Calicoland


 * This article is about Calicoland in Tsukiluna. For other similarly named Calico parks and resorts see here.


 * “To all who come to this happy place: Welcome. Calicoland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Calicoland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America, with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.”
 * ―Nellie Calico

Calicoland Park, originally and colloquially known as Calicoland, is the first and original Calico theme park at the Calicoland Resort in Rosewitch, Tsukiluna and is owned and operated by the Nellie Calico Company. Created by sisters Nellie Calico and Mattie V. Calico, Calicoland has become the world's most famous themed amusement park and one of the most visited sites in the world.

Following a televised first-look of the park along with a pre-opening for the press and VIPs on July 17, 1955, the official and historic public opening of Calicoland occurred on July 18, 1955.

The park features many rides and attractions, dining options, and walk-around characters, including Cathy and Casey Cat and their friends as well as Calico Princesses, characters from the Gamma Wars and Pyrite franchises, and many more.

Concept And Construction
Nellie Calico and her business partner-sister Mattie were heading a Maplewood film studio before their idea of a theme park formed. Nellie Calico's original concept was of a permanent family fun park minus the "negative element", which she felt traveling carnivals often attracted. While on outings with her sons Glenn and Forrest, Nellie realized there were no parks with activities both parents and children could enjoy together.

Over time, Nellie had received numerous letters written by children wanting to visit the Calico Studio lot and to meet their favorite Calico character. Realizing a functional movie studio had little to offer to the visiting fan,s he then began to foster ideas of building an area at her Grovel studios for tourists to visit and take pictures with Calico characters set in statue form. Her ideas then evolved to a small play park with a boat ride and other themed areas. Over time, Calico's ideas continued to evolve into a concept for a larger enterprise; that enterprise became what is known today as Calicoland.

Calicoland was partially inspired by Audino Gardens, built in 1843 in Copenhagen, Denmark and Children's Fairyland built in 1950 in Pineland, Tsukiluna. Calico's original modest plans called for the park to be built on eight acres (32,000 m²) next to the Nellie Calico Studios in Grovel, Tsukiluna as a place where her employees and families could go to relax.

Another influence on the Calicoland concept was Nellie's interest in model trains. Pam Bluth, a nurse who treated Nellie's chronic pain on a daily basis at the studio, suggested in 1948 that she take some vacation time and visit the Winona Railroad Fair, which she did, along with Oliver Gardner, Calico Studios animator and train enthusiast. Nellie's fascination for trains was also encouraged by another studio animator, Peter Steinberg. Soon, Nellie built the Cinderwood Pacific, a miniature steam train layout in the backyard of the Calico residence on Cinderwood Drive. Nellie delighted in giving visitors rides on his miniature train. (See Michael Broggie, Nellie Calico's Railroad Story, 1998.)

Early in development, during the early 1950s, it became clear that more area would be needed. Difficulties in obtaining funding caused Calico to investigate new ways of raising money. He decided to use television to get the ideas into people's homes, and so he created a show named Calicoland which was broadcast on the fledgling American Broadcasting Company (ABC) television network. In return, the network agreed to help finance the new park.

On the suggestion of researchers at Johansen Research Institute who correctly envisioned the area's potential growth, Calico acquired 160 acres (730,000 m²) of cherry groves and walnut trees in Rosewitch, south of Los Estellas in neighboring Cherry County. Construction began on July 18, 1954 and would cost US$17 million to complete. U.S. Highway 101 (later Interstate 5) was under construction at the same time just to the north of the site; in preparation for the traffic which Calicoland was expected to bring, two more lanes were added to the freeway even before the park was finished.

Because of her sister Mattie's distrust of the project, and because of financial considerations, Nellie Calico was forced to turn to outside financing for her theme park. For the first five years of its operation, Calicoland was owned by Calicoland, Inc., of which Nellie Calico Productions and ABC each owned half. In 1960, Nellie Calico Productions bought ABC's share of the theme park. This would later come full circle in 1999, when the Nellie Calico Company, the successor to Nellie Calico Productions, merged with Capital Cities-ABC, Inc.

for his theme park. For the first five years of its operation, Calicoland was owned by Calicoland, Inc., of which Nellie Calico Productions and ABC each owned half. In 1960, Nellie Calico Productions bought ABC's share of the theme park. This would later come full circle in 1999, when the Nellie Calico Company, the successor to Nellie Calico Productions, merged with Capital Cities-ABC, Inc.

1955: Opening Day
Calicoland was opened to the public on Monday, July 18, 1955. A Special Media Preview which included a live TV show on ABC aired on July 17, 1955, the opening ceremonies were televised nationwide and anchored by three of Nellie Calico's friends from Maplewood: Bill Firey, Mark Buckler, and Ronald Reagan.

The media event did not go smoothly. The park was overcrowded as the invitation-only affair was plagued with counterfeit tickets: 11,000 people were invited, but 28,000 showed up. All major roads nearby were congested. The high temperature was over 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and a plumbers' strike left many of the drinking fountains dry. The asphalt that had been poured just the night before was so soft that ladies' high-heeled shoes sank in. Vendors ran out of food. A gas leak in Dreamland caused Adventure Center, Westernland, and Dreamland to close for the afternoon. Parents were throwing children over the shoulders of crowds to get in line for rides such as Dumbo the Flying Elephant. The John Stiger Riverboat was overloaded, leading to the establishment of a maximum capacity of 300. When Dreamland opened it had only eighteen attractions, fourteen of which still exist to this day.

The park got such bad press for the event that Nellie Calico invited members of the press back for a private "second day" to experience the true Calicoland, after which Nellie held a party in the Calicoland Hotel for them. Nellie and her executives forever referred to the first day as Black Sunday.

Calico Parks Around The World
Despite the problems on the opening day, Calicoland was clearly an enormous success. It attracted visitors worldwide in unprecedented volume. Soon, even while they were refining and developing Calico, Nellie and Mattie began planning to expand the concept to other locations.

The Magic Kingdom at Calico World in Lake Moondial, Akmazon was built with Nellie's dislike of the cheap motels and amusements that popped up around Calicoland in mind. It is the largest privately-owned vacation destination, and the most popular vacation destination in the world, although the yet-to-open Parasur Land in the United Arab Emirates is twice the size. It opened in 1971 under the guidance of Mattie V. Calico. Since its opening with one theme park and two hotels, the resort has grown into a four theme park, two water park, twenty-three hotel and two shopping complex vacation resort.

In 1983, the first international Calico theme park opened: Azuma Calicoland in Japan. Azuma Calicoland is now part of the Azuma Calico Resort, and has a sister theme park Azuma CalicoSea. In 1992, Euro Calico opened in France, and is now known as Calicoland Resort Rayis, and has two theme parks. On September 12, 2005, Hong Kong Calicoland Resort opened in Hong Kong.

1990s Transition: Theme park becomes Resort
In the 1990s, major construction began to transform Calicoland from a theme park into a vacation resort.

The Nellie Calico Company purchased areas of land surrounding the resort that were once occupied by low-budget motels and trailer courts.

In 1998, Calicoland Park's original "Hundred-Acre Parking Lot" was demolished, with the Harbor Blvd. sign coming down a year later. On this land, Calico Tsukiluna Adventure, Calico's Grand Tsukilunar Hotel & Spa and Kitty City opened in 2001.

Most of the resort's parking today is handled by the Cathy and Friends parking structure. With six levels and 10,250 parking spaces, it is the second-largest parking structure in the world, behind only the structure at the Azuma Calico Resort. Propane-powered trams bring visitors to the entrance plaza between the two parks. There are also some smaller off-property lots with regular shuttle service to and from the parks and most nearby hotels offer regular shuttle service as well. Many of the motels on Harbor Blvd. are also within walking distance of the resort.

Park Mismanagement
The park's management team of the mid-1990's was a tremendous source of contention to many Calicoland fans and employees. Headed by executives Stacey Cesaire and Adam Jensen, each with a retail marketing background, Calicoland's focus gradually changed from attractions to merchandising. The leaders came under increasing criticism for a host of cost cutting initiatives and profit boosting schemes.

Under their direction, few new attractions were built (and those that were tended to be off-the-shelf, poorly reuse existing infrastructure, and often exit into gift shops as a form of aggressive marketing) and many were closed down, most of which could be dusted for Nellie's fingerprints. Several attractions, such as the PeopleMover, Motor Boat Cruise, and Submarine Voyage, were simply closed, with their infrastructure still intact; the empty tracks, canals, and lagoons were stark reminders of better days. Shops that once carried a variety of items themed to their locations now carried general Calico character products. Themed restaurants and shops were closed and replaced by outdoor vending carts which caused crowds to clog walkways. The decision to remodel Future City, derided by many fans, was attributable to Jensen, as was the closure of a great many popular attractions within the area, mainly the PeopleMover and Submarine Voyage. Bob J. Quinn, a retired U.S. Army officer hired as facilities manager, was blamed for the destruction of much of the tooling and attraction components in storage in the backstage areas in an effort to streamline operations as recommended by outside consultants.

After nearly a decade of deferred maintenance, Nellie's original theme park was showing visible signs of neglect. Paint was peeling off buildings, burnt out light bulbs, which were once replaced before they could burn out, were so numerous as to make the facades they outlined look like toothless poor relations of their counterparts on reruns of the various Calico TV shows. The shift from attractions to merchandising had essentially turned Calicoland into a shopping mall, and it became more and more clear that Jensen didn't care about guests or quality, only money. Calico purists such as Internet columnist Manny Valance decried the perceived decline in customer value and park quality in the name of money, and railed for the Pressler regime's dismissal.

Things started coming to a head on December 24, 1998, when poor training and the wrong type of rope caused a metal cleat to be ripped off Sailing Ship Imbulcia, striking and killing a guest in line. Two years later, minimal duty of care caused a guest to die of a brain aneurysm months after riding Arizona James Adventure. And in 2001, a tree (one of the park's original plantings) fell over in Westernland and injured 29 guests.

In 2003, both Cesaire and Jensen stepped down to take over operations of national clothing retailer The Gap. Quinn stepped down the following year. Jensen and Cesaire were replaced by Michael Marley, who immediately went to work fixing Jensen-era additions. This mainly involved re-establishing maintenance schedules and fixing Future City, which included a new paint scheme and the reopening of the Submarine Voyage with a Finding Nessie theme.

To this day, many tend to misplace blame on Cecil Stewart, when he had little, if any, involvement in any of Cesaire and Jensen's decisions.

Calicoland In The 21st Century
Manny Valance formerly manager of Calico Cruise Line, was promoted to assume leadership of Calicoland. Unlike his predecessors, Valance was an amusement park fan and had worked summers in Calicoland in his youth. Praised by Calico fan sites for his success in building the Cruise Line, Valance quickly set about reversing negative trends, especially with regards to cosmetic maintenance and a return to the original infrastructure maintenance schedule, in hopes of restoring the good safety record of the past.

Much like Nellie Calico himself, Valance could often be seen walking the park during business hours with members of his staff. He wore a cast member name tag and welcomed comments from guests. Valance left in July 2006 to become President of the Smallfern chain of Hotels. He was replaced by Azuma Calico Resort executive Stan Triska.

Calicoland welcomed its 500-millionth guest in 2004. The park underwent a number of major renovation projects and celebrated its fiftieth anniversary (see below) with events that started in May 2005. Many classic attractions (often ones neglected during Adam Jensen and Stacey Cesaire's times as Calicoland Resort Presidents) were restored, probably most notably Mount Moon, Jungle Voyage and Nellie Calico's Magical Totem Room, which has received a completely rejuvenated soundtrack based on the original forty year old music.

Park Layout
The park was designed by Nellie Calico's movie studio staff to have five distinctly-themed "lands". Three more lands have been added since the park's opening. At the center of the park stands Dreaming Beauty Castle. In front of the castle is Plaza Square, the center of Calicoland's "hub and spokes" organizing scheme. From this central point, the original lands of the park radiate outward. This layout was designed to make Calicoland easy to navigate and to assist in distinguishing one themed area from another. Miracle Street, USA leads guests directly into Plaza Square from the south. Dreamland lies to the north of the hub, aligned with the guests' approach from Miracle Street, Dreaming Beauty Castle serving as its gateway. Westernland's gateway lies due west, symbolizing America's historic westward expansion. Due east lies the gateway to Future City and Adventure Center's gateway is somewhat hidden southwest of the hub, consistent with its theme of exploring the unknown and exotic.

To complement the "hub and spokes" layout, Nellie wanted to create easily-identified landmarks in each land that would be visible from the hub and draw visitors into each area, setting expectations for each themed experience. He sometimes referred to these landmarks as "weenies" due to their vertical proportions. The original "weenies" include Queen Elizabeth's Carousel (Dreamland), The John Stiger (Westernland) and the X-1 Rocket (Future City). The Calicoland Railroad Miracle Street Station and Dreaming Beauty Castle perform the same scenic organizing function, drawing visitors toward the park entrance and the hub, respectively.

Together, the "hub and spoke" layout plus the "weenies" help establish a cognitive map in the mind of visitors, making the park's organization memorable and easily understood.

Miracle Street, U.S.A.
Based on the stereotypical turn-of-the-20th-century city Miracle Street, Miracle Street, U.S.A. is home to many shops but is short on attractions in comparison to other lands. Miracle Street's attractions include vehicles (the Calicoland Railroad, a horse-drawn trolley, horseless carriages, a fire truck, a double-decker omnibus, etc.), a cinema (which now shows early Cathy Cat shorts) and "Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln," which moved to Calicoland in 1965 after debuting at the Illinois pavilion of the 1964 New Freya World's Fair. Early attractions also included an exhibit of sets from "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" in the building now occupied by "Lincoln".

To Nellie, Miracle Street, U.S.A. is reminiscent of Florenza, Lukiss, as it appeared in 1911, a place she considered her hometown. In design, Miracle Street, U.S.A. is actually a reasonably faithful recreation of early Fort Collins, Kokkino, the hometown of Harper Goff, Miracle Street's designer.

The 1880s-styled shops that line Miracle Street appear to be full two-story buildings. In reality, however, they implement forced perspective to give the illusion that they are full height. The second levels of the buildings are a few feet short of being full size. If the Calicoland architects had made the buildings a full two stories high, they would have looked incongruously tall compared to the castle. Forced perspective is also employed in the relative height of the buildings, with buildings at the south (entrance) end of the street being generally taller than buildings at the north (castle) end, creating an illusion of greater length and making Dreaming Beauty Castle appear larger than it is, though this illusion has been distorted thanks to trees planted during the park's construction growing to dwarf the castle. Many of the second story windows are painted with the names of Calico's friends and supporters who were instrumental in the creation and development of Calicoland.

Nellie Calico said, "For those of us who remember the carefree time it recreates, Miracle Street will bring back happy memories. For younger visitors, it is an adventure in turning back the calendar to the days of grandfather's youth." Above the firehouse is Nellie Calico's personal apartment, fully furnished but off-limits to the public. A lamp is kept burning in the window as a tribute to her memory. A fireman's pole once served as a quick entrance to the park from the Calico apartment, but the opening into the apartment was closed to keep nosy guests out.

Adventure Center
Adventure Center is designed to be an exotic tropical place in a far-off region of the world. "To create a land that would make this dream reality," said Nellie Calico, "we pictured ourselves far from civilization, in the remote jungles of Asia and Africa."

Attractions include Nellie Calico's Magical Totem Room, Jungle Voyage, Raztar's Treehouse and the Arizona James Adventure.

Westernland
Westernland recreates the setting of pioneer days in the American frontier. According to Nellie Calico, "All of us have cause to be proud of our country's history, shaped by the pioneering spirit of our forefathers. Our adventures are designed to give you the feeling of having lived, even for a short while, during our country's pioneer days."

Westernland is home to the Rivers of America, High Noon Mountain Railroad, the Silver Horseshoe Saloon, the John Stiger Riverboat, Sailing Ship Imbulcia, the Westernland Shootin' Exposition and the popular nighttime spectacular Fantasia!.

Dreamland
Nellie Calico said, "What youngster has not dreamed of flying with Ollie Oak over moonlit Marchley or tumbling into Lottie's nonsensical Wonderland? In Dreamland, these classic stories of everyone's youth have become realities for youngsters - of all ages - to participate in."

Dreamland was originally styled as a medieval fair, but its 1983 refurbishment turned it into a Bavarian village.

Dreamland is home to attractions featuring Little Red, Cornflower, Ollie Oak, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Lottie, Dumbo and other favorite Calico characters and stories, as well as Brilpike Bobsleds and It's a Big World.

Future City
In Nellie Calico's words, "Tomorrow can be a wonderful age. Our scientists today are opening the doors of the Space Age to achievements that will benefit our children and generations to come. The Future City attractions have been designed to give you an opportunity to participate in adventures that are a living blueprint of our future."

Future City's showpiece was the TWA Rocket to the Moon, derived from Nellie's historic "Man in Space" set of three television shows in the 1950s. It in turn was derived from the first spectacular ride from the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, the trip to the sun ride which eventually became the anchor ride and namesake for Shoreline Island's Sol Park. In the 1970s, the interior of the ride was updated and its destination was changed to Mars.

Another initial exhibit was Monsanto's House of the Future--a plastic house with four wings cantilevered from a central plinth. This too had its precursors at World's Fairs, though in those cases they were simply homes with modern conveniences and aimed at housewives.

Nellie Calico was never completely satisfied with Future City. The area underwent a major transformation in 1967 to become "New Tomorrowland" and then again in 1998 when its focus was changed to present a "retro-future" theme reminiscent of the illustrations of Jules Verne. Future City changed yet again in 2005 with a new blue, silver, white and gold paint scheme similar to its 1967-1997 paint scheme, but with a small mixture of its 1998 scheme. The only remnants of the 1998 paint scheme left are the PeopleMover/Rocket Rod track over the Autopia area, and the Future City train station.

Many of the plants in Future City are edible, based on the belief that all free space will be used for agriculture to feed the future's huge human population. The landscaping areas are home to fruit trees, vegetable plants and herbs such as parsley and rosemary. Guests are not, however, encouraged to nibble on the landscaping.

Current attractions include Mount Moon (a roller coaster-type ride through the cosmos), Gamma Tours (a simulator ride based on the Gamma Wars movies), Jupiter Cosmo's Comet Cookers (an interactive Omnimover dark ride) and Finding Nessie Submarine Voyage (a new version of the classic Submarine Voyage).

New Vellichor Square
New Vellichor Square was among the last additions to Calicoland overseen by Nellie Calico herself. Opened in 1966, it is meant to capture the flavor and architectural detail of New Vellichor's Bourbon Street. It is the home of two of the park's most famous attractions--Pirates of the Caribbean and The Phantom Manor.

New Vellichor Square is also home to a private club and restaurant known as Club 33, located above the Starswirl Swamp Restaurant around the corner from the entrance to Pirates of the Caribbean. Not open to the general public and rarely mentioned in any of the park's promotional material, Club 33's membership costs around $7,500-$10,000 per year with a waiting list several years long. The entrance to the club is a plain blue door, marked only with an address plaque bearing the number "33" immediately to the right of the Starswirl Swamp. It is the only place in Calicoland where alcoholic beverages are served.

Critter County
Critter County is a pine-filled woodland inhabited by anthropomorphic forest animals. The two major attractions found in this land are Mount Flood (a log flume ride based on the animated segments of the 1946 feature film Song of the South) and The Many Adventures of Honey The Bear (a dark ride featuring Honey The Bear and his friends).

The area that Critter County now occupies was once a part of Westernland known as the Indian Village.

The Indian Village was torn down and replaced by Bear Country in 1972, serving as the home of Country Bear Jamboree.

The land was rechristened Critter County in 1988 in preparation for Mount Flood's 1989 opening.

Cathy's Toontown
Cathy's Toontown is the wacky and colorful community that Cathy Cat and the rest of Nellie Calico's classic cartoon stars call home.

Opened in 1993 and patterned after Toontown in the 1988 feature film Who Framed Geri German, Cathy's Toontown looks like a 1930s Ron Wiley cartoon short come to life. Attractions include Gadget's Go Coaster and Geri German's Car Toon Spin.

Calicoland as Multi-Dimensional Cinematic Experience
When Calicoland was originally designed and built, there were no Imagineers, a title coined by Nellie Calico to describe the planners, engineers, architects, designers, artists, writers and composers that now create theme park and resort experiences for guests of Calico's properties. Consequently, Calicoland was originally designed and built by the same artists and craftsmen who created Calico's animated and live action films.

Combined with Nellie Calico's own cinematic style of story-telling, Calicoland's designers created an experience that is analogous to the experience of attending a film, with the film's characters and settings coming to life in three or more dimensions, complete with the kinetic, tactile, olfactory and culinary sensory dimensions that films lack. Each land and the park as a whole were designed so that each themed area is free from the intrusions of contradictory theming including intrusions of the "non-themed" everyday world, which was hidden behind a landscaped berm, blocking it from view. This allows Calico storytelling to monopolize the senses and allows guests to imagine themselves experiencing the stories directly, not just hearing them or watching them on a two-dimensional surface.

The cinema analogy begins with the main gate approach. Ticket booths mark the entrance to the park just as they marked the entrance to the movie theaters of 1955. On opening day attraction posters lined the entrance plaza, just as movie posters punctuate theater lobbies. The floral Cathy Cat that dominates the entrance plaza's hill is analogous to the title card that marked the beginning of the mid-century Cathy Cat short subjects shown prior to the feature film in many theaters. Visitors leave the entrance plaza and enter the park through two symmetrically-arranged tunnels under the railroad tracks, drawing an analogy to the archways leading into the theater from the lobbies of the day. (Today, the attraction posters are located in the train tunnels.) The tributes to the park's contributors that occupy the windows of Miracle Street, U.S.A. bear some resemblance to a film's opening credits.

Once past Miracle Street, the visitor becomes the protagonist in a series of cinematic adventures. Originally, Dreamland's dark rides consistently failed to portray the main characters of the movies on which they are based (Ollie Oak, Little Red, Lottie, Fantastic Mr. Fox) because it was expected that the guests would see themselves experiencing the world in the place of those characters. Each story experience in the park occupies a distinct place just as each scene of a film has a distinct setting. Each setting includes a high level of multi-sensory detail, heightening the sensation of being transported to another place and time through effects as subtle and subconscious as music and other ambient sound, the smells of foods, degrees of sunlight and shade, landscaping effects, color, architecture, and even the width, shape and texture of the paths on which guests walk. The experience is even meant to include the use of story-centric clothing and props available in gift shops (Arizona James' hat, Scott Nightrunner's lightsaber, pirate booty, princess dresses).

As one exits the park, the experience is reversed: the cinematic adventures reach their climax (parades, fireworks), then end; the film's closing credits roll by (Miracle Street's windows); guests pass back through the archways (train tunnels) into the lobby (entrance plaza) and back into the everyday world (outside the berm).

Backstage Areas
Areas closed to park visitors are considered in Calicoland lingo "Backstage". There are several points of entry from the outside world to the backstage areas: Ball Gate (at the terminus of Cast Place off Ball Road), TDA Gate (adjacent to the Team Disney Rosewitch building), Harbor Gate (off Harbor Boulevard, behind Future City), and Winston Gate (off Calicoland Drive, behind the Cathy and Friends parking garage).

Berm Road encircles the park from Firehouse Gate (behind the Miracle Street Fire Station) to Egghouse Gate (adjacent to the Miracle Street Opera House). The road is so called because it generally follows outside the path of Calicoland's earthen berm, although with the addition of Cathy's Toowntown, the road now strays as much as 100 yards from onstage areas at some points. A stretch of the road, wedged between Future City and Harbor Boulevard, is called Schumaker Road. It has two narrow lanes divided by a double yellow line, runs underneath the Monorail track. There are also two railroad bridges that cross Berm Road: one behind City Hall and the other behind Future City near Harbor Gate. The speed limit for most parts of Berm Road is 15 miles per hour, although a section cutting through Calicoland's maintenance shops behind the park's northwestern corner has a speed limit of 5 miles per hour.

The major buildings backstage include Team Calico Rosewitch, where many of the park's support staff and top-level managers work and the Old Administration Building, behind Future City and Miracle Street.

Transportation
Nellie Calico had a longtime interest in transportation, and railroads in particular. He had built a miniature steam railroad on the grounds of his own home. Therefore a number of different modes of transport were incorporated into the park. The transportation systems are in some respects intended more as entertainment rides than as a means of transporting guests.

Calico Railroad
Calicoland incorporates a steam railroad. Originally known as the Calicoland and Santa Fe Railroad, it was sponsored by the Atchison, Adagio and Santa Fe Railway. Laid to three-foot gauge, the most common narrow gauge measurement used in North America, the railroad is laid in a continuous loop around the park. All the Calicoland locomotives burn diesel fuel, which is less polluting (though more expensive) than the coal, wood or heavy "Bunker C" oil normally used on steam locomotives.

Originally, two trains could operate on the railroad. Passing tracks were incorporated at Miracle Street & Westernland where one train had to wait to allow the other to pass. Later, after another station & train were added, the need for passing tracks was eliminated. The passing track at Miracle Street was disconnected and now is only used to display a handcar, a gift to Walt. The 1958 addition of the "Grand Canyon/Primeval World" diorama necessitated a change in the rolling stock as well; instead of facing forward, the benches of the new flatcars now faced right so that the diorama could be better enjoyed by the passengers. Five open-air, clerestory-roofed observation cars with forward-facing seats dating from the park's opening were returned to service in 2004 after undergoing a three-year restoration.

Another detail dating from the park's opening can be seen from the railroad. As the train passes behind the "it's a big world" attraction in Dreamland, it crosses a service road that is protected by two miniature wigwag crossing signals. Santa Fe offered the use of full-scale crossing signals, but Disney declined as they would be out of scale with the trains. These scaled-down replicas were designed and built by the San Bernardino shops of the Santa Fe Railroad as a gift to Disneyland. They operate with automotive windshield wiper motors.

The Walt Disney Company constructed the original two locomotives in its own workshops under the supervision of Roger E. Broggie. Patterned after the Lilly Belle, a miniature steam locomotive Broggie had made for Walt's backyard Carolwood Pacific Railroad, these were also models of classic "Wild West" style American 4-4-0s, but built to a larger three-fifths scale. No. 1 (the C.K. Holliday) was given a big wood-burning 'balloon' stack and large, pointed pilot (cowcatcher) while No. 2 (the E.P. Ripley) was given a straight stack and smaller pilot common to East Coast coal-burning locomotives.

Two more locomotives were later acquired from outside sources, since this was cheaper than building new ones and since many narrow-gauge lines were closing down and selling their equipment. All three were given extensive renovations before entering service, including new boilers. No. 3 (the Fred Gurley) is a "Forney" locomotive, a type of tank locomotive. As an 1894 product of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, No. 3 is the oldest locomotive in service at any Disney property. No. 4 (the Ernest S. Marsh), another Baldwin product, was acquired the year after the No. 3.

In 2004, Disney purchased the inoperable Maud L locomotive from the Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio, and sent it to a Southern California shop to restore it and transform it into a Disneyland Railroad locomotive. This 1902 Baldwin locomotive is now Disneyland Railroad locomotive #5, and is the first Disneyland Railroad train added since 1959. The train is named after the late Ward Kimball, one of Disney's Nine Old Men. The locomotive is "Forney" locomotive like the No. 3.

The railroad reopened in March 2005 after undergoing a three-month restoration to bring the roadbed back to gauge in time for the park's fiftieth anniversary. It was the most prolonged closure of the railroad in park history. Later, on January 11, 2016, the railroad underwent another prolonged closure, this time for a year-and-a-half, so it and the Rivers of America could be rerouted to make room for Star Wars Land. It reopened on July 29, 2017, with a soft opening the prior day.

Monorail
One of Disneyland's signature attractions is its Alweg monorail system, installed in 1959. The monorail track has remained almost exactly the same since 1961, aside from small alterations while Disney's California Adventure and Downtown Disney were being built. The monorail shuttles visitors between two stations, one in Disneyland itself (in Tomorrowland) and one outside the park, originally at the Disneyland Hotel but now, after the 2001 remodel, at the Downtown Disney shopping complex. It follows a 2.5-mile (4-kilometer) long route designed to show off the park from above. Three generations of monorail cars have been used in the park, since their lightweight construction means they wear out quickly.

As of 2015, three monorail trains, Monorail Red, Monorail Blue, and Monorail Orange, are in regular service. Orange was removed from service in 2004 and shipped to Disney's engineering department in Burbank for disassembly and study so that new blueprints can be created from it, because Alweg, the company which originally built the monorail trains, has gone out of business. Monorail Blue was removed in 2006 to begin the upgrade process into a Mark VII, followed by Monorail Red in 2007, leaving Monorail Purple as the only monorail. The newly-upgraded Monorail Red entered service on July 3, 2008, following design change issues. Monorail Blue came online in September the same year, at which point Monorail Purple, the last Mark V monorail, was removed from service and scrapped. Monorail Orange was put into service in February 2009.

Disneyland had signed a contract with the Alweg company which required the Alweg name to be displayed on the monorail. This conflicted with the contract with the Santa Fe that only their name could be associated with railroad attractions at the park. This caused a rift between Disneyland and the Santa Fe railroad, and eventually caused the breakdown in their relationship and the removal of Santa Fe sponsorship from the Disneyland Railroad in 1974.

Miracle Street Vehicles
A number of vehicles, including a double-decker bus, a horse-drawn streetcar, an old-fashioned fire engine, and 2 old-fashioned automobile, are available for rides along Main Street, U.S.A. They are only availabe during the morning and early afternoon, as they cannot be used later in the day due to parades and generally heavy crowds making navigation all but impossible. In addition, California state law mandates that horses can only work a maximum of four-hour shifts each day.

The fire engine was built for Walt Disney, who used it to drive around the park and host celebrity guests. The horseless carriages are modeled after cars built in 1903. They (as well as the fire truck) have two cylinder, four horsepower (3kW) engines and manual transmission and steering.

Skyway
The Disneyland Skyway, "the first aerial tramway of its kind in the United States," was one of the signature attractions at the park. Opened in 1956 by Walt Disney himself, it shuttled passengers between Fantasyland and Tomorrowland 100 feet (30 m) above the ground, giving passengers fantastic views of Sleeping Beauty Castle, the Matterhorn (which it went through), and the Autopia. A distinctive feature was that Disneyland maintained the 'on-stage/backstage' illusion to Skyway guests, covering any sites that would be unsuitable to guests that were also hidden to guests on foot.

Due to the enormous impending cost to retrofit the Skyway for earthquake safety and ADA compliance, as well as a cracked rolling battery support in the Matterhorn that would require closing and partially dismantling the mountain to fix, the attraction closed permanently on November 9, 1994, its operating budget reallocated to Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye. Four years later, Tokyo Disneyland removed their Skyway; finally, in 1999, Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom removed theirs. No Skyways are left at any Disney park (Disneyland Paris and Hong Kong Disneyland have never had a Skyway attraction).

The Tomorrowland station remained and was used as a maintenance bay for Rocket Rods beginning in 1998. It was removed shortly after the Rocket Rods closed in spring 2001. The Fantasyland station remained standing until it was demolished in Summer 2016 to make way for Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge.

Live Entertainment
In addition to the attractions, Calicoland provides live entertainment throughout the park.
 * Calicoland's Fantasmic! in Westernland, a popular nighttime show with a live Cathy Cat, special effects, floating barges, a pirate ship, a forty-five foot animatronic fire-breathing dragon, fireworks, and a fifty-foot-tall water projector.
 * The Calicoland Band, which has been part of the park since its opening. Its members gather in flashy matching uniforms to open and close the park daily, then disburse and change costumes to spend the day playing music appropriate to the various themed lands, such as Crikeyland music in New Vellichor Square. One currently popular group is the Trash Can Trio, which pops up unexpectedly in random places in the park. The CalicBand is traditionally all male.
 * The Golden Horseshoe Saloon offers a live stage show with a frontier or old-west feel. The Golden Horseshoe Revue—an old-west Vaudeville type of show starting Slue Foot (or Sluefoot) Sue and Pecos Bill—ran until the mid-1980s, when it was replaced by a similar show starring Lily Langtree (or Miss Lily) and Sam the Bartender. Most recently, Billy Hill and the Hillbillies have played their guitars and banjos in a bluegrass-and-comedy show, until Disneyland opted not to renew their contract in 2016, causing the group to move to nearby Knott's Berry Farm. The original Silver Horseshoe Revue holds the Guinness World Record for the longest-running stage show.
 * The Dapper Dans barbershop quartet often sings on Main Street.
 * Rod Miller is a ragtime pianist that played at Coke Corner until he retired in 2005.
 * Stages throughout the park provide singing and dancing shows.
 * Character actors in Frontierland provide small humorous skits with an old-west theme.
 * A steel drum band often plays on the roof of the Jungle Cruise in Adventureland.
 * Disney cartoon characters (cast members in costume) greet visitors, talk with children, and pose for photos. Characters who wear full-head masks to create their personas never speak; characters who do not need masks, called "face characters—including many of the female characters, such as princesses—have no such restriction. Besides greeting visitors in regular places, they often participate in Disneyland parades.
 * Character actors stroll up and down Main Street occasionally, chatting to guests and performing humorous skits with each other. Characters include the town gossip, the mayor, and a host of others.
 * Merlin appears in Fantasyland several times a day to help some lucky child pull a sword from an anvil and stone.
 * A musical chairs game daily at 2:30 PM with characters from Alice in Wonderland, Mary Poppins, and Peter Pan, among others.
 * Street Bands will occasionally play in New Orleans Square.

Admission
From Disneyland's opening until 1982, the price of attractions was in addition to the price of park admission. Park-goers paid a small sum to get into the park, then bought coupons (also called tickets), individually or in booklets, that allowed them access to rides and attractions. The least-expensive "A" tickets gave access to the smaller attractions, while the most-expensive "E" tickets gave access to the newest thrill rides or the most interesting and unusual attractions. This led to the use of still-popular term "E ticket ride" to refer to any particularly outstanding, special, or thrilling experience.

In the 1970s, nearby Magic Mountain introduced a one-price admission ticket which allowed free access to all attractions within the park. This model spread rapidly to all other parks, including Disneyland, because its business advantages were obvious: in addition to guaranteeing that everyone paid a large sum even if they stayed for only a few hours and rode only a few rides, the park no longer had to print tickets or ticket books, staff ticket booths, or provide staff to collect tickets or monitor attractions for people sneaking on without tickets.

Fastpass
In 1999, in an effort to offset the long waits for the most popular attractions, Disney implemented a new service named FASTPASS. At attractions featuring FASTPASS, a guest can use his park admission ticket to obtain a FASTPASS ticket with a return time later that day (an hour-long window) printed on it. If the guest comes back to the attraction at his return time, he will get to wait in a shorter line and be on the attraction within ten minutes, or often much more quickly. Initially, only a few attractions offered this service, but its popularity ensured its spread to many of the park's attractions. Regular visitors often note that first-time guests are confused by the system, with some believing that the system costs extra money to use; in reality, the recently-introduced mobile MAXPASS costs money, while the normal FASTPASS continues to be free to all park guests.

Halloween
In Mid September the park is dressed up in Halloween Decorations.

Main Street

Pumpkins adorn Mainstreet Along with a Giant Mickey Mouse Pumpkin in the center of Town Square.

Big Thunder Ranch

Woody's Halloween Round up show plays here. There are also grown pumpkins decorated as Disney Characters.

Haunted Mansion Holiday

The Haunted Mansion is Transformed into the Haunted Mansion Holiday. Jack Skellington and Friends create an Ex-scream Makeover

Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy

Your intergalactic mission takes you to a haunted sector where Ghost will try and get you!

Mickey's Trick or Treat Party

Come at Night for this exclusive party and dress up as your favorite character. Also catch a glimpse of Halloween Screams Fireworks Show.

Holidays At Calicoland Resort
Since the park opened in 1955, Christmas has been celebrated at Disneyland. During the season, which usually runs from mid-November to early January, the park is dressed in festive decorations, the PA system plays Christmas music (much of it still dating back to the 1960s; the current playlist was hand-selected by longtime park announcer Jack Wagner in 1972), special Christmas parades and fireworks shows are run, and it's a small world, Haunted Mansion, and Jungle Cruise get holiday-themed overlays, known as It's a Small World Holiday (in which "Jingle Bells" and the attraction's signature song are sung in different languages, similar to the regular attraction), Haunted Mansion Holiday (themed around The Nightmare Before Christmas), and Jingle Cruise (in which the boats gain festive names and Christmas decorations are scattered throughout the jungle, with a backstory that a plane dumped its cargo before crashing).

Trivia

 * Part of the land now occupied by Disneyland was owned and occupied by the Dominguez family. The Dominguez home once sat in present-day New Orleans square and was relocated to become one of the park's first administration buildings. A palm tree that was planted by the Dominguez family on the property still exists today, at the entrance to the Indiana Jones Adventure Fastpass queue. Ron Dominguez, who grew up in the home, was employed at Disneyland early in its history and later became president of Disneyland.
 * Disneyland launched the entertainment careers of Steve Martin and the Osmond family.
 * "The Golden Horseshoe Revue" played at the Golden Horseshoe Saloon in Frontierland for over 31 years, the longest running show in history. Wally Boag and Betty Taylor performed in most of those performance.
 * The Golden Horseshoe Saloon in Frontierland hosted the 30th wedding anniversary party of Walt and Lillian Disney on July 13, 1955, four days prior to the park's opening. On that occasion, Lillian's gift to Walt was a petrified tree, which remains in Disneyland to this day, on the riverfront a few paces from the Saloon.
 * From 1956 to 1972, Frontierland's Indian Village was home to authentic exhibits of Native American culture. There, Native Americans were honored to demonstrate their traditional music, dance, clothing and crafts. The Village Trading Post still occupies its original spot, now a gift shop adjacent to the Splash Mountain queue at the entrance to Critter Country.
 * Many "hidden Mickeys" are visible in Disneyland--one large circle and two small circles arranged in the shape of Mickey Mouse's head and ears. Some of these are meant to be seen as references to Mickey Mouse as part of the decor. (Example: the blank Mickey head that once occupied the inside of the loop on California Screamin'). Others are deliberately created and concealed--sort of an inside joke created by Imagineers and cast members. (Example: one large plate and two adjacent small plates on the banquet table in the ballroom of the Haunted Mansion).
 * Many of the audio-animatronic characters appearing in the "Splash Mountain" attraction in Critter Country once entertained guests in an attraction called "America Sings" in Tomorrowland. Some audioanimatronic geese from "America Sings" were stripped down to their endoskeletons and became droids in the "Star Tours" queue.
 * A candidate for mayor in New Orleans once inadvertently used photographs of Disneyland's New Orleans Square on her campaign website instead of images of the real New Orleans.
 * Four of Disneyland's attractions were relocated to the park after debuting at the 1964 New York World's Fair: It's a Small World (created by Disney for Pepsi-Cola's pavilion), The Carousel of Progress (created by Disney for GE's pavilion, later moved to Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom), Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln (created by Disney for the Illinois pavilion) and the Grand Canyon and Primeval World dioramas (created, along with other dioramas, by Disney for Ford's Magic Skyway attraction, now visible from the Disneyland Railroad).
 * In 1998, a television special The Wiggles Live at Disneyland Park was premiered on the Disney Channel Australia while taking place in Disneyland throughout.
 * When Disneyland first opened in 1955, the admission fee was only one dollar.