Port Disney Leads to Tokyo Disneysea Success and California Adventure Failure

And you thought Avengers Campus was lacking in ambition and execution! Take a look at the piece of concept art used to sell Port Disney to the city of Long Beach. Toss in the extravagance of EPCOT Center with a nautical theme, and you get a blockbuster Disney theme park. Or so it seems...

The grand entry.

In actuality, this was a well designed ploy by Michael Eisner to get the city of Anaheim to pony up big cash for what folks thought would be WESTCOT Center. But it was a true bait and switch. 

The second Disneyland Resort theme park would instead be the very underwhelming Disney California Adventure 1.0- a total flop creatively and financially. It would take another billion or so to transform it from the laughing stock of the theme park world to something vaguely resembling a Disney park- if only later to begin reverting to tacky and "hip and edgy".

In the meantime, quietly opening (at least to US Disney park fans) several months later in 2001 would be the grandest of all parks, Tokyo Disneysea in Japan. That park only gets better over time. And it is a consistent money maker from day one. 

You don't believe that California Adventure was once the bastion of what I call Bargain Basement Imagineering? Check out this look at DCA over its 20 year history and my very popular series, and view the concept art that formed the foundation of the park. It makes Spider-Man's WEB Slingers look like a masterpiece!

(Art copyright The Walt Disney Company.)

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.

———————————-
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.)

Port Disney from the Sky

You're seen the view from the sky. Now, take a look at the incredible concept art for a project that inspired Tokyo DisneySea. The name was to be Port Disney, and it was intended for Long Beach, California - or it was only intended to be a concept to make the city of Anaheim pony up loads of cash and tax benefits to build the infrastructure around Disneyland.  This was necessary in order to make expansion of the resort feasible. Depends on who you ask, actually. Could be what's happening with that parking garage fiasco that never should have happened.

The bait and switch- which I personally believe as I don't trust much press from the Company I love these days - ended up with Disney getting what they wanted in Orange County. But, lo and behold! Promise Anaheim Westcot and end up building the tepid  Disney's California Adventure 1.0, the most off-the-shelf cheap and edgy park ever built up until that time. Soarin' Over California aside, it was a muddled mess! Made up of clones of Walt Disney World attractions, common carny rides, and a whole lot of film among highly decorated shops and expensive restaurants, it was a poor excuse for anything with the Disney name on it. Particularly right next door to the original. When the new younger sister finally opened, she was not a beauty.  

Things became worse when it was compared directly to the lovely, inspiring, expensive but thoroughly groundbreaking Tokyo DisneySea which opened shortly after, and it was a clear misstep and an embarrassment.  

Thought they'd fool the guests, but the guests were too smart to be taken for a ride. Pun intended. Years later, after a Billion plus dollars in investment, the park finally feels like a Disney theme park and not Six Flags. Will they ruin it with Marvel? Perhaps. But it will most certainly be better in every way than it was in 2001. 

(Art copyright The Walt Disney Company.)

Long Beach Disney Sea?

Unbuilt Disney Imagineering Attractions. There are few things like this topic to bring about a variety of reactions from any hard core Disney theme park fans. Just mention, say Discovery Bay, Western River Expedition or Westcot, and see what happens. Try discussing with them California Adventure 1.0 or Tokyo Disney Sea for two very opposing and different reactions.

All this leads me to Port Disney, the unbuilt theme park once designed by the Imagineers for Long Beach, California, just a few miles down the 405 Freeway from Disneyland. Depending on who you talk to, the park was either a very expensive ruse set up by the Disney suits to get the city of Anaheim to cough up big bucks for a second theme park on the existing property or it was the real thing that remained one of the inspirations for creating a water themed park in Tokyo, the beloved and much admired Tokyo Disney Sea. 

The concept above shows the beautiful and unrealized Oceana at Port Disney. (You just have to click on this one to see it in a very large size.) Inside the sparkling glass domes, lucky guests would have experienced a variety of edutainment experiences that only Disney could do. Think of the park as a combination of the original Living Seas pavilion at EPCOT Center, throw in a few modern day scientific exhibits, sprinkled with a dash or two of good old Disney magic... and even a section that sounded and looked a lot like Paradise Pier at California Adventure.  All the while, this new park would have also taken a hefty stab at Sea World's fan base, a savvy and cutthroat business strategy that had proven quite successful for Disney in Florida. 

A battle ensued between the cities, with Anaheim ponying up the massive funds and new infrastructure for an additional park, with  Disney promising a dazzling Westcot. Of course, with some local protests and a lot of help from those internal to the Walt Disney Company, the suits pulled a fast one- spending far less cash- and instead delivered a second rate California Adventure instead. The rest, as they say, is history.

(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.)