^Thanks for asking because I've wanted to explore this...
I expected SDL Fantasyland to be a slam dunk for WDI - even better than Anaheim, Paris or MK's New Fantasyland. But as an environment or land - excluding attractions - it ends up feeling like just a "B" effort/execution. There's something off about SDL Fantasyland and I've tried to put my finger on it:
1. Hi-tech digital displays in a pre-modern thematic settings. It's a little thing, but it adds up. This is one of my biggest pet peeves and something that is overtaking all the Disney Parks lately under Bobs Weis/Chapek. It drives me nuts that from Anaheim to Paris, Disney is going into all of their pre-modern settings and taking out better-themed, analog wait-time indicators for digital backlit screens and replacing traditional menu boards with LCD televisions.
Shanghai was born in this new era and thus has all digital displays in every land:
2.
Cheap Food Photos. Another pet peeve, and another little environmental aspect that adds up - though I don't know if it's WDI or another department - is displaying modern, photoshopped pics of food inside and outside restaurants. The practice reminds me of the lowest class of fast-food or hole-in-the-wall restaurants and makes me lose my appetite. It's a worldwide issue, even at Disneysea. If food needs to be shown for ease of communication, WDI should have a full time graphic artist/illustrator who does nothing but create customized appropriate illustrations and appealing signage showing menu items.
3.
No castle wall behind facades. This is a bigger issue I noticed. The castle wall is critical to connecting all the village facades in a common space, hiding showbuildings in a believable way and adding visual layers. Shanghai is the first fantasyland to eschew the castle wall technique and create strange, lightly-themed "medieval warehouses" behind facades that have no historic precedent.
(Top: Anaheim, Bottom: Shanghai)
4.
The village area architecture is Off. Instead of organically designing new fairytale architecture for the village area (as was done well in MK's New Fantasyland or Anaheim's Fantasy Faire) and basing it on a study of the old European villages that inspired the look of Disney's fantasy aesthetic, in Shanghai they often copy & pasted facades from the existing Fantasylands in Anaheim & Hong Kong, but squashed them down in bizarre, seemingly unnecessary ways, throwing off the proportion & scale.
(Left: Anaheim, Right: Shanghai)
5. Natural Materials and Sag. The best Fantasylands (Anaheim 83 and Paris) were made of real materials: wood, brick, slate and stone. They looked fantastic up close and from afar. These days real materials are mostly given way to longer-lasting 'fake' materials and in Shanghai Fantasyland the cedar roof shakes, wooden fences, etc., look particularly synthetic - even from afar. Many facade buildings lack the natural sag and are too rigid. Materials don't look properly weathered:
(Top: Anaheim, Bottom: Shanghai)
No sag. Laser-measured eave angles at left:
6.
Placement of the big Theater. Instead of being absorbed in a castle wall showbuilding, the huge theater sits alone and towers over everything. They've themed the exterior, thankfully, but it dominates the area (and Toy Story Land) and the building isn't any kind of structure we think of in the fairytale landscape:
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8350/29653019210_72ff05f539_b.jpg
7. Interiors of places like the castle restaurant and Pinocchio Kitchen feel bright, spacy and modern, with modern accoutrements like LCD screens overpowering period features.
***
In sum, the great Fantasylands oozed old school charm and nuance. Charm and nuance are not words I would associate with SDL's fantasyland. It's not bad, it's just not nearly as great as I had hoped or it should have been given Disney's recent track record (anyone know who was the land's executive designer). This has me concerned about the HK Arendelle and Tokyo's FL Expansion - I'm hoping they are more like the recent EPCOT-Norway and Magic Kingdom fantasy environments and less like Shanghai's.
I actually like the way the Shanghai castle looks as viewed from the land. And I think the rides are for the most part on par with the others FLs (though, some corners have been cut on SDMT and Crystal Grotto could have been more by all accounts). As the trees get bigger and they fill in some pads it will hopefully make the land feel more authentic and pleasing.
