Why Planes Can’t Fly Over Disneyland

Disneyland’s airspace has the protection level of the White House and the Kennedy Space Center. It’s prohibited to fly over the theme park without a special waiver. The restriction was introduced in 2003 for security reasons, so now you will never see a plane or even a single drone flying over the park.

Disneyland’s staff invented two unique colors: “Go Away Green” and “Blending Blue”. They are specifically designed to make the guests’ eyes ignore them.

Go Away Green is used to color backstage buildings to “erase” them from the guests’ field of vision and camouflage all the temporary construction works going on. The idea is that if you don’t look for these objects specifically, your eyes will glaze over all the things painted in this color. Instead, you’ll focus on something more important, like attractions and finished buildings. Maybe you’ll even leave the park without realizing there was some construction going on in front of your eyes.

Blending Blue is used to make the building blend in with the sky. Many buildings have their upper part painted into this special shade, so they don’t look as tall as they are. For the park in Florida, the color was adjusted to make it match Florida’s regular sky shade.

Go Away Green and Blending Blue are often used together to paint the buildings that Disneyland doesn’t want you to see. The bottom part of the building is usually painted with Go Away Green until about the height of the trees, and the rest is painted in blue to blend with the sky and make the building less noticeable. As a result, you mostly enjoy the beautiful attractions and Disney magic.

Disneyland also uses colors and forced perspective to make some buildings appear bigger than they are. One of those buildings is Sleeping Beauty’s castle. The bricks used at the top of the castle are smaller than the ones at the bottom, and the castle appears taller.

They use scents as well to make the park more appealing. Around the park, there are many odor-pumping machines hidden inside the buildings. These smells are important because they contribute to your Disneyland experience, making it more pleasurable and memorable. People say that several places in Disneyland have very distinctive smells that are as familiar as the buildings.

Adults aged 14 and older aren’t allowed to wear costumes in Disneyland. You can only wear some Disney-inspired accessories like Minnie Mouse ears or a Frozen T-shirt. If you wear the full costume, you won’t be allowed to enter the park until you change. This is made so that guests don’t confuse you with the cast members of Disneyland who represent the characters.

It can become hard and confusing to find Disney’s Cinderella if there are a couple of dozens of fake ones walking around the park. But if you really want to dress up like your favorite character, you can take your trip to Disneyland during the Halloween season.

During this time, it’s perfectly fine to walk around like you just walked out of a Disney movie. Only remember that, due to safety reasons, your costume can’t reach the ground or drag on it. Also, if it happens that someone confuses you with a Disney character, you can’t pretend to be one, take pictures, or give autographs.

Disneyland has banned selfie sticks, so don’t pack one. They’re on the list of prohibited items along with drones (remember — nothing can fly over Disneyland), large tripods, and remote-control toys. This is again done for safety, after one guest pulled out a selfie stick in the middle of a ride. Also, people used to drop them on rides, which is unsafe either.

Another item on the ban list is a folding chair. It’s cool to have one and be able to arrange a seating place anywhere, especially while waiting in line. But leave it at home and better enjoy Disneyland’s benches. No one will let you in with a chair.

If your friend is celebrating their birthday in Disneyland and you came with a gift, remember that the gift shouldn’t be wrapped. The security person has to see what the gift is to make sure it’s nothing that is prohibited in the park, so they’ll make you unwrap it anyways. All the cast members have to keep their job a secret. If a staff member plays a certain Disney character in the park, they’re not allowed to tell it to anyone, reveal their character or discuss their role with anyone but with other cast members.

To get around this rule, staff members can tell their friends and relatives that “they’re friends” with the character they actually play. Also, it’s not allowed to write about their job on social media, take any photos in a costume or any backstage photos, and especially post them anywhere. All to preserve the Disney magic. Cast members should take their job seriously and be the best character actor.

After a person is hired, they undergo mandatory training to learn how to be the character they will portray. Also, they can’t choose what character they will play, it’s decided for them. After getting the role, they have to watch movies with the character hundreds of times, learn their story, learn to talk and behave exactly like them. Whatever happens, cast members must stay in character every second they’re working. Whatever they do, they should do it like their character.

Chip and Dale act goofy all the time, Maleficent should act mean, and Ariel constantly makes references to the ocean. All the Disneyland staff should also be able to answer any question a guest might ask correctly. This means that the actor should live in the universe of the character completely, and it’s forbidden to mention any characters that were not in the original story or to show that they know anything about life outside of Disneyland.

If you ask them what’s their favorite social media app, they will ask you what social media is. Also, cast members are trained to give autographs. Every Disney character has their own unique autograph, and even though there are different people portraying these characters, the autograph should always look the same.

If you compare one you got today with the one you got five years ago, it should be the same, as if the same person gave it to you. What makes the whole thing harder for the staff, is that one actor can portray several characters. Usually, each person portrays two or three characters, which means they have to undergo special training for each of them and be able to switch roles pretty quickly. One day you’re sweet Snow White and the next you’re fearless and independent Merida.

To make their guests’ experience as pleasurable as possible, the staff does a great job keeping the park clean. Every staff member, no matter who they are — a gardener, Goofy or Princess Aurora, should pick up every piece of trash they see along the way. Of course, they should do it gracefully and nonchalantly, so nobody even pays attention to it. And guess what, they undergo special training to pick up trash like a true Disney character.

To preserve the magic and not ruin the guests’ experience with unpleasant things and mentions, employees also use a secret language. They use many codes so that guests don’t hear what they’re not supposed to hear. Code 101 means that something isn’t functioning, and code 102 is used when everything’s back to normal.

Don’t be too flattered if some cast member calls you a “treasured guest”. People do misbehave in Disneyland, often trying to provoke the staff. But cast members must stay in character, even if it’s hard to.

If some guest causes a lot of trouble and is very irritating, a staff member can refer to them as a “treasured guest” to let off some steam or to warn their co-worker about the person’s attitude. Also, if someone is being especially rude, they can be politely but insistently seen out of Disneyland by security.

People who misbehave — for example, try to cut a power line or break some ride rules, can be banned from the park for a year. In case of a more serious offense, the park management can even ban a person from visiting both Disneyland and Disney World indefinitely.

In Disneyland, all staff members call each other by their first names. But if there are several people working at the same place and bearing the same names, it can get confusing. So, if there is already one girl working in Disneyland whose name is Ava, when another Ava joins the team, the new girl will get a temporary replacement name. She will wear a tag with her new name while at work and will be called that the entire time she’s there.