this might be folklore but i've heard the issue with the mermaids was all the male guests who dove in trying to meet up with them.
i'm not familiar with this thread and i won't read it all, but... the famed marker in the castle that's said to be the center of
disneyland.. it's actually not.. and never was. it is in the middle of the width of main street, usa, but the castle itself has never been near the center. the actual center was the center of the main plaza/hub itself. now that has changed with toontown making the center closer to the castle, but it's still not even to the castle (and i believe the marker is in the back of the castle).
and in indy, it's actually the Eeyore sign from the parking lot that indy took over
it's a common practice (at both DLR and WDW) to pay homage to the attraction that was replaced. for example, in the pooh attraction, you can find some residents of the former country bears. which i do have a picture of, i just can't find it online at the moment.
some of my favorite secrets about DLR?
- the evil/wicked queen and the golden apple (when it's there) at snow white
- walt disney's second window in toontown (fess parker also has a window in frontierland)
- getting a map of the jungle cruise river
- piloting the mark twain
- the 'foundation' of the monsanto house of the future
- the petrified tree (or whatever it is) in frontierland which was actually an anniversary gift from walt to lillian (who promptly regifted it to disneyland)
- the museum on the lower level of the columbia
- the only door on-stage that refers to employees instead of cast members
some other miscellaneous tidbits
- mainstreet usa is not based on marceline, mo and was never meant to be, it was meant to be a composite of those kind of towns. in reality, it's modeled after fort collins, colorado
- the matterhorn used to be in tomorrowland
- a famous story is how walt wanted to use live animals in the jungle cruise but was discouraged from doing so because of no control over the animals behavior (usually citing sleeping patterns). perhaps less known is the jungle cruise used to house actual alligators (or
crocs, not sure) outside the attraction but people kept thinking they were animatronic and would taunt them.
- on the jungle cruise tip, the initial layout of the park had the jungle cruise on the right side of the park, not the left but had to be moved to its current position because of the vegetation that was left (mistakenly in the wrong spot).
okay, i had more in my head but i forgot what i was going to say
