sfgate.com
On the evening of Nov. 11, thousands upon thousands of people poured into Disney’s Hollywood Studios. That alone isn’t unusual for a Saturday night at a Walt Disney World park, especially during the holiday season. But this crowd was different. These guests were there for Disney Jollywood Nights, and they glowed. Most of them were wearing formalwear: suits and fedoras, gowns with sequins and fringe, dress shoes, even high heels. Some were in black tie. All of them were buzzing with excitement fo…
2 months ago
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It’s a good time for dining at Disneyland. In the last two months, the resort has opened Tiana’s Palace, the “Princess and the Frog”-themed restaurant in New Orleans Square, and the Lounge at the Disneyland Hotel, a low-key, upscale lobby bar open in the evenings, serving classic cocktails and shareable plates. Now, there’s a third brand-new dining option. On Thursday, Disneyland opened Palm Breeze Bar, also in the Disneyland Hotel. The all-outdoor restaurant is technically the pool bar for the…
3 months ago
sfgate.com
“Hurry baaaaack,” the ghost says as you’re escaping the haunted house, almost to safety. “Hurry baaaaaaaaaaack.” “Be sure to bring your death certificate.” It’s a chilling warning, especially since it’s coming from Little Leota, the smaller version of Madame Leota. A disembodied head of a spirit medium, she resides in the seance room of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. Once you’re off your “doom buggy” ride car and headed toward the exit, certain you’ve seen your last ghost and you’re about…
3 months ago
sfgate.com
Here’s a fact you probably don’t know: People who look for Bigfoot — or, as the cryptid is also known, Sasquatch — call themselves ‘Squatchers. I would not call myself a ’Squatcher, exactly. I’ve never searched the woods for unexplainably large footprints or scoured the forest floor for Bigfoot scat. But I’ve done some fairly unusual things in the name of paranormal curiosity, like staying alone overnight in the most haunted room on the very haunted Queen Mary or digging up the truth about the…
4 months ago
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For years, the space sat vacant, part of Disneyland’s “phased reopening” that never actually reopened. And then, without fanfare, The Lounge at the Disneyland Hotel hosted its first guests Thursday. The space is so new that it doesn’t even have a listing on the Disneyland website yet, and you can’t find the menu online. It’s furnished with a collection of couches and armchairs and has a dozen or so seats at the bar. The drinks are classic cocktails — think martinis, Hemingway daiquiris and negr…
4 months ago
sfgate.com
If a full-grown adult knocked on your door on Halloween, your first thought definitely wouldn’t be: “They’re trick-or-treating! Let me give this person some candy.” But there I was, holding out my treat bag, and people were dropping handfuls of sweets and snacks into it. It’s true what they say. At Disneyland, anything is possible. At least it is in this case, when the “anything” in question is feeling like a kid again during Halloween. This year’s Oogie Boogie Bash, Disneyland Resort’s annual…
4 months ago
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On Thursday, Disneyland opened the new tower at the Disneyland Hotel — and debuted a kind of hotel room the resort has never had before. And it has the lowest rate possible at the hotel. While the grandest of the rooms, a three-bedroom villa, can cost almost $6,000 a night in peak times, the new tower also has the Disneyland Hotel’s most affordable room, called a Duo Studio, which sleeps two and costs significantly less than what used to be the least expensive accommodation at the hotel. These D…
4 months ago
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There are two kinds of Disneyland fans: the ones who ride some rides, have some fun and go home, and the ones who go so often that they’re looking for something more. Some of those people get obsessive about collecting merch or sampling every new food item. Some of those people dig deep into obscure historical tidbits about the park. And some of them push themselves to find unusual, little-known experiences and to try all of them. I think you know where this is going. I heard about the secret b…
4 months ago
sfgate.com
On Sept. 10, Figment, the imagination dragon, returned to Epcot as a character meet-and-greet for the first time in years — and fans were ready. They lined up as soon as the park opened its gates, and waited for more than four hours to take a picture with a purple dragon who has never been in a Disney movie, and doesn’t appear at any other Disney park. “It was insane and wonderful,” Daniel Becker, who creates Disney history vlogs under the name Disney Dan, told SFGATE. Becker was one of the peo…
4 months ago
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At The Walt Disney Studios, there’s a street sign that leads to nowhere. It sits at the intersection of Dopey Drive and Mickey Avenue, real streets on the lot, but the other directions — such as Ink & Paint, Multiplane and In Btween — aren’t directions at all. They’re steps in the process of making an animated film. I stood there under the sign, in a place so elusive that I felt like I had won a golden ticket to get inside, and looked down at the ground. There was a fire hydrant, bright red and…
4 months ago
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“I’m looking for a rabbit,” he says, sinister gaze peering down from his perch in a grimy back alley. “You wouldn’t happen to know where the rabbit might be, do you?” Judge Doom, the villain from “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” a character played by Christoper Lloyd in the 1988 film, made his first-ever Disneyland appearance at opening night of Oogie Boogie Bash on Sept. 4. And he was out for justice. Doom appeared on a “treat trail,” a trick-or-treating path dotted with cast members giving out hand…
5 months ago
