Tuesday Post: No Disneyland Postmarks :(

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My family went to Disneyland for a week last summer. My mom (also a postcard and stamp collector) spent an entire day looking for postcards, stamps and a mailbox on the Disney property. We were hoping to get a special Disneyland postmark, like the Harry Potter “unofficial” postmark at Hogsmeade at Universal Studios Orlando.

Finding the postcards was not too difficult – although the selection is somewhat limited and all of the shops carry the same postcards. None of the cast members at the souvenir shops knew where to mail the cards or if there was a special postmark available. She finally went to Guest Relations by the front gate. The woman at the desk told my mom she could mail her card there, but there was no special postmark – all of the mail gets routed through the Santa Ana post office. However, she did have a “Disneyland Resort” rubber stamp and would stamp the postcard with that. You can see that in the top photo, just below the stamp.

The next day, my brother noticed a small mailbox in the middle of the park marked “Disneyland Mailbox”. My mom quickly went and purchased a second postcard and put it in that mailbox, hoping that something magical would happen at the Magic Kingdom. Low and behold, it doesn’t look any different from the first postcard. (And BTW, I do see posts like this about all the different mailboxes around the park. I’m not sure why it was so hard for my family to locate a mailbox. Maybe it just wasn’t their first priority or maybe most of those boxes have been removed.)

I think Disney is missing a HUGE opportunity here. What a great souvenir for a photo album, travel journal, or refrigerator – a Mickey Mouse postcard with a special postmark (maybe something with mouse ears?) signed by the whole family (including the little kids). It’s a family bonding activity and the stuff that memories are made of.

Also, just so you are prepared, look at the postmark on the second postcard. It is postmarked Aug 4th (Thurs) and my mom mailed it Aug. 1st (Mon). The postcards did not arrive in Seattle until the following week. Just be warned, this is truly a snail mail service.

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About the author

Heidi
I started collecting postcards when I was about 5 years old. My only Grandfather lived in Germany, and it was a fun way for us to correspond and have some sort of relationship. I adored the "Hilde" postcards, and he soon started sending me a different one each time he wrote. I had a special bond with my paternal Grandfather, although I only met him a few times. A few years later my adopted Grandparents in Denver started sending me postcards from their vacations, which were mostly road-trips around the USA. My collection continued to grow and eventually filled two binders. As my collection grew, my mother, who also collected postcards when she was young, started adding postcards to my binders from her collection. I had so much fun dreaming of traveling to exotic places! I would sort and re-sort the postcards by type, location, like/dislike, etc. It wasn't until I was in my 20's, when I sorted the postcards chronologically by sender, that I realized there were a few postcards from my maternal grandmother to my mother. One such postcard was sent to my mother as a teenager who was visiting family in Berlin. My Grandmother wrote and asked her to come home early because my Grandfather's illness had taken a turn for the worse. My Grandmother died a few months later of an unrelated disease, and my Grandfather several weeks after that. I also found a postcard from a ship that my paternal Grandfather sailed on to immigrate to the USA. He sent it to his parents and explains that when he got seasick, the crew told him to eat rollmops and drink beer and hot cocoa (yes, pickled herring + beer + chocolate). My current postcard collection is divided into two sets. One set is the pictures I like sorted by theme - exotic places, animals that make me smile, costumes that I dream of making. The other set is from family and pieces together our story. I still send postcards when I travel and am an active trader.

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