief pit stop elsewhere in San Pedro.