An Interview with Disneyland Resort President Cynthia Harriss - Part One
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The opening of a bug's land with DavJohn Lasseter, Dave Foley, Flik and Cynthia Harriss
and Tower of Terror construction in the right background

LP: Of course the next big thing in California is Tower of Terror.

CH :Have you noticed it?

LP: It’s fun to be watching an attraction go up. again

CH: And you can’t miss this one.

LP: What goes into the decision of whether to bring over an existing successful attraction or build something completely new.

CH: I think it’s, first and foremost, it’s how popular it is with the guest. This is what I love about our company. Staying close to the guests is such an important aspect of it. I would say that in the five years I’ve been here at Disneyland, the number one attraction people have asked about is when are we going to bring Tower of Terror here. And to me personally, but beyond that, when we’ve done focus groups, anecdotal or whatever, and say "what do you like best about a Disney experience?" Tower of Terror comes up as one of the top ones. I would say since Indiana Jones, in our company, Tower of Terror probably has had the most enthusiasm by our guests at large and consequently that’s why we wanted to bring it here. It’s kind of like we have to. Certainly with Hollywood being the perfect land for it and as you can imagine this was planned all along that’s why we have that great spot out there. It’s in the perfect place. It’ll be that perfect entrance. It was just frankly having another reason to come back in a couple of years that’s even more extraordinary.

LP: Going out even further than that, one of the popular topics on our boards is always Disneyland’s 50th. What, if anything, can you say at this point about Disneyland’s 50th.

CH: It’ll be the biggest thing in our lifetime is all I can say (laughs). You’re going to have to get ready to live here, Doobie, because there’ll be so much going on. I think probably the best way I can characterize it is ‘03 and ‘04 will be leading up to the 50th. We’re clearly going to be having so many additions to the Disneyland Resort between ‘03 and ‘04. Not only in attractions, but entertainment with the big Aladdin show coming and a variety of other things that we’ve got in the works that we’re going to finalize in the next couple of months to bring to bear that will be leading up to it. So it’ll be lots of fun and all that. But the 50th will be the biggest event in our company’s history. It truly will be. Disneyland is the crown jewel of our company. It is the heart and soul. It is what started this phenomenon in the mass public - that’s how we brought films to life here. And there’s so much to celebrate, the millions and millions of people that we’ve touched their hearts. So for us to invite everyone who’s ever been to Disneyland and ever wanted to come to Disneyland to come during this momentous year, it truly needs to be extraordinary. So what I will guarantee is that there will be extraordinary entertainment, extraordinary celebrations. There will be reasons to come every single day and something that we just can’t wait to see.

Harriss at Disneyland's 46th Birthday with Actor Martin Landau and Imagineering Legend Marty Sklar

LP: Will it focus on Disneyland or will it encompass the whole Resort or even the whole company?

CH: Certainly Disneyland Resort is the vacation experience. So we’ll be celebrating throughout the whole Resort. In fact I’m confident that the whole company will be celebrating but clearly Disneyland, which was the place Walt built personally, will be where we can have the opportunity to remember, to celebrate very specific things that only happened at Disneyland and to highlight many of those things. But it will a resort wide celebration. There will be things to do throughout the whole resort.