Today at Disneyland: Crowning Achievements

It was on August 26th, a whole lotta years ago, that my husband and I had our very first date, at Disneyland, where we had met while working summer jobs. So it was fitting that we spent this sunny Sunday afternoon at...Disneyland!

The summer flowers at the Hub in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle looked beautiful:

One of the attractions we enjoyed today was a new Disney Gallery exhibit, Crowning Achievements: Creating Castles for Magical Kingdoms.

The exhibit included paintings and sketches of the castles at Disney parks around the world, as well as "Blue Sky" drawings for castles that, at least to this point, have never been built.

I loved seeing this 1953 Herb Ryman sketch of Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle:

He also sketched Disney World's Cinderella Castle:

Eyvind Earle, the production designer of the film SLEEPING BEAUTY (1959), also created some of the artwork which inspired the dioramas for the Sleeping Beauty Castle's walk-through attraction:

This drawing of the magical Le Chateau de la Belle au Bois Dormant at Disneyland Paris was by Frank Armitage, who had once been Eyvind Earle's assistant, working on painting the backgrounds of SLEEPING BEAUTY:

The centerpiece of the exhibit is a model of the amazing castle at Disneyland Paris:

A closeup showing the entrance to the dragon's underground lair, to the left of the drawbridge:

The back of the castle, with its stained glass windows visible:

There's much more information on this stunning castle in my 2009 photo post "Disneyland Paris: The Best Castle Ever."

More photos from the Disney Gallery exhibit can be seen at Theme Park Talk and MousePlanet.

It was a wonderful afternoon which also included taking our lunch into Aladdin's Oasis, which has been opened up as an overflow area for eating and relaxing; it was known as the Tahitian Terrace during the years we worked at the park. We also got soaked on Splash Mountain!

We've been fortunate to revisit the park on August 26th many times, including a memorable dinner at Club 33, and hopefully there will be many more such visits in the years to come!