New Orleans Square
New Orleans Square is a themed land at Disneyland Park at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. It recreates the French Quarter of nineteenth-century New Orleans in a compact network of streets, courtyards and alleys along the Rivers of America, between Adventureland and Frontierland. Opened on July 24, 1966, it was the first entirely new land added to Disneyland after opening day and the last expansion of the park that Walt Disney personally dedicated — the ceremony, attended by the mayor of New Orleans, Victor Schiro, was his final major public appearance at the park before his death that December. The land is unique to Disneyland; no other Disney park has one.
Development
An antebellum New Orleans district had appeared in Disneyland planning as early as the late 1950s, drawn up for an area then used by Frontierland, and concept work by artist Herb Ryman shaped the version eventually built. The land's construction cost was widely reported at about 18 million dollars — more than the entire park had cost in 1955, a comparison Walt Disney himself joked about in relation to the Louisiana Purchase.
Unlike the other lands, New Orleans Square was built as a fully realised urban environment rather than a setting arranged around rides. Its buildings conceal kitchens, offices and staff facilities behind their facades, and nearly every shop and restaurant carries a numbered street address in the manner of the real French Quarter. Walt Disney had intended a private apartment for himself within the land, above what became the Disney Gallery space; it was never occupied by him and the rooms have since served other uses, including, from 2019, the 21 Royal dining experience.
When the land opened in July 1966 it contained shops and restaurants only. Its two signature attractions were still being finished underground and behind the facades, making New Orleans Square an unusual case of a land that debuted ahead of its rides.
Attractions
Pirates of the Caribbean opened on March 18, 1967, three months after Walt Disney's death; it was the last attraction whose development he personally supervised. Boats leave Laffite's Landing, pass through a bayou and descend into caverns and a burning town below the land's streets. The Haunted Mansion followed on August 9, 1969, in a stately antebellum house at the land's southern end that had stood complete but empty since 1963 while its interior was debated and built. Since 2001 the mansion has received a seasonal overlay, Haunted Mansion Holiday, each autumn and Christmas season.
The land also has its own station on the Disneyland Railroad, opened with the land in 1966 and renamed from Frontierland Station to New Orleans Square Station in 1996.
Dining
The Blue Bayou Restaurant, opened alongside Pirates of the Caribbean in March 1967, sits inside the attraction's bayou scene under a permanent artificial twilight, so that diners watch the ride boats drift past; Walt Disney had refused to open it before the ride was ready, considering the passing boats part of the experience. Café Orleans and the French Market (renamed Tiana's Palace in 2023, after the New Orleans-set film The Princess and the Frog) serve the land's other tables, and its carts are associated with mint juleps and beignets.
Above the streets is Club 33, a private members' club and restaurant opened on June 15, 1967, at 33 Royal Street. Modelled in part on the VIP lounges Walt Disney had seen at the 1964 New York World's Fair, it was built for park sponsors and invited guests and has since become the resort's best-known institution, with a waiting list for membership. Its Court of Angels courtyard, long open to all guests, has been private to the club since a 2014 renovation.