How many times in the last week (or just today, for that matter) have you visited a website? Did you log in to Disneyland.com? I know you logged in to DapsMagic.com, because… you’re here right now.

Thirty years ago, this was a very, very uncommon experience. In fact, when Disneyland went “on line” it was likely that guests visiting the park missed it entirely.

Here are two souvenirs of the day that it happened. The guide map for February 26 through  March 1 was promoting the Mighty Ducks Fanfair. The next day, the guidemap for March 2 & 3 featured the Toy Story Funhouse, located (inexplicably) in Tomorrowland.

Inside the brochures, the opening pages look identical, right down to the banner ad for Kodak film spread across the bottom of the page. As sponsors of the guide map for many years, their ads were ubiquitous. That aside, do you see the other difference between the gudiemap of March 1 (left) and the guidemap of March 2 (right)?

Maybe this closer view will help. Just above the section about American Express (“the Official Credit Card of Disneyland”) there is a line offering helpful advice about getting further information about your Disneyland visit. On March 1, they gave the mailing address and phone number for Disneyland Guest Services. For March 2, they added the words “…or on the Internet, our address is WWW.Disneyland.com.” Those eight words were the first ever public reference to the internet in a Disneyland publication.

This was not, however, the first opportunity for the public to “visit” Disneyland online. In January of 1996, a few prescient users of the World Wide Web may have visited the new site, courtesy of AOL. America Online was one of the earliest providers of internet content (and it is still around today, a venerable presence in cyberspace). They engaged in a promotion with Disney Online, a division of Disney Interactive. That promotion allowed users to “chat” with Disney characters like Mickey Mouse, Miss Piggy(!), or Buzz and Woody from the recent hit film Toy Story.

And here it is! Disneyland, online in 1996. This is the earliest screenshot I was able to acquire, courtesy of the Wayback Machine at the online Internet Archive. You will note that this encompasses the entire Walt Disney Company, from the Disney Store to Investor Information. The parks did not have their own dedicated sites, but were rather included as a clickable link on the home page.

Here is a slightly larger shot, showing the links for pages devoted to Disneyland, Walt Disney World, and the Disney Institute. As was true of many sites of this era, these did not feature a lot of interactivity. But the Disney site was noted for its content. Interestingly, in the early years, the information on the site directed visitors seeking theme park reservations to… write or call the Walt Disney Company. Booking “online” began in 1998.

One of the more interesting vestiges of this period is the presence of “go.com” that turns up in Disney URLs. GO.com was an internet portal created by Disney. It was built on an existing search engine called Infoseek, acquired by Disney in 1998. GO.com was Disney’s entry into the crowded field of search engines, seeking to become the dominant source for consumers seeking online access. Even back then, Google already led the pack, but some rivals still exist to this day, like Yahoo and Bing. But who remembers AskJeeves, DogPile, or AltaVista? Or, for that matter, GO.com?

There is some confusion concerning the exact date that WWW.Disneyland.com went live. In a timeline published in the Walt Disney Company’s annual report for 1998, February 21, 1996, is chosen. Online sources usually state February 22 as the date, with a preview launch on February 12. In January 1997, the Disneyland Guide Map included the announcement, “On Thursday, January 23, disneyland.com celebrates its first year on the World Wide Web.” There is no date listed in Disney A-Z, which is considered the definitive source of information for all things Disney.

Whatever that exact date, we can be sure of at least one thing. It is unlikely that guests starting to explore the internet in 1996 had any idea where it would be taking them today, compared to where it was thirty years ago at Disneyland.com.