Welcome to Disneyland - the happiest place on earth.
And, to be honest, it is pretty happy. I completely enjoyed our three-day visit to Disneyland and its sister location, California Adventure - it was a lot of fun, more fun than I had expected, to be honest. My childhood didn't include anything even remotely similar to Walt Disney's sprawling 156 acre extravaganza, and I really didn't know what it would be like.
I found that it engaged me on two levels: on one hand, I was simply entertained and amused. Disneyland offers all of the pleasures of any amusement park, plus its signature experience-oriented adventures, and I was unexpectedly charmed by the classic animated movie rides. On
the other hand, I was fascinated by the park itself, by the degree of
artifice and imagination that has gone into the creation of both the attractions and the framework in which the Disney imagineers have placed them.
Disneyland draws upon only a portion of the epic library of source
material available to its parent company to create this experience. In addition to the traditional
fairy-tale content such as
Snow White or
Pinnochio which characterized Disney's early years, and its more modern animated offerings such as
Dumbo,
Peter Pan and
Alice in Wonderland, Disneyland is able to find inspiration in acquired properties ranging from the Muppets to Marvel Comics, and from Pixar to Lucasfilm.
However,
there's an unexpected sort of Darwinian struggle evident at the park,
where only the fittest - or most popular - survive. Fame is fleeting at
Disneyland:
Space Mountain morphs into
Hyperspace Mountain,
Muppet Vision 3-D is pushed out by
Frozen Live,
Honey, I Shrunk the Audience is replaced by
Star Tours, a
Star Wars based 3-D adventure, and
Tower of Terror is currently being rebuilt with a
Guardians of the Galaxy theme.
On the other hand, it's not all about the latest and greatest. In addition to
Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Karli and I visited a number of the older rides such as
Snow White's Scary Adventures,
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh,
Peter Pan's Flight, and, of course,
"It's a Small World", all of which more than demonstrate their popularity by the length of their lineups.*
To my surprise, many of these classic Disneyland rides aren't
really what I would consider to be "rides" as such. Whereas many of
the attractions at Disneyland and the California Adventure draw upon the
traditional amusement park catalogue of ferris wheels,
merry-go-rounds, roller coasters and so on, there is also a wide
selection of what could be classified as primitive immersive
environments, where the riders pass through the plot of a movie
presented as a series of animated tableaux.
Although
the older, simple rides remain popular (possibly because of their
complete friendliness to all ages and physical capabilities) Disneyland
has not rested on its laurels over time. In fact, it would be possible to work your way
through the rides chronologically and observe the increasingly more
sophisticated techniques being used to enhance the experience.
The 1995 Indiana Jones adventure,
Temple of the Forbidden Eye, is a good example of the results of this evolutionary process. The entire ride is over 50,000 square feet in size and cost $100 million
to construct, taking over seven years from conception to completion.
It takes place
in the bowels of a massive temple complex - riders actually walk through
close to half a mile of meticulously detailed passageways to reach the
boarding point of the ride. Once there, they climb onto simulator motion platforms disguised as all-terrain transport vehicles to travel through the temple.
Riders then experience a combination of forward motion, which takes them through an environment featuring smoke, flames, and (of course) giant stone globes, and extreme motion platform effects, which exaggerates the rider experience without having to make the track physically match the range of convolutions and twists programmed into the platform.
The cumulative effect is a complete success - Karli and I went through the Temple three times, and would undoubtedly have done more return visits if time had allowed.
The 2012 debut of
Radiator Springs Racers raised the ante, with six acres of vivid desert scenery recreated from
Cars at a cost of more than $200 million, making it the most expensive attraction constructed by Disney. The incredible backdrop of Ornament Valley rears hundreds of feet into the sky, and also features underground caverns filled with animatronic characters from the movie.
But where does Disney go from there? What's the next step in this process?
Personally, I was surprised to see the number of other adult couples that were visiting the park without children, which indicates that the phenomenon of the Magic Kingdom has an appeal which extends beyond the stroller demographic. One has to wonder if Disney has ever considered widening their scope to include more mature themes. Imagine if the imagineers focused their skill with epic landscapes and believable animatronic characters on a park that featured more adult content - perhaps making the leap to elements of violence, or possibly even sex.
Maybe something with a western theme...
- Sid
* Lineups are the price of doing business when you visit Disneyland, a necessary evil caused by thousands of people wanting to visit a limited number of venues. Disney recognizes that this is a negative aspect of the park experience, and does everything they can to minimize the effect. The lineup environment is referred to as "Scene Zero" of a ride, and as such the waiting areas feature animatronic characters, videos, and set dressing, all intended to entertain (and distract) guests standing patiently in queue.
Newer attractions are also constructed to stage out the lineup process so that it takes place at different locations - a twenty minute wait will involve five minutes at the entrance, ten in the middle, and five at the ride itself. In addition, there's a Fastpass system that allows ticket holders to reserve seats on popular rides during a set range of times.
Ultimately, though, there are times when you just have to stand and wait. Karli and I visited during one of the slowest times at the park, and as such rarely had to wait longer than ten or twenty minutes to board a ride. Peak times can involve lineups of 90 minutes - or longer.
