There are enough interviews where I get the impression that he wouldn't have approved of "all you can eat" rides. He liked the system where one could simply pay to get in, sit around, and just soak in the scenery or visit certain attractions that didn't require an additional fee or ride tickets. The ride ticket/fee system was purposely designed to control how long people waited in line.
His big concern at the time he built Disneyland was the unsavory element that sprang up around his properties. He regretted not having enough money to purchase more land in Anaheim to fulfill his vision. Disneyland was supposed to be all the things that previous amusement parks in the US were not.
However, Walt was a product of his day and an extremely complex figure. He was a chain smoker but did what he could to keep from being photographed with a cigarette in his mouth because of the poor example it would set. He drank alcohol himself, but didn't feel that it would be appropriate for Disneyland. There was that famous series of articles in the Saturday Evening Post where he expressed his vision.
Chewing gum sticks up things so we don't sell it. And peanut shells. We sell the unshelled. But shelled peanuts, they just crumble them and throw them all over the place. And nothing with round sticks. People trip on them. The ice cream bars got flat sticks and I won't sell any of this spun candy because the kids get it and get it all over everything and people get it on their hands.
No liquor, no beer, nothing. Because that brings in a rowdy element. That brings people that we don't want and I feel they don't need it. I feel when I go down to the park I don't need a drink. I work around that place all day and I don't have one. After I come out of a heavy day at the studio sometimes I want a drink to relax.
When it comes to Disneyland, I feel I've given the public everything I can give them. My daughter, Diane, says that I spend too much time around the house talking about how I can give them more for their money when they come to the park. You've got to build. You've got to keep it clean. You don't want to walk in a dirty toilet. I won't have 'em. My toilets are **** and span. And you know another thing, I have to have police so there's no child molesters there. I've got plainclothesmen. They can leave their kids to run around and I have safety inspectors. It's run in a high class manner and I have a high class clientele. The people who go to the park are from all walks of life but they look like solid Americans. That's pretty high class.
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Interviewer: One of the things we should cover is to knock off that rumor that Disneyland's expensive to come to.
Oh, no. Not at all. That's an old hat thing. You hear it from some people because they don't know what else to say.
By the time this article comes out, I'm raising it to two dollars because I'm adding all these new rides. And to extend my ticket book to take care of the rides, I'm putting this to ten rides for two dollars. Figure it out. It averages twenty cents a ride, doesn't it? It would cost an adult three dollars and a junior two dollars and fifty cents to get in and get ten rides. If they don't want that, they can pay their buck and pay their fifty cents for their kid and they can come in. They can sit on the park benches, take up the space, dirty up my toilets, litter up the street. They can do all of that if they pay their dollar-fifty. They can ride as they want to. They can sit around and hear my band; they can visit my free shows. They can do all that and more for their dollar-fifty.
You can't go in a state park without paying that. See, you've got to pay something. You pay so much a head or so much a car to go in a state park. We even have to pay government tax on admission. So it's really ninety-one cents to get in. Now that's what it amounts to. You can't go to the circus for that. I tell you the complaint about the prices are malicious. Los Angeles is made up of a lot of different characters. How do I know they might not be more interested in some other thing like Marineland? Or some other type of amusement that is competitive. We are competitive, too. Who knows? But there's no foundation for some of these complaints about price. When people make that remark to me, it just sounds to me like they heard it somewhere and they don't know what else to say. How can they compare Disneyland prices with anything else because there is nothing else like it.