Disneyland Resort PTR 2012

[bkroz]

Hey everyone! I'm at the Disneyland Resort in California right now and wanted to update you guys on what's changed and what hasn't at Disney California Adventure. I have lots of photos and a few days left, but I'll post .

some here. I'll also use photos from Yesterland.com (any picture of the "old" California Adventure with the watermark in the lower corner) to help show changes.

The entrance to Disney California Adventure in 2001 was Sunshine Plaza. It's centerpiece was a giant golden sun (never officially named, but often called either the Sun Icon or the Hubcap). The Sun Icon was actually nice looking except for the fact that it faced north and therefore, never managed to bathe the Plaza in warm, golden light. Enormous mirrors were affixed to poles, meant to reflect light onto the sun, but they never really worked.

Buena Vista Street

OLD (Sunshine Plaza):

Other than the Sun Icon, Sunshine Plaza didn't contain much else. It was a concrete park for the most part. In front of it, more near to the park's gates there was a "cartoon-ified" replica of the Golden Gate Bridge that served as a bridge for the monorail. A few odd shops scattered around it had the same cartoon-style imagery with gaudy neon lights, smiling sunshines, and concrete. Even now, it's hard to believe that the yellow corrugated steel walls seen below ever made it into a Disney park.

All of the exaggerated angles, colors, and placements were purposeful: from the right angle, the park's gates turned into a giant "postcard" so that visitors could literally step into a California postcard. Unfortunately, the effect was often lost on guests. Also keep in mind that Disneyland and California Adventure's entrances are exactly across from each other with a 50 yard plaza between them, so the transition from hyper-realistic Main Street, U.S.A. to a cartoon postcard was jarring.

NEW (Buena Vista Street):

The new entrance to DCA required brand new gates that stretch out into the plaza to where the CALIFORNIA postcard letters used to be. The new gates are modeled after LA's Pan-Pacific Auditorium, a historic teal set of flag-flying towers.

As you can tell, an entire city lies beyond - Buena Vista Street is a complete "town" just like Main Street, U.S.A. with shops, restaurants, and homes all modeled after 1920's Los Angeles. The idea in the new land is that you've stepped into the antique heritage of LA and into the land of opportunity and promise that Walt Disney saw when he arrived with nothing more than a suitcase.

The park's main "emporium," for example, is Elias & Co. Department Store. While Disneyland's Main Street, U.S.A. chronicles the incredible turn-of-the-century period in American history where gas-lamps and electric lights lived together in harmony, Buena Vista Street's timeframe 20 years later is a time when the American economy was booming, gas stations were on every corner, and the high life was in full swing.

Here's the inside of the department store with Walt Disney (center) and the Rocketeer (right) recreated in mannequins above.

The detail work on the street reminds me of Universal's Islands of Adventure. Every detail is considered: billboards on roofs, wrought-iron lamps, sunset-colored tile work, brick inlays down the center of the street. The wires overhead are for the Red Car Trolley that travels down the street. It's a recreation of the state's famous Pacific Electric Railway trolleys. The wires, by the way, are a prop and don't actually power the trolleys.

Two trolleys travel back and forth along the same path from the park's entrance just inside the gates to the base of the Hollywood Tower Hotel (aka, the Tower of Terror) in the park's Hollywoodland. That alone ties the two lands together and adds to the realism - signs all over remind you to take the trolley to the Hollywood Tower Hotel, creating continuity within the whole park. Notice the trash can: "Keep Buena Vista Street Beautiful!" As you can see above, one trolley is out of commission once in a while as the Red Car News Boys and Mickey Mouse dressed in his 1920s gear stop and sing about their willingness to dive into adventure. "Extra! Extra! This just in: Can-do spirit sweeps California!"

Inside the Red Car Trolley, authentic, period-specific advertisements direct you to real shops in the park. I also loved the ad for the Hollywood Tower Hotel. Fans of Tower of Terror know that the hotel was struck by lightning in 1939. But here, in the 1920's, it looks like the massive guest towers that we known have not even been built yet!

The Golden Gate Bridge was replaced by the Glendale-Hyperion Bridge, a real bridge that Walt traveled to each day on his way to his studio on Hyperion Road.

On the other side of the bridge you finally get a good look at the park's new centerpiece. Replacing the Sun Icon is the massive, beautiful Carthay Circle Theater. Since Main Street and Buena Vista Street come across as one continuous path, Buena Vista Street is directly opposite Sleeping Beauty Castle and if you ask me, it earns its place. The real Carthay Circle Theater is the place where Walt Disney premiered the world's first full-length animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. And just that simply, the new icon is a place of importance in both Disney and California history. Was that so hard?

Disneyland's Partners statue has always been a favorite. It shows Walt and Mickey Mouse later in their lives staring down Main Street, U.S.A. with their backs to the castle, as if they've reflecting on what they've accomplished together after a lifetime of friendship. For Disney California Adventure's re-opening, a new statue was commissioned. This one, called Storytellers, is of a young Walt and Mickey just as they arrive in the Golden State as young, ambitious friends with just a trunk and suitcase between them. Storytellers is also accessible - people can stand next to it and be "on the same level" as Walt.

I also love at Walt and Mickey in Storytellers are not looking back at their accomplishments, but forward toward the goals they hope to achieve, eyes firmly set on the Carthay Circle Theater and the pathways into the park.

To be continued...

[jzarley]

What's the capacity like on the red car trolley? I've wondered about that since first seeing the concept art. Buena Vista Street looks incredible. I can't wait to see your pics from Cars Land! :-)

[bkroz]

Cars Land

Cars Land is the most eagerly anticipated addition to the park since its opening and the highlight of the $1.2 billion, 5-year transformation of the park that completed last month. The scale is absolutely incredible. Be aware that this is a lot like the Grand Canyon; pictures cannot do it justice. The land is massive - on a far larger scale than the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. There are innumerable details. I still haven't seen either Cars movie, but I am still so stunned by how incredible the land is. The land is a reaction of the films' Radiator Springs, a small town inhabited entirely by cars along Route 66 (the town itself isn't supposed to be located in California, but the fact that Route 66 ends in California and California's massive car culture appears to have given them some wiggle room).

Radiator Springs is really just shops lined up along the extra-wide Route 66, ending in the Radiator Springs Courthouse. The buildings are all old time, run-down tourist-trap style curios shops and vintage diners. The highlight, of course, is the six acres of rockwork that creates the town's backdrop (while also creating a berm to hide the nearby Convention Center and the park's massive power supply towers; being able to see outside the park was one of the earliest complaints about DCA, and that is now alleviated along the south side of the park).

Luigi's Casa Della Tires is the facade for Luigi's Flying Tires, an attraction that's very heavily based on Disneyland's Flying Saucers, a ride that was removed from Tomorrowland decades ago. It was said to be the pet project of John Lasseter (Pixar's leader). Early rumors circulated in harshly-critical Disneyland communities that Luigi's Flying Tires was a disaster; that early test riders couldn't figure out how to make it move or thought it was boring. Music and giant inflatable Italian beach balls were apparently added after those early test rides.

(Promotional image via Disney). The tires are the equivalent of air hockey pucks on a giant air hockey table. Each vent in the ground below blows huge amounts of air that lift the tires on a curtain of air. Riders just lean forwards, backwards, or the side to cause their tire to float in any direction. The Italian music and beach balls add to a fun frenzy of people laughing, reaching for balls, and tossing them at each other against the blowing air vents. Is it intuitive? Not really. But it doesn't take much work to get going and it's just plain old fun. That said, the one lingering complaint is true: the ride has EXTREMELY low capacity and a number of procedures are still being tested out to help group people. Luigi's averaged an hour wait every day while the similar family-flat ride next door was 15 - 25.

The real thrill is at night, where the entire land lights up in a nightly neon-lighting ceremony that mimics a famous scene in the movie. The land is covered in real neon, and they all flicker on very cinematically as the land's country-folk mid-century songs play.

There's so much entertainment in Cars Land. After the lighting ceremony, a car named DJ drove out into the middle of the street and performed with the help of waitresses from the nearby Flo's V8 Cafe. Throughout the day, characters from the movie drive down the street and meet-and-greet with guests, which can't be easy when we're talking about cars.

The backdrop is absolutely breathtaking. Truly all-encompassing, and even up close, you just can't help saying "Wow."

It absolutely towers overhead (and it is more than a 120 feet tall, so that makes sense), but the incredible lighting (of course, not captured at even a tenth of its intensity on my iPhone camera) is mind-boggling. It adds so much dimension.

As another example of the detail present in the new park, the flowers in Cars Land are tail lights. Real flowers are all "cone" shaped or bright orange.

The transition out of Cars Land works very naturally, too, with the rest of the park's lands. The only place where I could immediately tell that a transition would be awkward was between Cars Land (a recreation of larger-than-life Radiator Springs) and the connected "a bug's land" (where an oversized tissue box is a bathroom, a straw is a slide, etc). Even there, they addressed the transition. On the way out of Cars Land and into a bug's land, you pass these signs that make "a bug's land" look like a Route 66 tourist trap. Seriously just a great strategy.

I have much more to say and show of Cars Land (including the restaurants, Mater's Junkyard Jamboree, and the E-ticket Radiator Springs Racers) but that'll have to wait for later today. I'll also have reports from "The Rest of California Adventure" and "Disneyland Park."

[bkroz]

What's the capacity like on the red car trolley? I've wondered about that since first seeing the concept art. Buena Vista Street looks incredible. I can't wait to see your pics from Cars Land! :-)

The Red Car Trolley doesn't have great capacity. There are only two, and they cease operation pretty often so one can perform the Red Car News Boys show. There's a switch track in the middle of Hollywoodland that they pass at, so one has to stop there and wait for the other to pass. But at least for right now, they're one-way trip only and I've never seen them full. They're great "background attraction," just the like Main Street vehicles in Disneyland Park (the omnibus, the horse-drawn trolley, the early cars, etc) that have as much function in place-making as they do in transportation.

It's also not that helpful as transportation since the once that starts on BVS ends right in front of the Tower of Terror, so unless that or "a bugs land" is your destination, it would be more convenient to walk, really. Still, they're beautiful and I wouldn't trade them for anything.

[LongLiveTheSmurfRide]

Great report so far. Looking forward to the rest.

[beastrider97]

I've always wanted to visit DCA, and it does look spectacular. It's always compared to WDW, which is unfair, as this park still looks great.

[CedarPointer]

I do kind of miss the Sun Icon and CALIFORNIA letters. Kind of. But Cars Land... wow.

[Delirium13]

Great trip report so far. As someone who won't be able to make their next Disney trip for a few years, living vicariously through trip reports makes the wait a little easier (and harder in some ways). I hope we get to see the rest of the trip soon.

[westcoaster]

Nice trip report, great pics, looks incredible.