DCA-After Cars Land is Done in 2012 will there be ...........

[IzzyInWonderland]

What frustrates me is the lack of land altogether. Where to expand to? What to get rid of? In which areas would Disney be able to purchase land close to the resort in able to accommodate another park if need be? I mean I'm curious about this because the resorts future sort of depends on it.

[Mojave]

Originally Posted by IzzyInWonderland

What frustrates me is the lack of land altogether. Where to expand to? What to get rid of? In which areas would Disney be able to purchase land close to the resort in able to accommodate another park if need be? I mean I'm curious about this because the resorts future sort of depends on it.

Disney already owns land for a third park. It's the strawberry fields south of, and including, the (cast?) parking lot which is just south of Katella and Garden Walk.

[Baloo]

They have also been in negotiations for years with surrounding land owners of the strawberry field to see if they could eventually buy some of the land that surrounds that property.

They also own a few more properties under a diferent name that are leased out.

[Aladdin]

Originally Posted by Baloo

....
The land being used for the multi lane parking ticket booths and entrance are still considered for removal when the time comes. It will all depend on traffic flow around the resort and the second parking structure. The land would then be able to extend out east toward Harbor. Some area would need to be left for backstage road to allow trucks to use the utility tunnel to Disneyland backstage. . . . . and Grizzlly Peak also has an attraction pad without having to remove the brother bear area.

The perimeter, especially the driving lanes around DCA is some of the biggest waste of space for DCA. It's not serving as a decent berm. And it is going to be exceptionally difficulty to utilize that area for expanding the park. I really consider that as a problem with how the designed DCA from the time they started construction. They should have just planned from the beginning NOT to use any of the former parking lot for parking. And they should have just used the entire paking lot and made a few more grassy park type areas, that could have later been used for expansion. (allowing of course for service access)

[Coheteboy]

While I'm not counting on something more to be expanded right away in DCA, it would be nice to still increase the amount of attractions. The addition of Carsland only boosts it to three new attractions. Add the Buena Vista Street Trolley and you have 4. It's closer, but still not exactly comparable with Disneyland.

[IzzyInWonderland]

Originally Posted by Mojave

Disney already owns land for a third park. It's the strawberry fields south of, and including, the (cast?) parking lot which is just south of Katella and Garden Walk.

So I guess I'm not going to get my chance to skip through the strawberry fields?? haha

[Datameister]

Well, DCA can't be comparable to Disneyland in terms of sheer number of high-quality attractions this early in the game. It simply costs too much. It just would have been nice if the park had been laid out with areas that were thematically and spatially conducive to major additions later on.

[IzzyInWonderland]

Originally Posted by Datameister

Well, DCA can't be comparable to Disneyland in terms of sheer number of high-quality attractions this early in the game. It simply costs too much. It just would have been nice if the park had been laid out with areas that were thematically and spatially conducive to major additions later on.

I agree, there is so much wasted space. So much that could have been utilized in that park.

[Mojave]

Originally Posted by Aladdin

The perimeter, especially the driving lanes around DCA is some of the biggest waste of space for DCA. It's not serving as a decent berm. And it is going to be exceptionally difficulty to utilize that area for expanding the park. I really consider that as a problem with how the designed DCA from the time they started construction. They should have just planned from the beginning NOT to use any of the former parking lot for parking. And they should have just used the entire paking lot and made a few more grassy park type areas, that could have later been used for expansion. (allowing of course for service access)

The only place the lanes around the south of DCA waste space is in the southwest corner behind Screamin'. But that's a very easy fix: build a ride similar to TSMM where the queue is onstage (say the western helix?) and the attraction building is backstage. In fact, they could probably put a third attraction backstage there, though the onstage queues might get a little crowded.

The only think I'm worried about is that they are designing Cars Land to fit around the lanes (and the non-Disney property) in the southeast corner. They know eventually those lanes will be gone. Why not build the parking structure in Pumbaa NOW and let Cars Land use the full space? Of course, in the future, that area is prime land for a backstage attraction building as well, not to mention all the other backstage buildings they need.

[Uncle Bob]

Originally Posted by Coheteboy

While I'm not counting on something more to be expanded right away in DCA, it would be nice to still increase the amount of attractions. The addition of Carsland only boosts it to three new attractions. Add the Buena Vista Street Trolley and you have 4. It's closer, but still not exactly comparable with Disneyland.

I agree, that is one of the things that sucks about them having to direct so much money into retheming instead of new attractions. It needs to be done and doing it is the right thing to do now, but it's just sad to think what could have been. Think what they could have done with all that money if the basic framework of the park was ok and all the money was going to new attractions.

[Uncle Bob]

Originally Posted by Datameister

Well, DCA can't be comparable to Disneyland in terms of sheer number of high-quality attractions this early in the game. It simply costs too much. It just would have been nice if the park had been laid out with areas that were thematically and spatially conducive to major additions later on.

I agree that it should have been laid out much better and more long term planning should have been done. I think that they have a better plan now, though I still do question some things. I think they could have come close to DL in terms of attractions though, sure it would have cost a lot, but it could have saved a lot in the long run. It's not like Disney couldn't have come up with more money if they wanted to. The OLC decided it was worth it to build out their second gate completely, and now it's more popular than the original park. Anyway, even with what they had to work with, it could have been done better.

[Mojave]

Originally Posted by Uncle Bob

I agree, that is one of the things that sucks about them having to direct so much money into retheming instead of new attractions. It needs to be done and doing it is the right thing to do now, but it's just sad to think what could have been. Think what they could have done with all that money if the basic framework of the park was ok and all the money was going to new attractions.

The other way to look at that is, if the basic framework of the park had been done correctly, then they wouldn't be doing this extreme makeover, they wouldn't necessarily be putting this much money into it. Instead, they'd be doing the usual new attraction every year or two.

What are we getting in the next 3.5 years? A whole new land, 2 new top-notch E-tickets and three other new attractions (Mater, Luigi and the Red Cars).

[Uncle Bob]

They still would have expanded the park and we still would have gotten CL and TLM probably. In some ways they've always planned to do much of what they're doing, they always wanted to add a big water show, a major car related area, and TLM is probably the franchise they get asked about why it doesn't have a ride. I just think we may have gotten another couple of attractions too if they didn't need to spend so much on retheming.

You have to remember, the amount of money they're spening is based on future projected income, not because they feel guilty about building a lousy park. If they think it's a good investment now, then they certainly would be aggressively expanding DCA if it had been built right in the first place, expecially if it was bringing in 9 or 10 million clicks a year already.

[Uncle Bob]

Originally Posted by Baloo

Actually Darkbeer that is incorrect. I have seen the expansion plans and the park has a few expansion areas and there will still be plenty of land for DCA to expand after Cars Land.

First of all Cars Land will only use 12 acres of the timon lot it still leaves several acres available behind TOT for several attraction pads. In 2001 DCA had 28 acres of expansion space in the timon lot. Out of those 28 acres only a small fraction was used for TOT and FFF. I do not have the info in front of me but together we are looking at about 6 or so acres. Now subtract the 12 acres of Cars Land which by the way includes a small porion of the existing DCA property used by the farm.


The land being used for the multi lane parking ticket booths and entrance are still considered for removal when the time comes. It will all depend on traffic flow around the resort and the second parking structure. The land would then be able to extend out east toward Harbor. Some area would need to be left for backstage road to allow trucks to use the utility tunnel to Disneyland backstage. Paradise Pier also has a couple locations that are considered attraction expansion spots both in the boardwalk/backstage area and northern section.
and Grizzlly Peak also has an attraction pad without having to remove the brother bear area.

After those areas are filled the park does allow for other buildings to be reconfigured and rebuilt along with pathways for future growth. Before that happens, the focus on expansion would already be on the third gate. The third gate is still being considered to happen sometime between a possible second and third phase growth of DCA.

Where is the location for the attraction in the Grizzly Peak area? I had heard many people say that they didn't plan for another attraction there.

[MasterElwood]

has someone a googlemap pic or something else for the location of the 3rd gate?