May 15, 2020

Oriental Disneyland Feasibility Study

A rose by any other name? Were the plans contained within this feasibility study really for a new Disney Resort in Asia to be named Oriental Disneyland

Clearly, the study was deemed a success as Tokyo Disneyland was an out of the box hit! Originally the Imagineers were given the direction to make the park as close to the original US kingdoms as possible. That meant a duplicate of Cinderella Castle from the Magic Kingdom, California's version of Pirates of the Caribbean, and an assortment of hand picked attractions that became a "best of" / greatest hits collection of the American parks. 

In the piece of concept art above, World Bazaar remains covered but the main entrance street inside the park bears more than a little resemblance to original and very different plans for Florida's World Showcase. That was once going to be a standalone park with Future World being its own as well. Of course, we all know EPCOT Center would eventually combine both. But is in interesting to think that at one point parts of the first act would in fact take guests into different areas around the globe, mini-pavilions if you will. Thankfully, smarter minds prevailed and the concept was saved for Walt Disney World's second and once groundbreaking theme park.

(Art copyright The Walt Disney Company.)

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