Paradise Pier A WDI Concept

[airlarry!]

Wow, AV, I must commend you on the depth of your last two posts. When I read those, it cemented in my mind the difference between DCA and TDisneySeas. As I read the previews of both parks through laughingplace.com and mouseplanet.com, one got me excited and the other disappointed.

You pointed out succintly the reasons. It is not necessarily the beautiful way that TDS has been imagineered...it is instead the fact that as I toured the park through the eyes of the writer, I got the sense of exotic places with stories and backstories waiting to be discovered.

I just don't get that from DCA. Maybe Jim Hill has fallen out a bit. Maybe he is entranced by the 'detail' which *should* be in place in every park. But just because there is the detail we all know about on Main STreet USA at the MK, that does not make it magical. It makes it Disney. What makes Main STreet USA and the rest of the MK magical is the ability to watch a movie or story as you explore each land.

Anyway. Kudos to you for making it all make sense.

 

[Another Voice]

There is some evidence that Walt really did hate amusement parks just by the comments he made about them in relation to Disneyland. And there’s certainly no evidence that he liked them. Beside from Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, I can’t recall any mention of him even visiting another park (Griffith Park here in Los Angeles with the famous carousel where Walt took his daughters is a real park along the lines of Central Park in New York) . Knott’s Berry Farm and Santa’s Village were for several years and The Pike in Long Beach had been around since before Walt arrived. That brings up an interesting point. I would have thought that with all the flak DCA is taking, someone in Disney or Jim Hill would have found some reference to Walt and seaside amusement parks. Whenever the Company gets into trouble, they always try to find a suitable quote or photograph to prove to the faithful that their actions have “the blessing”.

Anyway, I don’t think Disney really tried to do anything different with California Adventure than with any other park. And there’s really nothing nostalgic or kitschy about the place. In fact, those emotions are exactly opposite they were going after. They always used phrases like “hip and edgy”, “in your face”, and “a park for the 21st century” in their descriptions of the place. California Adventure was supposed to have adult, well-traveled and free spending visitors tasting wine while watching performance artists right before dropping a Benjamin for dinner at Puck’s. Middle class stuff was left, with much distain, over at Disneyland with the kids. WDI and their creations were considered “old fashioned”, “out-of-touch”, “kitschy” and the worst of all sins, “expensive”.

The irony of canceling the “hip and edgy” entertainment, the panic return of the ‘Main Street Electrical Parade’, the even more panicked production of ‘Luminaria’ (which some described to me as having the appeal of a third grade Parent/Teacher Night; wonderful if it’s your kid selected but unbearable otherwise), that irony is not lost on anyone at Disneyland. In the end and often with much struggle, quality will always win out. There’s still a lot of struggling over at DCA.

P.S. – Thanks for your comments arilarry. I also find a huge difference between DisneySea and California Adventure. In any of the lands at DisneySea, you get an immediate sense of history and an underlying logic to the place – just like the background information in a movie that lets you understand what happened before the story started. There’s none of that feeling at DCA. The places just don’t have that “depth” to them, so they come off like a themed shopping mall. They’re pretty on the surface, but there’s nothing underneath.