Originally Posted By xXxNIGHTMARExXx Disneyland in Anaheim will always be my favorite because I grew up with it. I could spend hours on Main Street alone! And of course, New Orleans Square. That's my most favorite land in the whole park! But I have been to WDW once and loved it, and am going again in December. I'm excited about spending a whole week there and never running out of things to do. Agreed, you can't do that in Anaheim...well, most people couldn't. But personally, I don't think I'd get tired of Disneyland 7 days in a row. )
Originally Posted By HomeOfFutureLiving Well, the posts here seem to be confirming my point: if someone were to simply look at that photo, I think they could reasonably conclude that Disney World had the most beautiful Fantasyland of them all. Yet the consensus is that Disney World's Fantasyland is the weakest of all. Why is that? Sure, the Small World facade is missing. Beyond that, I'm a bit stumped. The Skyway and 20,000 Leagues are missing, but no other Fantasyland in the world has those attractions either. They took out Mr. Toad, but again, no other Fantasyland save Disneyland has that ride. What gives? Is the photo misleading?
Originally Posted By HomeOfFutureLiving Maybe I should clarify my post. I unintentionally mixed two different questions together in my last post: what's the "best" Fantasyland, and what's the most "beautiful." The suite of attractions goes to what's the "best,", but I'm more curious about the "beauty" point. Disney World's Fantasyland is considered the least attractive of all, yet the photo looks great. What about the land gives Disney fans an overall negative impression?
Originally Posted By FerretAfros The way it is set up, it creates a hallway along the back of the park. Compared to DL's FL where it seems to reach out and hug the carrousel, this can be very unwelcoming. Also, when coming out of the castle, you have no sense of where you should go. There are no signs leading you in either direction, and it is pretty disorientating. Also, there are strollers everywhere, which make navigating that area next to impossible. There are also large areas of wall that are nothing more than grey castle brick. Compare that to the village look of DL and DLP, and it falls far short.
Originally Posted By idleHands According to Tony Baxter, Disneyland is "magical," but Magic Kingdom is "spectacle." Well, this can be taken one of two ways: either MK is remarkable or impressive on a lavish scale, or... it's a regrettable public display. I'm guessing Tony would like to keep his Senior VP position, and defined "spectacle" to mean the former. DL is tiny, compact, intimate. Fits in your back hip pocket. MK, however, is massive, huge, impersonal. Packaged up for warehouse shopping. DL envelopes you, like a magical fireside hearth. MK overwhelms you, like a spectacular opera house. I feel this is what Tony was trying to communicate. As for MK's Fantasyland... FerretAfros hits the nail on the head. It's a glorified strip mall. The photo that HomeOfFutureLiving provided, only shows the western end of the land. Until you're actually inside Fantasyland, walking from end to end, you'll never get that "hallway" or closed off corridor feel, just observing a photograph of one segment. For me, the difference between the two is like the difference between Lumiere and Mrs. Potts. Lumiere is tall, lanky, and waxy, with a foundation of cool brass. Although he's a charming and hospitable fellow, Lumiere is not the kind of character who's visually warm, personable, inviting, and cuddly, like Mrs. Potts. DL's Fantasyland is more visually akin to Mrs. Potts: rounded, compact, matronly... while MK's is more like Lumiere: stretched out, linear, formal. I'd rather hug Mrs. Potts than Lumiere, and I pretty much feel the same way about the two Fantasylands. In fact, I pretty much feel the same way about the two parks overall.
Originally Posted By ssWEDguy Okay -- what I got out of all that when you boil it down is -- Disneyland = smaller Magic Kingdom = larger And larger is automatically not as good as smaller. You used up all the good words for Disneyland -- compact, intimate, envelopes you, magical fireside hearth, matronly, huggable. You saved all the negative sounding words for the Magic Kingdom -- regrettable public display, massive, huge, impersonal, glorified strip mall, overwhelms, warehouse shopping, stretched out, linear, formal. I could do the same thing in reverse. But I like Disneyland too much to even play games with negativism. I'd rather describe DisneyWorld as liberating, glorious, celebratory, expansive, grand, bold, and, what the heck "size matters." MK was designed larger, to be able to handle the larger crowds that were anticipated. Disneyland transplanted to Florida would have been too small. Let me ask you this -- Do you think Walt himself would have gone with the larger scale for his Florida Project? Don't you think he'd have learned from Disneyland, and tried to top what he'd already done? Why is larger automatically bad?
Originally Posted By idleHands "Do you think Walt himself would have gone with the larger scale for his Florida Project?" Walt DID go with the larger scale for his Florida project. He was still alive when work began. "Don't you think he'd have learned from Disneyland, and tried to top what he'd already done?" I'm assuming that's what he was doing, by making MK larger than DL. He had the land and space to go larger, so that's what he did. "Why is larger automatically bad?" It isn't. You're missing my point. MK isn't just larger than Disneyland. It's too large. I understand the need and desire to have the second Magic Kingdom park be bigger than the original. But personally, I feel that Disney went overboard with MK's footprint. The park is too spread out, too large to navigate comfortably. It takes forever to get from Space Mountain at the eastern edge of Tomorrowland, all the way to the back corner of Frontierland, where Splash and BTMRR are located. And because of this vastness of space (enough for a small river to encircle the hub... Swan Boats, anyone?), MK is exhausting and draining to visit, especially on a hot and humid day. Which, if memory serves, is about half of each and every calendar year. Sure, I've always wanted DL to be just a teeny tiny bit bigger. But you know what? I'm afraid that if the space within the berm were increased by just 20%, DL would lose that wonderful intimacy which I love. So, I'll settle for a little bit of claustrophobia in Anaheim, to preserve the magic. Now if I could only shrink MK's space by at least 20%. My tootsies would be eternally grateful!
Originally Posted By idleHands Slight clarification: "Walt DID go with the larger scale for his Florida project. He was still alive when work began." I should have specified design work for the site, and not construction work.
Originally Posted By vbdad55 < It takes forever to get from Space Mountain at the eastern edge of Tomorrowland, all the way to the back corner of Frontierland, where Splash and BTMRR are located< That time used to be cut significantly with the Skyride --- and if not the time -- the actual walking part
Originally Posted By basas <<MK isn't just larger than Disneyland. It's too large>> Just IMO- but i think the MK is really the perfect size. DL is slightly small, but TDL is just huge. MK fits nicely in the middle.
Originally Posted By gmaletic Though Tony Baxter might have said it differently on another Discovery Channel special (there are so many of them), on the one I saw two weeks ago he used "charming" to describe Disneyland and "spectactular" to describe Walt Disney World. Accurate and complimentary words for both, I'd say.
Originally Posted By ssWEDguy >> I feel that Disney went overboard with MK's footprint. << I see your point. Larger, yes. Too large, I don't feel that way. I just don't find it all that daunting to get from say, Toontown to Big Thunder (Unless you have to be there at a certain time) I wonder if another factor you mentioned enters in here -- "hot and humid." This is another automatic difference between DL and MK. Hot weather can make any outdoor activity more challenging, regardless of size. Because the MK was designed larger, the walkways are made wider to accomodate the people flow better. (Except that interesting SmallWorld/Pan/Haunted Mansion bottleneck area when strollers are involved) Physically I think DL is about 75 or 85 acres? (Excluding DCA) The MK is about 110 acres, making it 50% larger overall. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying that people's perceptions can be colored in a big way by where they grew up, and what they're used to. As much as I love Disneyland (and I do) when I visit and make that turn from TownSquare to see the castle at the far end of Main Street, I am charmed. But God help me, I also feel just a little diminished. Because of what I grew up with.
Originally Posted By ssWEDguy >> he used "charming" to describe Disneyland and "spectactular" to describe Walt Disney World. Accurate and complimentary words for both, I'd say. << And I really do think he means it.
Originally Posted By ssWEDguy You know what? I wonder if I quoted Tony wrong. I believe he used the term "spectacular," and not "spectacle." There is a difference.
Originally Posted By ssWEDguy >> (enough for a small river to encircle the hub... Swan Boats, anyone?) << I LOVE this small river/moat area. I never did get to see the Swan Boats, but to this day I wish they'd get some form of watercraft going back down there. I feel the same way about watercraft on the AK Discovery River.
Originally Posted By danyoung >...Especially when you get road blocked by all the strollers jammed out front of the big box they call A Small World. < Is this still the case? It was my understanding that the most recent refurb was to, among other things, move the stroller area more out of the way to fix this problem.
Originally Posted By vbdad55 It may be just me, but I really believe on my last visit there were more strollers than I have ever seen in my life in use in MK --- which made getting around after wishes like a ride on the Harbor Freeway
Originally Posted By ssWEDguy PICTURES I liked HomeOfFutureLiving's early image of MK Fantasyland (Post #56) a lot. Especially since I'd not seen that view in a long, long time. Not since the skyride went away at least. So I decided to go back to that spot in FL yesterday and take a picture of what it looks like now for comparison. You can take a look at both pictures at this link -- <a href="http://ssdisney.home.att.net/steve/mkfantasylandchanges_x.htm" target="_blank">http://ssdisney.home.att.net/s teve/mkfantasylandchanges_x.htm</a> I also made up a display "exe" that you can download to show the two images fading from one to the other. Kind of cool to watch the changes. Here's that download link -- <a href="http://sotn.rootoon.com/img/cdrom1/ss/SOTN/MKFLChgs/MKFantasyLandChgs_ss09152005.exe" target="_blank">http://sotn.rootoon.com/img/cd rom1/ss/SOTN/MKFLChgs/MKFantasyLandChgs_ss09152005.exe</a>
Originally Posted By HomeOfFutureLiving ssWEDguy, thanks for the new photo. I should point out that the old Fantasyland photo I linked to is not mine, it's from the great WDW postcard web site at <a href="http://www.bigbrian-nc.com/pctoc.htm" target="_blank">http://www.bigbrian-nc.com/pct oc.htm</a>. Sorry if I unintentionally misled anyone about the source of the photo.
