Disney's California Adventure - A Lesson To Learn From

It’s kinda impressive that Disney has mass expansions and new attractions being planned for just about every theme park they own. Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is coming to Disneyland and Hollywood Studios. Walt Disney Studios Park over at Disneyland Paris is getting a major expansion in the next few years. The Magic Kingdom is getting the Tron rollercoaster. Epcot is getting new attractions, even if it means saying goodbye to its original theming. Mickey Mouse is getting a dark ride of his own. Hong Kong Disneyland’s castle is getting rebuilt from the ground up, and Tokyo Disneyland is getting a brand new Fantasyland. And Disney California Adventure is getting the new refurbished Pixar Pier, and introducing a new Marvel-themed land.

Disneyland’s second gate sure has come a long way since its original opening back in 2001. Frankly speaking, aside from Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris, it was perhaps the most poorly conceived and welcomed theme park in the company’s history. Safe to say, it was a disaster from day one, and needed ten years worth of changes to get it up to the expected standards of a Disney theme park. But, how did such a park come to be? Well, let’s go back to the days of cost-cutting, creation-by-committee, and giant golden, sun-shaped hubcaps.

After Disneyland’s opening and success in 1955, the land around Anaheim, California, was snatched up by everyone hoping to get into the tourism business. The town became urbanised, and some folks remain unhappy with the congestion and nightly fireworks. Walt Disney didn’t like the idea of the real world intruding into Disneyland, as views of motels and diners from the park would break the illusion. He strived to resolve such issues during the development of Walt Disney World. It had size for one, allowing him to create a huge project, which would have included an airport and the unfulfilled EPCOT concept. Nowadays, Walt Disney World has four theme parks, two water parks, numerous hotels, golf courses, campgrounds, a shopping area, and tons of unused space which could house a fifth theme park if Disney put their minds too it.

Disneyland, on the other hand, was quite small, consisting of the park itself, the hotel, and a large parking lot. By 1990, Disney’s management had changed several times. The Disney founders were dead, and Walt’s son-in-law Ron Miller was ousted from the role of CEO after years of the company gathering cobwebs. Enter Michael Eisner, who took get strides to rebuild the company. His efforts led to the Disney Renaissance, the rise of Pixar, and other such triumphs. But, the theme parks, however, were another story.

Eisner wishes to transform Disneyland into an impressive resort, complete with a second theme park to be built over the car park. He wanted it to match Walt Disney World in terms of success and giving guests a reason to stay longer. But, the process to creating the second park was not an easy one.

The first planned proposal for the second gate was WestCot, a spiritual cousin to its Floridian counterpart. A golden 300-ft tall Spacestation Earth would stand in the middle, with themed lands reflecting a more modern future, and a united World Showcase praised the four corners of the world, rather than individual nations. It certainly sounded magnificent, like so many other unrealised Disney dream projects. Disneyland’s expansion would have needed new ground, and would have incorporated additions to the monorail, a new PeopleMover, new hotels, new shopping complexes, the works.

But, there was opposition to the expansion. For one, Anaheim residents were fed up with Disneyland causing congestion on their roads, and a huge expansion would only make things worse – even if it meant the introduction of new jobs and boost to the town’s economy. Disney made alterations to WestCot to appease the complainers, suggesting any congestions would be handled by highway ramps, which would funnel guests directly into the resort’s future parking lots.

And, then, Disneyland Paris opened and was a financial disappointment. Despite being big, beautiful, and expensive, DLP never quite caught the European market and customs, with the French apparently hating it. This sent shockwaves across the company. Eisner immediately pulled the plug on any costly project at every Disney park worldwide. A few years ago, Eisner announced the Disney Decade, which would be a renaissance for the theme parks to go along with the Disney Renaissance for the animated features. WestCot was amongst the casualties. Eisner soon developed a taste for cost-cutting, micromanagement, and now being more cautious about spending money on theme parks.

In 1995, Eisner took a bunch of executives on a retreat to Aspen, Colorado. He still hoped to turn Disneyland into a resort, but now on a much smaller budget. He asked the executives to pitch ideas on what to do, including the second park. A problem they had was with California itself. In Florida, Walt Disney World and Universal Studios Florida were both major attractions, and sole reasons why tourists visited the state in the first place. California, on the other hand, had a variety of attractions outside of Disneyland. From Los Angeles, San Francisco, national parks, and the Grand Canyon just a state away, California had a lot to offer. But, Eisner wanted to people to stay in Disneyland longer.

He turned to Paul Pressler for help. Pressler is perhaps the most hated person in Disney history. After a career in merchandising and running the Disney Stores, Pressler was promoted to being president of Disneyland, and then again to Chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. Pressler was notorious for cost cutting and fierce when it came to financing. He cut staffing, maintenance to the park’s upkeep (which Walt was incredibly concerned about), closed attractions, and valued the shops and restaurants than the rest. He was not a creative man, he had experience running stores, not theme parks. To him, it was just a larger Disney Store to run. So, naturally, it made sense for him to lead the design plans for the second park. Of course.

Pressler’s idea for the second park was simple. To prevent guests from leaving Disneyland to explore the rest of California, they needed to bring California to them!

Thus, Disney’s California Adventure opened in 2001. But, rather than having the same sense of nostalgia and whimsy that Disneyland had, it was quite the opposite. The park was cheap, and I don’t mean just in the financial department. From the research I’ve done, the park was not primarily designed by Imagineers, but rather Pressler’s own private team he had worked with before. They prioritised dining facilities and shops, incorporated a very dated 90s sense of humour to reflect the “mature” nature of the park, and there was little sign of the same sense of thematic depth Walt had when he designed Disneyland fifty years earlier.

Disneyland welcomed guests with that iconic train station and clock tower, taking guests into the turn-of-the-century American streets of Main Street. DCA’s esplanade was highlighted by monolithic but multicoloured letters which spelt out “CALIFORNIA”. Not the most enchanting entrance, but the set of letters were donated to the Friends of the California State Fair in 2012. It’s quite the opposite of Disneyland. Disneyland is old timey, nostalgic, and whimsical. Disney’s California Adventure was more aimed at the MTV generation, relying on the same edginess and hipness that Jeffrey Katzenberg supported. The same mood that nearly killed Toy Story before it was made.

Onwards, the park’s first land was Sunshine Plaza. The monorail passed over a miniaturised replica of the Golden Gate Bridge. There were no attractions per say. Just shops and restaurants blasting out modern music. Buildings were not designed to resemble any specific period or theme, but were just painted warehouses. Doesn’t exactly scream Disney. Funfairs have more flair to them. The park’s early icon was a large bronze sculpture of the Sun, built over a water fountain, but looked to some like a giant hubcap. It wasn’t a bad “weenie”, but paled into comparison to Sleepy Beauty Castle, directly opposite from it in the centre of Disneyland. The park seemed to do well with individual icons, but not as a whole.

Hollywood is obviously a big part of California, so it made sense to include such an iconic place in the California-based park. But, Walt Disney World already had Hollywood Studios, which captured the feel of a timeless Golden Age of Cinema with its own Hollywood Boulevard. But, rather than copying its Floridian counterpart, Hollywood Pictures Backlot in DCA decided to be a little more urban and realistic. It went more for a fake studio lot design, complete with a giant eyesore of a painted façade resembling a blue sky.

Perhaps the land’s only saving grace was Muppet*Vision. On the other hand, you had the most reviled Disney attraction of all-time – Superstar Limo. A “comical” dark ride through the backstreets of Hollywood, guests encountered a mix of criminally bad puns and caricatures of b-list film stars resembling Spitting Image puppets. It was so bad, that it closed a year after the park opened. There was also the Hyperion Theatre, which also had a poorly received musical, until it was replaced with the highly popular Aladdin musical, which ran for twelve years.

The largest of DCA’s lands was the Golden States, consisting of a number of smaller lands. These six areas were – Grizzly Peak, Condor Flats, The Bay Area, Pacific Wharf, Bountiful Valley Farm, and the Golden Wine Vinery.

Condor Flats was based around a modern day airfield set in the Californian desert. But, rather than celebrate, say, the state’s history of aviation, it instead upheld the cringeworthy pun-related edginess incorporated within the rest of the park. It’s one success, and that of the whole park, was Soarin’ Over California, which was later included in other Disney parks around the world (no pun intended).

Perhaps the most impressive sight in DCA is Grizzly Peak, a bear-shaped mountain that even roared in the advertising. It doesn’t actually do that. Based around California’s national parks, Grizzly Peak is currently the only land in DCA that has remained mostly to its initial premise. But, rather than being a romanticized tribute to one of America’s favourite pastimes, it suffers from the same modern themes of the park. The sole attraction was, and still is, Grizzly River Run, a generic ride with no story or animatronics. It could’ve easily served as a Brother Bear ride or something.

The Bay Area was based around San Francisco, with the lone musical attraction, Golden Dream, being housed in a replica of Bernard Maybeck’s Palace of Fine Arts. It starred good old Whoopi Goldberg, playing Califa, the goddess which California is named after, and gives a lesson on the history of the state.

Pacific Wharf is a mix of Cannery Row and San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. However, it lacked any real attractions, unless you counted tours through a bakery and a tortilla factory as such. Those sound more like the destinations for school field trips. Most hilariously of all, the Bountiful Valley Farm featured a sit-in tractor as an official attraction.

 

And finally, there was Paradise Pier, which did contain some action rides, including California Screamin’. It had a lot of classic funfair/seaside pier rides. But, this kinda feels like a contradiction to why Walt made Disneyland. He found amusement parks and funfairs to be generic, noisy, and dirty. How peculiar that Disney would make a land that is the complete opposite of why Disneyland was created. The land also contains a unique ferris wheel, later donning Mickey Mouse’s face, and becoming a secondary icon for the park.

So, there you have it. Several lands lacking distinct attractions, themes, or a sense of genuine effort or imagination put into them. Soarin’ would be the sole success of the park. There was a lack of affection for California, and instead felt like an empty, soulless husk of a park with the Disney brand slapped on it. This wasn’t a theme park designed with care and concern, and certainly not by Imagineers. This was a park designed by committee, chaired by Paul Pressler, a man with no indication of creative thinking.

Disneyland took you to worlds of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy. Disney’s California Adventure was a dumpster fire, with the humour of a Adam Sandler film, and the creative effort of a group of pencil pushers. It recreated modern California, with the culture and mood to match. Not to mention it was starved of funds, made on such a cheap budget, likely fuelled by Eisner’s fear of failure following Disneyland Paris’ unexpected failure. After opening day, word of mouth soon spread about how poor DCA was, and it was an immediate failure.

Disney’s California Adventure was dead on arrival, with only around five million guests visiting it within the first year. Even then, only 20% of those guests were satisfied with what they found in the park. Eisner’s cost-cutting and Pressler’s team of marketers create a stillborn park. There were few attractions, and those that were there at the start were either boring, commonplace, or vilified. Seriously, who lists a tractor as an official attraction in a Disney theme park? You find that sort of thing at a petting zoo. Restaurants and shops were everywhere. An ugly, dated, edgy sense of humour and a need to reflect modern California dominated every land and ride. And there was no sense of that Disney charm that made its big brother so beloved. It was more of a Six Flags than a Disneyland.

But, when you hit rock bottom, the only way is up.

Just over a year after Disney’s California Adventure opened, Disney started looking for ways to improve it. By 2006, Eisner and Pressler were both gone, and Bob Iger now ruled the roost. During the last few years of Eisner’s leadership, several new IP-based rides were built in the park – A Bug’s Land, based on A Bug’s Life, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Turtle Talk with Crush, and a Monsters, Inc. dark ride.

Iger saw DCA as a failure, and considered two options – fuse both parks into one, with Disneyland acting as an anchoring point for DCA, or to completely redesign the struggling second gate from the ground up. Ambitiously, Iger chose the second option. In 2007, Disney made plans to completely overhaul DCA with $600 million, even renaming it to Disney California Adventure. It would add in the attractions and entertainment that the park had needed back in year one. And importantly, the park’s lands would have their own narratives. Modernity and bad puns were out the window. DCA was embracing the same passion and spirit that went into Disneyland, and it came back big time.

Disney California Adventure now had several new lands. It’s entry land was Buena Vista Street, set in 1920s Hollywood, when a young Walt Disney came to town to make cinematic history. Beautiful Californian architecture, water fountains, and the red cars make up the new land. The shops and restaurants were re-designed, and named after significant people and films in Walt’s early years of success. One shop, a gas station, is named after Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt’s first, lost success, who was brought back home by Bob Iger. There is also the Carthay Circle Theatre, based on the cinema of the same name, where Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered and received a standing ovation.

Hollywood Pictures Backlot became Hollywood Land. Gone were the wretched puns and such, and instead it feels more like a genuine tribute to Tinsel Town and the golden era of cinema. Aladdin: A Musical Spectacular stayed a favourite in the Hyperion Theatre for years, but was inevitably replaced by a stellar Frozen musical. Frozen also had a habit of taking over Muppet*Vision, the attraction’s show building being used to promote new films. A Bug’s Land expanded, but is to close soon, and will be replaced by an exciting new Marvel-themed land.

Even Grizzly Peak received a facelift, ditching the modern extreme sports story, and now setting it in a 1950s period. Though, Grizzly River Run still has a minimal story. Condor Flats was absorbed into Grizzly Peak, reimagined as the Grizzly Peak Airfield, now a forested, mountainous national park outpost. It also made Soarin’ feel more appropriately themed.

Paradise Pier was reimagined as well, becoming more timeless and perhaps acting as a turn-of-the-century counterpart to Main Street. A number of the seaside attractions were changed for the better, and the opening of Toy Story Midway Mania and The Little Mermaid dark ride made it hugely popular. And, each night, a brand new water show occurred in Paradise Pier’s small lake – The World of Colour, a moving show of rainbow coloured fountains, water screens, flamethrowers, and projections of Disney films.

And the newest land was Cars Land, incorporating the world of Cars, and a tribute to Route 66 as well. The level of detail is amazing, and Radiator Springs Racers has become of the park’s most popular attractions. The Tower of Terror closed and was reborn as Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout, as the first part of the park’s future Marvel land. Paradise Pier is also being transformed into Pixar Pier, still maintaining its themes, but now with beloved Pixar characters around.

And, that’s about it. The changes that have come to Disney California Adventure reflect the attitude and business practices of Disney. Created as a cheaper resort following the disappointment of Disneyland Paris, DCA had no artistic flair to it, and was a soulless husk of a park made through dumb decisions, made by mechanical, commercially-focused nitwits who have no place in The Walt Disney Company. Turning Disneyland into a bigger resort was a good idea, but through such an empty process and aiming at the wrong audience was not the way too go.

People expect a certain level of standards at Disney theme parks, as Walt Disney did with Disneyland: A place of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy, that takes guests out of the real world for a while, and mostly hides it away to avoid breaking the illusion. DCA did the exact opposite, abandoning those ideals in favour of a grounded, modern-day sense of humour, and a blunt, flat, loveless look at the state it was apparently celebrating. Hollywood was a drab, fake, uncreative institution, the national parks were only relevant for extreme sports, and they even put in a generic amusement park area. And they had a tractor as an official attraction!

Thankfully, the park deservedly failed, and Disney allowed their actual Imagineers to apply bandages, and then build the whole thing from the ground. However, it is possible that park’s dismal creation and failure can be justified. Michael Eisner was clearly shaken by the commercial failure of Disneyland Paris, and immediately pulled the plug on any major expansions or projects at all the theme parks, perhaps out of fear of a repeated failure. Bigger was not always better. Yes, Pressler and his team clearly had no knowledge or skills in crafting a Disney theme park, but the limited space, reduced budget, and consideration for the locals may have also been taken into account.

The idea of celebrating California via a theme park was an interesting idea, but trying to keep guests from going to see the actual sights of the state by creating smaller versions seems a little redundant. And that lack of Disney magic and sentimentality stained the park, even if its heart was mean to be in the right place. Who wants to go to a Disney-grade resort and find a place filled with rubbish attractions, no charm, no magic, awful wit, and a sense of cynical modernity that has no place in Disneyland.

Eisner’s micromanaging and cost-cutting would go on to affect both Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris, and then Hong Kong Disneyland, both of which are slowly growing to develop their own identities.

Luckily, DCA recovered and was injected with some much needed love and attention. Though not everything quite fits into the slowly degrading Californian theme, the newcomers and changes have brought in the masses, and Disney California Adventure is now extremely popular and successful.