Disneyland Resort (DL, DLR, DCA) Discussion Thread

[America Sings Freak]

I think this should be the $1.1 billion and that's it. My opinion, with current financial climate, that $1.1 billion is going to be stretched as is. I don't think it's enough money to do the job of being comparable to Disneyland. Frankly, this park will never be comparable to the park across the way from it. They could clone all of Disneyland in DCA and it still would not be considered to be as good. Disneyland is probably the strongest brand image of in the park industry. Heck, it's one of the strongest brand images period. I talked about all this with my father and he said that when he thinks of Disney, and he blanketed his statement with his generation, he thinks of two things: Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color and Disneyland. Everything else the company does are just extensions of that. That's huge and a insurmountable feat to even attempt to compare. So I think the idea of "We need to make DCA on the same level as Disneyland" silly. Why try to compete with your biggest asset? Instead, they need to make their own brand image with this park. They need to try desperately to not be Disneyland. As of right now, and still with this update, it's a park without a message. There's no hook. There's nothing. It's just there to do. That's what they need to change. They need a whole collection of attractions that DCA needs that it doesn't seem like it's going to get. They need something on the level of an Indy, they need something on the level of Mr Toad, they need something on the level of the subs. Nothing mentioned here is at that level. It's a good intention, but we all know what road is paved with good intentions.

 

^ I agree, but I was just rewording a part of Al's article today at Mice age. I also feel that dark rides add to the theme of an amusement park, such as Haunted mansion, If I Had Wings, etc. These types of ground breaking attractions are dark rides and are what Disney parks are famous for, which is why DCA is in desperate need of more than their 1 soon to be 2 dark rides.

[philobat]

Personally-

 

I grew up 4 miles away from Disneyland and often me and my buddies would climb onto the roof of our house and watch the fireworks show (that is when we were not in the park!).

 

I come from a time when we had boxes or stashes of Disneyland tickets (I had a dresser dedicated to these tickets with individual drawers for A,B,C,D & E's).

 

My brother and I camped out over night on Tom Sawyer's island and were never discovered!

 

California Adventure is a reflection of what Disney has transmogrified into. I remember when it was a wondrous event just to be in the parking lot! The Parking Lot had more magic than an entire amusement park!

 

Now with $1.3 Billion dollars they can (and will) make an even bigger corporate mess!

[DarkMeasures]

Entrances matter.... and theme parks aren't casinos.

[SharkTums]

^Totally disagree!

 

Knoebels barely has a 'real' entrance and it's one of my favorite parks in the world!

 

I don't care about entrances, I care about what's in the park.

[RIP Psyclone]

DCA could use improvement, and a few more attractions. I welcome those changes.

 

However, I don't agree that DCA is a failure. It was the 7th most attended amusement park in North America last year. Six Flags or Cedar Fair would kill for those numbers.

 

The closest thing to a failed park Disney has right now would be Walt Disney Studios in Paris.

[Meteornotes]

^Yeah, I have to agree with that. As long as the park is easy to get into (HINT: GUEST WITHOUT BAGS LINE, PLEASE!), I really don't care what the entrance looks like. It's the content inside I'm interested in.

 

After reading more about this expansion/improvement, I'm less impressed. This park needs a huge, original attraction, something not available anywhere else in the world, or at least the US (something using the Pooh ride technology from TDL would be cool). A re-themed Test Track and random dark ride are not it. Sure, at this point, almost anything added to this park would be good (a place that thinks that watching tortillas being made counts as entertainment is a massive failure as far as I'm concerned), but it just seems like they'd be so much better off doing something spectacular that's never been done before.

 

dt

[robbalvey]

However, I don't agree that DCA is a failure. It was the 7th most attended amusement park in North America last year. Six Flags or Cedar Fair would kill for those numbers.

You need to understand the data better. Most Six Flags and Cedar Fair parks are only open full time 4 months out of the year. And the DCA numbers reflect single day park hoppers and annual passes that were purchased. It's not how many tickets that were sold but how many people walked through the gates.

 

When less than 1/2 of the people who visited Disneyland didn't bother to walk across the entrance way to check out the other park, that's bad.

 

If you could extrapolate some of the attendance numbers for some of those Six Flags and Cedar Fair parks to what it would look like if they were open year round and in a good climate area, I think you'd find that DCA may be further down the list.

 

--Robb

[jackskellington101]

I don't care about entrances, I care about what's in the park.

 

I have to agree somewhat to that statement. The entrance is not as important as everything within the park, but I do feel the entrance is important at some level. The entrance sets up the day for me. Is it absolutely pivotal? No, but it does have some importance to my experience.

[Wes]

^^ But technically, TDS's Journey is just a rethemed Test Track if you boil it down to the core. I dunno, it seems like you guys are oversimplifying these additions.

 

It could go either way, these additions could be really cool, or they could just be overhyped mediocrity like the Nemo subs turned out to be. They obviously have the budget to do some spectacular stuff, let's hope the creative portion lives up.

[SharkTums]

^I understand your point Wes, but look where we're coming from. Like your post even says, the Disneyland Resort has not exactly impressed anyone lately with their rehashes, and redo's of other parks rides.

 

It's hasn't been since Indy that we've seen anything amazing and original go into the California parks!

 

Since then we've gotten what?

 

A crappy Pooh.

Redo of an island

Redo of a treehouse

Another version of Buzz

A park that was so unsucessful they're completely redoing it

The worst version of the Tower of Terror Rides

Redo of Subs that people have already stopped talking about

etc.

[RIP Psyclone]

^^^^Yeah, I was aware that most parks are seasonal. However, if that makes DCA's attendance figures somehow inflated, that would be true for all other Disney parks.

 

You are right in that most people who visit the Magic Kingdom also visit one or more of WDW's other parks.

[Wes]

^^ And I agree with that 100%. I think for the past 12 years, the climate at Disney has been one that encouraged those crappy half-assed additions. It was a struggle to even get something as minor as Buzz in. Even the Subs was getting budgeted down before Lasseter stepped in. The subs is not a great addition, but I hate to think what it would have been like without the extra cash pumped in.

 

The creative climate is in a much healthier place right now, which is why the park is getting a $1 billion dollar infusion. Fucking Mania and the Cars ride are especially interesting, because it's the first bid budget rides that aren't retrofitting existing buildings or ride systems. The Little Mermaid thing is probably not going to be anything wonderful, but it's another attraction aimed at littler kids (like Monsters) that should help with capacity.

 

I think this whole thing is a really good start to building the park into a better place. The additions aren't going to suddenly stop after this is complete. I see this as an acknowledgment that DCA sort of failed in its goals, and now they are starting the rebuilding process to actually make the place more than a filler park.

[mcjaco]

^ My question is a whole land devoted to 'Cars' even going to be relevant in five years?

[robbalvey]

^ No more or less relevant than a 3D movie based on Bugs Life is now.

 

I agree that all these changes are a welcome addition. But like I said in my rant, I don't see them fixing the core of the problem with the park, I see more of the same that didn't get them repeat visitors in the first place so why do they think this will be any different or work better?

 

I'm all about that Cars ride and adding more "stuff" but I don't think most of this "stuff" will be that much better than what's currently there now.

 

DCA lacks (along with a cohesive atmosphere), and I think everyone has agrees is the "signature" colletion of E-Tickets that other Disney parks have.

 

At the moment DCA's really only claim to Disney fame is Soarin' and I'll bet that most non-California locals will have now experienced that ride at Epcot before seeing it at DCA. While Screamin' could arguably be the best Disney coaster they've built, the only thing "Disney" about it is that it does have a nice coat of pixie dust that wouldn't be found if it was built in your Cedar Fair park. Tower is a watered down re-hash of the WDW version and Grizzly suffers the same problem as Screamin'. Am I missing any other DCA E-Tickets?

 

The Cars Land section and the Racers is what the park needs. But they need MORE of that and it needs to be something somewhat unique to that park. For example, Epcot has Test Track and Mission Space; Animal Kingdom has Everest; Tokyo Disneyland has Pooh; DisneySea has Journey, etc, etc. Those are all *BIG* attractions. I'm not even sure that Soarin' is up to the level of any of those (well, other than maybe Mission: Space had it not wiped out a bunch of people...)

 

People prefer the park across the street because you have Space, Splash, Thunder, Indy, Pirates, Mansion, Matterhorn, etc, etc...and real "collection" of E-Tickets. And yes I know that's been built up over time, BUT, I think DCA really missed the boat on the E-Tickets they have now, and nobody is fooled by them.

 

They would be better off just converting the park to another Disney Studios park. It kind of looks like that already with the sound stages and hangers and stuff anyway....

 

--Robb

[mcjaco]

^ See, to me, Bugs Life at least fits into AK.

 

I'm just not seeing any form or flow to DCA. I'd rather see them make it a MGM-West and add all these attractions, then it would at least make some sense.

[jackskellington101]

^ + ^^Ashley gave me a wonderful point earlier today that probably this announcement is the lead up of DCA actually turning into Disney's Hollywood Studios west down the line. She can explain it far better than I, but her theory and evidence made sense. From what I can remember, this plan was to homogenize the whole park into something like a Hollywood Studios clone. In doing so, the whole California theme would be dropped for the larger blanketing Studios theme, and it could be done with minimum fuss to the park. The amount of stuff that was brought from MGM is amazing, the main street and the gates are the same. So, the conversion from California Adventure to Hollywood Studios is very possible after these 5 years are done. It can also fly back to FL, having the Chinese Theater changed to the Carthay Circle theater to house GMR, or whatever may be in there by that time, and the removal of the hat for that grand reveal.

[robbalvey]

^ See, to me, Bugs Life at least fits into AK.

 

I'm just not seeing any form or flow to DCA. I'd rather see them make it a MGM-West and add all these attractions, then it would at least make some sense.

That's my feeling as well. The whole "California" theme never really quite fit. And if you're going to do a California theme, just stick to Hollywood.

 

And they did hint to a name change, so who knows. Perhaps if that's making sense to all of us, maybe it's making sense to some of the people re-designing the park as well?

[Wes]

^ My question is a whole land devoted to 'Cars' even going to be relevant in five years?

 

More relevant than an e-ticket log flume that's themed to a movie that they won't even sell.

 

The same thing would have been said about Woody, Buzz, the Nemo characters, but Disney is VERY good at making sure iconic characters and movies stay in popular culture.

 

The Cars Land is supposed to coincide with the release of Cars 2.

[mindvirus]

please tell me that california screamin isnt goin to be removed o______o

[ginzo]

please tell me that california screamin isnt goin to be removed o______o

 

It is going to be removed. Didn't you read the plan? They're going to replace it with a Vekoma SLC, probably the one from Geauga Lake.

[Wes]

^ And adding the loop from Son Of Beast, and the zero-g rolls from Chiller.

[mindvirus]

Vekoma rides hurt. Yeah they're taking out the Maliboomer and California Screamin I might never go there again :[

[Wes]

Maliboomer is actually probably not going to make it through the redo.

 

Screamin' isn't going anywhere.

[SharkTums]

Here's an interesting thought. Disney rarely throws anything away. So if they follow through and get rid of several rides at Paradise Pier do you think we'll see them show up somewhere else?

 

Honestly, maybe Boardwalk will finally get that long rumored ride? I could see Zephyr or Stinger re branded going in there.

[Erik Johnson]

Boardwalk, as in the hotel/resort area near Epcot?