A Fresh Look at Port Disney

In an attempt to get the City of Anaheim to make concessions for their desired expansion of the Disneyland Resort, the suits at The Walt Disney Company pitted the city in direct competition to neighboring Long Beach.
 

An ambitious plan.

A lively waterfront.

The proposed project, Port Disney, would include the Queen Mary, new resort hotels, a series of waterside shops and dining, and the centerpiece crowd drawing Disney Sea theme park. 

The elegance of California Disney style.

The Grand Entry would form the gateway to all of the attractions set along that beautiful Southern California marina. Having seen the site several times over the decades, I can tell you that Anaheim had quite a competitor on its hands!

Tokyo here we come!

If you've been watching Disney+ and you're a fan of those world famous theme parks, you've no doubt been following their wonderful The Imagineering Story. In the most recent episode, Hits and Misses, folks in the know are pretty candid about the divisions within Imagineering and how some were working on the clumsy and inexpensive California Adventure 1.0 - a replacement for the much more expensive and Disney quality WESTCOT- while others were blessed with the opportunity to design a modern masterpiece, Tokyo Disnesea. 

Oh what could have been!

As we know, Anaheim ponied up the cash, and Disney pulled a big time bait and switch. Giving their host city California Adventure in place of WESTCOT was a mistake of epic proportions! (Check out this mega-post with some pretty rare concept art.) The end result of it all being a theme park that was very embarrassing and the brunt of well-deserved jokes, city government than was more than angry, and most importantly to The Walt Disney Company, storehouses of lost cash and a very badly bruised reputation. And having to reinvent the second Anaheim park at an expense that could have been avoided had they done it right the first time.

The Disney Sea concept made it in revised form to all the way to Japan. With the wisdom and financial backing of the Oriental Land Company, Tokyo Disneysea became the gold standard of Disney theme parks, holding a crown that seemingly cannot be taken. Not by California, not by Florida, and not by the overseas parks.

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Want to read more about what was ultimately planned for Long Beach? Thanks to my friends at WDWMagic, you can go here and read the preliminary master plan, where you'll find the images of the project. If you want an insider's view of it all, Alain Littaye from Disney and More pointed me to this incredible post from Progress City. What a find! Hadn't seen that...

(Art and images copyright The Walt Disney Company.)

Could This Be the Replacement for the Cancelled Disneyland Hotel?

Could these old plans for a new hotel at the Disneyland Resort make a comeback now that the City of Anaheim and Disney itself has moved away from the ill-conceived, poorly received contemporary and nondescript version once planned?

Here it was- the new 700 room hotel once planned for the Disneyland Resort. If you look closely, you can see it is right next door to Downtown Disney. The original Disneyland Hotel is back to the rear.

Not a winning design.

Personally, I'm glad this plan has bitten the dust! It is a fairly pedestrian looking structure, something that would fit in any downtown business park. Much too ordinary and lacking charm. 

The concept art at top- the first plan for a new hotel at the Disneyland Resort is easily a revision of the Grand Floridian and the truly lovely Disneyland Paris Hotel. But it is a stunner! The piece came from a photograph. Look closely, the lower right hand corner seems to have been lit by a flash bulb. 

We did end up with something very different than this version, but at least its not the contemporary monstrosity it could have been! The Disney suits have to go back to the drawing board and come up  with something that will please city officials and stockholders. Pleasing the fans? Well, at least in California, that seems to be out of fashion. Cases in point- Pixar Pier and the half baked Marvel land centered around Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout. (And to think, we were going to get Westcot at one point in time!) 

(Art copyright The Walt Disney Company.)

The Disneyland Resort That Never Was

The dawn of a new Disney era. The great second gate park in Anaheim that upon opening was really the flop known as California Adventure. The well done Downtown Disney entertainment district. There was all this talk about another impressive hotel in addition to the Grand Californian. One discussed, planned, and never built... and here it is in living color- right next to the one and only original Disneyland. 

No one is better at uncovering rare Disney Imagineering art than my friend Alain Littaye over at Disney and More, but here's a piece of concept art lost in my files. Unfortunately, I can't give credit as I can't remember where it came from. It must have been from a photograph as the lower right hand corner looks like it has been lit by a flash bulb. But there's no mistaking that it is Walt's original theme park on the left side. Wouldn't it have been beautiful?  

As you can see, the plans that came to fruition were not the ones originally on the drawing boards. The rather plain Esplanade we have now was once planned to be a water feature and some greenery. Back then, Westcot was to be the centerpiece of the expansion, not California Adventure. All that changed when EuroDisney / Disneyland Paris hotels were overbuilt, when the suits namely Michael Eisner got cold feet and when increasing profits demanded even more. Old timers like me remember it well. "Budgeteering", became the latest executive craze that first gripped then swallowed a creative organization.

(Art copyright The Walt Disney Company.)

Disney Attractions Never Built: Port Disney

Oh, what could have been! In fact, preparing these latest series of posts, I almost named the Disney Attractions Never Built, "Great Opportunities Missed"! You're looking at a piece of art for the aborted Port Disney, the predecessor to the elegant, expensive, but extremely successful Tokyo DisneySea. 

Had the project been built as deigned, the city of Long Beach, California, would have become home to a Disney styled aquatic theme park and more. Disney already owned the nearby Howard Hughes' airplane Spruce Goose and the ship Queen Mary. Both acquired from Jack Wrather- who Walt Disney persuaded to build the Disneyland Hotel when his cash was tied up into creating Disneyland. 

Plans were announced in 1991 and quickly abandoned. Some say the entire idea was actually a ruse, a power play by Disney to get the City of Anaheim to fund very expensive infrastructure improvements as Imagineers prepped a second gate for the parking lot of Disneyland. If it was, it worked.

Whatever the truth, Port Disney was never built, and the plans for the water based theme park morphed into what became Tokyo DisneySea. The brilliant, forward thinking executives of the Oriental Land Company previewed the designs for the proposed second Disney gate in Japan. With their philosophy closely aligned with Walt's- quality creates loyalty and high returns on investment- they immediately moved ahead, realizing it would be the new gold standard for outdoor entertainment. The results speak for themselves.

As for California, with Port Disney now dead and the City of Anaheim committed, Michael Eisner and company planned for Westcot, a new take on Epcot, which quickly gave way to the much cheaper to build California Adventure. It was a bait and switch for guests, the city, and eventually for the Walt Disney Company. To say the Golden State themed park was a flop would be kind. The deservedly maligned amusement park became an overnight embarrassment to the company, the fodder for late night television jokes, created open disdain from fans, and a let loose a financial drain instead of being an income builder. Within the company, the disaster turned into a divide among creatives and  executives which has never truly healed.

(Art copyright The Walt Disney Company.)