Disneyland Turns Into No-Room Land

For only the second time in its 41-year history, a jam-packed Disneyland shut its doors Saturday, creating widespread confusion and renewing concern about the theme park’s ability to handle growing public demand.

Hoping to see Disneyland’s Main Street Electrical Parade before it ends next month after a 24-year run, thousands swamped the park when its doors opened at 9 a.m., quickly filling the 15,000-space parking lot and creating heavy traffic on surrounding roads.

When park officials decided to stop selling tickets at 2:15 p.m., guards began turning cars away, and Anaheim-bound traffic on the Santa Ana Freeway eventually backed up into Los Angeles County.

The park reopened after 6:30 p.m.

“The only other time we see traffic like that is Knott’s Berry Farm at Halloween time,” said California Highway Patrol spokeswoman Angel Johnson. “As far as Disneyland goes, I’ve never seen it this bad.”

The only other time Disneyland stopped selling tickets because of overcrowding was Dec. 28, 1984, when a widely publicized New Year’s event drew large crowds, said Casi Smith, a Disneyland spokeswoman.

This time, the reason could be an epidemic of nostalgia, as hard-core Disney fans, fueled by a massive advertising blitz, seem desperate to get one last look at the glittery march down Main Street.

Disneyland plans to scrap the parade and introduce a new version next spring with fiber optics and other high-tech doodads.

Anaheim City Councilman Lou Lopez said he thought Disneyland officials might have decided to close the park’s ticket windows Saturday because visitors and public officials had voiced some alarm at last weekend’s unusually large throngs.

Informed of the latest overcrowding incident, Lopez repeated his opinion that Disneyland should be rigorously questioned about safety and security.

“We need to discuss this with Disneyland,” he said. “We definitely need to ask some hard questions to make sure it’s safe for all visitors.”

Anaheim’s fire code lets the city set and enforce occupancy limits for all buildings on the 136-acre Disneyland property. But the code says nothing about how many people may legally circulate through the park’s outdoor areas, and planning regulations seem not to address the maximum park capacity.

Disneyland officials refuse to release attendance figures, but sources estimated that last Saturday the park admitted 80,000 visitors, the third largest crowd ever, exceeded only by July 4 crowds in 1986 and 1987.

On a typically busy summer day, sources say, Disneyland sees 50,000 to 60,000 visitors.

After last weekend’s massive turnout, park officials tried to dispel concerns and thin congestion by prolonging the Main Street Electrical Parade for a few more weeks.

Originally scheduled to end Oct. 15, the parade was granted a 25-day reprise run, from Nov. 1. through Nov. 25.

“But I guess a lot of people didn’t get the message,” said park spokesman Tom Brocato.

“It exploded on us, to be honest,” Smith said. “Of course we wanted to promote the fact that it was ending. We just didn’t anticipate this high volume. We’re as surprised as anyone else.”