A First Timer’s Review of California Adventure
Despite visiting Disneyland multiple times, I had not visited Disney California Adventure until recently. I found this historic and romanticized version of California to be a theme park gem, despite its horrendous past. I liked this park because of its wide assortment of attractions, its great environment, delectable food and nighttime atmosphere. I will be going through each of these lands clockwise from the entrance (but I will group Grizzly peak with Pacific Wharf and the Wine terrace, and Pixar Pier with Paradise Gardens Park).
Buena Vista Street
Although I was not expecting too much from this land, I was easily lost in this are during the afternoon as I found this historic version of Los Angeles in the 1920s to be a very nice opening land for a park dedicated to California, and is far nicer than many of the areas I have been to in modern LA. I loved this area’s shops for their retro vibe, its instrumental jazz background music, and how this place authentically recreated the lost world of 1920s LA. And even though the Red Car was not running when I was there, I certainly loved a photo from the period of a red car crossing a street. This land also has quite the emphasis on Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (love his sundae), an early character of Walt’s who was taken from him by Universal who distributed his Oswald cartoons. Many tributes to Oswald can be found in the land, so much so I dare say that Oswald is the mascot of this area.
Hollywood Land
I knew early on that this land was originally supposed to be a set of Hollywood in the original DCA, and I was expecting that because I heard the 2012 makeover didn’t do too much to this area, but I liked this area more than I thought I would. Mickey’s Philharmagic that plays there is a great place to get off your feet and into the AC during a hot summer day, and many other nice areas to sit down in the shade. The area has a nice atmosphere that feels like Hollywood during the 30s, but I would love this area to have its own E-ticket, now that Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout! has been “moved” to Avengers Campus.
Avengers Campus
After the initial craze over this area, and the massive marketing campaign for it, I decided that this tiny area is the largest cop out in Disney parks in the last decade for its unimaginative architecture, its lousy environment, and will we please have something better than Web-slingers? The only thing that is great there is the Guardians ride, which I find to be quite good though I wish the show scenes would be longer. Web-Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure is a cheap cop out, despite its new technology, feels like an updated version of Toy Story: Midway Mania! that feels even more like a video game than the 14 year old attraction. WS lacks emotional depth, and its story feels like something I could’ve concocted in less than ten seconds. The land itself lacks emotion as well, as this is the only land where I have felt no sort of emotional depth, even though the area has some of my favorite Marvel characters. The campus doesn’t feel good because it does not take you anywhere special, like Wakanda or Asgard, instead leaving the guests in modern day California to enjoy a glorified meet and greet, which looks and feels like an office complex.
Cars Land
As a child, my favorite Disney film was Cars. I expected Cars land to be the best thing at DCA because of great reviews. This land exceeded all of my expectations because of its painstaking attention to how Radiator Springs is laid out, the gigantic rockwork (the largest of any at a US Disney theme park), its many references to the Cars cartoons, and its vibrant neon which brings the land to life. The main attraction, Radiator Springs Racers, is a storytelling masterpiece, for its effective use of an original storyline and elements from the movie and animatronics which bring the characters from the film to life (Dadgum!). I cite this ride as the park’s “thesis” attraction, meaning that this ride represents what the park is about as a whole. Now before you start saying that Radiator Springs is a town in Arizona, I have taken many road trips through the Californian desert, and the queue for Racers feels a lot like one of the places that I would have passed through in the desert, because of its wide variety of desert life and the “abandoned” buildings which appear as if pulled from a ghost town on the interstate. Moreover, this land feels like a smaller and more charming version of a place like Bakersfield, San Bernardino, or Barstow because of the architecture and the desert environment, complete with sand. The land really comes to life at night, with its neon lighting, and the “Sh-Boom” moment, where the neon is lit to the sound of the film’s doo-wop song. It’s quite the way to end a day here at the park, especially if you’ve seen and enjoyed Cars.
Pixar Pier and Paradise Gardens Park
While I am not a fan of amusement park style areas at Disney parks (Dinoland), I liked this area because of its Victorian aesthetic, and because it is home to the best food in the park in my opinion. Toy Story Midway Mania! fits perfectly into the Victorian aesthetic of the area, and even though the technology is very old, this ride is a lot more fun than Web-Slingers because it appears more work was put into the details leading up to the screen section of the ride and makes far better use by having the main characters from the films it’s based on in the ride front and center. However, the Incredicoaster looked like a cheap overlay, but the roller coaster contained enough thrills to keep me from feeling repulsed by the hilariously cheap looking mannequins of the Incredibles. The land also fails to properly block out the outside world because if you stand in certain areas of the land, you can see parts of the outside world such as buildings and telephone lines. Despite all of this, the land has some of the best food in the entire park such as the food at Lamplight Lounge’s Boardwalk dining and Adorable Snowman lemon soft serve ice cream which is this park’s is equivalent of the dole whip, or the citrus swirl, which I like because of its strong lemon flavor.
Grizzly Peak, Pacific Wharf, and Wine Country Trattoria
Grizzly Peak is an area meant to look like a national forest, such as Big Sur, during the 1950s. The area is home to an exclusive entrance for Disney’s Grand Californian Lodge, Grizzly Rapids, and Soarin’ Around the World. This area is nicely forested, and has some references to the time period (1950s) it is located in. Further down is the Wine Country Trattoria, which is home to a Sonoma-looking winery, but is still good for everyone in the family because it has lots of seating and is centrally located. Pacific Wharf is a nice area, with a diverse array of food from American-Chinese, to Mexican, to food that may be found on a Northern Californian wharf such as chowder and San Francisco’s Ghirardelli's.
Overall, I give Disney California Adventure Park a 94% for its great environment, eclectic assortment of attractions, great nighttime, and food. Even though there are a few things that are not very good, they can be easily ignored. The next time DCA has a new great attraction, I will be coming back to see what magic Imagineering has cooked up this time.
