Listen… part of being a theme park fan is getting used to change. There’s plenty of it to go around! Especially given the current push for immersive, larger-than-life “Living Lands” that recreate the often expansive worlds seen in movies, it’s no surprise that before the new can move in, the old has to move out.
Today, we’ve collected six landmark lands and the attractions they displaced. So you tell us – how many of these E-Ticket lands are actually better than the spaces they replaced? Are there any of these lands that you’d give up to have their old self back? Let us know in the comments below!
1. Camp Minnie-Mickey or Pandora?
When Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened in 1998, one of its lands was quite unlike the others. Though Africa, Asia, Discovery Island, and even Dinoland were rich, textured, thoughtful lands, Camp Minnie-Mickey was not. The land contained just two hastily-constructed theaters and character meet-and-greet huts. As the story goes, that’s because designers expected that Camp Minnie-Mickey would quickly fall, making way for the park’s inevitable “Phase II” expansion – potentially, a land of dragons, unicorns, and sea monsters. But… it didn’t happen, and Camp Minnie-Mickey remained for an astounding 16 years.
In 2011, Disney announced that it had collaborated with filmmaker James Cameron to license the exclusive, global theme park rights to use 20th Century Fox’s Avatar, and that the first product of the collaboration would be a new immersive land at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. There was little question about where it would go… but for years, there’s were questions about if it would happen at all. It wasn’t until 2014 that Camp Minnie-Mickey finally closed.
Pandora: The World of Avatar finally opened in summer 2017. Set years after the 2009 film, Pandora instead casts us as eco-tourists traveling to the distant alien moon. There, remnants of humanity’s assault on the planet are now part of the Pandora Conservation Initiative’s protected “Valley of Mo’ara,” where humans are committed to righting their ancestors’ wrongs. Our job is to marvel at Pandora’s wonders, research its flora and fauna, learn from its indigenous Na’vi people’s culture and cuisine, and return to Earth having learned the not-so-subtle lesson that our planet deserves the same reverence. It’s an astounding land… but was it worth the loss of Camp Minnie-Mickey?
2. Amity or Diagon Alley?
Universal Studios Florida opened in 1990 with a number of camera-ready “lands” recreating famous cities from around the globe: New York, San Francisco, Hollywood… One, however, wasn’t a real world location, but a fictional one. Amity resembled an East Coast, Martha’s Vineyard-style fishing village celebrating a perpetual 4th of July, decked out in Independence Day banners, carnival games, and wharf-side dining. On one hand, Amity lived up to its name (meaning friendliness). On the other, it had a very, very big problem – it was a recreation of the fictional town seen on screen in Jaws, as evidenced by the strung up, photo-ready shark in the town’s central plaza.
Even when Universal’s other classic attractions shuttered one-by-one, it seems that the park’s Jaws ride – a sort of demented analog to Disney’s Jungle Cruise – would live on. But after the success of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at the neighboring Islands of Adventure, the large real estate offered by Jaws and Amity were too valuable to be left untouched. A second “half” of the Wizarding World – Diagon Alley – took shape there, where the iconic Hogwarts Express inter-park transit could connect the two lands seamlessly through backstage facilities.
Diagon Alley is often regarded as a top contender in the current era of immersive, cinematic “Living Lands” recreating places plucked from the screen. Even more, it’s considered by many to be among the best themed lands on Earth, period. But was it worth the loss of Amity? We’ll let you be the judge. In any case, it’s fascinating just how much Diagon Alley manages to squeeze into the Amity footprint. And more to the point, that Universal Studios Florida finally traded its land based on a fictional place for a real, global city to stand alongside New York, Hollywood, and San Francisco – London.
3. “a bug’s land” or Avengers Campus?
As any theme park aficionado can tell you, Disneyland’s second gate – Disney California Adventure – hasn’t had it easy. When it opened in 2001, the park was widely criticized for being “too much California, not enough Disney.” The park had practically no rides, practically no Disney characters, and practically nothing for families. Like magic, its first expansion – 2002’s “a bug’s life” – checked every box.
A Bug’s Land actually embraced and expanded upon the park’s existing “It’s Tough To Be a Bug” (a copy of the 3D film from Animal Kingdom) and added “Flik’s Fun Fair” – a cozy little grove that contained four family flat rides (bumper cars, a swings ride, a spinner, and Heimlich’s adorable “Chew-Chew Train”) plus a splash pad, all in a shaded area reigned over by bamboo blades of grass, firefly street lamps, and giant clovers. Arguably, “a bug’s land” did the whole “family land that shrinks you” gimmick more successfully that the now de-facto Toy Story Land. It remained a gentle but functional part of the park for 16 years.
In 2018, it was squashed in favor of a much, much, much bigger IP: Avengers Campus. Themed to Disney’s ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe film franchise (with a record $24 billion haul as of the land’s opening), Avengers Campus transforms the green, forested mini-land into a glass and steel campus of hero training facilities layered atop an old, red brick Stark Motors facility. Technically, the transition saw the park lose four rides from its ride count and only gain one in their place.
But interestingly, that ride – Web-Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure – means that the old “It’s Tough To be a Bug” theater is still bug-themed! Speaking of interest parallels between old and new, our list continues on the next page…
4. Streets of America or Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge?
Once upon a time, Disney really expected for its “Studio” park in Florida to be a real, working movie studio first and a theme park second. When it opened in 1989, the park had only two rides – the Great Movie Ride, and the multi-hour, multi-modal Backstage Studio Tour that whisked guests through the park’s real production facilities and backlots by foot and by tram.
Obviously, it quickly became clear that the Disney-MGM Studios wasn’t really going to be a global hub of moviemaking… but it was a popular park with guests, who had to cram into its relatively low-capacity footprint. By the end of the park’s first year, the New York Street set was annexed from the tram tour and used to expand the park’s pedestrian footprint. It didn’t have any rides, but like a pressure release valve, it gave guests more to see and do. In 2004, Disney added a studio flat representing San Francisco to the end of a cross street and thus renamed the space “Streets of America.”
The 1989 New York street set lasted 27 years until it fell to make way for Disney’s billion-dollar answer to the Wizarding World… Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Yes, the Streets of America are now part of the streets of Black Spire Outpost, a remote trader’s village on the Outer Rim planet of Batuu where the Resistance has set up a base camp to hide away from the nefarious First Order. Few would argue that Galaxy’s Edge wasn’t worth the loss of the Streets of America…
…But whether it was worth the loss of the Streets’ iconic “Osbourne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights” that brought the Streets to life every holiday season…? Maybe that’s the question for you to answer…
5. Pacific Wharf or San Fransokyo Square?
It’s hard to say that San Fransokyo Square replaced Pacific Wharf in the way that the rest of the lands on this list did… but in some ways, the new, IP-based, Disney Animation-oriented land is very much a reinvention.
Basically, Pacific Wharf was a part of California Adventure since its 2001 opening. Even though it was “just” a food court (stylized to resemble Monterrey’s Cannery Row or San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf), Pacific Wharf was one of the more detailed, beautiful, “timeless” areas in the park. Even though it was upgraded to full “land” status in 2012, Pacific Wharf was still “just” a food court, wedged between Cars Land and Paradise Pier, meaning it couldn’t really fit a ride even if Disney wanted it to (unless they wanted to displace picnic tables for a spinner).
Disney’s semi-annual D23 Expo in 2022 will probably always be remembered as the D23 when Disney didn’t announce any new rides at all. But they did announce that Disney California Adventure was receiving a brand new land…! Well, kinda. Disney Animation’s 2014 film Big Hero 6 takes place in the vibrant, multiversal metropolis of San Fransokyo – a version of San Francisco hybridized with Japanese culture, cuisine, and architecture. It’s a near-future cityscape of incredible technologies, reigned over by floating wind turbines, and filled with “solar punk” solutions to what ails us. And unlike nearly everything that’s come to Disney California Adventure since 2013, it actually makes sense in a park themed to California!
But excitement was quickly quelled when Parks Chairman Josh D’Amaro finished the sentence, explaining that the park’s version of San Fransokyo would amount to Disney’s newest tool in the era of mandated IPs: “label slapping.” Basically, Pacific Wharf would be renamed San Fransokyo Square. Sure, it would get oodles of new decoration, a new J-pop soundtrack, a Baymax meet-and-greet, new torii gate towers to its existing bridge, and (of course) a new gift shop. But this not-quite-a-new-land would still “just” be a food court.
Don’t misunderstand – San Fransokyo Square is fun, and colorful, and vibrant, and – based on the same restaurants that have always been there now selling out of Mobile Orders – making more money than Pacific Wharf did. (In other words, it works, which is why Disney continues to “label slap” popular IPs onto existing things like Tiana’s Palace, Pixar Pier, Inside Out Emotional Whirlwind, and more). But will it move the needle on the park’s startlingly stagnant attendance? More to the point, is this “transformation” of Pacific Wharf a plus, a minus, or something in between?
6. Dinoland or Tropical Americas?
At the same D23 that spawned San Fransokyo Square, Parks Chairman Josh D’Amaro and Animation head Jennifer Lee together launched into a very odd segment in which they showed detailed concept art… for things they were not announcing. Among their “this isn’t official, it’s just an idea” non-announcements were some airy, Blue Sky ideas, and one very concrete one.
In a first for the company, Disney basically said, “You all don’t like Dinoland at Animal Kingdom, and neither do we. So we’re telling you out loud that we’re considering replacing it with Moana and Zootopia, but those are just examples, so who knows what – if anything – we’ll actually do. But isn’t it nice that we fully said out loud that we’ll probably close Dinoland eventually?”
The idea that Zootopia – a movie that definitely has animals, but definitely is not about animals – might get a permanent land at Animal Kingdom created a year of disagreement and strife among Disney fans… only for us to find out at this year’s smaller Destination D23 event that Disney didn’t even go that direction.
Instead, Disney has verbally confirmed that they’re not moving forward with the technically-never-announced Moana and Zootopia replacement for Dinoland. Instead, they have settled on what seems like a much more natural choice: that Dinoland will be transformed into a new land celebrating the “Tropical Americas” (basically, Central and northern South America). That, as far as we know, is locked in. What’s relegated to more Blue Sky “possibilities” now is what IPs will populate the land. (Disney cites Encanto and Indiana Jones as potentials, which really ought to be as good as confirmed because those are clearly why they chose the “Tropical Americas” distinction to begin with.)
So even though this concept is still somewhat loose, it seems almost certain that Dinoland itself will make a fairly easy transition to a South American village, with the Dinosaur dark ride making its long-demanded transition to a version of Indiana Jones Adventure. Meanwhile, the not-so-beloved Chester & Hester’s Dino-Rama looks to be the future home of the Casita from Encanto (albeit, likely housing only a meet-and-greet since the space can’t fit a showbuilding).
If it happens, the Tropical Americas land will fit well with Animal Kingdom’s precedents (like Asia and Africa), but it’ll depart majorly from Disney’s. Long gone are the days of “Tomorrowlands” and “Fantasylands” that can contain multiple IPs. Instead, Cars Land, Avengers Campus, Galaxy’s Edge, Zootopia, The World of Frozen, Toy Story Land, Pandora, and everything else they’ve created in the last decade have been single-IP “Living Lands.” The return of a more flexible, broadly-stylized space that can contain multiple different stories within it will be refreshing…! But it’s still possible that by the time this concept becomes “official,” it’ll be called “Villa Madrigal: The World of Encanto.”
