Disney Dazzle : Animated Crowds Help Launch Club During Festivities in Westlake

Some kids ditched school. Some parents woke before dawn to snag a prime space in line for their groggy toddlers. One group even drove the six hours from Palo Alto --singing “99 Bottles of Beer, err, Coke” all the way.

All were at Friday’s grand opening of the first-ever Club Disney at the Promenade at Westlake.

“I took my daughter out of school because I wanted her to be a grandparent and say, ‘I attended the opening of the first Club Disney,”’ said Renee LuVisi of Oak Park, who had three children in tow.

“It’s part of history,” said her friend, Mary Lechman, also with her three children.

It certainly felt historic. Hordes waited in a line of bumper-to-bumper strollers. The Westlake High Band played the lilting strains of “Zippity-Doo-Dah.” Confetti and paper streamers fell from the sky. All the Disney bigwigs--Goofy, Mickey Mouse and CEO Michael Eisner--were there.

“We got up at 3,” said a weary John Reza eight hours after waking. “We’ve been here since 5. My feet are killing me.”

But looking at the colorful, happy chaos around him in the club, Reza, a bank messenger from Arleta, couldn’t help but grin.

For those who haven’t heard, Club Disney is the Walt Disney Co.’s newest venture: a minimall-size “imagination-powered play site,” where kids and their significant grown-ups pay $8 each to scamper up the Jungle Climber, boogiedown in the Applaudeville Theater and play the “101 Dalmatians” computer game in the Mouse Pad.

When doors opened at 10 a.m., more than 1,000 people were waiting. The lines lasted all day, but did not meet predictions.

“This isn’t very bad at all,” said Sgt. Harold Humphries, one of 20 Ventura County Sheriff’s Department officers at the opening. “We were expecting a lot more people. Maybe because Disney advertised that tens of thousands were going to be here, it scared people away.”

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Given the Promenade’s ongoing problems with tight parking, Disney provided shuttle buses to take parents and children from nearby parking lots to Club Disney. Shuttles will continue to run through the weekend from the Hyatt Westlake Plaza off Westlake Boulevard and the Corporate Center on Thousand Oaks Boulevard.

The scene at the club was predictably Mickey Mouse: A $3.85 slab of Mickey-shaped pizza with pepperoni. Mickey-shaped gold foil confetti. Colorful Mickey-shaped balloons in regular and Volkswagen size.

The stroller-pushing masses loved it. Take Nancy Peardon, who lives in Westlake Village. She drove her BMW to Palo Alto on Thursday to pick up her grandchildren, Ashley and Garrett Peardon, 7 and 5, respectively.

“We hit the road, and sang for six hours,” she said. “This is worth the trip.”

Before she left Club Disney, Peardon and family were loaded down with $70 worth of Mickey and Minnie T-shirts and a “101 Dalmatians” charm bracelet.

Emerging from a rotini-twisted tube slide, Shanel, Renee LuVisi’s oldest child, was breathless.

“That slide is sooooo cool because it’s dark,” the 7-year-old said. “There’s so much to do here. It’s better than Disneyland because Disneyland doesn’t have games and dark slides.”

Even the facilities were cool, said her younger sister, Ciera. “The bathrooms are so funny,” the 3-year-old said. “They’re my size.”

Others had a less-than-magical experience.

Some of the games--like the Aladdin-meets-the-NBA game called “Dunk ‘N’ Jump--appeared too hard for the toddler set. A few youngsters sobbed in frustration near the confounding activity.

Outside, a dozen protesters--holding placards saying “Disney Pays Mickey Mouse Wages--tried without success to drown out Eisner’s brief remarks. “ Calling themselves Alliance for Democracy, the protesters claimed that Disney pays workers in Haiti a mere 28 cents an hour to make Pocahontas pajamas.

Before the club doors even opened, the Disney staff--known for perky perma-grins--had ticked off the family of former Thousand Oaks Mayor Larry Horner.

At a sneak preview last week, Horner’s wife, Betty, and adult daughter, Kymberly, were initially refused admission to the club--invitations notwithstanding. They were told they could not enter because they did not have a child with them.

The two women, who are black, say they were twice told that “strange people” could not roam the club. Larry Horner said he suspects that race was the motivation.

“My wife informed them that we don’t tolerate prejudice of any type in this community,” he said. “Maybe this is OK in Burbank or Anaheim, but it’s certainly not acceptable in the city of Thousand Oaks.”

A Club Disney spokeswoman said the business welcomes everybody, with one caveat: All adults must be accompanied by children, and all children must be accompanied by adults.

But at Friday’s opening, Oak Park moms LuVisi and Lechman had only one complaint: the crammed valet parking for strollers inside the club.

“We’ll come back a lot because the kids are entertained for hours, I don’t have to worry about them and it’s close to home,” LuVisi said.