Like most kids who grew up in Orange County, or the section of Los Angeles county that bordered it, some of their first jobs were at the magic kingdom aka Disneyland. Not all worked in the actual park, some worked at restaurants in Downtown Disney or worked at hotels like I did. I spent a few years at the original Disneyland Hotel as a front desk clerk and ticket maker, and no I will not speak of possible free tickets that were given out during my time there. The pay wasn’t all that great, but the chance to go to Disneyland for free made up for it. During my last year there, Disneyland celebrated it’s 50th birthday. There were a lot of parties and free things given out to cast member, employees, and even some announcements. These weren’t public announcements, but just told to the cast members. One announcement was that Disney was thinking about buying a huge lot of land that down the street to build a water park. I assume with the popularity of Knotts Berry Farm’s Soak City, it was only logical that Disney put a ton of money to make their own better water park. My manager at the time showed us on a map where they were thinking of building it, but nothing more was said. Now, 10 years later, the OC Register is reporting that the Disneyland Resort has purchased two plots of land across the street from their two parks. I found this great picture on slashfilm highlighting the areas that were purchased.
The deal was closed for $48 Million and is said to be for additional offices and storage, but is that really the truth? I actually work in an office 3 minutes away from the land that was purchased, and my office window looks down at it so I’ll be able to monitor what’s going on. I could be getting my hopes up and there could be no waterpark, but if there does end up being one there then remember where you read it first.