Employees line Main Street for Disneyland's reopening day on April 30.
Julie Tremaine/SFGATE

LATEST April 30, 9:49 a.m. Disneyland Park didn’t open until 9 a.m. today, but crowds were lined up hours early to be the first to get through the gates — and their efforts were rewarded. Guests were walking through the gates as of 8 a.m., though rumors were swirling among people in line that others had been let in even earlier.

But even outside the gates, the entertainment had started. In the distance, the whistle of the Disneyland Railroad sounded. The mood was jubilant: The crowd erupted in cheers, clapping and shouting with joy, to see the train pull into the Main Street U.S.A. Station.

After passing through a temperature check, security dog screening and security bag check, people lined up at the gates as though it were any other park day, with relatively light lines. None of the security protocols the company had warned about — ID checks, proof of reservations, proof of residency if you didn’t have a California license — were checked.

As long as you had a ticket on the Disneyland app that scanned into the system as valid for park entry today, with a linked reservation, you were in.

Visitors walked through Disneyland's Main Street on its reopening day.
Julie Tremaine/SFGATE

Inside, hundreds of cast members — Disney’s name for its employees — lined Main Street up to Sleeping Beauty Castle, greeting guests.

“Welcome back!” cast members shouted as they waved. “We’re so happy to see you! We missed you.”

“We missed you too!” some visitors responded. Others could be seen crying to be back inside the park, while others were filming themselves and the scene as they walked through the gates.

It was a moment to savor, to be sure, and the sheer joy and excitement of the crowd was enough to erase any of the memory of standing in long lines to get in, or of waiting in hours of virtual queues to get in.

Disneyland is back, and so are its biggest fans.

For the first time in forever — the more than 400 days since it closed on March 14, 2020 — Disneyland is reopening.

Things will be different for the fans who are attending the reopening today. Disneyland has modified the park experience, not only to comply with California's pandemic restrictions, but to reshape what that experience will look like in a post-pandemic world.

That means there will be new safety precautions like social distancing and plexiglass dividers, not only in lines but on the rides themselves. That could be a good thing: there won't be strangers screaming in your ears as you go through rides.

A smartphone is going to be a much bigger part of your Disneyland experience, since the park has reduced the number of touch points in the park. Guests will be scanning QR codes for menus and to enter virtual ride queues.

The pandemic has also impacted the park's restaurants. On opening day, many will remain shuttered, while the ones that are open will offer modified menus, oriented towards take-out and to-go.

And some of Disneyland's most beloved experiences, the rides themselves, will not be open. The Matterhorn will be quiet, while others, like the Jungle Cruise, is closed because it is being revamped to remove culturally insensitive scenes. There will also be new experiences, like the revamped Haunted Mansion and the totally overhauled Snow White's Enchanted Wish.

However, there's also good news: because tickets are currently limited to residents of California, these could be some of the shortest lines that visitors will experience.

But just as the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped everything, it's going to be a very different Disneyland today. Stay tuned as our Disneyland editor, Julie Tremaine, experiences what it's like to be back inside Disneyland on its big reopening day.