Greg Maletic
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Disney's concept for a second park--the best of California, in California--could also have been better, but it could have been a whole lot worse, too. Ideas for the space formerly hosting the Disneyland parking lot included a west coast version of Epcot and Disney's aborted "America" park, originally planned for Virginia but possibly to have found a home in Anaheim. It's good that neither concept was realized: they'd both be doomed to the limbo that Epcot finds itself in now, where the temptation to add thrill rides threatens to retreat from rather than advance the park's mission. The "America" concept would have been particularly disastrous, and Disney executives should thank their lucky stars that that park wasn't built in Virginia, California, or anywhere else. One can imagine after the first two years of lackluster attendance (as evidence, think for a minute: can you come up with any great ideas for new attractions in Disney World's Liberty Square? Have any of your most promising ideas for future Disney attractions been situated there?) roller coasters, white water rafting rides, and simulators would flood the park, trivializing its mission and thereby becoming exactly what its detractors said it would be all along.
A view out of DCA towards Disneyland
(the Disneyland train station is visible in the background)
The potential of the new "Disneyland Resort" is exciting as well. As the first additional gate at a Disney resort outside of Walt Disney World, it's tempting to compare California Adventure to all of the "second gate" parks at Disney World. But because of California Adventure's close proximity to Disneyland's Magic Kingdom, it functions in a capacity that Disney World's wildly spread-out parks can't: as an adjunct to the Magic Kingdom, not a competitor. The freedom to bounce back and forth between the two is a luxury that Walt Disney World's guests can only dream about, where a decision to travel from the Magic Kingdom to Epcot can easily cost an hour in transportation time. Look at California Adventure not as another park on par with the Magic Kingdom, but view its themed lands as additional themed lands that complement the Magic Kingdom's (especially Paradise Pier's thrill rides), and it starts to make more sense.
Furthermore, the criticism that there's "nothing to do" at California Adventure should be an easy one to address: compared to its more elaborate parks, California Adventure should be inexpensive for Disney to expand. It'd be hard to argue against the fact that Paradise Pier is the most popular area of the park, and it can be enlarged quickly by the simple addition of more souped-up amusement park rides. I can see Disney fans cringing when I say that, but admit it: those rides are fun, just like they're fun when they're experienced at Magic Mountain or Knotts' Berry Farm. The idea that these attractions are truly "off-the-shelf" is misleading, too, since Disney's implementations are really quite special: California Adventure's Sun Wheel and Zephyr look far more beautiful than their more traditional amusement park cousins. And these "standard" rides certainly fit better in the context of Paradise Pier than they do at Animal Kingdom's Dinoland U.S.A., where tacking on a roller coaster seems like a cheap "out" rather than an enhancement of the park.