October 7, 2011: Sunshine Plaza

[Werner Weiss]

Please don’t call it the Hubcap. Sure, it’s at the hub of this theme park, and it’s a bulging, round, decorative object, much like the bowl-like disks that hide the lug nuts on old automobile wheels.

But it has a real name. It’s the Sun Icon.

Link to Sunshine Plaza at Yesterland

Please discuss it here.

[jpg391]

I wished they kept the Sun Icon and the Wave Fountain.

[SpectroMan]

I think the wave fountain stopped working the CORRECT way about 3-4 years ago. After that, it was just a very slow sweep across (when it was on) as opposed to the true "wave crash" that it originally did. It was nice when it was fully working.

[kindagoofy]

Our first visit to DCA was about 18 months after it opened. By then, the sun tracker reflectors were non-functional, and never worked during our subsequent visits. Did they ever work? Thanks!

[Werner Weiss]

Our first visit to DCA was about 18 months after it opened. By then, the sun tracker reflectors were non-functional, and never worked during our subsequent visits. Did they ever work? Thanks!

When I did my research for the article, I didn't find definitive information about how long the tracking reflectors functioned to reflect sunlight onto the Sun Icon, what the issues were, and why Disney chose not to look for the solution that would work reliably.

According to John Frost's blog, "That neat effect lasted less than a year."

[JiminyCricketFan]

When Walt laid out Disneyland he was sure to put his Castle in the right direction so that it was always lit. Unfortunately because the stupid designers of DCA fails to think about the direction of the sun, the Sun Icon was always shadowed, no matter what time of day you saw it. It was in exactly the wrong place, just as the castle in Disneyland is facing exactly the correct direction. I am always imagining myself as a child and asking if I would like that as a kid. I have to say, that giant mental thing never looked interesting. Now if they had invested some money and made an icon of crystals that created rainbows that showed all around it, that might be very fun for kids. But the ugly metal thingy was just butt ugly.

[Timekeeper]

So the those big metal towers around sunshine plaza had a purpose, to follow the sun where ever it went. I didn't know about that. Thanks.


Timekeeper

[kindagoofy]

When I did my research for the article, I didn't find definitive information about how long the tracking reflectors functioned to reflect sunlight onto the Sun Icon, what the issues were, and why Disney chose not to look for the solution that would work reliably.

According to John Frost's blog, "That neat effect lasted less than a year."

Such a bummer. Funny thing: Imagineers virtually always have a 'B' Mode, but for this one, they did not. I'm guessing that's because all of DCA was 'B' Mode to begin with. Thanks for another great article.

[Trumpet]

Even though I am looking forward to Buena Vista Street, everytime my family was in the park, we would buy an ice cream from burr-bank ice cream parlour and eat it while enjoying the wave fountain. It was so peaceful compared to Disneyland's main Street.

Despite this, Buena Vista Street will transport us back to 1920s LA.

PS I am REALLY looking excited for the Red Trolley Cars!

Werner, are you going to add an article to Yesterland about Burger Invasion?