200,000 Lights Transform Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World

Earliest Official Candlelight Photo from 1959

posted at the Disney Parks Blog on December 7th, 2009 by Heather Hust Rivera, Senior Manager, Corporate Communications, The Walt Disney Company

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This past weekend we celebrated Candlelight at Disneyland park. As we were getting ready for the event, we came across this photo from our archives.

Candlelight started in 1958 at Disneyland park, but the first photo we have of the ceremony is from 1959. 

The colors are so vivid, and Main Street, U.S.A. looks much like it does today. It seems as if the photo was just taken yesterday. However, if you look a little more closely, you’ll notice that the members of the choir are sporting various looks from the ’50s.

Look at the people in the crowd along Main Street and see how well-dressed they are.

Christmas Tree on Main Street

Happy Birthday, Walt!

The Santa Mickey Crispy

Disney Housing Operations

Credits: Luiza Saboia

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Mickey and Minnie - Christmas Day Parade

Holiday Season at Disney's California Adventure Park

Magic Kingdom Utilidor

According to modern legend, Walt Disney was bothered by the sight of a cowboy walking through Disneyland's Tomorrowland enroute to his post in Frontierland.[1] He felt that such a sight was jarring, and detracted from the guest experience. When the Florida park was being planned, engineers designed utilidors to keep park operations out of guests' sight.

The utilidors are beneath the Magic Kingdom, but they are not a basement. Because Florida has such an elevated water table, most of these tunnels were actually built at ground level. That means the Magic Kingdom was built above that. All the guests of the park are one storey high. Parts of Fantasyland, including Cinderella's Castle, are at third-story-level (this is why the castle seems to loom so large as guests approach it via Main Street, USA). The ground's incline is so gradual that guests do not realize they are ascending to the second and third stories. The Magic Kingdom is built upon soil which was removed from what is now the Seven Seas Lagoon.

The utilidors are built on 9 acres (36,000 m2), and the floor plan is a circle with a path down the middle. The tunnel walls are color-coded to make it simple for users to determine their location. The utilidors can be accessed from a main tunnel entrance located behind Fantasyland, or through unmarked doors throughout the Magic Kingdom. Magic Kingdom cast members park about one mile (1.6 km) away and are transported via a Disney bus to the tunnel. Some shops, restaurants and attractions have direct access to the utilidors.

Sleeping Beauty’s Winter Castle