Californian Elitist
Well-Known Member
Yes, Disneyland needs its monorail, for historical reasons alone.
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Does Disneyland need a monorail...
- Thread starter J4546
- Start date
Brer Panther
Well-Known Member
Ya know, it's so jarring to me that Disneyland's monorail boards in Tomorrowland... I'm so used to how at the Magic Kingdom, it boards at the park's entrance...
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
Agree with this. I’ve been armchair imagineering expanded Fantayslands at DL for years now. I’ve seen enough new FL rides around the world now to know that ....
Wouldn’t be worth whatever is sacrificed at DL especially under the current regimes execution.
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
I kind of like the idea of the train taking center stage at the front of the park.
Little Green Men
Well-Known Member
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
To be honest, I've never actually noticed the Fun Wheel from the DL Monorail. I'm sure you can see it, but my eye's never been drawn to it.
But what strikes me as funny is that there are so many people who go on and on about how WDW is better because of the Disney Bubble and the separation from real world...but now there's a gigantic ferris wheel from off-property clearly visible on the approach to the Contemporary! And unlike the Disneyland Monorail, there's very little else drawing your eye at that moment of the beam, so it is quite blatant-especially at night!
It pops the Disney bubble!
Not that it's Disney's fault, really, but it just strikes me as funny. Somehow it never comes up when people talk about that WDW bubble. I guess they're heads are conveniently tilted the other direction every time they experience that part of the journey.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
You can't see the Fun Wheel from the monorail, not even if you stood up and tried really hard. It's entirely obscured by many layers of DCA.
It was just @GrandCanyonConcourse ribbing the Disneyland gang, and I have to admit it was a hysterical rib!
TP2000
Well-Known Member
I particularly love it when the Monorail captain blows that giant air horn as he passes the main entrance.
That air horn on the Disneyland monorail means business. Especially if there's ducks on the track.
josephinelcajon
Member
I do not think it takes up a lot of room and should be expanded especially if there is ever another park
BalooChicago
Well-Known Member
My first trip to DL wasn’t until six years ago (done WDW every other year my whole life). The area where the monorail wraps through autopia is one of my favorite parts of the park, and a great example of how the “condensed” nature of DL is so charming. I mean you have steam trains, cars, submarines, monorails, and a peoplemover (RIP) all intertwined! The area could use some maintenance - the overgrown peoplemover tracks are just sad. I overheard people trying to figure out what they were on my last two trips while waiting for the monorail. I wish they’d at least put something on the track - even if people couldn’t ride them - a futuristic minirail running around would be cool.
Stevek
Well-Known Member
I particularly love it when the Monorail captain blows that giant air horn as he passes the main entrance.
That air horn on the Disneyland monorail means business. Especially if there's ducks on the track.
I need a monorail horn for my car
1HAPPYGHOSTHOST
Well-Known Member
Perfectly saidThis is an interesting question, one I don't think we've truly discussed.
Yes, it needs a Monorail. If anything, it needs a slightly revised/expanded Monorail track that has a station at the Grand Californian and a station further west into the Disneyland Hotel complex. Or whatever the Disneyland Hotel complex looks like or is called by 2030.
What it doesn't really need is the spaghetti bowl of twisting track over Tomorrowland and Fantasyland. That was only there because it was the Monorail from 1959 to 1961, before it was expanded out to the Hotel in the summer of '61. You just gave up an E Ticket and boarded a Monorail train for what was basically a giant figure 8 looping course to nowhere.
The novelty of riding the Monorail as an E Ticket attraction is negligible in the 21st century. And not because Monorails actually happened in this future as they thought they would in the 1960's and we take tail-finned monorails to work every day. But because Disneyland now has dozens of better and more exciting rides than a Monorail.
But to function as a Resort in the 21st century, and a Disney branded Resort at that with Disney prices, you need a monorail. It's just part of the experience, whether the bean counters and Bob Chapek like it or not.
Expand the monorail beyond its two current stations? Yes Please!
Maybe streamline/remove the track inside the berm if it allows for quality Fantasyland expansion? Sure!
But get rid of the monorail entirely and still try and call the place Disneyland USA? Not on your life.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
The way that section of the park, which is perhaps at least 20% of park acreage, has been maintained and operated for the past 25 years is truly criminal.
Disneyland has been operating that big chunk of the park as if they are a cut-rate amusement park who can't get a loan from the bank to add new rides to that area.
But in the 20th century, it was really something! There were seven (7!) different attractions designed into that space, all intertwined and operating daily; Skyway, PeopleMover, Motorboat Cruise, Autopia, Submarine Voyage, Monorail, Disneyland Railroad.
Disney Irish
Premium Member
To weigh in here:
Does Disneyland Resort need a monorail, yes. Does Disneyland Resort need the current monorail in its current configuration, no.
I'm all for the reconfiguration and in some places expansion of the monorail all for the betterment of Disneyland Resort.
Does Disneyland Resort need a monorail, yes. Does Disneyland Resort need the current monorail in its current configuration, no.
I'm all for the reconfiguration and in some places expansion of the monorail all for the betterment of Disneyland Resort.
im bored as hell so making terrible rough drafts using ms paint and google maps.... Imagine the paradise pier hotel lot expanded onto with an Endor Themed land. I used google maps to cut and paste the hagrid motorbike and harry potter forbidden journey rides as examples of what you could fit in their and they both fit pretty perfectly in the space! Obviously they would not harry potter ride...the motorbike would be an endor speederbike themed coaster, im just using them to show whats possible in the space. I put the monorail station in there as well, with a yellow line that connects to the existing line going through Grand CAlifornian. (the entire monorail system is redone, new station in ednor, station that drops you off at entrances to park, and station in galaxies edge expansion) the rest (gray area is still in development but what I want is A Shanghai Camp Discovery like experience but instead of mountain climbing, its climbing up into the trees and bridges that are suspended in the air all over the land...like a whole other experience in the air where you can look over the park and explore the tree...imagine Tarzans treehouse combined with Camp Discovery but on steroids covering a large porting of the entire land. The entire land is covered in trees and shaded, super green zone. The orange rectangles are bridges into the land, one from CA that would require getting rid of one of the food options at CA. and one from the north parkinglot that houses the abandoned theater. That threater is gone, replaced with a nice hotel/modified disney Quest that has direct access to the park and downtown disney.
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Little Green Men
Well-Known Member
My first trip to DL was in 2006 during the Nemo Submarine Voyage refurb, so the monorail only went to the TL station instead of around the park
DrAlice
Well-Known Member
I distinctly remember my mom having a good laugh at my expense for thinking this.Wait, really? Do kids up there think that? Or was that just a young DrAlice who thought that?
For awhile I thought I was the only silly one. Later in high school, a random conversation with some friends revealed a whole bunch of us that grew up thinking the same thing!! I don't know how widespread the idea is, but I do know that there is one particular station in the East Bay that looks very much like the old "DL Hotel" monorail station used to look (before it was swallowed up by DTD). At least, it looked close enough to confuse a kid's brain.