General Information:

Media Type: Book
Type: Parks - Picture
Release Date: 2009-08-12

Geek's Thoughts: The Disneyland Challenge is a book with a different concept. The book is part guide, part trivia, part fun facts, and part picture book. This 128 book features a page (or part of a page) dedicated to almost every attraction at the Disneyland Resort. I found the format to be very different than most books, each page features a key image as well as several inset images and dialog boxes (rounded boxes) with information, description, trivia, etc... The book itself is a spiral bound book measuring nine inches tall by six inches wide. The spiral binding lends itself to flipping to a page and keeping it open. The size is larger than pocket size, but it would fit nicely into a bad and would not be a burden to carry through the parks with you.

I found the trivia questions to range in difficulty with many being fairly common to some great obscure references. The facts/figures that scattered around the book are interesting too. For example the counts had it almost 2-1 in favor hamburger sales over hotdog sales on an annual basis. or did you know that they sell 43.7 million boxes of pop corn per year. I enjoyed reading through the book and trying to do the challenges and reading the facts.

 

Another aspect of this book that I found interesting is the use of some fairly old photos. For example the one for Fanasyland shows the old Tea Cups location behind the castle. Which means its over 25 years old. Also I was really surprised by some of the attractions that did not make the book. Such as the monorail or Playhouse Disney. With the original publication date being 2008 I believe much if not all of the book was done last year, so new attractions such as Toy Story Midway Mania and the changes going on at DCA are not in the book. It may be a great reference book to see the original DCA Pier section that includes Golden Dreams, a great shot of the Sun Wheel, the original Games of the Boardwalk, etc... I believe Finding Nemo Submarines is the newest attraction in the book.

Here is a listing of the categories (call out boxes) that are used throughout the book:

• Queue Views
• What Used to Be
• Walt Was Here
• By the Numbers
• Ask a Cast Member
• Look Out!
• Ears to You
• Scavenger Hunt
• Second Time Around
• Challenge!
• Challenge Yourself!