Our FUN Begins here at the entrance to the Park!

But what was the “it” that attracted Walt Disney’s attention? Well.... Fairyland was the first themed amusement park! They were employing kids to walk around the park dressed as various storybook characters a full five years before Disneyland started doing it in 1955! Fairyland is themed on children’s fairy tales and one of the characters that was walking around Fairyland was Alice  from Alice in Wonderland! And you thought Disney was first. Now, there was something else that caught Disney’s attention that he would also copy: The “Alice” that walked (and continues to do so today) Fairyland was and still in connected to one of Fairylands attractions! What’s that you say? It’s one of the most unique attractions ever and Walt Disney saw it. It’s the main reason for this article really.

So now, without further adieu lets take a walk through the ORIGINAL walk through dark attraction: Fairylands ALICE IN WONDERLAND !

As we first approach the inviting yet forbidding entrance we see a giant pocket watch that forever keeps the time at 2:35pm. The clock is painted with the faces from the famous storybook. We then get to the entrance itself. The rabbit himself beckons us to enter. We have two options of how to enter the rabbits hole: Yes we do go under ground!

We can take the slide to our left and slide down into the hole or we can take the walk way which was built for parents as well as baby carriages. Believe me the slide is much more fun!

   Lets all visit "Alice"!

The We land ( literally ) right into the room where Alice has made the table become three times the size of life! It’s huge! Paul Bunyan would love this table. As we let our eyes adjust a little bit it the natural light that’s let in from above we get our bearings and as soon as the kids that are with us ( For what is an attraction like this without kids?) we start on our way down the corridor. The corridor is painted a basic off white with pink stripes encircling the entire corridor giving us a sense of walking into another dimension, kind of like the old Twilight Zone TV series. Our corridor then makes a sharp left turn and the walls change to a yellow base color.

A Wild Slide!	(See a "Mouse"?)	A Crooked Hallway!

There are doors painted on the walls all the way down the corridor. To our left we see our first animated scene: it’s the Vultures whom we and Alice encounter as we continue on, following the rabbit on out journey through the long dark corridors of the tunnel. We come to a stop at a wonderful antique fun house mirror and we spend several minutes laughing at each other and our wonderfully silly reflections. The next corridor beckons us though so we make a sharp left and then an immediate sharp right and continue on. (before we continue though, take a close look at the photo of the mirror. Is this proof of Disney’s visit? Nobody at Fairyland was able to say one way or the other.)

The next corridor features brightly painted nature scenes on a base white color which is illuminated by natural lighting from our next animated scene on the left which features the worm character and the Cheshire Cat staring at us. We then continue down the corridor, following a group of children that are running pell-mell down the corridors and screaming at the top of their lungs! Memories of things I did at Fairyland come streaming back as I remember being four years old and high on a certain soft drink that’s derived from the Coca bean and running and screaming down these same corridors!

CONTINUE TO PART