Armchair Imagineering: A California Adventure Worthy of the Name

Lastweek's post brought a momentary idle thought about an alternate version of California Adventure 1.0. It wasn't the sort of thing I could let slide, so this week, you get to see me develop it a bit further. I say “a bit” because, well, this is my first time designing a theme park almost completely from scratch. I'm keeping very little from the California Adventure we actually got; the area themes, attractions, and even layout are almost completely different. The upshot is that virtually none of the work has already been done for me and I've had to bash this out in time for the weekly deadline I have set myself.* So it's more of an outline than a fully detailed concept.

But enough excuses. Let's talk theme park!

Layout

For this project, I decided to try out the fan-shaped layout I suggested as a possibility in this post. My California Adventure is shaped as a rough semicircle, with an open “reception area” immediately behind the entrance turnstiles. On the far side of this area, the gateways to the exciting themed areas are arrayed in an inviting curve. Make your way all the way to the far end of any of them, and—plot twist! —you'll find yourself in another themed land which occupies the outer edge of the park, accessible from the others.

Themed Lands

In California Adventure as we know it, the themed areas evoke specific places in California—Hollywood, the Sierras, the desert and Route 66, etc. In my version, the themes revolve instead around facets of California, making them both a) more flexible and b) less like something you could just hop back in your car and drive to. This park is celebrating California, not competing with it.

Golden Plaza

The aforementioned “reception area.” It doesn't have a theme so much as an aesthetic, which is: Welcome to California, a classy joint. The area is designed in the style of an upscale outdoor shopping center such as you can find in many affluent Southern California neighborhoods, with attractive storefronts, lots of shade trees, and small eateries with both indoor and patio seating. The shops and cafés are named after various places in California, either appropriate to their wares or just making a play on words.

There's no dubious elaborate “backstory” here—it presents as a nice little shopping district with a California fixation, and that's exactly what it is. The area music is built along the same lines as the old Sunshine Plaza area loop, with familiar songs that reference the state.

There is just one major attraction: Golden Dreams, AKA “the weird Whoopie Goldberg movie.” I actually had kind of a soft spot for that presentation and was a little sad to see it go.** I always thought, however, that it was in the wrong location—you don't reserve the center of your theme park for an educational film, no matter how pretty the building is. In a more introductory spot, though? It could totally work. Plus, it touches on most of the ideas that I have designated as the themes for my lands.

Hollywoodland

This land serves the same function for California Adventure that Fantasyland does for Disneyland—its heart and soul, basically. The film industry is the claim to fame for this state, isn't it? It's how California tells stories about itself (and everything else), and thus makes for the perfect bridge between the “background” lands to one side, and the “present” lands on the other. It also functions as an opportune place for IP-based attractions, but with rather more justification than “Hollywood = movies, so any movie we put here is just fine.” The idea here is twofold: the “magic” of the movies—their power to shape the way we see the world—and the actual work that goes into making that magic happen. To this end, Hollywoodland is divided into two halves: Hollyvine Street, a “tourist lane” in the style of the Hollywood/Vine area, and Starlight Studios, a fictitious film studio and backlot.

Like Fantasyland, it has the park's icon as its entrance—a grand façade reminiscent of the Chinese Theater in Hollywood without being anything like an exact replica. The wings of the structure extend into Hollywoodland, with one side being the show building for a unique new version of the Great Movie Ride, while the other houses the Carthay Circle Restaurant and, attached to it, an actual working movie theater at which may be seen the latest Disney releases, in their entirety.

Other attractions in Hollywoodland include the Tower of Terror, a more technical version of Disney Animation (fewer cartoon characters talking to you, more demonstrations of how animation technology actually works), a live stunt show, and the Canine Stunt Spectacular Starring Bolt! The main eatery is a cafeteria-style restaurant called That's A Wrap!, serving tasty sandwiches, salads, and, well, wraps. Perhaps the most striking aspect of Hollywoodland, however, is the numerous “movie stars” that can be seen ambling along the streets. These characters represent various eras of filmmaking: silent film stars dressed in monochrome, glamorous divas of the Thirties and Forties, square-jawed (and incongruously clean-shaven) cowboys of the Fifties, grizzled Eighties action heroes, and for contemporary times, blond superheroes named Chris.

Old California

This land represents the broad span of California's history—and pre-history!—prior to its annexation by the United States. (I don't love the name, but it's the best I can come up within my timeframe.) Here are depicted the indigenous peoples, the californios and rancheros that defined early Californian identity, and the Catholic missions. The area is landscaped to resemble the local wilderness, with exclusively native plants such as live oaks, manzanita, sagebrush, and wildflowers.

The attractions here include a museum exhibit about Californian Indian tribes, a “sheep ranch” (read: petting zoo), and—most exciting of all—an elaborate dark ride wherein a tar pit becomes a portal back in time to the Ice Age!

Cascade Country

The second of the “background lands,” this area focuses on the unique geology of California, from the gold deposits and other mineral resources to its notorious seismic activity. The name comes from the volcanic Cascade Mountain Range, the southern end of which extends into Northern California, and also calls to mind “cascading” gold or other treasure.

The landscaping here includes a lot of granite boulders (these may have to be artificial due to the difficulty of moving large pieces of granite) pine trees, and redwoods. The major attractions are a dark ride about the Gold Rush, and an earthquake simulator. Also included is a walkthrough cavern “maze” with glittering crystal and gem deposits.

World Festival

We Californians take pride in our diversity and commitment to multiculturalism. This area is sort of a spinoff of the World Showcase, depicting the numerous peoples who have immigrated to California and flavored its overall culture. It takes the form of a slice of urban neighborhood with multi-story apartment buildings. The ground level is occupied by shops and counter-service eateries offering a range of ethnic cuisines,*** from Mexican to Chinese to Indian to Mediterranean. Above these are the balconies of apartment dwellings, with furnishings and projected audio of family conversations in a variety of languages revealing the residents' countries of origin.

But this isn't just the world in miniature, it's the World Festival. There's always some kind of celebration going on here. The main walkway through the area is broader than most, as it comprises the main leg of the park's parade route. An entire block is taken up by an open-air stage for live musicians and seating for the audience, with frequent rotation of the acts. Holidays and seasonal events are a big deal in the World Festival—especially holidays with a unique cultural flair.

As for rides...well, I haven't come up with anything that I consider a slam-dunk. This might be a good place for some more low-key, carnival-type rides (befitting the festival aspect).

The Superhighway

The focus of this land, then, is California's technological industries and car culture. The name refers to both a literal superhighway like our (in)famous freeways, and the Information Superhighway. You could also read it as Superhigh-way, for the aerospace industry.

The walkable portions of the area are elevated in the manner of overpasses, with the ground sloping upward toward them. These are flanked by building façades resembling ultramodern industrial facilities. If the park can't get actual sponsorships from JPL and Apple, then fictitious companies can be invented for the purpose.

The major rides are a Test Track spinoff with a premise of testing rocket engines, and an adventure in a virtual reality cyber-world. Lower-tier attractions could include demonstrations of actual VR and other technological breakthroughs.

Pacific Paradise

This crescent-shaped land occupies the outer edge of California Adventure and is themed to the ocean and beach culture. I always found it odd that California Adventure has a massive boardwalk/pier area but hardly references beaches at all. No surfing, no Tiki lounge (though how could it compete with the Enchanted Tiki Room?), not even a boat ride!

So here we've got a nice broad walkway (part of it is the rest of the parade route, linking up with World Festival), with beach-related businesses on one side and on the other, a rocky shoreline and a big artificial lagoon, extending all the way to an outer wall painted as a continuation of the ocean and sky. At dusk, hidden spotlights project sunset colors onto the wall.

Attractions include genuine aquarium exhibits, a sandbox area for children to play in, and—yes—a boat ride. Specifically, it's a glass-bottomed boat ride/“whale-watching tour,” showing off the realistic sea life in the lagoon, from kelp beds to tuna to a mother humpback whale with her calf. At night, the lagoon attractions close down and the water becomes the stage for an illuminated fountain show. Because World of Color is pretty cool, when all's said and done.

Other

You probably noticed just one or two references to specific Disney film IP here. This is not because I would want to keep it out of the park altogether, but because my rough outline focuses more on the original and unique ideas. There are certainly Disney properties that take place in California, some of which slot neatly into some of my area themes...but I found myself getting sidetracked by minutiae whenever I tried to figure out exactly how to use them.

So here is a (probably non-exhaustive) list of properties that I would definitely consider for inclusion in my ideal California Adventure: Zorro, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Rocketeer, Bolt, the Muppets, Iron Man, Big Hero 6, Inside Out, Finding Dory.

I also feel there should be some sort of inter-land transportation attraction, but I'm not sure what form it should take or what the route should be.

So what do you think? Based on these basics, would this have been a better California Adventure than the 1.0 that we got? Would it be better than what we have now? Does it at least sound pretty?

* Most of the big Disney theme park blogs seem to prefer to release excellent content on a slower schedule. I don't have much excellent content in me (not with everything else I have to do), but I can sure crank it out on the regular!

** It surely doesn't help matters that it was replaced by the lackluster Little Mermaid dark ride.

*** It's kind of like Pacific Wharf without the unnecessarily overwrought “backstory.”