Before Disneyland, most amusement parks were free-to-enter trolley parks or boardwalks with multiple, un-gated entrances. Only those who wished to actually ride needed spend money on ride tickets. Anyone else could stroll on in for free. Walt’s plans for Disneyland changed everything. First, the idea of creating a single entry / exit gate for guests and charging a modest entry fee helped deter troublemakers and unattended youth from entering.
Second, the single entry was the literal backbone in the hub-and-spokes layout Disneyland pioneered – all guests would be directed through the entry land and inward toward a central hub (usually reigned over by a memorable park icon). From that hub, the rest of the park’s themed lands would radiate outward, like spokes on a bicycle tire. This layout assured that traffic would flow logically around the park while also ensuring that any two points in the park were never too far away from each other via the hub.
Ever since, the radical design has become standard, and Disneyland’s concept has fueled the design of almost all of its successors. Nearly every major theme park in America today begins with a themed entry land (usually lined with shops and restaurants, short on attractions) that begins the immersion into the setting. Here, we’ve collected six of the best. Plenty more are out there, but we’ve got to start somewhere and these six are perhaps the most well known. Which is your favorite?
1. Main Street, U.S.A.
Where: Disneyland, Magic Kingdom, Disneyland Paris, Hong Kong Disneyland
Main Street, U.S.A. is the land that started it all. While its arguably grown beyond his initial intention, Walt was determined that the whole of Disneyland would capture the optimism and joy of America – its roots (Frontierland), its wonder (Adventureland), its dreams (Fantasyland), and the promise of its future (Tomorrowland). The perfect intro to his cinematic and idealized park of Americana was, fittingly, his own nostalgia of America. Main Street, U.S.A. was meant to recreate a perfected and romanticized version of Walt’s hometown of Marceline, Missouri.
Walt also imagined Disneyland as a place where guests were deposited into exotic and immersive locales, as if they’d stepped into his films. Fittingly, Main Street is meant to be the “opening credits,” so the windows of the businesses along the street are famously adorned with the names of those who have kept Disneyland alive. At Disneyland, Main Street is compact, charming, and glowing with Walt’s touch. When recreated at Magic Kingdom, Main Street was built on a much larger scale to account for much larger crowds (and much larger budgets) removing some of the intimacy that Disneyland is so renowned for, but adding greater utility.
A Snapshot of History: Walt believed that the time period of Main Street – the very early 1900s – captured a unique time in history: the brief period when the gas lamp and electric lamp coexisted. Similarly, Main Street is home to horse-drawn carriages and the “horseless carriage” that can whisk guests up and down the street. It seems unlikely that two such unique technologies will be juxtaposed again anytime soon.
2. Hollywood Blvd.
Where: Disney’s Hollywood Studios
Disney took a break from the dedicated entry land (and from their usual business of immersive and cinematic settings) with 1982’s EPCOT Center, but returned to the fantasy theme park realm with 1989’s Disney-MGM Studios park. Where Main Street built an idealized version of Walt’s hometown, the new studios park would make a logical jump: recreating a romanticized version of Hollywood.
Today, Hollywood Blvd. at Disney’s Hollywood Studios might be among Disney’s most built-out and impressive themed lands, with its art deco and moderne architecture, vibrant “streetmosphere” and glowing neon lights. At the end of the street is a gorgeous recreation of the Chinese Theater, housing the park’s thesis attraction, The Great Movie Ride.
Hollywood, Hatted: From 2001 to 2015, the view of the Chinese Theater’s façade was covered by a 122-foot tall royal blue Sorcerer Hat based on Mickey Mouse’s famous cone-shaped cap in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. The hat was meant to be a temporary installation to show that Hollywood Studios was the hub for the resort’s 100 Years of Magic celebration. But when the celebration ended, the hat stayed.
The Hat earned the contempt of fans, and rightfully so: for the hyper-realistic street to end in a giant hat was just ridiculous, especially with the iconic Chinese Theater (obvious park icon material) hidden behind it! (You can see a single spire of the Chinese Theater’s roof beyond the hat in the photo above.) By 2015, the Hat had been the view at the end of Hollywood Blvd. longer than the Chinese Theater had been. But in January 2015, the hat was decommissioned and views of Hollywood Blvd. and the Chinese Theater were restored. Disney’s Hollywood Studios is almost assuredly preparing for its own floor-to-ceiling refurbishment (along the lines of Disney California Adventure’s) but for now, the Hollywood Tower Hotel has stepped in as a temporary icon, not the Chinese Theater.
3. The Oasis
Where: Disney’s Animal Kingdom
How do you reconcile the shop-and-restaurant-lined entryway with a park dedicated to the wonders of nature? At Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Disney did precisely what fans imagined they never would: they got rid of the shops and restaurants entirely.
At Animal Kingdom, The Oasis is an entirely unspoiled land meant to introduce guests to the park’s groundbreaking immersion and style with dozens of animal exhibits scattered throughout gardens, waterfalls, caverns, streams, even dirt pathways through dense foliage. During the park’s initial concept and design, this gorgeous entry was reportedly called Genesis Garden, an allusion to the perfect and unspoiled Garden of Eden in the Bible. (Of course, this was at a time in its development when the park’s icon was meant to be a giant recreation of Noah’s Ark.)
It couldn’t have been easy for Imagineers to convince Disney’s executives that a park should forego the classic entryway of shops and restaurants, but in the case of Animal Kingdom it’s a battle we’re glad that they fought.
4. Port of Entry
Where: Universal’s Islands of Adventure
Proprietors of “studio” parks lined with big boxy show buildings and façade-lined streets recreating famous American cities, Universal surprised the industry with their first ever foray into true “theme” parks. And for their first attempt, Universal’s Islands of Adventure is a wonder. Today made up of seven islands around a central Great Sea, each of the parks themed islands meets and even exceeds Disney’s standards of theming, detail, and storytelling. Six of the park’s islands are based on evolutions of literature. One isn’t.
To kick off the adventure, Universal Creative designed a themed land that brings the park’s tagline – Live The Adventure – to life. Port of Entry is meant to represent a seaside community built by all the cultures of the world together in harmony. Chinese pagodas, Arabian parapets, Dutch windmills, and Norwegian steeples come together effortlessly to create a village that feels just as habitable as Main Street, but infused with fantasy and romantic adventure. And for those explorers who slow down, the land is full of Easter eggs: two love birds cooing together on a ledge, evidence of a jail escape, and humorous themed signage.
A Towering Icon: Port of Entry also includes the park’s icon: the towering Pharos Lighthouse. The ancient brick tower appears to be built on top of red stone. It’s capped with a steel flame pattern on top. And yes, it’s a real lighthouse, broadcasting a revolving beam around (and beyond) the resort every night that’s visible from all of the park’s islands, drawing guests toward Port of Entry. Interestingly, the concrete around the lighthouse’s base has a pattern embedded in it such that – from above – a halo of light surrounds the tower with “beams” radiating into the park.
5. International Street
Where: Kings Island, Kings Dominion, Canada’s Wonderland
While it doesn’t belong to a Disney or Universal Park, there’s still something incredibly special about International Street at three of Cedar Fair’s parks. Each of the streets is lined with shops and architecture representing European countries like France, Germany, and Italy with balconies and staircases adding to their realism. Down the center, each International Street has 300 foot-long Royal Fountains spraying water into the air and choreographed each night to music and light.
At the end of these grand entries, Kings Island and Kings Dominion have 1/3 scale replicas of the Eiffel Tower, complete with 300 foot-high observation decks. Instead of the Tower, Canada’s Wonderland’s International Street terminates in the fantastic Wonder Mountain, a waterfall-capped peak containing the dramatic Guardian dark ride inside.
While International Street lacks the authenticity of Disney’s best (thanks to mismatched facades with disconnected interiors and modern music playing), the grand entrance is cinematic, spectacular, and truly worth standing alongside the rest on this list. It feels like a World’s Fair, and that’s a compliment.
6. Buena Vista Street
Where: Disney California Adventure
When the park across from Disneyland first opened in 2001, fans and visitors recoiled. None were too pleased with the park – an odd spoof of modern California, filled with puns, exaggerated architecture, and modern music. The park’s entry land, Sunshine Plaza, was one of the worst offenders. Alone, the land would’ve made a fine entry to a seasonal park owned by Six Flags or Cedar Fair, but juxtaposed against Main Street just a few yards away, the concrete plaza and its metallic Sun Icon looked lost.
When the park re-opened in June 2012, the brand-new and much-heralded Cars Land wasn’t the only completely original land. From the ruins of Sunshine Plaza had risen Buena Vista Street. Now equally as detailed as Main Street, Buena Vista Street recreated the bustling city of Los Angeles in the 1920s, when Walt first arrived via steam train. The town is full of tile mosaics, bubbling fountains, sunset-tile roofs, and jazz music as the Red Car Trolley dings its way down the street. Even better, the road now ends at the Carthay Circle Theater, an iconic structure of Los Angeles of great importance to Disney history and California history: it’s where Walt risked it all to premier the world’s first full-length animated film.
A Link Between Parks: The entrances to Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure face each other across an open plaza, leading to a unique bit of storytelling. If one starts at Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle and walks down Main Street, you’re passing through an idealized vision of Walt’s childhood town. Exiting Disneyland, stepping across the plaza, and entering California Adventure places you in a bustling 1920s Los Angeles – the same journey Walt himself made.
