The peak of Grizzly River Rapids
Disney’s California Adventure opened to guests on February 8, 2001, as part of a $1.2 billion expansion of The Disneyland Resort – the original Disney theme park property. For over 40 years, Disneyland enthusiasts watched as elaborate multi-theme park destinations were built and expanded in Orlando, Tokyo, and Paris, while the original Disneyland remained a singular theme park in the middle of the very busy city of Anaheim, California. Landlocked by development, a plan was announced in 1991 by The Walt Disney Company to finally build a second theme park in the former parking lot of Disneyland. This new park would be a vastly improved, and more expensive, version of Florida’s Epcot Center. Westcot was labeled as the most comprehensive, over-the-top, and expensive Disney park ever created. The centerpiece of this new park celebrating both the future and global cultures would be a 300-foot tall golden geodesic globe that would hover over the Resort (nearly twice as tall as Epcot’s Spaceship Earth geodesic globe, which comes in at 180 feet). The price tag for the park was labeled at $3 billion; this amount did not include the price tag for parking structures, hotels, or other overall improvements. This was to be built at the same time as an ambitious new Disney park in nearby Long Beach, named DisneySea. After the financial disaster of Disneyland Paris, these plans – along with other improvements for Disneyland Park – were scaled back.
Unfortunately, Disney and the City of Long Beach never could reach an agreement, and nearby residents in Anaheim complained about the visual intrusion of a park on the size and scale of Westcot. The entire concept of this park as a second gate for Anaheim was scrapped, while DisneySea was altered and transformed into Tokyo DisneySea; this second gate to Tokyo Disneyland is widely regarded as one of the most impressive theme parks ever created. Finally, in 1997, The Walt Disney Company announced a second concept for Anaheim – Disney’s California Adventure. Designed to celebrate The Golden State, the overall plans for this theme park were significantly scaled back and resembled nothing compared to the ambitious plans created previously. The price tag for DCA came to $700 million, with the remainder of the $1.2 billion makeover of the resort going to construction of Downtown Disney and The Grand Californian Hotel & Spa, alongside improvements to The Disneyland Hotel and the newly-acquired Paradise Pier Hotel (formerly the independent Pan Pacific Hotel).
The intent of Disney’s California Adventure was to depart from the all-immersive, character-driven theme parks of Disney’s famed past and create a theme park more geared to adults. Designed with a “hip, contemporary, in-your-face attitude,” the goal of DCA was to turn Anaheim into a multi-day destination. The Walt Disney Company’s stockholder report for 1998 even mentioned the hope that once visitors experienced Disney’s version of California they would feel less of a desire to leave Anaheim and explore California’s other offerings – including the beach and real-life studios of Hollywood.
As you may have guessed by now, things didn’t go exactly as planned. DCA opened to ill reception from both critics and average visitors alike, who were surprised at the relatively stark and non-immersive experiences that the new second gate provided, especially when held in contrast to Disneyland right next door. This reception was even criticized to a heavier extent when Tokyo DisneySea opened in Japan later the same year – an effort that showed what Disney’s famed Imagineers could really still do given the proper budget and support. To add insult to injury, however, the chief complaint was that the park was heavy on shops and restaurants but very light on attractions. The majority of attractions that opened with the park weren’t rides, but rather film-based attractions, many of which were cloned from Walt Disney World. The land with the most attractions was Paradise Pier – but even this area of the park was littered with many lightly-themed, off-the-shelf carnival-style rides that weren’t compatible with the quality and imagination that the public has come to expect.
This isn’t to say, however, that all of the opening-day concepts at Disney’s California Adventure were bad. Of the small handful of original attractions, three of them proved to be massive hits. The most notable of these is Soarin’ Over California. While still a film-based attraction, this adventure combines a never-before-seen motion simulator system suspended from the ceiling and recreates the feelings of hang-gliding over famous California landmarks. Grizzly River Run was instantly recognized as one of the longest and most enjoyable river rafting rides ever created, while California Screamin’ received rave reviews from coaster enthusiasts worldwide as one of the longest and smoothest steel roller coasters in The United States. Ironically, one of the highlights of the opening-day park were two dining establishments: Robert Mondavi’s Golden Vine Winery and Wolfgang Puck’s Avalon Cove. Due to the popular fine-dining establishment The Blue Bayou in Disneyland’s New Orleans Square, the idea of two fine-dining establishments in the new park, and by two famous California entrepreneurs, was highly anticipated. While both restaurants opened to rave reviews, the lack of anticipated guest counts to the new park and DCA’s already over-saturated restaurant line-up led to the pull-out of both Mondavi and Puck soon after opening. The Winery continued business in a modified form, while Avalon Cove became Ariel’s Grotto, a character dining establishment.
Within the first year of operation, The Walt Disney Company began to take steps to improve the guest experience at Disney’s California Adventure. The first major expansion happened in October 2002 with the opening of “a bug’s land.” Designed to directly address the lack of children’s rides and Disney characters in the new park, this land is based on the popular Disney-Pixar film “A Bug’s Life” and is designed to make you feel as if you are the size of a bug. “A bug’s land” combined the already-existing Bountiful Valley Farm area and the “it’s a tough to be a bug!” 3-D film with the newly-built Flik’s Fun Fair, which featured new kid-sized attractions such as Heimlich’s Chew-Chew Train and Flik’s Flyers.
In 2003, “Disney’s Aladdin: A Musical Spectacular” debuted at The Hyperion Theatre in Hollywood Pictures Backlot to replace the Broadway musical “Blast!” That same year, the ill-fated ABC Soap Opera Bistro (another innovative high-end dining concept) was replaced with “Playhouse Disney – Live On Stage!” featuring performances based on the preschool-oriented block of programming from The Disney Channel. Hollywood Pictures Backlot continued to see improvements over the next two years with the opening of The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror in 2004, the addition of Turtle Talk with Crush in the Disney Animation attraction in 2005, and a brand-new dark ride, Monsters Inc.: Mike & Sulley to the Rescue! in 2006.
In 2008, Paradise Pier featured the addition of a new generation of Disney attraction: the “virtual dark ride.” Combining traditional dark ride features with virtual 3-D technology, Toy Story Midway Mania opened to rave reviews; it also ushered in a new richly-detailed Victorian architecture to the land. Shortly thereafter, Disney announced a drastic change for the struggling second gate: a never-before-seen $1.2 billion renovation, set to transform the contemporary and lightly-themed environ into a true Disney park. Set to debut in segments from 2010-2012, Phase 1 is just one part of a multi-phase long-term investment. The details of Phase 1 focus primarily on Paradise Pier, Sunshine Plaza, and the brand-new Carsland. Phase II, set to be revealed in 2013, will focus on revamping The Golden State and Hollywood Pictures Backlot.
Disney’s California Adventure Entertainment Guide – Project Watcher
Sunshine Plaza – The Golden State – Paradise Pier – “a bug’s land” – Hollywood Pictures Backlot
