Best domestic Disney park?

[Dear Prudence]

DCA is a solid park imo, not an all day park, but a great sister park to DL. The Soarin'/Grizzly River/Trails area is great with lots of trees/shade and ambience. Pixar pier is cool and has a lot of neat attractions like Incredicoaster, which is a great coaster despite the theming, Little Mermaid is a good omnimover dark ride that usually has a 10 minute or less wait, TSMM is solid, the ferris wheels is really tall, you can see both parks from the top, and a bunch of good food. Speaking of good food, the Wine Country and Wharf areas area great for food. So much different food, and the bread factory and chocolate factory are cool too. Then you get to Cars land, the pinnacle of CA. Its really good and I dont even like Cars IP. The rides, theming, food...all great. AC is awesome if you like to see avengers walking/acting around the area. So many characters putting on shows and saying hi, lost of live action. The spiderman and Gaurdians rides are both good as well, cant wait for the phase 2 expansion. Then theres the hollywoodland/monster inc area....that area sucks and will be demolished sooner than later once they announce the Eastern Gateway Parking and pedestrian bridge project.. Anyways, thats my CA rant

DCA is a one day park for me because I cannot ride most of it has because of Vertigo, but there are parts of that park cannot live without and I cannot go to Disney without seeing. But, everything else about this, you have nailed it.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

My appreciation for Magic Kingdom's design continues to grow, and I really enjoyed just being there the other day in a way that I really haven't in the past. I especially love their Adventureland, as it's such a different take and feel vs. the others.

I always end up spending more time in MK's Adventureland than I plan to. It's especially nice at night, and my last visit was my first time dining at Skipper Canteen too, which looks great on the inside and the servers are funny.

 

[October82]

To me its a few good rides and a few good lands (Grizzly Area, some of Cars Land), in a GIANT foot print. So much walking for so little to do.

A reminder of how poorly the money spent on Pixar Pier/GotG/Avengers Campus has been. It would have been wiser to add density by filling in the Paradise Pier expansion pads and Hollywoodland sound stages.

 

[TP2000]

There's technically a fifth show that's in the same theater in France, but I wouldn't count it.

I'm dying to know what you are talking about. It sounds... subversive. And I like that.

 

[TP2000]

A reminder of how poorly the money spent on Pixar Pier/GotG/Avengers Campus has been. It would have been wiser to add density by filling in the Paradise Pier expansion pads and Hollywoodland sound stages.

10 years ago with Tom Staggs and George Kalogridis in charge, the duo who brought us Cars Land, I would have agreed with you.

But now in the 2020's? No thanks. Chapek can just leave all those expansion pads alone.

I wrote that first sentence and thought "What's missing?". Then it hit me. John Lassetter. Oops!

 

[Centauri Space Station]

I'm dying to know what you are talking about. It sounds... subversive. And I like that.

Beauty and the Beast Singalong

 

[DLR92]

Paradise Pier has expansion pads? The only spot I feel Disney can change is the Goofy Sky School area.

 

[October82]

Paradise Pier has expansion pads? The only spot I feel Disney can change is the Goofy Sky School area.

There are also expansion pads behind California Scre- I mean, the Incredicoaster.

 

[TP2000]

Beauty and the Beast Singalong

Oh, shoot.

I don't know why, but I thought it was going to be something weird and embarassing.

KiteTails has obviously scrambled my brain.

 

[DLR92]

There are also expansion pads behind California Scre- I mean, the Incredicoaster.

I hope disney consider some more dark rides in the area!

 

[TP2000]

Paradise Pier has expansion pads? The only spot I feel Disney can change is the Goofy Sky School area.

There's actually a huge amount of space behind Screamin'. Enough for two (2) ride buildings the size of Radiator Springs Racers. Plus here have been on-and-off again plans to add an additional spinner ride to the eastern helix of Screamin', as it was designed for.

Here's the backstage area of Pixar Pier. The 1 noted here is the massive expansion pad that is roughly double the size of Radiator Springs Racers, and the 2 is the eastern helix designed to hold a spinner. I've outline Midway Mania in blue as a point of reference.

 

[shambolicdefending]

There's actually a huge amount of space behind Screamin'. Enough for two (2) ride buildings the size of Radiator Springs Racers. Plus here have been on-and-off again plans to add an additional spinner ride to the eastern helix of Screamin', as it was designed for.

Here's the backstage area of Pixar Pier. The 1 noted here is the massive expansion pad that is roughly double the size of Radiator Springs Racers, and the 2 is the eastern helix designed to hold a spinner. I've outline Midway Mania in blue as a point of reference.

View attachment 593688

How much of the first pad is necessary backstage infrastructure?

 

[October82]

How much of the first pad is necessary backstage infrastructure?

I don't think any of it needs to be located in that area. The three buildings are Parade Building #1, Central Maintenance for DCA, and an outdoor vending warehouse. There is a second parade building, located behind the Incredicoaster's east helix, which probably makes parade building #1 redundant. The other two facilities seem like they could be moved off site or downsized.

 

[TP2000]

How much of the first pad is necessary backstage infrastructure?

Absolutely none of it.

It can all be moved to a different Anaheim site, rearranged, added back into new construction, moved off-property to Garden Grove or Orange or Corona, and/or simply destroyed with no replacement.

As an example; Star Wars Land construction circa 2015-2019.

 

[TP2000]

One nice thing about Star Wars Land is that it showed how you really can do anything.

I remember here about a decade ago, there was a young CM poster (I honestly forget his name) who had worked at Disneyland for a couple years and thus felt he was an "expert" in the grand tradition of "experts" everywhere in our lives today. In short, he was clueless.

When they were building the Main Street USA bypass and redoing First Aid near there, he once argued vehemently that you couldn't expand any further closer to Space Mountain because there was a shed back there where they washed the 3D glasses for the entire Resort. Also there was a break room. And he was absolutely certain that there was no way to move that 3D glasses washer and TDA would never go to the expense of redesigning the break room! It will never happen! It's impossible!

Ah, youth. And also "experts"...

 

[J4546]

There's actually a huge amount of space behind Screamin'. Enough for two (2) ride buildings the size of Radiator Springs Racers. Plus here have been on-and-off again plans to add an additional spinner ride to the eastern helix of Screamin', as it was designed for.

Here's the backstage area of Pixar Pier. The 1 noted here is the massive expansion pad that is roughly double the size of Radiator Springs Racers, and the 2 is the eastern helix designed to hold a spinner. I've outline Midway Mania in blue as a point of reference.

View attachment 593688

that area #1 is not quite 2 times the size of the ride building for RSR and RSR as a whole is 2 times the size of that area. But it is a large enough area for an incredible dark ride if they go that route

 

[Too Many Hats]

You'd love Tokyo Disneyland. It's a weird hybrid with walkways and plazas that are even more spread out and accomodating than Magic Kingdom Park, yet packed with rides and shows almost to the level of Disneyland USA.

But the maintenance and upkeep in Tokyo absolutely blows the American parks out of the water. Add on a level of CM sharp professionalism, perfect grooming, and graciousness that no lazy American CM could ever begin to approach, and it takes the "Disney theme park" experience to an entirely different place.

I hope to get to Tokyo Disneyland within the next year or two. Looks like an absolutely fantastic resort.

But I'm kind of fascinated by the walkways at their castle park (or, you know, what I've seen on Google Maps). Is it possible the park's walkways are... too wide and accommodating? Perhaps it's the bright colors that are stressing me out. Or the lack of crowds in these images. Or maybe there's just something strange about seeing familiar buildings in a different setting.

I'm particularly unnerved by the New Orleans Square with no river/water in sight.

And the Haunted Mansion that's just sort of... there.

To be clear, this curiosity of mine does not extend to DisneySea (which looks to be the most meticulously designed Disney park, by anyone's standard).

 

[J4546]

yeah i think disneyland looks a bit worse than disneysea as well. It also has a weird railroad that only goest around half the park....kind of a meh castle park. But the disneysea park nextdoor is next level

 

[Too Many Hats]

Don't get me wrong, I think it looks like an outstanding park. I'm just curious about some of those walkways!

In addition to all the wonderful things I've heard about cleanliness, customer service, and the price of admission, the park seems to have a great attraction lineup (Pooh's Hunny Hunt, the long version of Pirates, the MK version of Haunted Mansion, Monsters Inc. Ride & Go Seek, a supposedly better-maintained Roger Rabbit, what appears to be the ultimate realization of Splash Mountain).

 

[BasiltheBatLord]

I hope to get to Tokyo Disneyland within the next year or two. Looks like an absolutely fantastic resort.

But I'm kind of fascinated by the walkways at their castle park (or, you know, what I've seen on Google Maps). Is it possible the park's walkways are... too wide and accommodating? Perhaps it's the bright colors that are stressing me out. Or the lack of crowds in these images. Or maybe there's just something strange about seeing familiar buildings in a different setting.

View attachment 593743

I'm particularly unnerved by the New Orleans Square with no river/water in sight.

View attachment 593744

And the Haunted Mansion that's just sort of... there.

View attachment 593745

To be clear, this curiosity of mine does not extend to DisneySea (which looks to be the most meticulously designed Disney park, by anyone's standard).

Yeah one of TDL's biggest weaknesses is that the design of its original lands is honestly kind of terrible The separate theming between lands is basically only signaled by the generic looking concrete changing color and the music loop (which btw, the music loops at TDL are a lot shorter than other parks, as a result you hear a lot of repeating music through the day)

I've said many times before that I find DisneySea to be an overrated park, but I won't re-litigate that here. No doubt it is one of the best aesthetically speaking though.