Disneyland General
Topic: LP Column: 5/5/08 Greg Maletic: Disney's Biggest Theme Park Mistakes

#	Author	Message
41	Doobie Tue 5/6/2008 10:39a	Maybe times have changed but when I was growing up (I'm 37 now) and was looking forward to a trip to DL with my relatives, we were looking forward to Mansion and (and I shudder at the thought now) Pirates. I don't think the characters were in our minds at all - at least not that I remember (maybe when I was very young). Also remember anticipating Adventure Thru Inner Space, the Monorail, Big Thunder and the Matterhorn. The only character based attraction I remember looking forward to was Peter Pan.
42	Dabob2 Tue 5/6/2008 10:52a	Totally with you, Doobie. When I was a little kid I most looked forward to Pirates, HM, the Matterhorn, the (original) subs, Jungle Cruise, the Mine Train, the autopia... I loved the FaL dark rides too, but they were somewhere down the list. Seeing the walkarounds was WAY down my list, even as a small kid.
43	dshyates Tue 5/6/2008 11:34a	When I was a kid what I remember most was that everything just blew my mind. The hotel (poly), the monorail, the Castle, 20k leagues, HM, and Jungle Cruise, etc. I thought WDW was the coolest place on the planet. And Mickey Mouse got to live there. It wasn't the coolest place on the planet BECAUSE Mickey Mouse lived there.
44	fkurucz Tue 5/6/2008 12:00p	<<I'm a DVC member. We go to Disney twice a year, east coast or west, and haven't paid for a hotel room in years.>> Uh, don't you have to pay an annual fee?
45	FerretAfros Tue 5/6/2008 1:27p	"...postcard creations of reality are why I fell in love with Disney." You fell in love with Disney because of the DCA main entrance?? That's fine by me, but you may want to know that they are going to tear out your favorite part. : ) (For what it's worth, I think the DCA entrance is really one of Disney's best creations in recent years. The problem is that it looked good from a distance, but not upclose. If they had put something better on the back of the murals and inside the buildings, along with something a little more substantial in the 'hub' area, we wouldn't have this problem today. "I do not believe that Disney would ever allow their properties to deteriorate, they are Disney." While they may not be physically deteriorating to the point that they are on the verge of collapse, Disney has certainly allowed many of their different properties to deteriorate in quality over the past several years. Shutting attractions and not replacing them leads to less quality for the same price. Sure, that's a little harder to translate to DVC, but it could mean closing a pool or a restuarant. These may not seem like huge things, but they certainly take away from the overall quality of the experience. "Saying that "only 20% of Disneyland" was devoted to Disney characters is A LIE! NOTHING short of A LIE! Frontierland was devoted almost entirely to Disney characters (Davy Crockett, True Life Adventures, etc), Tomorrowland had Disney characters (a 20,000 leagues attraction, a movie exhibit first), Main Street had Disney characters (roaming characters, Disney themed parades and the Mickey Mouse Club in the opera house and a Babes in Toyland exhibt before that) and Adventureland was an extension of the True Life Adventure series." I would hardly say that anything or substance outside of Fantasyland was character-driven when the park opened. The character greetings were limited and only in Fantasyland. The Main Street Cinema actually showed real silent films from the proper period. The Babes in Toyland exhibit didn't show up until the early 60's when they made the film. Disney characters didn't even start appearing in the parades until around 1960, so there really wasn't anything on Main Street in the early days that was based on characters. Sure, Davy Crockett was in Frontierland, but he was as much a part of American folklore as he was a Disney symbol. The Davy Crockett episodes of the Disneyland TV show had only aired a couple months before the park opening and they were only shown once each (along with theatrical releases later on), so the popularity was largely based on people's prior knowledge of what he had done. The True Life Adventures really didn't have any characters at all in them (other than Perri, which I still really have trouble saying that there were recognizable characters), as they were documentaries about animals and nature. It's no different than saying that Discovery Channel's series "Planet Earth" didn't have any characters. Sure, the lands were based off locations visited in the documentaries, but the similarities stopped there. Nobody called it True Life Adventureland, it was just Adventureland. I think the only TLA that was even based in the jungle was one about big cats, while th erest were based in deserts, parts of the US, and cold places. Tomorrowland did have the 20K walkthrough, but it was also very clear that most of what had been done in TL was very last-minute. Most of the attractions were corporate exhibits, and they were really just doing anything they could to get the attraction count up. I really doubt that the walkthrough was considered to be a highlight of anybody's day at the park, and was rooted in well-known literature, not just the Disney version of it (although we do start getting into the iasw argument here a bit). The park was a place that could only exist in a fantasy, but not because it was based in a fantasy world. It was because it was an idealized version of each place. To most people, the idea of having a cartoon character living in the jungle never crossed their mind, and it made the park a stronger place overall, with more clearly differentiated themes between each land, IMO.
46	ExpDave Tue 5/6/2008 1:32p	As with many others here, I think EPCOT is DW's best park, while I certainly enjoy the others as well. Still it could be so much more. There is a LOT of room for more countries and attractions in WS. I've heard the Russia may be coming, others I'd like to see would include India, Egypt, Greece, Spain, and many others. Plus attractions in existing pavilions that don't have any. In FW I'd love to see an updated version of my favorite lost DL attraction. Adventure Through Innerspace. I've also been thinking recently about the industrial park that was to be adjacent to Walt's EPCOT. I believe that it was to have been manufacturing facilities with attractions, part of which would have included a tour of the production area. I think M. E. thought of something along the same line too. I think it could be very interesting, right now The Land comes the closest to that concept and it is hands down my favorite FW pavilion, I wonder if anything else like that could be added in FW? Wouldn't it be cool if, for example, on Test Track the ride was about presenting and testing future concepts in cars and how they create them, I know there is a bit of that after the ride, but I'm talking about making it part of the ride and que area.
47	davewasbaloo Tue 5/6/2008 1:37p	>>>"...postcard creations of reality are why I fell in love with Disney." You fell in love with Disney because of the DCA main entrance?? That's fine by me, but you may want to know that they are going to tear out your favorite part. : )<<< I meant like World Showcase, Harambe, Adventureland, NOS - they feel like being in the real places, but an idealised version.
48	Kar2oonMan Tue 5/6/2008 1:51p	>>No little kid says, "Mommy, mommy can we go to Disneyland and go on the Haunted Mansion?" NO, they say, "Mommy, mommy can we go to Disneyland and see Mickey Mouse and ride on the Monsters Inc attraction<< No little kid? Well, I disagree. And in any case, these parks were designed to appeal to entire families, not just little tots. The balance has been tipped and now there has been overkill and total saturation in the number of character-based attractions. As much as I enjoyed Epcot, I can sense already that there has been an influx of characters there where perhaps there were not early on. I never paid a lot of attention to Epcot, so I can't say with 100% certainty where characters might have been added over the years, but I think I can make a pretty good educated guess. It hasn't, thankfully, reached overkill there -- yet. My hope is that there will be some restraint and Epcot will stay unique and at least somewhat limited in terms of how many characters they load into things there. The type of restraint that they haven't had at just about every other park (except, perhaps TDS?)
49	leemac Tue 5/6/2008 1:55p	<<The type of restraint that they haven't had at just about every other park (except, perhaps TDS?)>> There are a lot of characters in TDS. Probably more than at Epcot overall. Every land is touched by them.
50	Kar2oonMan Tue 5/6/2008 1:58p	Oh, well. So much for that theory.

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