Los Angeles - Disneyland Park

Disneyland Park is an amusement park in the Anaheim, California area. It features a Disneyland theme and includes two parks: the original Disney's California Adventure and Disney's Hollywood Studios. The resort has been open since 1955 when it opened its doors to visitors on July 17th of that year. From 1955-1967, it was known as "Disneyland," but for trademark reasons, it had to be renamed "Disneyland Park" in 1967. Despite being founded on July 17th 1955, it wasn't until 2005 that Disney took over full ownership of the resort from its original founding company, Walt Disney Productions. The park has since then undergone many expansions and renovations.

The park has been visited by over 650 million guests. It is the most visited theme park in North America and one of the most popular tourist attractions in California.

The idea for Disneyland was first born out of Walt Disney's desire to provide a place where families could come together, enjoy themselves, have fun and forget about life's worries. The site chosen had once been occupied by a dairy farm and his wife Lillian Disney had once been a girl scout with the troop that rented nearby Camp Whittier. The area was perfect for an open-air amusement park as it is very large and there are plenty of trees, making it easy to conceal rides from guests at ground level.

There are many rides and attractions at Disneyland. The most famous attractions are Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Star Tours and Space Mountain. There is also a shooting gallery style attraction called Frontierland Shootin' Arcade and the Western River Expedition.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is one of the most iconic attractions at Disneyland Park. The ride is a mine train type of attraction and is based on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad which features in Disney's 1959 film, "The Adventures of Huck Finn."

The attraction has been re-themed to different time periods over the years. It was originally known as Big Thunder Mountain in 1974 after a huge rock slide caused by an earthquake had destroyed the mountain. It then became Rainbow Ridge when a modern mining operation started in the 1980s. Then it was changed to Silver Mine Blast for 4 years between 1999-2002.

The original theme of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was restored in 2006 and it underwent major refurbishment from February 2008 until November 2008.

The original Disneyland theme was founded on the adventures of Huck Finn and it is largely based around a western setting, with different attractions being themed to fit this setting. There are two rides in Frontierland: The Golden Horseshoe Stage Show (a live stage show) and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Check out the next point of interest: Los Angeles County Museum of Art