Originally Posted By dr jones ArchtMig, so very true, it's in these people's hands and they choose to sleepwalk. SHAMEFUL!!!
Originally Posted By woody >It's a lame, stupid park. >Nuff said. >SURE, I had a good time there... >But, I also have fun at 6-Flags, coaster parks too. >Sorry, but I can't be bothered with a long explaination tonight...WD pretty much covered it anyway. >DCA sucks! Very succinct. I could have said it myself. I decided to repost instead.
Originally Posted By disneywatcher >> But still, do you ever see folks like Eisner or Pressler making a similar personal sacrifice / gamble on something like that? << The problem with Eisner was that when it came to the last and final DisCo park in America he'd have any influence over, he didn't even have enough sense to say, "I'll limit my role to making decisions on purely economic matters and leave creative issues to the experts!" Instead he promoted his lame concepts -- "I love Coney Island!!!" -- which in turn probably blinded him to the second-rate aspects of people he gave major responsibility to, such as Mr. School Teacher, a.k.a. Barry Braverman.
Originally Posted By oc_dean >>So lets hear it, what sort of artistic changes, additions, policy changes, costume changes, etc would you make?<< I'm in pretty much agreement with Darkbeer's assessment. It's right on the money with me. ToT, Soarin', and the Hyperion theater are among three of DCA's top pieces of property that could never be dismantled. And, though the Hollywood Backlot portion is looking better .. there's still the "Millionaire" and "Hollywood Dine" facilities left to waste. So ... as I bet meetings are going on behind closed doors ... I can't imagine designers are looking to simply plot down into place new attractions in existing infrastructure set-ups. If I had a chance .. I would wipe out the entire warf area as it serves as nothing more than a nice rustic "mall food court". I would also do away with the entire winery area .. and configure a way to get no less than 2 new attractions sitting against Grizzly River Run. But of all my gripes about DCA .. the ONE BIG KAHOONA that has been my biggest gripe here at LP .. is Grizzly River Run. No capital investment should ever take place in rides that are limited to time of day, and season. Because Grizzly River Run was designed to get you from moderately to very wet .... the ride is often baren of people after dark .. cooler evenings ... and rainy conditions. After all .. DCA is not built like Circus Circus Superdome in Las Vegas. The first thing I would do would do is re-engineer it so the splashing into the boat is minimal. And when it gets to be summer .. they can crank it up. I believe Splash Mountain in Tokyo Disneyland is built with technology to control the amount of splashing. And not only should the ride be elevated to "E Ticket" status with AAs and some cool "show" scenes ... but with the Mondavi restaurant against the east wall of the ride ... I always though how cool it would have been if Disney did a "Blue Bayou/PotC" layout ... with table service looking down on to the ride .. through a darkened tunnel area with some mood setting lights. I never liked how these two entities were not "married" .. with such great examples like the Blue Bayou in place since 1967. But then again .... we all know not much thought was given into this place since the beginning. With all the changes I'd like to see .. the two most are to get away from the "California" name in the title. And do away with almost all of Paradise Pier. The lake in the center does take up an AWWFUL lot of space. Space that could go to something else. DCA is so pinned in with the GCH against the north/west corner .. this second gate needs all the space it needs for rides.
Originally Posted By Brick-N-Mortar oc_dean, your post shows great insight and clever solutions. I especially like your ideas regarding River Run and the Mondavi Restaurant.
Originally Posted By disneywatcher >> And do away with almost all of Paradise Pier. << Pack it up and dump it on Michael Eisner's front yard.
Originally Posted By Rivkah86 < I especially like your ideas regarding River Run and the Mondavi Restaurant.> Me too. Very cool idea.
Originally Posted By dr jones With a lot of great ideas being posted on how to fix DCA, does anyone think there is a place in our new hypothetical park design for a straight up roller coaster like screamin'? if there is... What if the ride was totally reconfigured to opperate in "reverse"? that is have the ride start out as a slow moving dark ride and head directly into a show building. Then the story could progress so that the final outcome is the ride finishing the way it now begins. Only now you would be accelerating foward and up in total darkness and or lighting and effects relevant to the story/theme. I realize this would require an AWFUL big show building and a lot of investment for something that IS one of the less crappy attractions in the place. [if it ain't broke?] just thinkin' though.
Originally Posted By ArchtMig I wrote the following a few days ago in preparation for posting on this topic. In light of the news about the main entryway placemaking in Al Lutz' update of today, what I wrote all seems to be a moot point to me now. It just serves to remind me of why I don't spend a lot of time engaging in "armchair imagineering". But I'll post it all anyway, if for no reason than the fact that I spent all that time to write it. I'd still rather see my "Olvera Street" solution for upgrading the main entry corridor, rather than the "Craftsman Style" solution that is detailed in Lutz' column. But I'll be happy with the craftsman style solution if they do it up right, and make it highly detailed... in other words, a Tony Baxter vision of "craftsman style", rather than a Barry Braverman vision. So here's what I wrote: *************** I don’t usually engage in “armchair imagineeringâ€, because I have no connection to the company, and nothing I say or do will actually get implemented, so why bother? I have plenty of my own work where my time and energy is more productively spent. But since you’ve asked… There are two ways I can go with this… A) Wholesale demolition of large portions of the park, and complete retheming, even to the extent of renaming the place, or B) Continued enhancements / additions here and there, with overall thematic overlays of large areas (i.e., “placemakingâ€), while leaving the infrastructure of those areas largely untouched, and leaving the “California†name and theme in place. Even though I prefer the radical approach of Option A, personally, I think that option B is the way things will eventually turn out, so I will concentrate my thoughts in that direction. Main Entrance / Esplanade area Do they even call it the “Esplanade†anymore? Whatever. Originally, this area was supposed to receive a large, sophisticated water feature / fountain, but that got cut. I would go ahead and put one in that rivals the Future World fountain at Epcot. Disney used to be the leader in cutting edge water feature technology. They let that distinction go to places like the Bellagio in Las Vegas at the same time they thought plunking down that retarded Cosmic Waves in Tomorrowland at Disneyland was “good enoughâ€. Build something spectacular between the two parks that shows the world that Disney really is a cut above other amusement park companies. Get rid of the giant “CALIFORNIA†letters in front. They always gave off the appearance of just what they are, an amateurish attempt at creativity. People can use the new fountain as the landmark by which they schedule meetings with their friends and loved ones, instead of the big “L†in “Californiaâ€. Move the ceramic tile murals out of the main entrance corridor. While beautiful, they are not in themselves engaging enough to inspire much attention or time spent by visitors. How many folks do you see standing in front of them for an hour and examining them? My point exactly. As entourage, they are colorful and well done. As a major element intended to inspire a feeling of awe and wonder and set the visitor up for the excitement that is to be found inside, they are a failure. Pull them out of the main entry corridor, and replant them along the outside edges of the park, to the left and right of the main entrance, respectively, along the southern border of the Esplanade. That’s where they belong. Not inside the gates. Rip out the squished up Golden Gate Bridge. Sell it for scrap. It won’t fit thematically with what I’d rather see in the area anyway. Rip out the long, metal roofed canopy over the main gates, too. Totally rebuild the facades of the structures to the left and right of the entryway corridor with highly detailed, well textured, dimensional building fronts evoking the Spanish era of California’s history. Use the historic “El Pueblo de La Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles, i.e., Olvera Street, as the model. That place is fantastic. A bustling little street full of action and life, with clay tiled pavement, crumbling plaster and aging timber building facades, and the kind of ancient clay tiled roofs that make the visitor wonder, “how can that roof possibly not leak like a sieve??â€. And create a new canopy structure over the main gates that’s in this same early California style, instead of the totally out of place modern looking metal canopy that looks like it would be more appropriate for a Customs checkpoint somewhere along the U.S./Mexico border. Once past the gates, vendors can line the entry corridor to the left and right as you walk in, as well as in little free standing kiosks down the middle. Large, mature trees would provide a shady canopy overhead, the occasional freestanding or wall niche water fountain would soften the sound of the area, and there would be plenty of benches and other places for sitting down. Disneyland’s Main Street USA evokes the bygone era of small town middle America. Disney MGM’s main entry recalls the Hollywood of yesteryear, or maybe the Hollywood of our dreams, but which maybe never really was. Animal Kingdom’s main entry is, like Adventureland’s, mysterious an intriguing, and invites the guest to come further and discover the adventures that await. DCA’s current entryway is hard surfaced, uninviting, harsh, and barren, with lots of concrete, cold steel, and flat, reflective surfaces. The thing Disney does best… better than any other amusement park company, is bring their guests to a place that’s exotic, or a time that is different than that which we currently know. Neither of which is what the present DCA main entry is all about. I choose the old spanish pueblo theme to transform it from a place that serves no purpose other than to rush through on your way to Soarin’ Over California, to a place that you want to sit down in and soak up the atmosphere. Sun Plaza Again, this whole area is an amateurish, low budget failure, typical of the arrogant and inept attitudes and talents of the people that were in charge of the development of DCA. It is cold, hard, unfriendly, and uninspired. Other than the fact that it is smack dab in the middle of everything else, there is simply no reason to spend any time there whatsoever. The landscape planters with their integral surrounding concrete bench seating look like the kinds of “urban renewal†fixtures that were installed in towns and cities all over America in the 1960s. This was the era when less enlightened town fathers demolished all of a downtown’s most architecturally significant buildings and replaced them with parking lots and bland, characterless storefront glass and stucco shoe box retail stores and offices. Then they closed the downtown’s main thoroughfare to auto traffic, and plunked down these DCA-like concrete planters, and turtle shaped “things†set in gravel pits that toddlers could crawl all over, and called the place a “pedestrian mallâ€. Then the same town fathers gave the go-ahead for the gigantic enclosed shopping malls to be built on the outskirts of town, and the department stores left downtown and became the “anchor tenants†of the supersized McMalls. And the downtowns withered and died, as the people found it too inconvenient to park in an open lot and walk halfway through town past all of these cold, ugly planters and such, just to support the local mom-n-pop shops that were left. And none of the buildings existed anymore as the “structures worth saving†that would later spark the “historic renewal†movement, where people actually choose the old, newly recharged downtowns as a destination for going out to dine, see a movie, or shop in a unique boutique. So now we have to rebuild that same character into our downtowns from scratch, since we tore down the buildings that matter. And it all started with the ugly concrete landscape planters of the 1960s. So why the HELL would we choose to recreate those same kinds of features in one of the most important areas in DCA??? But I digress… Rip out the entire Sun Plaza, from the concrete pathways, to the planters, to the sun-chaser heliostats that never work anymore anyway, to the stupid “what the hell were they thinking†giant sun hubcap that’s supposed to be the main entrance “weinie†theme icon for the entire park. Pack it up and ship it to: “Paul Pressler, CEO, The Gap, Inc., San Francisco, CAâ€. Then take out the crashing waves water fountain and find a place for it in the Esplanade, where it belongs. In Place of the giant hubcap, build a scaled down replica of L.A.’s downtown Union Station. This was the last of the grand old big city train stations ever built. An L.A. landmark. Its architecture fits well with that of the train depot across the plaza (where Burr-bank Ice Cream is), and it would make for a nice thematic transition to the Hollywood area to the left, and Tower of Terror beyond that. It would also be a good transition out of the old spanish stylings of the Olvera Street main entryway. Overlay the present day Orange Coast Mall themed storefronts of Greetings from California, and Enginears Toys in this same look to complement the Union Station. There was a rumor that WDI was considering some sort of “transportation†themed overlay to this area. Good. Do it. Make the Union Station be the big Icon people see at the end of the entry corridor leading up from the main gates. Inside the Union Station, have a theater that shows the Whoopi Goldberg movie. There was a rumor that they were considering doing that, too. Good. Do it. Nobody goes to see the Whoopi movie anymore anyway. But if they’d just upgrade the park so that it would actually attract visitors other than annual passholders, or folks that need to use up the DCA portion of their “two-fer†ticket before the thing expires, then maybe there would be a new audience for the film. More importantly, however, the Union Station would be the main depot for a new, San Francisco cable cars themed trolley system that circles much of DCA and ends up back at the hub, in one continuous loop. There would be lots of these trolley cars, on rails, (as are the horse drawn streetcars at Disneyland). They would be dispatched every few minutes and head down the left edge of the “performance corridor†alongside the current farm area, then make a left turn into and stop at the Pacific Wharf area. Rebuild the bridge leading to Paradise Pier, so that the trolleys can make their way in that direction. The trolley would then run through Paradise Pier, making a stop there, and continue to the current Route 66 area, and stop again where the San Francisco themed area is now. It would then continue to the Winery, with a stop there, and then the tracks would continue down the performance corridor again, only now hugging close to Grizzly Mountain. There would be stations along the way at all these stops, themed to the areas in which the stations are located. The trolley would run across the entrance to Condor Flats, and finally, it would run the circle of the hub on the side near the Olvera Street entry corridor, and make its way back to Union Station, where it started. Not only would this trolley provide a much needed parkwide transportation system, but it would also add a lot of visual flavor and movement to otherwise static parts of the park. And it would have a distinctive sound as well, from the ringing bell on each trolley car. It would be a signature DCA attraction. Maybe I'll get to the rest of the park next time.
Originally Posted By disneywatcher >> Again, this whole area is an amateurish, low budget failure, << One aspect of that area that now is almost impossible to change is the way it's pushed up awkwardly in front of the Bugs' Life building. The very fact that DCA's planners weren't able to do something as simple and obvious as look at aerial diagrams of the park and proclaim, "this layout is clumsy and must be altered!!!" is Example One Million in how truly incompetent they were. >> In Place of the giant hubcap, build a scaled down replica of L.A.’s downtown Union Station. << I wouldn't select such an option mainly because I don't think the provincial theme of DCA is worth preserving, much less re-emphasizing.
Originally Posted By Brick-N-Mortar ArchtMig, thank you for such a fascinating post, the history lesson along with made me chuckle, concrete turtles and planters and all. I too like your ideas about transportation in the park. Trolleys are a great way to see what's around you.
Originally Posted By Gardyloo The trolley transport system is a great idea. DCA desperately needs some sort of transport to get people around the park. It'd be even better if there was transport from one park to the other. Frankly my feet get tired from all that concrete slapping. Sometimes I don't even bother making the trek out to Screamin' because I've spent so much fun time walking around D-land. I wish they'd get rid of about 50% of the shopping at DCA. To me DCA feels like a theme park of shopping, fake store fronts, and food places with a few rides thrown in. If California in general is too provincial (and it probably is), why not open it up to the Pacific Rim countries, and theme some areas to that? A Great Wall of China fort? Marco Polo's Adventures? If Pacific Rim is too limiting, take people places in Europe they haven't visited. There are a LOT of anglophiles out there, surely they could theme up Jolly old England. Those are just some babbling thoughts. There's some really dumb stuff in DCA, what a waste of fabulous real estate.
Originally Posted By chrisgeraci TOT and Screamin' are fun, Hyperion always has great shows, they need to add a Rockin' Rollercoaster, leave Grizzly and tear down the rest!
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< It'd be even better if there was transport from one park to the other. >>> I think it would be great if they added a monorail station at DCA. It could replace the Golden Gate Bridge (is there room on either side of it for the full length of a station without dismantling a large building?) This would tie in perfectly with making Sunshine Plaza a transportation hub. As far as ticketing, this could be made to work by allowing entrance at the DTD station with a ticket to either park, and additionally requiring that a ticket for the park you're entering to be presented if you get off at one of the park stations. This would allow it to be used as an exit to DTD from either park, entrance from DTD to either park, transport between the parks if you had a park hopper ticket, as well as a round-trip attraction from either park. Aside from needing to build a station, the other complication that might make this impossible is capacity. When the new trains are fully operational and properly maintained such that they can run at full capacity, and with the new signaling system that might allow the trains to get closer to each other and/or run automatically, I wonder how the maximum hourly capacity would relate to demand.
Originally Posted By dr jones Someone help me out here but, I thought for sure I saw a Monorail track going across the Golden Gate Bridge. am I wrong?
Originally Posted By Darkbeer ^ Yes, currently the shuttle mode of the Monorail runs from the Tomorrowland Station to Downtown Disney through DCA for both directions for the trip. It does not currently go over the Sub Lagoon due to the construction. The Monorail is scheduled to stop running after Labor Day for two reasons, the main reason is to work on the Tomorrowland Station, and the Sub Lagoon loading station below it. This will require that the Monorail is closed until sometime in 2007. At the same time, they can remove any cosmetic additions, such as the Golden Gate Bridge in DCA, and replace it with something else, without worry of interrupting the Monorail system.
Originally Posted By Gardyloo I may be in the minority, but I like the Golden Gate Bridge in DCA. I think it's kinda cool, and the monorail going across serves as a bit of a tweak to those folks in Marin county who didn't want to pay the 1/2% sales tax for BART (SF joke there) On the other hand, a station on/near the GG bridge makes sense. It'd also let folks near the entrance get deeper into Disneyland faster. As far as tickets go, just make them all parkhoppers, then it won't matter which one they use. As Superdry mentioned, I think the biggest impact would be capacity. The monorail would get a LOT more use, and it's been jam packed every time I've ridden it the last several years. Then should they expand the monorail into a figure 8 pattern with another station back near Screamin'? Is that feasible?
