A look at Cars Land, the new expansion to Disney California Adventure - A 1UP classic from Jun 14, 2012

The largest expansion in Disneyland Resort history is finally ready. Between Buena Vista Street which I previewed yesterday and Cars Land which we will look at today the park has opened up around 12 acres for visitors. Cars Land is completely unlike the other portions of any other Disney park. Save for the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse, this is the first time that the park has recreated a location from a film into a permanent attraction. For Cars Land the fictional town of Radiator Springs, set in Ornament Valley, from the feature film Cars is as close to perfect as you could imagine.

Cars Land actually has two major entrances, the main drag starting at the end of Buena Vista Street and one side entrance from Bug’s Land.

The entrance from Pacific Warf takes guests underneath a realistic stone archway.

There are three attractions in Cars Land. The first one is Tow Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree. This ride is meant more for kids than adults. Parents can join their little ones as the small tractors tow guests around and dance to the music.

As you walk down the main street all of the locations shown in the movie are reproduced to scale. Some of the spots are shopping areas.

Just like Buena Vista Street there are many exclusive items that can only be found in this area of the park.

The attention to detail is amazing as the Imagineers did a great job at creating physical objects out of CGI data. The Cozy Cone Motel is a good place to get food for example, it is also the place to go if you want to get your picture taken with one of the Cars.

My mom and I got a picture with Mater. The tow truck actually interacts with guests, his exposed engine rumbles and he can look around and crack jokes. What is even more amazing is that the cars actually take turns posing with guests, as the mascot characters would in Disneyland.

When Mater’s turn was over hamming it up in front of the Cozy Cone, Lightning McQueen rolled over from backstage to give him a reprieve.

Eagle-eyed fans to the Cozy Cone could probably find a nod to another classic Pixar film…

Luigi’s Casa Della Tires is actually the location of the second attraction. The soon-to-be famous Flying Tires. The ride is actually an homage to a classic attraction, the Flying Saucers no longer in Tomorrowland. Unfortunately for us there was a problem with the air compressor and the ride was unavailable during our visit. I can’t wait to give it a spin though.

Right across from Luigi’s is Ramone’s Paint and Body Shop. This is the larger store for gearheads. Lots of clean automobile inspired designs on clothing and cool collectables can be found here.

More odds and ends can be found in Lizzy’s shop, and at the end of the street is the Fire Dept. and the fountain dedicated to Stanley, the town founder.

The major attraction for the expansion is Radiator Springs Racers. This attraction is part dark ride and part coaster but more on that later.

The queue is great as visitors get to see the original settlement in Ornament Valley and the actual bubbling Radiator Springs that the town was named after.

Guests buckle up six at a time in brightly colored cars with smiling faces.

Guests drive all over Radiator Springs and get a close look at the memorable locations featured in the film.

Suddenly visitors are plunged into the story of the ride. They experience almost point-for-point the same things that Lightning did in the movie. The animatronics on the cars themselves are breathtaking. The mouths move convincingly and eyes dance around as the massive vehicles bounce around just like they did in the movie.

Guests get warned by the Sheriff to stay out of trouble as they sneak out to go tractor tipping with Mater.

The ride then turns right down the middle of main street where full-sized vehicles talk to guests and each other.

The ride then takes one of two possible turns. Riders that go into Luigi’s tire shop are treated to a change of tires on their ride. The car lifts up and bounces around as the tires are swapped out. A mirror shows off the newly installed white wall tires before you are sent to talk to Doc Hudson.

The alternate route has guests go into Ramone’s where some mechanical arms “paint” the cars. It actually smells like paint as the mechanical arms spray a mist of water at riders. After the paint job riders see Doc Hudson giving them a final pep talk before they have to race against another car filled with guests. The race is pretty spectacular as both cars race side by side on banked turns and over large bumps. The race is rigged to create the illusion that riders are always in the winning car by the time they cross the finish line and end up back at the beginning.

The real charm of Cars Land happens at night. In a scene right out of the movie the town springs to life and tons of neon lights illuminate the streets as the song Sh-boom plays over the PA system.

 

I thought that scene was the best part in the film and it was humbling to see that it could be recreated for guests night after night.

Even the neon blacklight of Fillmore’s Organic Gas Hut and Sarge’s military surplus neon are just like they are in the film.

Expect to see a record turnout this weekend as locals and international travelers set their site on DCA.

The wait was absolutely worth it!

As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

A preview of Buena Vista Street - A 1UP classic from June 13, 2012

Hello friends, in anticipation of the big expansion set to debut at Disney California Adventure (DCA) this weekend I decided to give you a preview of what to look forward to. For those that don't know, DCA is the park opposite of Disneyland in Anaheim. Reviews for the park were lackluster and the attractions were not up to the classic Disney standards. As attendance dropped so did park profitability. The studio needed to turn things around and they did so by changing leadership. Michael Eisner was out and Bob Iger was in. He changed around the organizational structure and switched around the roles of some key management people. Principal among these was making John Lasseter, the Chief Creative Officer at Pixar, into the Creative Consultant for Disney Imagineering. Lasseter and the Imagineers set about trying to put the "heart" back into DCA. It would be a multi-year, multi-billion dollar proposition that didn't sit too well with all of the shareholders. However as Walt had demonstrated years earlier, some things simply could not be compromised because it would not be "cost effective." This expansion was necessary and long overdue for a park that seemed vastly inferior to Disneyland.

I joined my mom, wife and daughter on a preview day this weekend. It was a benefit for members of D23 the official Disney fan club, and the proceeds were used to help the Children's Hospital of Orange County. We were able to walk down Buena Vista Street, the new entranceway to the park and see everything that had been added for guests. Many of these details were presented at the D23 convention last year. However no presentation or model could capture our surprise when we actually got to walk through the park. The new entrance to DCA is actually a sort of reflection of Disneyland. Main Street on Disneyland USA features turn-of-the-20th-century architecture, sights, smells and sounds that might have been around when Walt Disney was growing up in Marceline Missouri. The street actually guides patrons towards a destination, in the distance there is a castle marking the beginning of Fantasyland. The narrative is amazing, from humble beginnings and small-town origins the world becomes a fantastic playground.

The new Buena Vista Street at DCA is a bookend to Main Street USA. The entrance to Disneyland celebrates the influences of a young Walt while DCA highlights his move to LA and the creation of his studio. The sights, sounds and smells of the new entrance all capture the classic Hollywood feel. Right away there is a service station featuring a familiar icon. Oswald has finally returned home and is the mascot for the store. My wife and I wore our rabbit ears from the E3 as we walked the streets. We were asked by visitors and employees about them. The ears weren't on sale yet in the parks and were pending the official opening of the resort. Most everyone there could not wait to get their own rabbit ears. I have a feeling that Mickey will remain the star of Disneyland but Oswald is going to own DCA.

Everywhere we went we were reminded of how Los Angeles looked back in the day. The architecture and signage was spot-on, a mix of Art Deco and the tail end of Art Nouveau. Just like Main Street the area was impeccable and absolutely pristine. Plenty of shade from local trees and benches surrounded the buildings, offering comfort to visitors not used to the hot Southern California summers.

Main Street has several modes of transportation to get visitors from one end to the other, several vintage-looking cars, busses and a horse-drawn trolley. However the entrance to DCA is not nearly wide enough to support that much traffic. That didn't stop the Imagineers from installing a brand new draw. The Pacific Electric Red Car was a staple of Los Angeles during the 20's and 30's. The various Red Car lines ran all over the city from as far east as Redlands to as far north as San Fernando and as far south as Newport Beach, all-in-all around 450 Square Miles were covered by the service. The cars were fondly remembered by those that got a chance to enjoy them just before the 1960's. For those that came after this would be a rare instance to recapture the magic on a reproduction LA street. The cars were not refurbished trolleys either. Just like every vehicle in the park they are built from scratch and only look period correct. These vehicles have to bear tremendous loads, accommodate wheelchairs, service dogs and people with disabilities. They have to be able to run for 16-hour days and be highly reliable. For the Red Cars they wanted to make them electric as well.

The Imagineers went above and beyond the call and created cool, comfortable and wide Red Cars that are electric and offer the smoothest possible ride on rails. The tracks were welded together and grinded down to be perfectly seamless, even the wheel technology uses shock absorbers to dampen the sound and vibrations from the road. The engineers used inductive power transfer (aka wireless charging) to get the cars up and running. The cables suspended above the streets are actually decorative, that way there is no chance of getting hurt should a cable snap. The cars charge themselves at each stop. It's a tremendous feat of engineering to make something that looks so simple be state-of-the-art.

The rest of Buena Vista Street is just as magical as Main Street USA. Every sign and detail tells a story. Some of the names are chosen from actual LA landmarks and streets, while others are based on classic cartoon characters. The signage matches the era as well, helping to reinforce Walt's studios when he was set up at the old Hyperion address. Even the monorail bridge that runs through the middle of the street has been redone to look like the classic Hyperion-Glendale Bridge that was featured in several movies.

Of course what good are all the businesses on Buena Vista Street unless people can do a little shopping inside? Lasseter made sure that there would be merchandise not only exclusive to DCA, but to some of the shops themselves. One of the things that used to make Disneyland merchandise so desirable in the early days was the exclusivity of it. Clothing, art and toys used to be specific for each shop and area of the park. When Eisner took over the company (and after the death of Frank Wells) the focus became more profit driven. Every corner of the park became saturated with mall kiosks selling trinkets. More and more of the shops had begun carrying identical items, turning the stores into very generic outlets. Recently the parks have been going in the opposite direction and are starting to give customers more boutique options. Downtown Disney, an outdoor mall complex has several shops selling exclusive items and now both Disneyland and DCA are starting to get in on the trend as well.

Visitors to DCA can now look forward to exclusive collectables in several shops as well. This exclusivity should help restore some of the Disney name and keep collectors coming back.

The details and themes placed on every building facade applies to the interior of each shop as well. The color selection, flooring, tiles and furnishings all reinforce the turn-of-the-century theme. Even the music piped through the shops is right out of the roaring' 20's. Visitors can't help but imagine that they've stepped back through time.

One of the things that helps separate the Disney parks from the others is the attention to detail. Most parks might have a theme on the outside of a building but few carry it indoors. Disney does that in spades. The walls and windows on Buena Vista Street are covered in vintage or reproduction items. The employees or "cast members" are wearing period correct costumes as well and have some knowledge on the area they represent. No detail is too big or too small for the Imagineers. For example in the candy store there is a refurbished nickel candy machine. The candy bars in the window look authentic but on closer inspection they too carry some inside knowledge of the company and the classic cartoon legacy.

Of course what Disney park is complete without some mascots? Mickey Mouse and Pluto look very dapper, if a little green in their costumes. Don't worry Mickey, I'm sure you'll be a hit!

Buena Vista Street does point visitors in a specific direction but at the end of the street there isn't a castle. Instead visitors can see a reproduction of the classic Carthay Circle theater. This was the same theater that Walt Disney premiered Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Walt gambled big on that movie, most people thought that animation could not hold the interest of people, especially children for a full feature. They couldn't have been more wrong as the movie became a global success. The new Carthay Circle is actually a restaurant. Hidden inside is a lounge called 1901. It is exclusively for Club 33 members.

The theater looks great in the day as well as at night. Like the castle it is very regal and inviting. Disney certainly has done well with the expansion, yet the best is yet to come! Come back tomorrow for a review of Cars Land!

As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!