Buena Vista Street: A Trip Back In Time

With all the excitement that surrounds a visit to the Disneyland Resort, there is one spot that will stop time and make you want to slow down.

Buena Vista Street:

Think back a couple of years… ok, maybe several decades, to the year 1923.  When you enter DCA, you are taken back to the Los Angeles that Walt Disney met when he came to California for the very first time.  Here is where you DON”T want to zoom by and not stop to take a look around.

What is there to do? Eat!  Of course!  Buena Vista Street has brand new places for you to eat.

• Fiddler, Fifer & Practical Café is a diner-style, quick-service restaurant serving soups, salads, sandwiches and beverages, including Starbucks coffee. Guests enjoy a pleasant view of Carthay Circle from the picture window. The café name references the names of the Three Little Pigs in the award-winning Silly Symphonies cartoon.
• Clarabelle’s Hand-Scooped Ice Cream is a soda fountain and ice cream shop whose name might have inspired the name of one of Mickey Mouse’s friends, Clarabelle Cow.
• Mortimer’s Market offers whole and cut fruits, bottled water, juices and soft drinks. (Mortimer is the name Walt Disney originally gave his new creation in 1928; he later changed it to Mickey.)

Also, you can shop:

• Oswald’s stands in Buena Vista Plaza, just inside the Disney California Adventure turnstiles. The name might have prompted a young Walt Disney to name his early cartoon success, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Oswald’s is actually a shop selling sundry “road trip” vacation necessities: travel mugs, sunscreen, hats and more.
• On the east side of the central plaza is Los Feliz Five & Dime, themed to a vintage five-and-dime or variety store. The Los Feliz area of Los Angeles is near the site where Walt Disney’s Hyperion studios were built. Los Feliz Five & Dime offers t-shirts, fleece, hats, figurines, souvenirs and more.
• Big Top Toys features innovative and interactive toys, games and plush inspired by such Disney characters as Tinker Bell, Disney Princesses, Phineas & Ferb and Duffy the Bear. The shop is a nod to the Disney animated film “Dumbo,” which provides much of the inspiration and the background music.
• Elias & Co. is the largest shopping location on Buena Vista Street and pays tribute to the opulent art deco style department stores of yesteryear, selling apparel, watches, handbags, accessories and more. The Canadian-born Elias Disney was Walt Disney’s father, and Elias was Walt Disney’s middle name.
• Kingswell Camera Shop, on the west side of Buena Vista Plaza, is headquarters for Disney’s PhotoPass, where guests can pick up their photos taken by Disney’s roving photographers. The shop also sells memory cards, cameras, film, batteries, frames and photo albums. Kingswell Avenue was the site of an early Disney animation studio.
• Julius Katz & Sons carries a variety of home décor and seasonal merchandise including kitchen gadgets, dinnerware, hand towels and aprons. “Julius Katz” was inspired by Julius the Cat, an animated cat who joined the live-action Alice in Disney’s silent “Alice in Cartoonland” shorts of the 1920s.
• Atwater Ink & Paint is a Hollywood-style market house selling coffee, tea and other delectable treats to enjoy or take home. The name refers to the Atwater Village district of Los Angeles, a regular haunt of animators in the early days of the Disney Studio.
• Trolley Treats offers packaged candy as well as signature items from the Disney candy kitchen: hand-pulled taffy, gourmet marshmallows, caramel apples, toffee, dipped strawberries and more. Some are made on the spot by Disney candy makers. Another treat is in the window – a display of Rock Candy Mountain, an attraction designed for Disneyland park but never built.

And finally, sit back and enjoy the entertainment:

• The Red Car Trolley – Trolley car conductors, in uniforms evoking the ’20s time period, call the stops, toot the trolley whistle and entertain guests with historical tales of Buena Vista Street.
• ”The Red Car News Boys” roll into town on shiny Red Car Trolleys, singing “California, Here I Come!” and other fun tunes from the 1920s and ’30s. The News Boys also deliver the latest “headlines,” in the Buena Vista Daily Bugle.
• The citizens of Buena Vista Street – a cast of L.A./Hollywood “characters” out of the 1920s and ’30s – interact with guests, creating impromptu laughs, smiles and memories.
• The musical group Five & Dime adds all that jazz to Carthay Circle “On the Sunny Side of the Street.” This ensemble of friends and relations, led by a vivacious singer named Dime, has travelled Route 66 all the way from Chicago in hopes of making it big. Like everyone who comes to Buena Vista Street, great things await them just around the corner.

Let me tell you about the Citizens of Buena Vista Street.  They are a riot to sit and talk to. They are super interactive and the kids will get a kick out of all of them.  I hope you make the time to enjoy each of them and they stroll along Buena Vista Street.   Keep the camera handy!

Para más información en sobre Disneylandia y Cars Land, sígueme a Disneylandiaaldia.com.

This is not a paid post.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.  I was invited to the exclusive media event at the Disneyland resort to cover the grand opening of Cars Land, Buena Vista Street and Carthay Circle Theatre.  All opinions are my own.

About Liz Cerezo

Liz is a Mexican-American blogger living in Southern California. Married 14 years, and a mami to 3 kids, her content is inspired from living in and raising a multicultural familia. Liz has been blogging for more than 4 years, establishing herself as a nationally recognized Latina blogger. She often blogs in Spanglish and may throw in some Tagalog when talking about her hubby. You can also find her chit chatting away at @Liz_Cerezo.