A New Disney Theme Park Resort (Open Brainstorming)

[Darth_Disney]

The two sides of armchair Imagineering are refurbishing our favorite real-world parks, and creating entirely new ones in our minds. I have been thinking about the distant future, probably not until 2025 at the very earliest, when Disney expands post-Shanghai. This thread will not be about the practicality of the ideas, but a Blue-Sky sort of creation of a Disney resort with probably 2-3 parks, shopping, dining, etc. While the location is not necessarily important, I think Mexico City, Mumbai, Singapore, Sydney, Sao Paulo or Dubai might be interesting locations. All in all, I don't think we should get caught up in real-world issues and just imagine a fantastic place.

My plan is to include:

-Disneyland Park
-Second gate
-Possibly third gate?
-A themed shopping/dining district
-6-10 Hotels
-Campground (including convention center)
-Possibly golf course?
-Monorail
-Central Lagoon for Lake transport to all parts of the resort

 

[Brer Panther]

I'd like to help!

 

[TheKarnivalKid]

Just some simple ideas I would like to throw out. The resort could be shaped like Mickey's head (A central lake with two parks as the ears). The second gate should be DisneySea meets Animal Kingdom (in my opinion). I am excited to see where this goes and would love to help when I can!

 

[RMichael21]

While the location is not necessarily important, I think Mexico City, Mumbai, Singapore, Sydney, Sao Paulo or Dubai might be interesting locations. All in all, I don't think we should get caught up in real-world issues and just imagine a fantastic place.

While some of these locations are interesting and I understand you don't want to focus on the location, I feel out of these options, Sydney would be best. It brings a whole new demographic to the table and could be a great source of revenue for the company.

 

[Wikkler]

I think a second gate would be more successful if it contained the non-original Disney properties.

Ex: Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel

 

[Wikkler]

But a biological third gate could work.

 

[Twilight_Roxas]

Sydney Disneysea nice.

 

[Darth_Disney]

I like the suggestion of having the two parks placed to make a Mickey shape. Also, for practical reasons, two parks that are very close to each other, a la Paris or Anaheim, would be less of a headache then Tokyo or Orlando's layouts, which make it hard to walk between the parks. Also, I want a circular resort design, as that would make everything accessible and simple on one monorail line that circles the shore of the central lake. Sort of like this (please excuse me, its a rough mockup):

The black circle is the monorail line.

Note: I dont know what the thing in the bottom-right corner is, but I really wanted it to look like Mickey, and I really wanted the two parks close together.

 

[Twilight_Roxas]

What do you think of Sydney Disneysea?

 

[TheKarnivalKid]

if you can't figure out what to do with the mickey nose area, you could just make it the monorail circle loop with the two parks as ears and go for a simpler shape/layout

 

[Wikkler]

3rd gate?

 

[Darth_Disney]

The reason I placed the weird nose-shaped region is because I wanted the two parks to be in close walking distance. Also, on the subject of a third gate, I didn't mark it on the map, but there would be room for that as well.

EDIT: I'm afraid this thread may be dying! If that is so, i'm not gonna beat it to death. But is anybody still interested?

 

[orlando678-]

I'm very interested still.

sorry for the late comment

 

[Darth_Disney]

Great! I was afraid this was going nowhere, but I now think that we should work on the Castle Park, which we'll just call Disneyland Park. I do want to make it unique and interesting, but I think the general idea of the traditional lands should be kept.

Main Street, U.S.A.
For the theme, we could do one of a few things:

Victorian
Edwardian
Jazz Age
Something along the lines of Paris
Something that hasn't been thought of before

For the layout, I was thinking of a cross shape, similar to Tokyo in a way. In Town Square, the two "dead-ends" that exist in most Main Streets would actually lead to the two lands adjacent. I think that this would make traffic flow easier. Speaking of traffic flow, I also would like something akin to Paris' Arcades that lead from Town Square to the Hub. This is a great idea, regardless of weather, because moving around during parades or at closing time can be a mess in Main Street.

Frontierland
For Frontierland (it doesn't necessarily have to be called that), I've always wanted to do something that gets away from the "Wild West" tropes of the Southwest. Some thoughts for a theme are:

Keep the "Old West"
Pacific Northwest
Old South (Splash Mountain?)

Adventureland
Adventureland, to me, has always had the most potential. I think a large Adventureland, a la Paris or Hong Kong, with a significant water feature, is much more dynamic and interesting. The contents of Adventureland could really be anything, but I think some musts are:

Indiana Jones (possibly a stunt show)
Pirates
Aladdin
non-IP (Jungle Cruise, new original ideas)
Possibly lesser IP (Jungle Book, Emperor's New Groove, Up)

Fantasyland
While I normally advocate a balance of Disney characters and original content, I think Fantasyland should be made of several sub-lands dedicated to individual stories. Think New Fantasyland in Magic Kingdom. The way that the sub-lands, especially Beauty and the Beast, give a sense of place and great depth, is simply amazing to me. It makes the area feel massive, and I think that a "Fantasy Forest" concept would be the best way to go. Of course, a medieval village could hold some attractions around the castle. Speaking of which, I don't know really where to go with the castle. Any ideas?

Tomorrowland/Discoveryland
I think that the most spectacular "Tomorrowland" is, by far, Paris' Discoveryland. The idea is that each attraction or sub-land is representative of a work of science fiction or retro-futurism that shows what tomorrow looked like to the people of the past. This, to me, mostly solves the so-called "Tomorrowland problem" of trying to keep up with science, while still having a clear aesthetic that runs throughout the land. For these reasons, I think that a "Discoveryland" would be a better choice than a traditional "Tomorrowland."

 

[orlando678-]

Great ideas you have!

For main street I think it would be great if it were like Tokyo. It would be fun to see in the sidestreet you're walking into, to which land you are walking. Like for example when you walk to tomorrowland, you see like an inventor's workshop or when you walk to adventureland, you see a shop that belongs to a world traveler.

Frontierland: for me you can choose either the serious way( Paris) or the jolly way ( tokyo, hong kong, anaheim, orlando)

What you see in Paris is that they really focus on history and the story in whole frontierland. There's no splash mountain, no critters, no country bears. Just PM, BTMR, MTRB and a Pocahontas walkthrough. Of course with this choice you can do lots of things as the Lone Ranger, a shooter ride maybe, a carriage ride and so on.

With the other more jolly choice you can do lots more but this could make it a bit messy. What I'd love to see is Big thunder mountain( or a new mountain coaster), splash mountain and two other critter country like rides, something Pocahontas, something old frontier nature like the old journey into nature's wonderland and something uniques. I want a Frontierland that spots higher than the others. I think tokyo did a very good job but in other parks you just see 2 or 3 rides in frontierland like its less important.

For Adventureland you have the choice with what you want to do. I personally would think about the possibilities of the second gate. If your second gate would include a polynesian area or an arabian area then you know that you can use the others for Adventureland. You might even consider Peter Pan or dinosaurs for this Adventureland. Pirates of the Caribbean deserves more than it has. Sure Shanghai is doing a great job but in the end I'm quite unsure about the worth of it. How about a splash battle in a pirate lagoon, the pirate ride, the pirate boy makeover thing and one small ride as the legend of captain jack sparrow. Indiana Jones isn't used very often in Adventureland, only in Anaheim and Paris. The possibilities are big, but again mind the second gate. It would be cool to see a new Adventureland where we base it on South and Central America for example Raging spirits and so, though I also like the original Adventureland themes.

For Fantasyland I have the complete same opinion as you. You already see it a bit with Shanghai but if we had something like a large Storybookland, that would be great. For the castle you can choose three things:
- a copy of a princess castle
- a bit the samee as the Shanghai castle because you want a different Fantasyland area
- something completely different

I'd go for a mix of choice 2 and 3.

Then Tomorrowland.

This land for me is more future like. You can of course take the Discoveryland theme but don't make the mistake as Paris did and just put Tomorrowland attractions in Discoveryland. the only rides that actually fit there are the nautilus, space mountain and the orbitron. Star tours, Buzz and autopia don't have a lot to do with Discovery at all. Again mind the second gate. If you would like to make a kind of Discovery island in a second gate, then make a tomorrowland here. I like Tokyo's take on it a lot and I'm curious about Shanghai's.

At last I think a Disneyland park should at least have two extra lands or areas that people can visit in the park excluding the four general lands. Don't take this cheap by making critter country, which is basically frontierland or just a land based on one movie that fits in one land already like making arendelle behind fantasyland and saying that it is another land and please no copies especially not of Toy Story playland. Hong kong, Paris, Shanghai and maybe even Orlando is getting this land. If you'd take another theme for it then I'm fine with it but not a complete copy again. Maybe something like pixarland( unless you wanted to make a park about different disney companies as tim burton, lucas,pixar etc) or so. I hope this helps you a bit

 

[Darth_Disney]

I think that the idea of an adventurer's shop/inventor's shop, etc. in Main Street is fantastic. For Frontierland, I favor the more serious, Paris-esque aesthetic. A fleshed-out backstory and connected attractions, the whole nine yards. (Note: I want to keep the quasi-tradition of the Haunted Mansion being in a different land for every park. My thoughts are geared towards either Main Street or Adventureland.) Speaking of Adventureland, I do realize that some exotic locales appropriate for Adventureland might be suited to a second gate (Which makes me think that we should at least decide on a theme for a second gate. I really don't think we should even worry about a third at this point.) Adventureland, to me, is most effective when it explores several separate locales. Glad we agree on Fantasyland. Also, for Discoveryland, I want to avoid any attractions that do not fit its theme. No Buzz, Star Wars (I'm thinking second gate), Marvel, etc.

In general, I want to capture the best of each park: the intimacy and charm of Hong Kong and Disneyland, (as well as the attraction count of Disneyland), the grandeur of the Magic Kingdom, the elegance and sheer beauty of Paris, and the spectacular maintenance of Tokyo, along with its great unique attractions.

I think we should work land-by-land, rather than holistically, while still keeping in mind the sense of the entire park. Given that, we should begin with Main Street (as well as the hub and maybe the castle.)
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Main Street

My fleshed-out plan for Main Street would be to have sort of a mix between 1920's and Victorian; that is, there would be unified, transitional Victorian architecture throughout, but one side (the side nearest Discoveryland) would be more modernized and Jazzy, while the other, nearest Frontierland (I'm thinking of using Paris' layout, roughly), would be more rustic and Victorian. A compromise between the excitement of the 20's and the charm of the Victorian age.

For attractions, I think that, of course, barber shop, vehicles, train depot...the traditional things. However, on one side, I would like an electric railway that runs through the sidestreet and the arcade. Not necessarily visible for most of the length of Main Street, because that would be distracting, I think.

I don't think we need to worry about shops, restaurants.

The hub should be circular and tree-lined, like the traditional Disneylands. I do want the entrances to the lands, however, to be more spread-out. Especially in Anaheim, the lands are crowding in on the peacefulness of the Hub. Also, I love the idea that Paris has of moving the Plaza stage over so that its not in the way of the bridge.

 

[orlando678-]

I really like your ideas here. Is there going to be a meet and greet building or gallery here on Main street. also I am very happy to hear about the electrical railway. Do you think it would be cool to have this electrical railway connected to Discoveryland, because of theming?

 

[Darth_Disney]

I think that there should be a meet-and-greet area. My thought is that the more modern side would have a Broadway theater, and there would be a "backstage" area for meet-and-greets.

Also, I love that idea with the railway. One station in Main Street and the other end of the line in Discoveryland. That would be awesome! I think I'll start work on a map for Main Street.

I was thinking of having something similar to the Swan Boats that used to run in the Magic Kingdom. I have never experienced them, but they seem like a fun idea.

 

[orlando678-]

The Swan Boats would be really cool. Maybe if there's something in Fantasyland, that it can dock there as well or it would be just a tour around the park.

 

[Darth_Disney]

My idea is that the Swan Boats embark in the Central Plaza. They go past the entrance to Discoveryland, then under the bridge coming from Main Street, then past the entrance to Frontierland, past the entrance to Adventureland, then, as it comes toward the castle, enters the castle lagoon. From there, it goes into a cave or grotto under the castle, past a few indoor scenes, and then back out. Sort of like this: