Mickey goes to Hollywood - Disney's California Adventure

Sunset, March, 2001 by David Lansing

The Golden State's greatest theme park just got even greater

It's 1975. A young man fresh out of college (that would be me) buys a Kelty backpack and a Eurail pass and flits around Europe for six months. He hangs out at cafes. striking up conversations with locals in Berlin, Amsterdam, and Paris. When strangers ask him, "Where are you from the mumbles, "Southern California," because it's easier to mention a fairly amorphous geographical area than a particular city. But these Europeans always want to know where, exactly, in Southern California, so he says, "Uhmm . . . Anaheim?" As if they would have any idea where that is.

But to his surprise, everyone knows exactly where Anaheim is. Many of them have even been there. "Ah ... Disneyland!" they exclaim.

Toul le monde can locate Anaheim because Southern California's greatest landmark is not the Hollywood sign, Santa Monica pier, or Mission San Juan Capistrano-it is the Magic Kingdom. Disneyland is to Anaheim what Piccadilly Circus is to London, Notre Dame to Paris, Times Square to New York--a landmark synonymous with its location.

But here's the irony: Disneyland has never had anything to do with either Anaheim or Southern California. Walt's fantasy stroll down Main Street. U.S.A., took you from a small town in Missouri, where he was born, to Switzerland. New Orleans, and even Africa. You could escape to Polynesia in thc Enchanted Tiki Room, roar through the South on Splash Mountain, and fly over London on Peter Pan's Flight, but nowhere were there any signs of Southern California. No surf rides, Spanish mission restaurants, or animatronic gray whales that had to be harpooned as they wiggled their flukes at passing boats. Disneyland may have been in Southern California, but Southern California was not in Disneyland.

All that changed--bibbidi-bobbidiboo--when Disney's new California Adventure opened in February With one sweep of Disney's magic wand (actually about 10 years of planning and $1.4 billion), the resort's ingenious Imagineers conjured up an illusion of the Golden State so elaborate, so fantastical, so inviting that it threatens to undermine decades of ill will carefully nurtured by millions of out-of-staters whose negative notions of La-La Land are as entrenched as their disdain for convertibles, blond hair, and perpetual sunshine. Disney is gilding California's image in a way the state's tourism commission could never have imagined.

The first California icon to welcome visitors to the new 55-acre theme park is a replica of the Golden Gate Bridge--but in this whimsical version, a monorail whizzes across the suspension bridge. It won't take long before some child, visiting San Francisco for the first time with his parents, exclaims, "Look, Mommy! They built a bridge here just like the one at Disneyland!"

California Adventure

There are three new components to the improved Disney: Downtown Disney, a meandering, urban entertainment zone not unlike Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade; Disney's Grand Californian, a 750-room upscale hotel themed as an early20th-century lodge; and the centerpiece, Disney's California Adventure, which encompasses a Hollywood-inspired "studio backlot," an old-fashioned beach boardwalk, and a grab-bag entertainment area called "The Golden State."

"Coming through the turnstile of California Adventure is like walking into an idealized postcard of California," says Barry Braverman, Disney's executive producer for the project. "It's very energetic, very welcoming."

Braverman is right. Like a riptide off Malibu, California Adventure pulls you into a fantasy that begins with an elaborate tile mural depicting, in a romantic fashion, key images of the Golden State: a leaping gray whale, a car driving through a giant sequoia, flying fish off Catalina, surfers in La Jolla, the falls of Yosemite. Like Dorothy, you drop your jaw, gaze in wonder, and proclaim, "We're not in Kansas anymore." Then you follow the yellow brick road--or, in this case, an acid-washed concrete path inset with sparkles to resemble waves retreating from the shoreline.

Duck beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, pass by a faithful reproduction of the California Zephyr (complete with an original yellow locomotive), and suddenly you're in a lushly landscaped plaza ringed with palm trees (of course!) and lit by a perpetually shining heliostat sun.

From here, you can follow various paths to the Hollywood Pictures Backlot or Paradise Pier, two of California Adventure's three themed zones, but I suggest you head straight for the third land, the Golden State, home to what will undoubtedly be two of the new park's most popular rides, Grizzly River Run and Soarin' Over California. The latter may not have the catchiest moniker in Disney history, but it's a winner nonetheless. In a hang-gliding simulator realistic enough to make you wonder if it shouldn't include air-sickness bags, riders are lifted 40 feet above the ground and swirled around in a cinematic surround-vision dome over Malibu surfers, Lake Tahoe skiers, and golfers driving dimpled balls in Palm Springs. Adding to the 4 1/2 minute experience is a cool draft that blows in your face, redolent of pine, orange blossoms, or salt spray, depending on where you are in the journey