Best Disneyland Stories of 2025
Disneyland didn’t get the nickname of The Happiest Place on Earth by accident.
Every day, thousands of people bask in the warming glow of Disneyland.
Disney
Even by those standards, this past year was special, though.
Disney accomplished a milestone and threw a huge party to celebrate.
(Disney/Richard Harbaugh)
Let’s discuss the best things that happened at Disneyland in 2025, starting with a birthday party.
Disneyland 70
Really, I could have just one entry to cover this entire list.
That may sound hyperbolic to you…unless you’ve attended Disneyland 70.
The park is throwing itself a birthday party to commemorate its 70 years in business.
Disneyland literally created the concept of the theme park, and its heritage dates back to the Eisenhower administration.
VERY few people reading this were alive back then, yet Disneyland remains popular to this day.
Not many businesses from 1955 remain in existence today, and fewer still are doing better than ever.
70th Anniversary Color Medallions – World of Disney
Park officials understandably wanted to celebrate the remarkable, singularly unprecedented feat.
So, Disney threw an epic party featuring many exclusive events plus a few returning favorites.
Disney brought back the beloved Paint the Night Parade and introduced a new nighttime presentation.
World of Color Happiness! is yet another winner in the World of Color family.
Photo: Disney
Wondrous Journeys also returned for this event, as did Better Together: A Pixar Pals Celebration!
The kinetic nature of Disneyland 70 has kept guests entertained for a while now, and it’s not over yet.
Photo: Disney
This birthday party will continue into August 2026, giving you plenty of time to enjoy the activities.
The Celebrate Happy Cavalcade
I’m separating one other event from the Disneyland 70 party due to what it includes.
During the pandemic, park officials learned the value of a good Cavalcade.
These mini-parades do a wonderful job of providing quick, satisfying performances for guests.
Cavalcades also prevent the bottlenecking that occurs during scheduled presentations.
Since they’re short, people don’t hover around for an hour waiting for them to start.
As part of the Disneyland 70 event, Disney introduced The Celebrate Happy Cavalcade.
This show features the Jonas Brothers song, Celebrate Happy, that’s the theme song for Disneyland 70.
That’s not why I’m mentioning this event, though. The bigger deal is who appears.
Duffy and ShellieMay appear as part of the cavalcade, and that is a VERY big deal!
This is ShellieMay’s first appearance at an American theme park. Duffy’s an incredibly rare character as well.
So, anybody showing up at the Disneyland birthday party gets a special treat during this presentation.
Disneyland After Dark: 90s Nite
While Walt Disney World hosts Disney After Hours, Disneyland takes a more specialized approach.
The Disney After Hours events are somewhat generic in nature, with each of them working the same.
Disneyland After Dark provides unique entertainment and experiences depending on the theme.
The wildly popular Sweethearts’ Nite is for lovers, with romance in the air everywhere.
Star Wars Nite is for fans of The Force who don’t get enough of Luke and Rey at home.
Then, we have the more unique offerings such as 90s Nite, which is just what you’d think.
Disneyland After Dark: 90s Nite
Disneyland rolled back the clock to the 1990s, hosting an event that was “all that and a bag of chips.”
Yes, people used to say that, and they were briefly doing it again for a couple of sold-out events.
This rad affair served park guests with tons of nostalgia about the era when boy bands roamed the land.
Many popular Disney characters from that era like Darkwing Duck appeared, and that’s not all.
Disneyland After Dark: 90s Nite
Some mostly forgotten Disney films from that time, including Flubber and Inspector Gadget, were celebrated.
Oh, and Disney most assuredly didn’t forget Hocus Pocus. For fans of the 90s, it was like a trip back in time.
Luke Skywalker at Season of the Force
Photo: Richard Harbaugh
A long time ago in a Galaxy’s Edge far away, Disney made a controversial decision.
Imagineers set Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in a very specific era of the franchise.
(Kent Phillips, photographer)
Specifically, Disney picked the saga of Rey as the timeframe for Galaxy’s Edge.
For this reason, the beloved characters from the Holy Trilogy didn’t appear at the park.
Well, that finally changed in 2025 during Season of the Force.
For the first time ever, Luke Skywalker finally showed up at the Star Wars themed land.
Honestly, when I type that, it kinda blows my mind that we waited six years for that.
Disney’s commitment to authentic stories hurt the guest experience at Galaxy’s Edge.
Photo: Disney
Fans wouldn’t have cared about the mismatched timelines if they could have seen Luke & Leia on day one.
Even now, this wasn’t a permanent thing but rather something that only lasted for a few weeks.
Still, the character greeting was glorious while it was happening.
Walt Disney – A Magical Life
Finally, with all due respect to Disneyland 70, we have the biggest and best story of them all.
In 2025, Walt Disney finally returned to the theme park he envisioned and eventually built.
Yes, the creator of The Happiest Place on Earth overcame all obstacles to create Disneyland.
Where some saw orange groves, he imagined a place where families could spend time together.
Sadly, Uncle Walt only got to enjoy his park for a decade before he was afflicted with cancer.
So, he was alive for only 11 of the first 70 years of Disneyland Resort…but that’s no longer the case!
Photo: Disney
Disney has brought back Walt Disney in robotic form at his namesake show.
Walt Disney – A Magical Life honors the legacy of the man by recreating him as an Audio-Animatronic.
Photo: Disney
Imagineers have created a lovely show that pays tribute to everything Disney accomplished in his life.
Importantly, one of those remarkable achievements was the introduction of the theme park robot.
Disney unveiled the human version of the creation at the 1964 New York World’s Fair.
Audiences couldn’t believe the realism of the robot, Abraham Lincoln, which is still in use today.
Photo: Disney
More than 60 years later, let’s just say that the technology has improved.
So, Imagineers put it to the best possible use by giving their boss a permanent place on Main Street, U.S.A.
Walt Disney is back where he belongs, holding down the fort at the front of Disneyland.
Photo: MickeyBlog
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Feature Photo: Disney
