Disney Facts: Disneyland 2012 edition

The opening of Cars Land at the California Adventure on June 15 will change the entire landscape of Disneyland Park. As the anticipation continues, Disney has released a new version of the its Disneyland Park fact sheet. 

Photo by Paul Hiffmeyer/Disneyland Resort

• Disneyland resort employs 22,000 people.
• The Matterhorn Bobsleds, which reopen June 15 after a major refurbishment, was the first tubular steel roller coaster in the world when it opened in 1959.
• Disneyland created the first daily operating monorail in the western hemisphere.
• “World of Color” uses a submersible platform that’s bigger than a football field.
• More than 800 species of plants grow at Disneyland.
• The landscape surrounding the Jungle Cruise has evolved into its own ecosystem since the attraction opened in 1955. The trees have created a canopy that allows species of ground plants to grow that otherwise wouldn’t in Southern California.
• Buena Vista Street, the new road into Disney California Adventure, invites guests to step into Los Angeles of the 1920s and ’30s, experiencing the sights and sounds Walt Disney may have discovered when he stepped off the train in California in 1923.
• At 280,000 square feet and 125 feet tall at its peak, The Ornament Valley Mountain Range in Cars Land is the largest rock structure in any domestic Disney theme park.
• More than 30 different languages are spoken among Disneyland Resort cast members.
• Disneyland Resort costuming cast members maintain more than a thousand different costumes for use in the parks and hotels.
• About 50 certified scuba divers work on the Disneyland Resort Facilities team, which maintains such attractions as “World of Color,” “Fantasmic!” and Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage.