Much
to the delight of little girls (and often the chagrin of their
parents), Disneyland features what might charitably be called a lot
of Princess content. There’s the Castle, of course, with its
walkthrough attraction. Several shops focus exclusively on Princess
merchandise from dolls to costumes to stationery sets, the Princess
movies are favorites for abridging into stage shows, every parade has
a Princess unit, and the Princess character meet-and-greets
eventually got so popular that an entire sub-district of Fantasyland
was built around them.
But
you know what the Disney Princesses don’t get very many of? Actual
rides. And this is true not just of the Disneyland Resort but of
Disney theme parks as a whole. Seriously, how many rides centered on
a Princess character can you think of? Like, three, right?
This
may be because for all their popularity and grandeur, the Princess
movies are not ideal for conversion into rides. Remember the cardinal
rule of good attraction design: Put the Guests in the Center of the
Action. Most of Disney's Princess films actually don't have a lot of
action per se, focusing more
on an internal journey (falling in love, discovering self-worth,
etc.) than an external one. Show someone a movie, letting them spend
upwards of an hour getting to know the main character, and you can
usually get them to go along with an internal journey. But a theme
park ride rarely affords its participants more than about ten minutes
to absorb its content—nowhere near enough time to develop a
sympathetic bond with a character, even if they weren't distracted by
the physical presence of it all.
Nowhere is this clearer than in comparing the two Princess rides that
can be found in the Disneyland Resort. One the one hand, we have Snow
White's Scary Adventures, the classic that does it all right, bizarre
points and all. On the other, we have The Little Mermaid ~ Ariel's
Undersea Adventure,* the newcomer that falls flat in so many ways.
