Disneyland Park, California

Disneyland Anaheim: The Original

Walt Disney opened Disneyland in Anaheim on 17 July 1955. The opening day was widely reported as a disaster — the crowd was twice what had been expected, counterfeit tickets were circulating, and several attractions broke down — but it recovered and has been more or less continuously busy since. The park covers about 160 acres (Disney World in Florida covers 27,000), which means Disneyland is actually walkable and has a scale that the Florida parks lack.

There are two parks on the Anaheim resort: Disneyland Park (the original) and Disney California Adventure, which opened in 2001 and is generally regarded as the stronger of the two parks in its current form after extensive expansion.

Disneyland Park

The original park has eight themed lands. The most historically significant rides are the ones that opened in 1955 and still operate: Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, the Matterhorn, and Space Mountain are all worth doing regardless of wait times. The Matterhorn, at 147 feet, is still among the more unusual roller coasters in the world — a tubular steel track inside a fake Swiss mountain, built in 1959.

Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, which opened in 2019, takes up 14 acres of the park’s southwestern section and contains two major attractions. Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run is an interactive cockpit simulator; Rise of the Resistance (also in Florida) is the better of the two and uses a combination of screens, moving rooms, and physical sets in a way that genuinely works. Both rides use the Lightning Lane system for managing queues.

Disney California Adventure

The Guardians of the Galaxy ride (formerly Tower of Terror) and Radiator Springs Racers in Cars Land are the consistent highlights. Radiator Springs Racers is a dark ride / racing attraction that uses the Pixar film setting with considerable production quality; the queue itself, built as a 1950s Route 66 landscape, is well done. Pixar Pier along the waterfront has a large Incredicoaster that’s quick to ride but not technically impressive.

Practical Logistics

Tickets start around $104 for a one-day ticket at lower-demand periods and go significantly higher on peak days (the pricing is date-dependent). The Lightning Lane pass (for shorter queues on select attractions) costs an additional $25-30 per day per person. Planning the queue strategy before arrival saves considerable time.

The three on-site Disney hotels (Grand Californian, Disneyland Hotel, Paradise Gardens Park Hotel) are expensive relative to off-site options but include early park entry. Numerous hotels on Harbor Boulevard within walking distance of the park cost $100-200/night less for equivalent quality.

Anaheim is 35 miles from Los Angeles, reachable by car (45 minutes to 1.5 hours depending on traffic) or by Metrolink train from LA Union Station to Anaheim (about 45 minutes). The park entrance is about a 15-minute walk from Anaheim station.