The Adventure has just begun in California

Well, this week brought an interesting piece of news. http://money.aol.com/news/articles/_a/disney-plans-five-year-1-billion-revamp/n20071017124509990022 Now, I have to give a little bit of a disclaimer. I do own some shares of Disney stock, and have for several years. But really I can’t be more excited about this news. Basically, what Disney is doing is they are going to completely remodel Disney’s California Adventure and spending $1.1 billion to do it.
That figure is significant because that is about equal or greater than the amount taken to build the theme park. The park was built for about $1 billion and since then the company has spent approximately $100 million in improvements.
Many have felt, myself included, that Disney’s California Adventure was lacking the “Disney magic” or spark that the original Disneyland has. And the attendance records seem to confirm that observation, with 6 million visitors to California Adventure compared to nearly 15 million visitors to Disneyland. And that’s a problem.
Since the park has opened it has been criticized for its lack of magic and that “guests have no emotional attachment to it,” said Jay Rasulo, president of the Disney theme park division. Some people have commented that California Adventure is just like a theme park that you can get anywhere.
And I agree. California Adventure is plagued by many problems. It has no transportation system like Disneyland. It has also does not have the same amount of stimulating rides as Disneyland. I actually consider most of the park boring. The best part is the Hollywood section and the California Wilderness section, both of which are towards the entrance of the park. There are only a few rides that make it worth it to go down to the other sections of the park.
The goal for the redesign is to reclaim that missing spark. The plans are to redesign the entrance to be more comparable to Main Street USA in Disneyland, and expanding it to include attractions based off of the latest Pixar movies. But Disney isn’t going to suddenly stop making money off of California Adventure. They plan on keeping the park open during the reconstruction, with temporary entrances and closing some section of the park.
All I can say is way to go Disney. This is actually some very good news. Actually probably some of the best news I’ve heard since Disney acquired Pixar and John Lassiter became the head of Walt Disney Animation. I am coming to like the new CEO of Disney, Bob Iger. He seems to be stepping to the plate and really trying to turn the company around.