California Screamin', Mickey's Fun Wheel, Games of the Boardwalk, Ariel's Grotto, and the Cove Bar all will close on Jan. 8, with the Cove Bar reopening briefly during the Spring Break period in April before closing again to finish its remodel.
California Screamin' will become the Incredicoaster, with a reopening scheduled for summer 2018. The rebooted coaster will feature "a mid-century-modern-style loading area, new character moments, and a new look for the ride vehicles," according to Disney's press release.
The Incredicoaster will anchor the Incredibles-themed eastern quarter of Pixar Pier. Next to that will be a Toy Story-themed section, anchored by the existing Toy Story Midway Mania ride. (No official word yet from Disney on which zone gets the rethemed King Triton's Carousel in between.) Mickey's Fun Wheel will anchor the third "neighborhood," as Disney is calling the new subsections of Pixar Pier. This one will be a grab-bag of all other Pixar franchises, with each of the 24 wheel's gondolas featuring different Pixar characters. (Mickey's face remains, however.) The fourth neighborhood, where the old Maliboomer was, will be themed to Inside Out and feature a "family-friendly attraction, scheduled to open at a later date."
The rest of Paradise Pier, from the Silly Symphony Swings all the way around to The Little Mermaid ride, will become Paradise Park as Disney splits the former Paradise Pier in two.
Pixar Pier will open in time for the Pixar Fest event that starts on April 13. However, as mentioned, the coaster won't be open until the summer and the Inside Out attraction not until who-knows-when. No word yet on new names and reopening dates for Ariel's Grotto and the Cove Bar, either. (The line for Lobster Nachos on Jan. 7 is going to be crazy.)
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Disney World is getting these cool new attractions and we are getting THIS?
There's at least 4 unknowns.
1. Ariel's Grotto
2. Cove Bar
3. King Triton's Carousel
4. Inside Out attraction
Then there's no mention of how the midway, shops, carts, and food areas will be re-themed.
I assume the area music will change too. You'll hear a mix of all the Pixar hits in a boardwalk style hopefully not in the chintzy style of how they did "California Girls".
Anton, I know the midway games will be various Pixar IP's....so I'm guessing the tidbits they didn't mention will be as well. (I could see a Remy food cart....Wall E recyclable containers, Buy N Large, etc.)
Pixar has such a diverse catalog that this seems like the possibilities could be endless. I'm assuming Cars & a Bugs Life will be excluded from this area.....??
On another note, that California theme is slowly (or should that be rapidly) dissolving....
More to the point, they’re only adding one small family spinner for Inside Out, which is certainly more deserving of a better and... more imaginative ride. And where is the theater seen in the D23 reveal, either for a relocated Turtle Talk or clone of Florida’s Pixar Short Film Fest? Or just revolving M&G’s with Merida, Wall-E and EVE, and so on? This amounts to a lame re-do of a decently-cohesive area, with little net gain for the park capacity.
Now, if they announced another dark ride or something in the helix of Screamin’, then maybe we’d have something here. But for now, I just see this as a place to throw a mix of Pixar stuff without committing to building a new, expensive ride or show for each Pixar film. It’s... lazy and underwhelming, compared with Pixar’s other marquee Cars Land in the same park. It smacks of dreams of execs filling a store with hot Pixar merch, with little thematic connection, other than brand. This is the third redesign of this area, and guess what? It started cheap, the first re-do was budget cut (lost new station for Screamin, Fun Wheel, and Carousel, and Parachute ride from DCA 2.0)... anyone care to guess how this will look in a few years, compared to Cars Land, Galaxy’s Edge, and Marvel Land?
Honestly, other than the uber-lame name, I think this area looks decent for what it is. 90% of it is just a cosmetic change, and while it won't resemble a Victorian pier any longer, it will fit a bit better as a Disney park. Plus, we're getting one or two minor attractions out of it as well. Yes, it is completely unnecessary, but if it will draw more people to DCA it's a good move for the park.
The release doesn't say, but I'm wondering if the Pixar Parade will be routed solely through Pixar Pier or will follow the typical DCA parade path on the other side of the lagoon (Paint the Night will clearly go that way).
The strangest bit to all of this is that Cars and Bug Life both have their own independant lands at DCA and there's the Monster's Inc. ride in Hollywood, yet Pixar Pier is supposed to be a celebration of "everything Pixar". At this point, Disney might as well just call DCA Non-Lucasfilm Stuff We Bought Park, and just eliminate all of the California theming.
Disney doesn't need to eliminate California theming. They are merely applying a Disney character overlay to the California theming. No one is saying the Haunted Mansion is now the Nightmare Before Christmas and it has nothing to do with New Orleans. Pixar Pier is placed in California as is the Little Mermaid is still in Paradise Park in California. Did anyone claim Ariel's Grotto was not in Paradise Pier? What changed? Nothing really.
They added mid-century architecture to the Incredicoaster. This re-affirms the placement of the pier. All you have to do is look at the architecture of the new Luxury hotel coming to Downtown Disney.
Seems like everyone is getting upset over what is perceived as the breakdown of the park theming. My feeling is it's more a deliberate re-positioning of the park towards newer IP. They built DCA to break away from Disneyland. After trying to bring it closer with DCA 2.0, it's time to move in an another direction.
I also agree that this is probably a precurser to removing A Bug's Land (and possibly Monsters Inc.) to make way for the new 'Marvel Land.' That would make a lot of sense from a theming and traffic flow point of view. And we don't know what the new Marvel Land is going to look like yet. It could actually reinforce the California theme even better than the faux Hollywood backlot.
As far as Marvel Land goes. The settings in the films often deviate from the original comics. Iron Man for example is mostly set in Southern California. Like at HKDL they can place the earth-bound characters pretty much anywhere.
That mural in the loading area. It may seem silly, but that simple mural makes the connection between the exterior of the former Golden Dreams Theater/Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco and Ariel's undersea world. While most of us know the Little Mermaid story evolved from a Hans Christian Anderson fable set in the North Sea, it feels right at home on the Northern California Coast with the Theater being the portal.
The Victorian look of Paradise Pier was perfect, and evoked the long held connection between Californians and the Pacific Ocean. The design of California Screamin' to appear like a classic wooden coaster on an entertainment pier was pure genius, and further bolstered by the Midway look, TSMM, along with the Mickey/Sun Wheel and the Golden Zephyr, unusual for today, but commonly found attractions on seaside amusement parks (I LOVE the Zephyr, long live the Zephyr). The Mid-Century Modern look being plastered onto Screamin' works for the Incredibles theme, but buys into a current architectural fad not singularly identifiable with California and one that will be out of favor again by the time Disney opens it.
It's true that Iron Man identifies more with California than anywhere else, but the MCU, which I would think is where Disney would go with any Marvel Land, moves him to NYC. Also, if the rumors of Disney's ride patent application are true, Marvel Land will be anchored by SpiderMan, who has always resided in NYC. I have no doubt that Disney can put any character in any setting, but from what they've shown us so far with this Pixar Pier renovation is that California is no longer a primary design directive for attractions in DCA and the IP now rules over park concept. But, I guess some would say that's already been done with Avatar at DAK and what is happening to DHS and to a certain respect USF. The idea of a singular park concept driving attractions and design is a thing of the past.
Honestly, as the park currently stands, parents with young ones are limited to crap bugs land rides, the carousel, ferris wheel, mater, dancing cars and ariel. Hard to justify more than a morning there.
My bet is they'll do Marvel Land as a Phase 1 instead of waiting for the Eastern Gateway with transportation hub relocation, which is further down the line. This means Bugland will go away and they'll build behind Tower of Terror within 5 years. What happens beyond 2022 is anyone's guess.
I completely agree about Tomorrowland, but it's clear, with Galaxy's Edge on the opposite corner of the park, the land is going to continue to get neglected for the foreseeable future. I'm surprised the tree-huggers at CalEPA haven't forced Disney to shut down Autopia, which would go a long way in forcing Disney's hand in fixing Tomorroland. Fantasyland is what it is, though some unification of styling, like what Disney was able to achieve in WDW, is desperately needed, though Small World and Matterhorn cannot be sacrificed for that effort.
Call me skeptical about the new hotel. The initial visualization for me is a bit meh. The project is going to cause a HUGE amount of growing pains, only compounded by the increased attendance likely due to Galaxy's Edge. Reworking Downtown Disney was a must, and moving the entire complex towards a self-contained resort (pushing locals out of Downtown Disney in favor of hotel guests), I think is a smart move in the long run. However, I wonder if locals may just become overly frustrated with the whole place (perhaps also because of new AP rules to limit visits in the face of overwhelming Star Wars crowds), making DL/DCA a more hospitable place for tourists like me (tentatively planning for a summer 2019 visit). However, what's good for me is not good for you Anton, who I assume lives in SoCal.
Downtown Disney needs to move to the east side via the Eastern Gateway. There's no more room on the west side. The new repositioning of the hotel changes everything.
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