Club Disney Draws a Crowd at Opening

Some children ditched school. Some parents woke before dawn to snag a prime space in line for their groggy toddlers. One group even drove six hours from Palo Alto.

All were at Friday’s grand opening of the first Club Disney at the Westlake Promenade in Thousand Oaks.

“I took my daughter out of school because I wanted her to be a grandparent and say ‘I attended the opening of the first Club Disney,’ ” said Renee LuVisi of Oak Park, who had three children in tow.

“It’s part of history,” said her friend, Mary Lechman, also with her three children.

Club Disney is the Walt Disney Co.’s newest venture: A minimall-sized “imagination-powered play site,” where children and their significant grown-ups pay $8 each to scamper up the Jungle Climber, boogie-down in the Applaudeville Theater and play the “101 Dalmatians” computer game in the Mouse Pad.

When doors opened at 10 a.m., more than 1,000 people were waiting. The lines lasted all day, but did not meet predictions.

“This isn’t very bad at all,” said Sgt. Harold Humphries, one of 20 Ventura County sheriff’s deputies at the opening. “We were expecting a lot more people. Maybe because Disney advertised that tens of thousands were going to be here, it scared people away.”

All the Disney bigwigs--Goofy, Mickey Mouse and CEO Michael Eisner--were there.

Outside, a dozen protesters holding placards saying “Disney Pays Mickey Mouse Wages,” charged that Disney pays Haitian workers 28 cents an hour to make Pocahontas pajamas.