10 Hidden Details In Disneyland You Probably Didn’t Know
6. Sleeping Beauty’s Drawbridge
Each Disney resort has a focal castle right at the middle of their main park, with no princess being used twice. Disneyland California houses the iconic Sleeping Beauty’s castle, however it is significantly smaller than its sister castle over in Florida. When designing the castle, the Imagineer team used forced perspective to make the castle look far bigger than it actually stands.
The bridge to the castle is an actual, fully mechanical drawbridge, that can be lifted at will. Saying that, the drawbridge has only ever been lifted twice in the history of the park.
The first time that the bridge was raised was prior to the opening of the park in 1955. The thought behind this was that lowering the bridge during Walt’s opening day speech would signify the grand opening of the park.
Originally the bridge was intended to stay lowered for the rest of time and sit happily ever after, but due to the improvement work undertaken at Fantasyland in 1983, construction work forced to the bridge to be raised once more.