TOURISM : Birthday Boys, Girls Reign in Kingdom Under Special Party Deal at Disneyland

A chance to be guest engineer on the steam train . . . a stint as captain of the Mark Twain steamboat . . . best seats in the house for the Golden Horseshoe Jamboree.

These are three of the “surprise special gifts” that will be awarded children whose parents take them and their friends to Disneyland for birthday parties.

The Anaheim theme park has inaugurated a birthday party program, the latest in a series of changes designed at marketing the park for special events. Starting last year, for instance, the Disneyland Hotel started offering a fantasy wedding package.

Disneyland’s birthday parties will be expensive enough, however, to give most parents pause.The park is charging $36.95 per head for lunch, cake, ice cream and a day in the Magic Kingdom. The price for admission, cake and ice cream alone is $29.95.

That compares to regular admission prices of $30 for adults and $24 for children of ages 3 through 11--or the $22 discount price for Southern California residents.

The birthday parties will be held at 11 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays in the Space Place restaurant in Tomorrowland. Children get a choice of hot dogs, mini-pizzas or chicken strips for lunch and such party favors as autograph books, Mickey Mouse pencils, birthday hats, balloons and noisemakers. Disney characters will mingle among the party-goers.

And each birthday child will be presented with a sealed envelope containing a certificate good for a special ride or event, such as riding in the locomotive of the train or pilothouse of the steamboat.

While uniquely Disneyesque, the idea is not new to Orange County. Knott’s Berry Farm has been offering children’s birthday parties for years.

Politically Correct Kingdom: Speaking of Disneyland, ever notice how politically correct the place has gotten over the years?

Back in the 1950s when the park opened, the water ride around Tom Sawyer’s Island used to include a run past the “Unfriendly Indian Village,” the same tribe that lit off the ever-ablaze settler’s cabin. The settler himself was seen lying nearby with arrows in his back.

In recent years, the only Native Americans seen from the ride are friendly. And the settler? He was removed in favor of another dummy--a hillbilly sucking from a bottle of moonshine who, apparently in a drunken stupor, accidentally set fire to his cabin. Out of the possibility that that image, too, might be offensive, the figure was removed, and now it is explained that the cabin was set afire by a careless settler, who is nowhere to be seen.

Over on the Jungle Ride, guides still fire their pistols when they feel endangered by fake wild beasts. But these days, they are more likely to be warning shots.

Things could have been worse, though. Walt Disney originally wanted to use live animals--but fake bullets--on the ride, but was talked out of it.

Business Kingdom: The Disneyland Hotel has opened a business center that will provide guests and conventioneers with photocopies, facsimile machines, transparencies, personal computer work stations and typing and shipping services.

Fees for use of the services can be billed directly to guests’ rooms or to their group’s master account. Credit cards are also accepted.

The 1,131-room hotel has 150,000 square feet of meeting space.

Compiled by Chris Woodyard / Times staff writer