Disney California Adventure is pressing ahead with another radical transformation… And this one takes AWAY one of the park’s themed lands. The park opened in 2001 with three themed lands, each set in a cartoonish California of the 1990s. Puns ran rampant as the park tried to emulate real Californian locales with a hip, edgy, modern “Disney” twist.
Upon its grand re-opening in summer 2012, the park was (quite literally) transformed, debuting with two new lands and the rest re-districted and re-named. Prominently, the park’s all-encompassing “Golden State” land was sub-divided into re-themed and time-period-specific lands called Grizzly Peak, Pacific Wharf, and Condor Flats.
Standing out from its sisters, Condor Flats retained the old, “modern” style that California Adventure opened with. But that is about to change. And in the process, California Adventure is losing the Condor Flats themed land entirely, reducing the park from eight lands to seven.
Conflicting Stories
When the park opened, the Grizzly Peak area had originally been cast as an old rusted logging operation in California’s High Sierras taken over by an extreme sports company in the 2000s. With its new identity, the clock was turned back and the land became a 1950s National Park. In the style of Disneyland’s Frontierland, entering Grizzly Peak was now like traveling back in time to an idealized and very-much-alive grand redwood forest with park rangers, active waterwheels, and no rust in sight.
Another sub-area within the Golden State to earn official “land” designation in 2012 was Condor Flats. The one attraction in the land was the park’s only standout upon opening: Soarin’ Over California. The area was meant to resemble an old high-elevation desert airstrip taken over by a modern flight-testing center. However, the relatively small land bordering on the forested Grizzly Peak never quite gave the impression of being at a high-elevation, much less a desert.
Though Condor Flats was given full “land” status and some minor place making as part of the park’s re-opening, it still stuck out like a sore thumb for Disney fans – a last holdout of the “old” California Adventure, filled with modern-day architecture and an unspecified backstory, lodged between the elegant new 1920s Buena Vista Street and the beautiful 1950s Grizzly Peak.
Finally, 2015 will see Condor Flats given its facelift as promised during the park’s re-build in 2012. And to be born again, Condor Flats must disappear entirely!
A Change In The Winds
Soarin’ Over California closed in January 2015, allegedly to be outfitted with new screens and high-definition digital projection (unavailable when the ride first opened 14 years earlier). In a surprise move, Disney decided to go big. During the ride’s five-month closure, the entire Condor Flats land will be behind construction walls. More than just a sprucing up, Condor Flats is disappearing altogether. Construction walls surrounding Condor Flats are covered in the Grizzly Peak National Park badge and promise “Grizzly Peak Airfield – Landing Summer 2015.”
When the construction walls fall this summer, Condor Flats will have been absorbed by Grizzly Peak – a concept that was meant to come to fruition during the park’s $1.2 billion re-build as official concept art (above) shows, but that was obviously cut for budgetary reasons. Now it’s finally happening.
That means that the area will lose its modern jet engines, runway lights, desert rocks, and “punny” store names as its renamed Grizzly Peak – Airfield and outfitted in pines, logs, rustic colors, and a 1950s theme. Now a part of the larger Grizzly Peak land, California Adventure will be reduced from eight lands to seven, and this summer, the area around Soarin’ Over California will look a lot less concrete and lot more forested.
Why It Matters
1. The park will have one less land, but a more complete story. Even if it’s a net loss in terms of land quantity, the charming 1950s Grizzly Peak National Park theme was always one of the park’s most successful and impressive, even when the park first opened. Infusing more trees, rustic architecture, and ‘50s details into what was Condor Flats will only make the park stronger. Not to mention, Soarin’ Over California and its hang-gliding story make more sense in a mountain resort than a desert airfield, right?
2. It fleshes out the park’s “one-hit wonder” lands. Both Grizzly Peak and Condor Flats had one ride each (Grizzly River Run and Soarin’ Over California, respectively). But uniting the two miniature lands into one consistent one, they’ll create a pretty nice ride line-up with two major attractions under one time period and setting. That means no more tiny “lands” built around a single attraction at the park.
3. It could be the start of “Phase II” of California Adventure’ rebuild. Following the massive success of California Adventure’s re-opening, fan expectations were high that a “Phase II” of renovations would sweep through and update the last two holdouts of the “old” park: Hollywood Land and Condor Flats (both of which received only name changes and minor cosmetic upgrades during the re-opening compared to the major facelifts of the rest of the park’s lands) as well as some dingy corners in Paradise Pier. Now that Condor Flats is receiving its own major facelift, only the Hollywood Land section is left, and that seems a manageable project.
Like the Condor-Flats-to-Grizzly-Peak transformation, Disney even released official concept art showing plans for Hollywood Land’s facelift (above), so we know it’s on their radar. Should that change occur, the park would officially be entirely re-born.
4. It proves that Disneyland is not resting on its laurels. After the big re-opening, some expected that Disneyland Resort would fall into a state of relaxation. Flush with cash and finally drawing in visitors, California Adventure could stand on its own and the resort could theoretically “coast” with no new additions or attention for at least five or six years. Instead, Disney is doubling down and finishing what it started, proving that it’s not done with California Adventure (or Resort-wide) improvements yet, even if it could be.
What do you think? Are you excited for Disney California Adventure to lose a land and gain some more theming and storytelling? Or do you think Condor Flats was doing just fine as it was? Let us know in the comments below.
