Disneyland Resort

The fireworks at Disneyland had ended. It was past closing time and the crowds were pouring out the gates, but we lingered. Layla Alshawi, the 63-year-old mother of our friends, didn't want to leave. She hugged a light pole, joking that we would have to drag her out. We'd spent three days at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim with my friend, Saif Alnasseri, his wife, mother and 5-year-old daughter. Like my husband, whose name is also Saif, he was an Iraqi translator I met in 2007 during my rotations in the Los Angeles Times' Baghdad bureau.

Walt Disney will be given the inaugural star today during a ceremony on the new Anaheim/Orange County Walk of Stars, city officials said. The walk, along Harbor Boulevard near the entrance to Disneyland, is meant "to honor visionary leaders, entertainers and entrepreneurs who have made a positive impact," a statement released by the city said.

As director of park operations at the Disneyland Resort, I oversee the attractions throughout the resort, including the Jungle Cruise. After reading a letter (Oct. 21), I feel compelled to correct misinformation about the return of guns to the attraction. The guns, which are modified to shoot only blanks, are used in a fun and entertaining way to scare away mechanical hippos. At all times, the boat skippers are required to point their guns in the air, not at the hippos as the letter incorrectly stated.

Martha DeSollar, a former executive with Cox Communications and the Disneyland Resort, has been named spokeswoman for the city of Anaheim. DeSollar replaces John Nicoletti, who left in November to take a communications position with the Walt Disney Co. DeSollar joined the city a year ago as a government relations manager. In her new post, she will also be responsible for the city's legislative strategy. Before coming to Anaheim, DeSollar was a vice president of public relations for the Orange County/Palos Verdes Cox system and a manager of community and government relations at Disneyland.

Re "Failing Magic at Disney," Sept. 29: I am writing on behalf of the board of directors and staff of Children's Hospital of Orange County. Our experience with Disney is primarily through the Disneyland Resort, which, indeed, faces a number of challenges presented by the overall nationwide tourism slowdown. Despite these challenges, however, Disneyland has continued to increase its involvement in the community and remains a shining example of good corporate citizenship at a time when those examples are all too rare.

Fairfield Communities Inc., a Florida time-share resort company, took advantage of the expansion of the Anaheim Convention Center and the Disneyland Resort by acquiring a 136-unit time-share resort near the park. The Orlando company said Monday that it bought Dolphin's Cove Resort for an undisclosed sum along with the rights to develop an additional Southern California resort with 150 units at an undisclosed oceanfront location.

The Disneyland Resort draft environmental impact report will be open for public comment until Dec. 28 before going to the Anaheim Planning Commission for certification. The Anaheim Chamber of Commerce strongly supports the project. This is the most important consideration now before the people and businesses of Orange County. The legally required EIR addresses the effects expansion might have on the community. It concludes that aesthetics would be considerably better, that transportation impact would be insignificant with surface street and freeway improvements and that there would be no deterioration in air quality and no increase in noise level.

Disneyland Resort temporarily halted ticket sales at both of its Anaheim theme parks Tuesday because of massive crowds, and visitors complained of slow traffic and especially long lines. Disneyland stopped selling tickets about 10 a.m., and visitors were diverted to Disney California Adventure. By 1 p.m., both parks were closed to new visitors, with Disneyland announcing via its Twitter page that access was "temporarily limited. " California Adventure was reopened later in the afternoon, spokeswoman Betsy Sanchez said.

For months, the rafts that ferry Disneyland guests across the waterway to Tom Sawyer Island have been idle. No children have explored the island's caves, scaled its climbing rocks or run across its bridges. But the island won't be lonely much longer. Park employees will refill the Rivers of America, drained in January for maintenance, this week. The draining took almost a week, at the end of which this question was answered: What do you find at the bottom of an amusement park basin after seven years?