Disney's California Adventure is a Disney theme park in Anaheim, California, adjacent to Disneyland and part of the larger Disneyland Resort. It opened on February 8, 2001.
The new park has a California theme. Just inside the entrance, the Disneyland Monorail passes over a miniature Golden Gate Bridge; various areas of the park were designed to recreate different California landmarks. The overall intention was to create a more adult-themed park than Disneyland, including faster, scarier rides; shows designed more for an adult audience; and a large number of restaurants. Unlike the Disneyland park, alcohol is served in California Adventure.
Disney's California Adventure is built on land which was formerly Disneyland's parking lot. Parking is now available in a space-saving multi-level parking structure a short distance away. The new parking structure is one of the largest in the world, but is still seemingly inadequate to cope with peak-season crowds.
Theme and attractions
Paradise Pier is the part of the park that looks most impressive from a distance, thanks to its large and colorful rides. It is a recreation of a California boardwalk like the Santa Monica Pier or the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, with a large rollercoaster (California Screamin’) and a very large ferris wheel (the Sun Wheel). It has a number of other rides as well, and typical boardwalk attractions and various stalls. Many folks have been turned off by the Paradise Pier area, as it seems to belong more in a Six Flags park than a Disney park, with its carnival games and all the stucco in the area. It is on a simulated pier surrounding and above an artificial lake. Next to it is a similar, but quieter area called Pacific Wharf, based on Monterey's Cannery Row area, especially as depicted in John Steinbeck's novels (but also resembling San Francisco's Fishermen's Wharf ). Pacific Wharf contains a couple of restaurants, along with a beer truck and Margarita stand, plus a Mission tortilla factory (which features peep-shows on how tortillas were once made, and working corn and flower tortilla machines), and a Boudin sourdough bakery (which has nearly the entire bakery visible behind glass, with Rosie O'Donnell and Colin Mochrie as video tour guides.
There is also a Hollywood Pictures Backlot area styled to appear as Hollywood streets and movie studios, with Hollywood-themed attractions. A copy of the Tower of Terror attraction from Walt Disney World's Disney-MGM Studios opened in the Hollywood Pictures Backlot in 2004. Flik's Fun Fair, based on the Disney-Pixar film "Bug's Life," opened in 2003, and offers kid-friendly rides sorely lacking from DCA's initial roster.
The aviation-themed area, Condor Flats features the Soarin’ over California simulated hang-glider ride; a wilderness/forested area, Golden State featuring Grizzly River Run a fast-paced river rapids ride, similar to other river rapids rides found in other local parks such as Knott's and Six Flags Magic Mountain.
Initial lack of success
Disney opened the park with high hopes, but the opening day's crowds were far below predictions. Although anticipation had been high prior to the park's opening, bad word-of-mouth from early visitors on preview days and from the local media discouraged visitors. Attendance continues to be lower than Disney's predictions at opening.
In 2003, California Adventure saw a 13% increase in attendance and was the only amusement park in America to see a double-digit gain. In 2004, the park had a 6% increase with 5.6 million visitors. Partial credit for the increase may go to the new Twilight Zone Tower of Terror attraction in Hollywood Pictures Backlot. While these numbers are encouraging, Disney's own internal tracking reveals that the amount of return customers is still far below that of it's sister parks.
Criticisms
A large number of people have criticised the park in general as well as specific aspects of it.
Theme
One complaint is that the theme is not a powerful one, and furthermore not one that interests Californians - after all, they live in the real state of California, and a park about California in California is not interesting to them. Since Californians account for a very large proportion of visitors to Disneyland (60%, according to research) this is a major drawback.
The park, however, was not meant to replicate the real California (it's a stylized rendition of it) nor was it designed with the local guest in mind. The idea to expand Disneyland into a resort was to bring in more out of state tourists and/or to have them stay an extra day in Anaheim. It was to be a living showcase of California past and present, for tourists who have come to the Golden State.
Allied to this is the criticism that the park is "not Disney enough." Rather than capitalise on the success of Disneyland itself and Disney's successful products, very little of the park (especially at opening time) had much to do with Disney themes. Similar criticisms were said about Epcot, Disney's second Florida park, when it opened in 1982.
Emphasis on shops and food, not on attractions
California Adventure is also rather light on rides and attractions in general, and a number of the rides that have been created are limited in their capacity (chiefly Soarin' over California). Disney management insisted that the park be built to a budget 20% under what the firm would have previously considered adequate, and it is the view of detractors that the savings have come largely out of the 'non profit making' parts of the park -- the attractions, in other words. In their view, Disney spent much more time and effort on the shops and restaurants than they did on the attractions, though the latter is most peoples' main reason to come.
On the other hand, Disney's California Adventure does have as many or more attractions than other Disney theme parks around the country such as Disney's Animal Kingdom and Disney-MGM Studios in Florida (both are several years older than California Adventure). It was the inevitable comparison to its neighbor, the 60-attractions filled Disneyland, that makes California Adventure's offerings seem minuscule since it offers only about half as many attractions.
Price
The admission price was highly criticised upon launch. Disney boldly charged separate admission for Disney's California Adventure, at a rate equal to the Disneyland entry fee. To many guests, the price (then $43) was better spent on the larger, more attraction-loaded, and proven formula just across the entry plaza -- the original Disneyland. California Adventure seemed to offer less value for money than the original park.
Disney also announced that its guests who held Annual Passports for the Disneyland park would not get entry to its new park. A Two-Park Passport would be available, but at a much higher rate. In fact, Disney suspended sales of all its annual passes just before the opening, and did not restart sales for three months. It was widely rumored that Disney were planning to either scrap the popular Annual Passport program altogether, or to withdraw single-park passes and force everyone to buy more expensive two-park passes.
With the unpopularity of California Adventure obvious soon after launch, none of this took place. The price differential between single park and two-park passes eroded, and eventually Disney merged the two, at the lower price, effectively giving entry to California Adventure to annual pass holders for no additional charge.
In addition, the price for entrance has been drastically reduced, especially for California residents in special promotions, plus offering two "free" days to visitors from around the world planning to buy at least a three-day ticket.
Transportation
Unlike the original Disneyland, the only mode of transportation around the new park is on foot. There are no buses, trains, monorails, or vehicles of any kind available to the public. (The Disneyland Monorail passes over California Adventure, but does not stop there.) The park itself is actually quite smaller than Disneyland, and covering it by foot is no difficulty.
Guests staying at the Disneyland Resort Hotels have their own exclusive entrance to the park, a walk of up to 1/4 mile from the hotels. A special entrance has been closed that used to be available to the guests that stay at the Paradise Pier Hotel.
Attractions
A large number of the original attractions have been found by many to be disappointing. This included most of the attractions and restaurants in the Hollywood Backlot area. Although fun, the attractions at Paradise Pier have been criticised as lackluster and generic. (In a number of cases, the Paradise Pier attractions are quite literally generic: "Mulholland Madness" is in fact an off-the-shelf Wild Mouse roller coaster with minimal theming, and a number of the others are equally standard. At the same time, though, given that Paradise Pier is themed as a sort of sanitized, nostalgic version of an old-style seaside amusement park, the generic nature of some of the rides is itself part of the area's theming.
Disney's California Adventure does boast Grizzly River Run (a whitewater rapids style ride), which The Travel Channel claims is currently the fastest, largest, and tallest rapid ride in the world. The attraction currently holds the record for the highest drop in the world for this type of attraction, nearly 30 feet.
The park also has the longest roller coaster on the west coast, California Screamin', at 6,072 feet long. A hit with guests, the gleaming white-by-day/glowing blue-by-night boardwalk-themed coaster sends guests from zero to 55 mph (88.5 km/h)in four seconds, and is also the first time Disney has taken guests upside down on the west coast.
The flight simulator "Soarin' Over California" is also a popular favorite for visitors.
One of the original Hollywood Backlot attractions was "SuperStar Limo," which was the only dark ride in the entire park. Its plot revolved around the guest being a celebrity who had just arrived at Los Angeles International Airport, and who is taken for a wild ride through Hollywood by an obnoxious limousine driver. The humor was based on inside jokes ("Madame Leota" from the Haunted Mansion makes a cameo appearance) and obsessed fans and paparazzi, and much of it very likely went over the heads of many guests. The attraction was criticized for crude sets and characters, and was quite probably the very first attraction in the park to close. It was open for less than a year, and as of 2005, a new Monsters, Inc. attraction is being constructed in its place.
The Hyperion Theatre, also in the Hollywood Backlot area, initially opened with a show called "Steps in Time." Contrary to the implications of its title, it was neither based on Mary Poppins, nor any sort of Disney retrospective; it was generally regarded as a "Waste of Time", and quickly closed, to be replaced first with an abbreviated version of the "Blast" stage show, and then by the current Aladdin show.
Nothing for small children
The park as first built had few attractions geared towards younger children, surprising those used to Disneyland's child-centric attitude. Currently, all of the attractions built for small children can be found in the a bug's land (intentionally uncapitalized) area. While on one hand this makes life easier for tired parents or grandparents who don't want to have to walk very far between attractions that their kids can ride, it's very inconvenient for parents who wish to experience more than just one tiny area of the park.
Changes since opening
Since opening, a large number of changes have been made to the park. A large proportion of the attractions and restaurants in the Hollywood Backlot area have been closed, and some re-opened with less-California, more-Disney themes. Most of the farm area at the center has been rethemed upon the Fall 2002 opening of a nearby area for young children themed around Pixar's A Bug's Life movie (distributed and marketed by Disney.)
To celebrate the growing popularity of stage shows in California, the park added "Disney's Aladdin - A Musical Spectacular" in a glamourous Broadway-style theater in its Hollywood area. The show has become a favorite for many, with a script and even original lyrics that are high above the standard theme park fare. The effects are also impressive; children love to see Aladdin and the princess take flight right over their heads on the flying carpet. This type of show was such a success that a musical on the same scope based on "Snow White" has been put into production for Disneyland.
A number of restaurants operated by outside firms have closed or been taken over by Disney as their sponsors pulled out. One example is Avalon Cove on Paradise Pier, which was once operated by Wolfgang Puck; after he declined to renew his contract, Disney converted it into Ariel's Grotto, a family restaurant where kids can dine with characters.
In an attempt to drum up business, Disney has relaunched the well-known Main Street Electrical Parade, formerly at Disneyland, as Disney's Electrical Parade in California Adventure. This did not find favor among many Disney fans, who had been promised that the parade had been retired permanently (and who had purchased expensive commemorative items based on its permanent retirement, which were replicas of the parade's twinking lights). However, guests generally welcomed the return of this thirty-year-old "California Classic," and still line up to see it.
The recently opened Twilight Zone Tower of Terror attraction
On May 5, 2004, Disney's California Adventure opened the Twilight Zone: Tower of Terror attraction in the Hollywood Pictures Backlot area of the park. This attraction is similar to the ride of the same name in Disney-MGM Studios in Florida. This is a thrill ride, based on the premise of an elevator car falling free when the cable breaks. On its first weekend, it pushed Disney's California Adventure attendance to its highest point since opening.
A copy of the park's Soarin' Over California attraction is being built at Epcot Park in Walt Disney World, Orlando.
External links
Last updated: 05-07-2005 11:10:36
