Poll: Disneyland has outgrown Sleeping Beauty Castle

[VJ]

I laid those out earlier, but I'll list them for ease.

Trees and other foreground obstructions like ODVs and Rocks block a vast majority of it from view in many viewing locations.

At the time of Disneyland's opening, the trees had not grown in and the castle functioned as an icon that oriented guests within the park. You could look at it and know how to get around the place. Every castle park has followed the hub spoke and wheel tradition, and the castles still function in this way, except for Disneyland's, which is no longer visible from within most of the park. So in this way, the castle is no longer performing its basic functions as it set out to on opening day.

Disneyland has become extremely crowded in recent years. Widening of midways is going on all over the park as well as the reconfiguring of queues for guest comfort. With a taller castle, we could create viewing areas for nighttime spectaculars in several lands, and do projections on the side and back for viewing from tomorrowland and fantasyland to better distribute crowds and ease congestion.

So... basically you want Magic Kingdom's concrete jungle of a hub?

 

[nevol]

Why does the castle need to be big anyway? I care more about being able to enter the castle by drawbridge than how big it is compared to all the other castles. Adding height is money best spent elsewhere.

Other castles have interiors that can be engaged in ways beyond just entering/passing through that are quite compelling.

 

[nevol]

So... basically you want Magic Kingdom's concrete jungle of a hub?

No. a taller castle would be visible above the trees and tree growth could continue. DLP unneccisarily has no hub foliage and a castle twice as tall which makes the hub and castle look massive. a taller castle paired with existing landscaping would be the best of both worlds IMO.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

It looks larger in these images than it does today. Tree growth?

Yup. Tree growth, photo angle and no big Fantasyland Theater tent in the background.

It doesn't need to be made physically taller. Just trim some trees and get rid of the DISNEY PRINCESS© branded colours and make it look more like Neuschwanstein again.

 

[nevol]

Yup. Tree growth, photo angle and no big Fantasyland Theater tent in the background.

It doesn't need to be made physically taller. Just trim some trees and get rid of the DISNEY PRINCESS© branded colours and make it look more like Neuschwanstein again.

And get rid of the wonder bra theater

 

[VJ]

I'm pretty sure I'm the only one, but I've always loved the pink and blue coloring of Sleeping Beauty Castle. It's the type of whimsical touch that not many people would have thought of, and it's just subtle enough that it's not immediately apparent.

 

[TROR]

I'm pretty sure I'm the only one, but I've always loved the pink and blue coloring of Sleeping Beauty Castle. It's the type of whimsical touch that not many people would have thought of, and it's just subtle enough that it's not immediately apparent.

Agreed. It really reinforces the fantasy theme.

 

[Sharon&Susan]

Other castles have interiors that can be engaged in ways beyond just entering/passing through that are quite compelling.

Doesn’t mean anything if a gaint stage is blocking the way and I have to go around and because of how there’s nothing compelling I just never go toward the castle.

 

[nevol]

Doesn’t mean anything if a gaint stage is blocking the way and I have to go around and because of how there’s nothing compelling I just never go toward the castle.

Did I say we need a castle stage filled with corny character shows? I haven't been to WDW in 14 years and I have no plans to. So, our castle won't change, and TDA will just remove all of the foliage from the hub for crowd flow and nighttime spectacular viewing. The castle might look bigger at that point but the hub less beautiful.

 

[Sharon&Susan]

Did I say we need a castle stage filled with corny character shows? I haven't been to WDW in 14 years and I have no plans to. So, our castle won't change, and TDA will just remove all of the foliage from the hub for crowd flow and nighttime spectacular viewing. The castle might look bigger at that point but the hub less beautiful.

I just really like complaining about how awful Fantasyland is at the Magic Kingdom.

 

[180º]

My answer is: Not yet.

However, there will come a day when Disneyland will have to decide between two options:

1. Retain its small scale but become extremely exclusive and drive prices WAY up

2. Extensively reconfigure itself to accommodate far more guests, far more comfortably and safely.

I think option 2 is more inline with Disneyland’s ethos. If it ever happens, SBC may be too diminutive and obscured to be enjoyed by an increased amount of guests. This is so very hypothetical but I am preparing myself for and coming to terms with the idea. I just pray that any such redesign would fall to more capable hands than those that designed Shanghai’s Enchanted Costco Castle Monster or HK’s Compensation Castle.

 

[Practical Pig]

View attachment 310895
Is this so triggering? I don't care about the tallest; but as I have laid out above, it is neither sacred nor fulfilling its functions. And in its current state, it isn't quality either. The roof and the facade walls are dented and cracked.

I've read a quote allegedly from Walt, saying that he thought they should have made the castle larger. But I can't find that quote now, and it may have been a blogger's fantasy. In any case, I think a slightly taller structure would be fine.

Of the two modified examples, I like the "soaring" version. If the existing structure needs to be rebuilt for some reason in the future, I could see that as the replacement. "Wizard's Tower" is a fail.

 

[nevol]

My answer is: Not yet.

However, there will come a day when Disneyland will have to decide between two options:

1. Retain its small scale but become extremely exclusive and drive prices WAY up

2. Extensively reconfigure itself to accommodate far more guests, far more comfortably and safely.

I think option 2 is more inline with Disneyland’s ethos. If it ever happens, SBC may be too diminutive and obscured to be enjoyed by an increased amount of guests. This is so very hypothetical but I am preparing myself for and coming to terms with the idea. I just pray that any such redesign would fall to more capable hands than those that designed Shanghai’s Enchanted Costco Castle Monster or HK’s Compensation Castle.

Very valid points! I think to manage crowds effectively going into the future, Disneyland will have to get a lot smarter about space management and consider opportunities for multi-leveling. NOS makes the best use of space, as much of the land is built atop a show building for Pirates. When Westcot was planned, and the spacestation earth was replaced with a spire, the interior square footage of future world had to go indoors, underground. The land would have gone completely underneath their downtown disney, if certain writings are to be believed. Instead, today we see grizzly peak, structurally incapable of supporting additional shows, and a hotel eating 20 percent of the park's footprint. A taller castle could allow for interior programming, and if we attempted to maintain the current castle's silhouette, the castle walls above the fantasyland dark rides too could contain guest areas with a second floor addition behind the fantasyland facades, creating a medieval walled city.

When I hear rumors about toontown replacements that include either a mickey and minnie's runaway railway or something else, I think, why not both? Have Mickey and Minnie's board below grade on the northern side of the facility, with a queue that gradually descends a half level, into a theater (because we are going into a cartoon), which by design, descends toward the screen, getting us one story below grade at time of boarding. Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the building, likely where the entrance to fantasyland theater is today on the parade route, a beast or arendalle fantasyland village facade could ascend from the existing grade, and an entirely separate dark ride could live on top. Guests would never know the two facilities were shared.

I am not saying that this particular castle example is a necessity, however, as Disneyland looks toward the future, multileveling is going to be a critical solution for its growth. Without it, we are looking at other failsafes, such as the elimination of annual passports and the increasing further of ticket prices that are already higher than Orlando's.

 

[lazyboy97o]

The argument that Disneyland's castle has to be small to fit the scale of disneyland doesn't make sense. I have heard it for a decade and I finally will explain why this is ridiculous. The castle in Paris is twice the height of Disneyland's. Orlando's is more than double. Their buildings, however, are not twice as tall as those on our main street. Their Main Street is not twice as wide as ours. The castle takes up roughly the same surface area on the ground at the end of the street, it just reaches higher into the sky so it is visible over people's heads and other obstructions like trees.

Scale is not just about direct size comparisons. It’s about proportions and how they work with each other.

Finally, the original concept artist/designer for Disneyland's castle went on to make dramatic changes to its design, more dramatic than any other subtle changes made to the magic kingdom park, when they opened their second castle park in Orlando.

Herb Ryman was also involved in the early development of the Fantasyland Castle for Euro Disneyland. Despite a Main Street of a similar scale to the Magic Kingdom, it was decided that the Euro Disneyland castle would not be as large as Cinderella Castle.

At the time of Disneyland's opening, the trees had not grown in and the castle functioned as an icon that oriented guests within the park. You could look at it and know how to get around the place. Every castle park has followed the hub spoke and wheel tradition, and the castles still function in this way, except for Disneyland's, which is no longer visible from within most of the park. So in this way, the castle is no longer performing its basic functions as it set out to on opening day.

You’re conflating Sleeping Beauty Castle with Cinderella Castle. It was the Magic Kingdom where the castle became visible throughout the park and dealing with that visual intrusion played a big role in the aesthetic differences between Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom. The obsession with the dominate visual of the castle is a more recent development that is part of the princessifaction and toddlerization of Disney’s parks into a homogeneous mass of DisneyParks.

Other castles have interiors that can be engaged in ways beyond just entering/passing through that are quite compelling.

Sleeping Beauty Castle has an interior experience, the walkthrough. The other castle have their experiences because of the success of this very experience you ignore.

 

[nevol]

Scale is not just about direct size comparisons. It’s about proportions and how they work with each other.


Herb Ryman was also involved in the early development of the Fantasyland Castle for Euro Disneyland. Despite a Main Street of a similar scale to the Magic Kingdom, it was decided that the Euro Disneyland castle would not be as large as Cinderella Castle.


You’re conflating Sleeping Beauty Castle with Cinderella Castle. It was the Magic Kingdom where the castle became visible throughout the park and dealing with that visual intrusion played a big role in the aesthetic differences between Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom. The obsession with the dominate visual of the castle is a more recent development that is part of the princessifaction and toddlerization of Disney’s parks into a homogeneous mass of DisneyParks.

Sleeping Beauty Castle has an interior experience, the walkthrough. The other castle have their experiences because of the success of this very experience you ignore.

You are assuming I want a 189 foot castle. One slightly smaller in scale than Paris would be my ideal. I was at that park a month ago, and you can see the castle from every single area of the park.

Again, the proportions argument/scale doesn't make sense. is disneyland half the size of these other parks? Are our E ticket mountains half the size of those in these parks? are the footprints half the size? These proportions and how they work with one another is one way of saying something without saying anything at all. Splash mountain is adjacent to Haunted Mansion in CA and Big Thunder in Orlando. How do these proportions work with one another? None of these proportional arguments are making any sense.

 

[lazyboy97o]

You are assuming I want a 189 foot castle. One slightly smaller in scale than Paris would be my ideal. I was at that park a month ago, and you can see the castle from every single area of the park.

Again, the proportions argument/scale doesn't make sense. is disneyland half the size of these other parks? Are our E ticket mountains half the size of those in these parks? are the footprints half the size? None of these proportional arguments are making any sense.

You weren’t supposed to see Sleeping Beauty Castle from throughout the park.

Proportion isn’t just overall size comparisons. It’s about compositions. The mountains are smaller and designed differently for Disneyland.

 

[nevol]

You weren’t supposed to see Sleeping Beauty Castle from throughout the park.

The mountains are smaller and designed differently for Disneyland.

I can gladly find evidence to the contrary of point 1.

The mountains being smaller and designed differently for Disneyland seems more like subjective tradition than necessity. The composition and weinie effectiveness of space mountain, splash, and big thunder could benefit from height. Matterhorn is very close to the castle, and is the original mountain in the castle parks, and it stands 147* feet, which is far larger than the rest of the mountains. Why do these rules apply to all structures except for matterhorn? If the argument is that the other castle parks are bigger, their castles are bigger, and their e-ticket icons are further apart and so can be scaled up proportionally, it falls apart when you look at the height of matterhorn and its proximity to SBC. Our castle is half the height of others, but our E-ticket icons are not all half the size of their respective clones. They are not half the distance from the castle as their counterparts in other locations. Your argument of scale/composition/ proportions again falls apart.

Each weinie in other parks is designed to optimize the effectiveness of its own iconography, composition, silhouette. Only in Disneyland do we neuter and alter these design principles to make the castle seem larger, and then turn around and say that the size of our castle doesn't matter. No other castle park says its castle can't be tall because its other icons aren't, nor do they say that their icons can't be tall because its castle is. The structures are as they need to be on stage.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I can gladly find evidence to the contrary of point 1.

The mountains being smaller and designed differently for Disneyland seems more like subjective tradition than necessity. The composition and weinie effectiveness of space mountain, splash, and big thunder could benefit from height. Matterhorn is very close to the castle, and is the original mountain in the castle parks, and it stands 160 feet, which is far larger than the rest of the mountains. Why do these rules apply to all structures except for matterhorn? Your argument of scale/composition/ proportions again falls apart. If the argument is that the other castle parks are bigger, their castles are bigger, and their e-ticket icons are further apart and so can be scaled up proportionally, it falls apart when you look at the height of matterhorn and its proximity to SBC.

You are still just picking random things and comparing random dimensions. That’s not how it works. You’re also obsessing over the height of the castle as some sort of benchmark that it is not.

 

[nevol]

You are still just picking random things and comparing random dimensions. That’s not how it works. You’re also obsessing over the height of the castle as some sort of benchmark that it is not.

You haven't been able to explain what dimensions exactly we are talking about. You are trying to make a mathematical argument in defense of the castle, and I am looking at and measuring everything, seeing no consistency in proportions or scaling. The show buildings, land facades, scale of walkways, icons. Distance between structures. Trees; do they grow differently in different places? None of these things are scaled proportionally from one park to another.

I outlined why one could argue that disneyland has outgrown its castle. It not being visible is a major factor. Needing more guest space on stage is another. The rest I've already written about. I am not obsessed with height. You are obsessed with me being obsessed with height because it is a convenient way of dismissing and attacking my arguments without providing any explanations yourself. You're arguing with a life-long disney theme park fan with an urban planning degree and a masters degree in architecture, who has studied entertainment design professionally as well. You are trying to quantify a biased, emotionally charged belief, and then failing to do so. I am asking you to explain your foggy ideas of scale and proportion, and you can't. You are eluding to some pot of gold that is beyond my intellect and it just isn't there. If you subjectively like that disneyland is a forested park filled with miniature icons shrowded in landscaping, just say so. That has its charm, but arguably at the expense of show quality. Is Big Thunder Mountain meant to be shorter than the tree line? At DLP, they trim the trees in its composition to make the scale look more successful.

 

[mickEblu]

Just trying to raise everybody's blood pressure. Happy friday!

But in all seriousness, the castle is not visible, even from areas of the hub. Trees and other foreground obstructions like ODVs and Rocks block a vast majority of it from view in many viewing locations.

The argument that Disneyland's castle has to be small to fit the scale of disneyland doesn't make sense. I have heard it for a decade and I finally will explain why this is ridiculous. The castle in Paris is twice the height of Disneyland's. Orlando's is more than double. Their buildings, however, are not twice as tall as those on our main street. Their Main Street is not twice as wide as ours. The castle takes up roughly the same surface area on the ground at the end of the street, it just reaches higher into the sky so it is visible over people's heads and other obstructions like trees. Disneyland's castle is so small that if you stand in town square and draw lines down the building facades and the street toward the center to create one point perspective, it doesn't even push above the height of the street wall on main street. In the recent halloweentime commercial playing on cable tv right now, the castle has the same architecture, but has been CGI'd to make it more prominent in the shot. When standing at the back of fantasyland and looking toward the castle, Peter Pan's flight and Snow White's scary adventures facades dwarf it in the foreground. Some argue that it is to scale with matterhorn; are the other mountains in Disneyland and Castle parks around the globe subject to this same requirement? Space mountain, big thunder, splash mountain... none of these structures are expected to be taller than their respective castles, and many a space mountain are visible at the same time as their park's castles. It seems like an odd design decision that has been defended but actually doesn't do anything to benefit either participating structure. At the time of Disneyland's opening, the trees had not grown in and the castle functioned as an icon that oriented guests within the park. You could look at it and know how to get around the place. Every castle park has followed the hub spoke and wheel tradition, and the castles still function in this way, except for Disneyland's, which is no longer visible from within most of the park. So in this way, the castle is no longer performing its basic functions as it set out to on opening day. Finally, the original concept artist/designer for Disneyland's castle went on to make dramatic changes to its design, more dramatic than any other subtle changes made to the magic kingdom park, when they opened their second castle park in Orlando.

I know, it is a really charming design. It is walt's original and many of us who grew up with the park would hate to see it go and don't trust the current imagineering teams to give it a superior replacement. However, I often feel like we are preserving the past in exchange for inferior show quality and guest experience. I live in hollywood, where spanish style and french chateau apartment buildings, hotels, and single family homes dot the landscape. Jim Henson's office on la brea blvd looks like fantasyland. The castle is of the same design style and scale as many homes around mid-city/wilshire, west LA, hollywood, Silver Lake, Los Feliz. I don't think anybody looking at the paris castle would equate it with single-family homes; there, it operates on the scale of iconic institutional architecture. The castle was considered to be replaced in 1984 with Tony Baxter's new fantasyland, and ultimately they decided against it, but how different would the park be now had they gone through with it and the public embraced the new castle? Arguments against changing it because it is the original and too sacred are silly to me, when I consider that St. Peter's Basilica, the home of the Catholic Church, was relocated and rebuilt once, and then the current Vatican City location was added on to and modified by several architects for centuries. Sleeping Beauty Castle is more sacred than the capital of the Catholic Church now?

Disneyland has become extremely crowded in recent years. Widening of midways is going on all over the park as well as the reconfiguring of queues for guest comfort. With a taller castle, we could create viewing areas for nighttime spectaculars in several lands, and do projections on the side and back for viewing from tomorrowland and fantasyland to better distribute crowds and ease congestion.

Okay, I said my bit. Let's argue! Happy friday and don't forget to vote.

You make great points but they’re all moot when you consider we can’t trust WDI to replace it with something bigger, better and equally as charming that also fits with Disneyland’s hub. That’s a tall feat. The risk far outweighs the reward. I vote no.

Personally I’ve never once walked down Main Street or by the castle and thought it didn’t look perfect. But then again I’m not really analyzing it in that way when I’m at the park. It’s part of park tapestry to me and maybe that’s your point. It’s not something that commands your attention.

Anyway I’d rather they ended the fireworks before they cut down the trees in the hub or have the Pixar Pier team re-do the castle. Hell to the No.