Walt Disney Studios - Paris

   Hope all are well.

 

  When looking at the possibilities for the 2nd Gate to Disneyland Paris, I've typically started from scratch, as it is more enjoyable for me to imagine & lay out a park that begins with Vision, awe-factor, rhyme & reason in terms of theme and attraction placement, carefully positioned vistas, weenies & sightlines - all of which WDSP has lacked.   But now that the much-needed revamp is well-underway, I've decided to draw a plan showing how the actual park-that-will-be could further expand & improve.  

 

  This drawing includes - mostly - what will be there when the current central boulevard, lake and Arendelle are finished in 2025.    The Front Lot, Toon Studios, Toy Story Playland, Place de Remy, Avengers Campus, Cours des Reves (my name for the lake and boulevard, as I'm not sure what the actual name will be) and Arendelle are "as is" and do not need written explanation here.

HOLLYWOOD

  The big change in Part I is Hollywood, which takes some inspiration from the original Disney-MGM Studios at its best.   One passes out of the cheesy Studio One indoor main street and enters a much more impressive Hollywood facsimile: the street is curbed, the atmospheric Resident characters and vehicles are there, the detailed facades all now hold shops & dining.  The Tower Hotel looms behind the shops.  On the right is a Studio Gate separating Toon Studios from 1930s/40s Hollywood streets.

  The major addition here takes up the currently underused corner of the park with a new version of The Great Movie Ride, with its landmark Chinese Theater facade.   As at MGM, one queues in an ornate lobby past movie props and costumes and then enters a theater showing classic film trailers, previewing upcoming scenes.  Great Movie Ride in its 1.0 form was one of my all-time favorites.  Here the concept/feel of the ride is the same, though the execution is somewhat different, including ride system are new film scenes.  Musical, Gangster, Western, SciFi, Comedy, Adventure & Fantasy genres would all be represented via highly detailed sets, scores of audio-animatronics and special effects.  In my imagination, it would be fully narrated by the great "What will be your fate?" voice from the original ride.

 
 

PANDORA

  When I think about fixing this park, ideally it would have had WDSP offer a completely different menu of themes and IPs than its neighbor, DLP.  Any properties that would enhance an extant land at DLP shouldn't have been considered for WDSP and vice-versa.  That ship has sailed, but Disney still has a lot of IP that isn't a natural fit for DLP and would be well-suited for this Catch-All park, some of which is already present: Marvel, Ratatouille, Toy Story, Cars.  Avatar is another big example, already associated with Disney Parks, so here it goes.   

  As often mentioned, a major consideration is sightlines and vistas - how it feels just to explore and soak in the park.  So in this plan, I am trying to minimize the impact of the rear of the (ill-placed) Tower of Terror, add a lot of trees/nature and do something to disguise the long view of the Flight Force (former RocknRollecoaster) gravity box.  Considering the scale and treatment of the Avatar Flight of Passage showbuilding in Orlando, I thought this would work well abutting Flight Force and get two birds with one rockwork stone. 

  While Flight of Passage is generally the same as in WDW, including the landmark floating mountains, this plan shows a unique and improved version of Pandora, defined by the Navi River Rapids - a long indoor-outdoor raft ride that takes explorers on a journey throughout the land.   This ride features additional "floating" mountains at the top of the lift hill, adding to the depth and grandeur of vistas in the park.  Good Humans have set up an eco-tourism business, which queues partly through an abandoned hydro plant.  Lively Pandoran plants and AA wildlife (e.g. a herd of hammerhead titanotheres, a troop of Pandoran monkeys in branches, etc.) are seen around the riverbanks, with the more sophisticated AAs (such as Navi) and bioluminescence saved for the indoor scenes at the beginning & end of the ride.   To account for the Parisian weather, how wet riders get could be minimized as it is on Tokyo's Splash Mountain.

The canteen and shop from WDW are also here, though relocated.    The other addition is a Hometree explore zone.



AVENGERS CAMPUS

   I've changed the left edge of the land with the removal of the Stunt Show Theater.   A new attraction inspired by Dr. Strange and his magical artifacts takes the form of a special effects show in a similar vein to Alien Encounter or Poseidon's Fury with multiple stages: Preshow A, Preshow B (more elaborate), Main Show (two theaters for capacity).  The exterior is an ancient & otherworldly portal or sanctum, which aids in the transition to Pandora.  

LONDON SQUARE

 
  Best practice is to avoid a situation in which almost all the park's IP is taken from a certain timeframe or generation (e.g. the last 10-20 years).   Hence London Square, dedicated to some of the classics of the 1960s & 70s.  

  This land's setting is the idyllic Old London of the early 20th Century, with Cherry Tree Lane diverting off the main parade route.  The carousel from Mary Poppins occupies the central park.  An Edwardian glass tea pavilion is near the central loop.   I wanted the main rides here to be unique to this park, so I chose "101 Dalmatians" for the classic darkride, its facade continuing the street of terraced townhouses, with scaled-down London landmarks such as St. Paul's on the roof.

   "Bedknobs & Broomsticks" might be the best movie in the Company's entire catalog.  Apparently, this is not a widely-shared belief and thus it's never had a park presence.   Here I can change this, as film seems ideal for ride-translation with a magic, multi-passenger flying bed and automation of inanimate objects being the central features.  The facade is the bomb-abandoned London mansion where Professor Brown is squatting.  The queue begins in an old roundtower (nod to the film's castle), goes through the mansion's gardens and outbuilding and then inside through the various rooms: library, nursery, etc.  Suspended bed vehicles take riders on a careening musical adventure to Portobello Road, the Briny Sea, the Isle of Namboombu and the battle of reanimated soldiers.  

 MOS EISLEY SPACEPORT

  You may notice that they way I've put the layout together has corresponding themed lands on opposite sides of main Cours, e.g. London vs Paris.   Here, contrasting the lush jungle/ mostly-wild alien world of Pandora, is the arid desert/mostly-urban alien world of Mos Eisley.  

  While another Batuu-Lite was originally part of the official plan, here I wanted to go with something totally unique and try incorporating a famous location often seen in the Star Wars Universe.  Timeline is Original Trilogy (of course) and the full-scale Lamda-Class Imperial shuttle at the back of the land fills the same role as the TIE Echelon in Batuu (am I the only one who thinks the Echelon looks too small to hold all the people coming out of it?).  Darth Vader himself could occasionally descend from the shuttle ramp in his search for Rebels.

   I also saw this land as an opportunity to cleanse Discoveryland of the extraneous IP, as every plan I've drawn for DLP has Discoveryland adhering to its original vision, free of Star Wars (and Toy Story).  Therefore, I've moved Star Tours over to this park.  Its weenie features a landing platform with a couple of Starspeeder 3000s on it.   I think it's a shame that the Company plan for both DHS and Disneyland Anaheim has been to feature Star Tours in the same park as Star Wars Land - but not in the actual land.  

  In addition to Star Tours, three new rides complete this land:  Mos Eisley Transit Authority, or M.E.T.A., is a peoplemover that circles the entire land on the 2nd level, featuring numerous indoor scenes and Audio Animatronic vignettes.   Bounty Hunter Blast is D-ticket family shooter darkride.

  You've probably seen art of the cancelled giant beast ride for Batuu.   Here I have expanded that idea with a dedicated Bantha Caravans ride.  The queue winds up to the level of the howdah on the top of a mechanical Bantha (or Dewback for variation).   The hairy animals then proceed to undulate and trot around  the desert landscape.

   Mos Eisley would be rounded out with a replica of the famous Cantina bar with its aliens and band.  Han Solo & Chewbacca could drop in from time to time.  There is a Jawa Junk Market and large table service restaurant run by members of the Hutt Clan.   I envision the Millennium Falcon as a Swiss Family type walkthrough attraction.

 

 

SHADOWLAND

  This final area is themed to Disney's collective animated villains, and I designed it to achieve a number of goals: 1. provide a very large and impressive weenie at the back of the park; 2 give the lineup a major, heavily-themed, indoor-outdoor mountain coaster, which it sorely lacks; 3. counterbalance the saccharine princess-land of Arendelle opposite it; 4. avoid another single-IP land; and 5. feature some environments that aren't natural fits for Disneyland next door.

   Like a sinister version of Fantasy Springs, this area has subsections with distinct geographies & architectural styles.  The medieval one - the area around Dark Mountain - is a mash-up of the mountain lairs & castles of the likes of the Horned King, Maleficent & Chernabog.  It's not intended to be a recreation from any of these movies.  This an original creation - an ominous mountain with an evil-looking castle & crumbling towers in its upper reaches.   Here the aforementioned villains gather and plot.   The queue begins by crossing a murky water and entering the mountain portcullis gateway.  Explorers then wind through subterranean chambers where villains (in AA form) are revealed in multiple pre-shows.  The queue then emerges in a forest north of the mountain, finally entering another set of caverns for final pre-show & boarding.   Post ride, the lengthy egress passes over a bridge north of the mountain, re-enters the mountain base, where a gift shop could be located at the last cave, before returning to the land. 

  Across from the Mountain is Sleepy Hollow Village - a haunted version of Liberty Square - with dead oaks, a Headless Horseman Tavern restaurant and some shops.  

  Inspired by the Jim Shull artwork (which you can find linked on IdealBuildout twitter page), there is an Ursula spinner at water level.  Part of its queue descends through a ship wrecked on the rocks by the trident-wielding seawitch.

  Deeper in the land, one passes under a broken wall and enters either a dilapidated New Orleans area featuring a Dr. Facilier rotating madhouse ride, with its SFX pre-show/queue. 

  Opposite it is the final sub area, with its Ancient Greece theme.   A crumbling temple to Hades marks the entrance to an indoor musical boatride featuring the villain from "Hercules" tormenting the Greeks.

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The End.
 

 

 

 

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To be continued...

EPCOT Center - Resurrected

  EPCOT Center of the 1980s into the 90s as created by the original team of Imagineers - an inimitable group of visionary geniuses - aimed to inspire and instill in the visitor something of value about the real world, from the culture of Mexico to the history & future of Transportation.   It had a clarity of Vision and Purpose and a rare, now-lost Harmony in presentation.  Its scale, ambition and newness made the park awe-inspiring, electrifying and hugely impactful on many return visitors, including me.  In my opinion, EPCOT Center in its first decade represents the pinnacle of the art of theme parks.  

  When I draw an illustrative for EPCOT, I typically maintain a lot of the original park, i.e. with Horizons, CommuniCore and World of Motion intact, because if it ain't broke...   But in this case, I'll be looking at how EPCOT might have been revamped/refreshed beginning circa its 25th Anniversary to return to something closer its original spirit, instead of taking the opposite path and devolving into a less-beautiful, less-sophisticated, less-cohesive, less-unique and less-timeless IP park.

 

ENTRANCE & SPINE

   Here I've changed the entrance and spine of the park, though it would still maintain the established "Future World Style".  Not really necessary, but something to differentiate this version from what was there for the first 25 years.

   Of course the legendary Norm Inouye iconography and font return throughout Future World.  The entrance plaza features "disc fountains" of the pavilions' symbols.

  Spaceship Earth drops the horrible Seimens descent jibjab video and reverts to the scenic Jeremy Irons descent or something new and worthy of this great attraction.

 
   CommuniCore is a new, smaller version of the original hub, opening more space for landscape, vistas and fountain shows.  Its dining and retail venues would reflect the two halves of Future World, FW West with its Life-based pavilions/organic paths & FW East with its Tech-based pavilions and more geometric paths.

  The monorail has a switch and spur track, so some trains can bypass this park on their way to other destinations at WDW.

HORIZONS

  This attraction, my all-time favorite ride, rises from the ashes in a new body (former Universe of Energy building).  It has the same spirit, style, narration, music & scene progression as the original, taking advantage of some tech advances for the Choose Your Adventure ending.

VOYAGES IN SPACE

   Combining the Mission:Space and Wonders of Life buildings, this attraction begins with a flight to a future Martian colony (Mission:Space revamped).   Once guests "land" on Mars, they egress down a long hallway with glass viewing portals showing the landscape of the Red Planet, until the arrive at the domed Mars Base (the old WoL central area).  This area has interactive science exhibits, a restaurant, and two attractions - a SFX theater on subjects such as the Big Bang or Terra-forming and a re-tooling of Body Wars for a more science-based exploration adventure, maybe using wormholes.  

  In order to "return to Earth" (and for those that don't want to experience the red or green centrifuge ride, a Tele-Transporter Lab could be used in a similar manner to the Hydrolators at Living Seas).

WORLD OF MOTION

   In this pavilion I envisioned combining the humorous vignette and scenic elements of the Marc Davis, Ward Kimball, Claude Coats original with the heart-pumping finale of TestTrack.   The clean-lined, futuristic ride vehicles would go through the original "Fun to be Free" scenes at a leisurely pace, including the initial spiral over the entry-way.  Where the speed rooms started in the original WoM, the music and tone would change as vehicles take off into the future, following the now enclosed track (no more backstage views) out of the original building for high speed, banked whirl around a vast, detailed and animated "CentreCore" diorama of a future city before returning to encircle the original building.    

 Aquatopia, replacing the Odyssey Restaurant, falls under the World of Motion umbrella.

 

JOURNEY INTO IMAGINATION

   The pavilion here reverts to its original color scheme (see above).  There's something new for the 3-D Theater.   The spirit of the original ride (music, characters, general expression of concepts, such as the Dreamport, flying machine, genres of literature, theater, film, etc.) return in a more advanced form.  I feel like an LPS system might be a good fit for an imagination-based ride, replacing the original system and adding some diversity to the park's ride types.  

THE LAND
    The Soarin' ride system remains, but no longer has the 'airport' theme and current ride film (world wonders) that has little connection to the Pavilion's purpose (Agriculture and Environment).   Instead, the queue and preshow would be a biogeopgraphic research base that introduces riders to earth's terrestrial ecoregions or biomes (e.g., Boreal Forest, Tropical Savanna, Desert, Temperate Forest, Tundra, Temperate Grasslands, Tropical Forest, etc.), and the Soarin' ride experience would be an aerial survey of these various landscapes in their unspoiled state, using a slot-machine system for ride variability.

   Replacing the Awesome Earth theater (we get much better specials on TV with David Attenborough) would be an attraction in the vein of The Land's historic animatronic musical comedy shows on nutrition.

THE LIVING SEAS

   Here the pavilion doubles in size to provide multiple experiences: two entrances and two unique ways to reach SeaBase Alpha.   The original method, with the brilliant 'The Seas' film and epic hydrolator reveal is back (never left in an ideal world).   

  The new section follows the original concept with Oceanus: a longer omnimover ride narrated by Poseidon.   As seen in the model above, the track passes through numerous "dry" undersea scenes, providing a more stylized experience of environs like kelp forests and coral reefs, with some shocking encounters with predators (animatronic), before eventually visiting the future of undersea exploration as riders are deposited at the opposite side of SeaBase Alpha.    Return-to-surface hydrolators maintain the undersea illusion.  

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WORLD SHOWCASE

   In this plan, the ruinous IP-mandate dies: there are no movie-based attractions.  No Aladdin meet & greet in Morrocco or Snow White in Germany.  Not even character topiaries are present.   There are other areas of WDW with an abundance of characters and film stuff.   World Showcase was never better than when it felt different and pure.  This park is about presenting a romantic, postcard picture of various countries, staffed by citizens of those countries, for genuine enrichment & cultural exchange and not about cross-promoting the Disney film library.   The only character moments (that aren't EPCOT-originated) I would be okay with here are the occasional pop-ups of members of the base group, wearing representative dress, e.g. kilt-clad Goofy in Canada, kimono Minnie in Japan, etc.

  The other aim is to have parity in terms of attractions among the countries: one country shouldn't get an E-ticket & theater while others have no attractions whatsoever.    Each country needs a draw.   And these experiences ought to vary in terms of type (e.g., one circlevision show for WS is enough).  

  All the great "inbetween" things that have been lost to time return in this plan, such as the Omnibus and abundance of live acts, e.g., the World Showcase Players comedy troupe. 

  Finally, some may ask why I haven't filled in every planned plot in this idealized "build-out".   Answer: I tend to prefer the wooded space breaking up most pavilions because it makes the cross-lagoon views better if the countries aren't squeezed up against each other.  Also, I believe the pedestrian experience is enhanced when a small forested stretch is traversed to get to next country (Norway-China is currently the only area without this kind of planted transition).

photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/crashmattb/13593663373/in/album-72157623982382117/

MEXICO

   The changes include the return of the Cantina and a revamp of the El Rio del Tiempo ride.   The film parts felt dated as long as I can remember...  maybe replacing these film bits and switching out the Small World style dolls for Sinbad (TDS) style mini-animatronics would improve the ride.  I'd also add a leopard to the jungle ruins scene as concept art once showed.  

NORWAY

   No more princess dining at Akershus.  To me, Maelstrom has always been a model D-ticket for World Showcase: atmospheric, great music & narration, nice FX & AAs, medium length, small thrill.  Never intended to be a mind-blowing E-ticket, it was a fun, memorable experience that gave visitors a glimpse of Norwegian cultural touchstones.  I'd be really satisfied if every country in WS had something simliar in scale & execution to Maelstrom.   Here, Maelstrom returns, but in an ideal world, the attraction would be reworked so that the film plays every half hour on a loop in the queue and the post-ride theater space is re-worked into a better queue or an additional scene for the ride.    It was always awkard to rush out - or watch others rush out - of the theater after the ride instead of sitting for the film.  


CHINA

  Not much to change here... Did the seamless CircleVision that was announced  ever happen?


BRAZIL

   Since Africa would get cultural representation in Animal Kingdom's Harambe, which, ideally, would be entirely staffed with International Program people, just like EPCOT, the space once slotted for it (and for Spain) goes to Brazil, the 12th country of World Showcase.  

 

   In the fore of the pavilion is the colorful colonial townscape inspired by places like Ouro Preto or Salvador, dominated by a baroque church, which could house cultural exhibits.  In the village is the main sit-down eatery, a Brazilian steakhouse.  

   The middle of the pavilion is occupied by a rainforest where guests board double decker riverboats for a tour of Brazil in something that might be like Jungle Cruise meets Storybookland Canal boats.   Iguazu Falls is one of the sights on the voyage.   At the rear of the pavilion the boats approach Brazil's most famous visual icon: the harbor of Rio de Janeiro with its Surgarloaf mountain, favellas and Cristo Redentor.  Inside the showbuilding Carnivale could be underway as festive scenes from Copa Cabana and Ipanema unfold.   

   When viewed from a distance, the famous rounded peaks of Rio rise in the distance behind the treeline, for a sight worthy of the other World Showcase pavilions.

 
GERMANY

   Germany finally gets its long-overdue water ride.   Similar to the Rhine River Cruise, but the version I'm imagining here has a small backwards drop, and showcases the Fairlytale roots of Germany, possibly with comedic vignettes of the Grimm Brothers.


ITALY

   Ruins of Ancient Rome, dominated by the Coliseum, mark this country's attraction, which would be a special effects walkthrough (e.g. Tokyo's Castle Mystery Tour or the Shanghai Castle tour.  Guests are separated into small guided tour groups and explore the ruins, as vignettes covering the history of the Roman Empire would come to life using projection mapping (e.g., Ruins-->Pristine) &/or AAs.  As part of the tour would enter the dusty floor of the arena for a Gladiator's view.

 

   This buildout also sees the return of a personal favorite, the classic Ristorante Alfredo di Roma.


THE AMERICAN ADVENTURE

   Not much to change here.   Cast costumes would revert to the traditional Independence Era.

JAPAN

   Like Germany, the alreaady-impressive castle would finally be filled with a ride, in this case a C/D-ticket omnimover in the classic Disney/EPCOT tradition that explores historic and modern Japan, as the art below shows.

MOROCCO
 
   In this expanded pavilion, the winding city alleys culminate in a square where another minaret marks the entrance to a madcap darkride.   I imagine this to be a stylized, Fantasyland type experience and and involve Morocco's connection with cats, similar to the trolls of Norwegian culture.   These are the kinds of fun as well as enriching & authentic aspects that marked the original EPCOT & World Showcase, rather than "a recent Disney-Pixar Movie took place in or near this country."

   Desert vegetation and a Bedouin camp mark another pathway to the rear of the pavilion.   Desert mountain rockwork hides the showbuilding (and France's) from any potential cross-lagoon views.


FRANCE

  To supplement the Impressions de France film, this pavilion gets an original boat ride that could provide a more chilling experience through the catacombs of Paris, possibly interweaving elements from French literature in this tour of the city's famous catacombs and sewers (e.g., Phantom of the Opera, Hunchback, Les Miserables, etc.) or simply be an original or history-based adventure. 

  

  The new Parisian street would be reached via a glass-roofed breezway where Les Halles is.   The originally-envisioned Moulin Rouge windmill could serve as the ride's weenie.


UNITED KINGDOM

   Great Britain gets a pair of attractions with the first being an Audio-Animatronic carousel theater based on the works of Charles Dickens, as hinted in the Art of WDW book.   The theater here is housed in a building inspired by the Round Tower at Windsor Castle. 

   The pavilion's ride would be housed in a Victorian Exposition Hall at the back of the land, as also shown in early artwork.   

 

CANADA

   O Canada circlevision is replaced by a Klondike-themed mountain coaster for a rollicking ride through Canada's wilderness and mineral-layden caves.


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The End

Universal Beijing - Reimagined

   Universal Studios hasn't built an actual studios park since 1990 in Orlando.  Their newer parks have a nominal Hollywood theme, typically in the Boulevard entrance and a movie-making show or feature, but are generally IP parks.   This template is what we can expect to see from Disney & Universal for the foreseeable future.

   With similar Hollywood areas already existing in Osaka & Singapore, I've opted to do something different with this re-imagining.   And with no Production & no Hollywood, I've dropped the Studios from name.  The park here is called "Universal Beijing," and is a closer cousin to Islands of Adventure than to 1990s Universal Studios Florida.  

 

UNIVERSAL GRAND HOTEL

  While the hotel is part of the jettisoned Hollywood theme, I've kept it in this Buildout because it's a solid overall design (especially compared to all the recent, abysmal-looking "themed hotels" by Disney & Universal, e.g. Riviera, Sapphire Falls, Fantasy Springs, etc.). 

  One aspect I would fix, not visible in this plan, is its window treatment.  These latest hotels that are supposed to invoke traditional themes/styles (in this case Spanish Colonial Revival) typically use very modern, pane-less windows with no sashes and no muntins (which separate panes), as you might find at a suburban office park.  This subverts the overall intent of the design (Classic Hollywood; historic) and lessens the beauty/interest/authenticity of the building:

 

PORT OF ENTRY

   Disney has successfully built a few variations on the Main Street concept across its castle parks, and here I've opted for Universal Beijing to have its own unique variant on a Universal's best-park-opener, IoA's Port of Entry.  

  The "town square" equivalent here would have some Spanish/Caribbean influence as a transition from the Grand Hotel and an "Adventure Globe" fountain at its center.  Typical things like Guest Services & the park's Emporium are in this area.  

While Disney & Universal have a lamentable tendency to copy & paste their big-budget "Immersive lands", dropping them into different parks with few if any alterations (Star Wars, Potter, Nintendo, etc.).   In this park, rather than directly clone lands from other parks, I explore the possibilities of taking the same theme and doing new & original things with it.   Everything in this Port of Entry is unique from Orlando and customized for this park, though the idea is the same.  

A signature restaurant sits on the central lagoon, as does the stepped Fountain of Wonders and boat dock.  

 

 
KUNG FU PANDA - LAND OF AWESOMENESS

 In this concept plan, I've relocated the entire indoor Panda land to the seven o'clock position, giving it frontage on what you will find is a much larger central lagoon.   The dramatic change to the land takes place before one goes indoors: what was/is a pretty visible warehouse (see below) is now completely disguised behind layers of mountain rockwork, waterfalls, trees and an undulating river valley dotted with Chinese architecture. 

   I imagine the new outdoor coaster to have Chinese dragon (KungFu Panda 2) themed trains and be similar in scope to DLP's Casey Jr..   It is a terrain following track, mostly below main path level and has no lifthills (self-powered) to obstruct the mountain vista.    

TRANSFORMERS METROBASE

  Both Pandaland and Metrobase are first-of-their-kind areas in a Universal park and are therefore the least altered in my idealized re-imagining.   If the former is a cousin of TDS' Mermaid Lagoon, the latter is a proxy for Tomorrowland.

   The major change I've illustrated is taking the well-done and intriguing rockwork at the existing entry area and making it the dominant visual feature and connecting thread throughout the land and its structures.   This would make the visitor feel more like they are in an environment on the planet Cybertron or one of its colonial outposts.   I would also have the boilerplate Transformers scoop ride individualized for this park, maybe reflecting that it is no longer Earth-based.  

  

JURASSIC WORLD

 Across the wide lagoon, the park's landmark volcano rises above the park - a much larger edifice than the existing mountain, larger than TDS' Mount Prometheus.  And like Prometheus, hidden within it are several rides on multiple levels as well as guest passageway connecting to two sides of the land: west & east.  My goal here was to remove the big-lightly-themed-box factor that pervades the extant land (and park), but to keep some of its original features.  You still have the land's thrill ride, Jurassic World Adventure, entered through the Visitor Center, but here the showbuilding is invisible behind the mountain.  Like magic, a key to great theme parks is to keep the eye/mind in the dark about the Where & the How.

The Masosaur lagoon is like Aninal Kingdom's river otter habitat on steroids: shadows projected on the water surface hint at the presence of the leviathan as you walk down the ramp into a cavern with subsurface glass "windows" to view the giant sea dino as it appears in & out of the murky lagoon.   

The extant park has a small, indoor play area, but here Camp Jurassic is taken out of the Aviary and given a much larger, leafier exploration area, similar to IOA, at the base of the volcano, featuring things like treehouses, rope bridges & amber caverns.  

Inside the glass-domed Aviary one can view dino exhibits, grab a bite or queue for Pteradon Tours, which is a Soarin' like experience over the island's farthest reaches.   

 Another headline ride is the Gyrosphere Dino Safari that, like the movie, puts guests into glass vehicles for a screen-less tour of Jurassic World from the volcano's heights (switchback queue up the mountainside to the loading building) to the lagoon home of giant brachiosaurs - a zippy, closeup experience of life-like dinosaurs in their natural habitats.

ILLUMINATION CITY

  Replacing the existing Minions Land with its midway pier containing a spinner & kiddie coaster, this land is re-designed as a cheerful, quirky City environment and themed to all the Illumination properties that smoothly fit within this world.  

  The Secret Life of Pets darkride is lifted from Universal Hollywood, as that one is the currently the only of its kind I don't mind cloning it once.   On the other hand, Minion Mayhem has been built in the majority of Uni parks, so I've opted for an original, screen-less Despicable Me attraction, a shooter darkride in the vein of Monsters Ride & Go Seek.   The exterior is themed to the Villains Lair, based on the reverse pyramid design that is actually used in a Uni Bejing dining venue (see below).   

The large theater could be 3-D or live (or both) and a natural first run would be based on the Sing films.  The Dumbo ride would feature characters from multiple Illumination franchises.   The lagoon-front dining venue is desert-based and themed to a giant gumball machine.    There is also a city park with a bandstand and accessible lawn.

EXPANSION PLOT

As with the actual park, I've left a sizable plot for a future seventh land.   I added a temporary Preview Center in this area, featuring art & models of potential coming attractions.   I always loved these future-is-bright-and-hopeful types of exhibits that one would find at the Blue Sky Cellar, Disney Gallery, Walt Disney Story or Universal Studios (previewing IOA).

THE WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER 

  One of the disappointing aspects of this current era of theme parks is the direct copy&pasting of some of the popular new lands at Universal & Disney parks around the world, as opposed to taking a unique approach to the same theme (e.g. Adventureland Anaheim vs. Paris).  WW-Hogsmeade has been cloned 4 times, each time failing to address its biggest fault - the massively-visible, unthemed show-building of Forbidden Journey - a problem which was exacerbated in Beijing despite having plenty of real estate.   So here I had fun imagining & drawing a Wizarding World that fixes both of these issues (over-cloned, visible showbuilding), while retaining the style (i.e., Stuart Craig's production design) of the template land.

  The cliff-topping Hogwarts School dominates everything, so we'll start there.   In my version of the land, Hogwarts is much larger, both in scale and completeness.   It needs to be, because "within" the School are not one, but three major features.   The first is the land's E-ticket family ride, which I imagined as an elaborately-themed omnimover in the tradition of the evergreen classic Haunted Mansion.   A narrated, atmospheric tour, with small buggies (2-4 passengers) passing by the various classrooms, chambers & characters of Hogwarts, complete with an array of time-tested and new special effects (e.g. Pepper's Ghost effect for the castle ghosts, AAs for Felch & his cat, etc.), would be the most engaging way to experience this world.   There could be various seasonal overlays as well.  For me, Forbidden Journey was jarring in its screen-to-set transitions and too chaotic to take in, so this would be a refreshing new approach: a ride so filled with details and set decoration that new discoveries would be made on repeated rides.

  The 2nd feature inside the school is the Great Hall, which replicates the famous room from the films as a signature entertainment dining venue (e.g., announcements by professors (actors), broom or owl fly-bys, and other things happening on the dais intermittently.   The 3rd Hogwarts feature is an indoor stunt show similar in scale to the Pirates show at Shanghai Disneyland.   This could center around the Tri-Wizard Tournament as the queue begins in the hedge maze before entering the castle's Grand Auditorium.   Since Waterworld is gone from this park, this stunt show helps fill that category.

   Approaching the land from the south, the vista would be awe-inspiring, with the impressively-massive Hogwarts rising in the distance across the Lagoon and above the village roofs (no visible showbuildings in this plan).  The winding lakeside path would be used for viewing the popular night-time Hogwarts projection shows or relaxing during the day.   One enters Hogsmeade Village, which is in the same style as the others but unique in its layout.   The Hogs Head Tavern and Three Broomsticks are now separate venues on opposite ends of the land.     

  Down a street to the right is the train station, where the Hogwarts Express simulator awaits, inspired by the CircleVision bullet train concept once rumored for the Japan pavilion at EPCOT Center.  Instead of the train windows being screens as in Orlando, here the they are glass and train enters a tunnel to the theater where the action & scenery play out on a seemless360 screen.  If a second gate in Beijing gets Diagon Alley, this area could eventually be converted to the Orlando-style park-to-park attraction.

 

  Replacing the Flight of Hippogriff coaster at the center of the land is a heavily-themed Huss Troika II or Tristar ride:  The Whomping Willow, which strikes me as the perfect system for this type of "Disneyfied" midway ride where disguised  mechanical tree "limbs" fling ride vehicles about.  

  The only major attraction in this land that can be found at any other park (only one other) is the Hagrid's Magical Motorbike Adventure coaster, though this version is a somewhat plussed/lengthened version of it.  The drop building is themed as additional moss-covered abbey ruins, rather than the painted-on trees of Orlando, and there is an added show sequence that enters a Hungarian Horntail's cave.

FINAL THOUGHTS

  I design, plan and experience parks under one principle: The Park is the E-ticket.  For me, the attractions are only half of the appeal of any great theme park.   Soaking in the atmosphere, exploring the side pathways, discovering hidden nooks, enjoying grand & artfully-arranged wide vistas and endless minute details, all the while being inspired, imaginatively and intellectually - that is the other half.  Only a small handful of theme parks have ever achieved greatness and this has been my exercise in bringing the latest Universal park concept into that league.

***

 

THE END

 

  

WILD ANIMAL KINGDOM - PARIS

  This is another exploration of "what could have been" for the 2nd Gate plot at Disneyland Paris.   This plan has the park stretching out to the circular perimeter road, even though a significant part of the plot has in actuality been given over to the Val d'Europe suburban development project.   I also wanted to switch up from the current trend of 'random IP-lands plopped together park' and create a unique variation of WDW's Animal Kingdom, with its more focused overarching theme.

 

PALACE OF THE WILD KINGDOM

   It would have been ideal to have a landmark resort at the front of a 2nd gate that complimented the DLP Hotel in scale, height, execution, detail, luxuriousness, etc., but with a very different theme.   Dreams & visions like this are necessary now more than ever, as we are currently in the Dark Age of themed hotels, with only a few decent among many pedestrian eyesores getting designed, approved and built across the world.  Nothing remotely approaching stem-to-stern architectural quality & placemaking of a MiraCosta has gone up since 2001.  While the DLP Hotel & MiraCosta are exemplars of themed hotel architecture - two of the very best ever built - the king is South Africa's Palace of the Lost City.   The hotel I have envisioned at the front of this Wild Animal Kingdom park is influenced by it and by some art released by Legacy for an Asian park (see below), which in turn borrows from India's Laxmi Vilas Palace.   The bespoke design would weave nature/animal motifs & statuary into everything, as the Palace of the Lost City does so brilliantly.

 

  I am grateful that Legacy Entertainment released a lot of artwork by former WDI concept artists, including all-time greats like John Horny & Christopher Smith, for a proposed 'Forest Kingdom' park.  That artwork inspired a few features of this conceptual plan, including the Court of the Titans (see below) on the park-side of the hotel.   Rather than have a "wild" jungle Oasis with small animal exhibits as at Orlando's DAK, I imagined the approach to echo Disneyland Paris: centered on a monumental hotel with turnstiles on the ground level beneath the building.   Guests emerge from the hotel into a wide circular courtyard surrounded by giant rockwork-animals, with the elephant fountain (see below) at the center.  Other giant carvings I've included are a polar bear, lion, bison, walrus, condor & triceratops.

 
  An expansive, tiered viewing area for unique daytime & nighttime lagoon shows wends down to the water's edge.   Here, the park would utilize a submerged high-powered water cannon platform, so that Bellagio/Burj Khalifa/World of Color-style dancing fountains, along with projections, lasers, floats, actors, etc. could be utilized to wow audiences with a Mythica-level daytime show and a jaw-dropping, IllumiNations-level go-home show.  

 

DINOLAND 

 The approach to this land is marked by a unique version of the 'Oldengate Bridge' with its reconstructed Brachiosaurus-skeleton.  The first attraction encountered is the Crocodilia Caverns, a live animal trail with an indoor cavern section.  In the center of the eastern land is a hillock and terrain-following, swinging coaster modeled on the Seven Dwarfs Mine Coaster: a different version of the originally-planned Excavator.   Continuing this Active Dig Site theme is the Boneyard Jamboree: a re-theme of the Mater's Junkyard flatride from DCA.   The general feel I imagined for these areas as well as the surrounding restaurants & shop sections is that of a 1930s-50s paleontology-find Boomtown with a Southwest  or Australian outback-style, somewhat-ramshackle Research Station aesthetic.

 The backdrop of the eastern half of the land is a monumental rockwork facade in the shape of a herd of wooly mammoths.  The plantings change to a more Boreal/Steppe environment.   Inside the mammoth painted caverns, I imagine a classic Disney style family-ride: long, comedic, narrated, musical omnimover with Marc Davis-inspired scenes involving Pleistocene animals (e.g. sloths, glyptodonts, sabretooths) and their interaction with cavemen (as seen in the Davis art from the World's Fair, below). 

 

  The western half of the land is dominated by another mountainous facade.  It houses Dinoland's second E-ticket and the park's largest indoor ride: an elaborate river cruise into the Triassic era, with dozens of high-tech, life-like AA dinosaurs presented in both peaceful and frightening vignettes.  The attraction has a distinctly more serious tone than the Mammoth ride, with minor visceral thrills in PotC-scale drops.  A Shanghai Pirates-style, full motion boat could be a model ride system.   Integrated into the attraction, with an elevated view of one of the largest, herbivore-filled show scenes, would be an "Observatory" - a slowly-rotating 360 degree restaurant.  The last opening day attraction is the Tar Pits, a Boneyard-style explore zone.  
 

SAFARI ISLAND 

 Just as the Castle parks have unique versions of the same concept (a fairytale castle) as their centerpiece, this land is a "different-but-the-same" take on DAK's Discovery Island.   Both feature the park's Icon, shops & dining buildings in a Tropical/Animal Motif-style and a live animal trail that winds around the carved roots and beneath the boughs of its somewhat unique, great Tree of Life.   I imagine a unique & non-IP Wonders of Nature-type show could go underneath the Tree, though a copy of Bugs makes sense too.

 Adding on to what can be found in Orlando, I placed a wild animal-themed (e.g. carousel in this area as well as the Theater-in-the-Wild, where musical shows, maybe based on Disney animal films that don't fit in the other lands, could be staged.

 
BEASTLIE KINGDOMME

 The approach to this land of fantasy animals combines the best of the DLP Chateau and Diagon Alley dragons: not only does the huge animatronic occasionally spew fire over the heads of guests, but it is fully "alive", not static.  Its main movements would be kept to small twists of the head, eye movements, snorts, shake of tail and wings, as it casually observes the small humans below its rock.  Intermittently, it would do something wild, such as spread its wings, roar, and/or spew fire in an arc over the pathway.  Some backstory could connect it to its relative/rival under the DLP castle.

dragron rock model by Michael Weisheim Beresin

 

 
  The land's attractions would be associated with different geographies of Europe: England (Merlin's Menagerie, an LPS family darkride), Scotland (Loch Ness Landing restaurant, the only direct carryover from the Orlando proposal, with appearances by Nessie in the water), France (a glen featuring animatronic Unicorns and other fantasy creatures) & Germany (the Dragon-based wooden coaster that would feature an indoor "near-incineration" scene).  The architecture of each area would be a fantasy-medieval take on each of these countries unique building styles.   

  Additional attractions include a Griffin-themed aerial carousel (Dumbo) and a MagiQuest-style interactive game through a forest of mythical animals.

 

 ASIA 

  This land, like the WDW original, features distinct geographic representations.  The largest sub-area is India, with centerpiece swing spinner and a Jungle Book (animated) family musical boatride - one of the park's few IP-based attractions.   An even larger complex of temples being reclaimed by nature houses an E-ticket inspired by Legacy's artwork (see below) for a flume that incorporates live tigers and other regional animal habitats (Splash Mountain meets Maharajah Jungle Trek).  

panda trail art by Senen Iglesias

 
  Adventuring guests are drawn to the deepest part of the park by its tallest weenie: Expedition Everest, one of the park's only near-clones from WDW, with a re-engineered, fully-functioning Yeti.

  Moving on from Nepal, the environment transitions to China, with a live animal trail featuring Giant Pandas, red pandas, snub-nosed monkeys, etc.
 

AFRICA

  The visual landmark of this land - enhancing wide vistas from most areas - is a full-scale version of Pride Rock, behind which is a family dark ride based on the animated film.  

  The anchor attraction is a live-animal boat safari, akin to the Tiger River Run that was never built in Orlando, but here themed to East Africa.  The key to the attraction is the wild, apparently-free-roaming, no-visible-manmade-barriers imagineering that made Kilimanjaro Safaris so unique and special in its early years.  I also envisioned a semi-thrill finale, as KS had, which could involve a flash flood through a Hyena Cavern (Animatronics, in this sole case) and hot geysers.   

gorilla trail art by Senen Iglesias

 

  The carryover from WDW is a Gorilla Falls animal trail that features spindly rope bridges over the Maasai River that might give an acrophobe pause.  There is an amphitheater for original, non-IP musical productions.  An element from the aforementioned Legacy park that helped inspire this illustration is the Hippopotamus Lagoon restaurant (see art above).

 

AERIAL OVERLAYS

Current Expansion

 

This Park

 

 

FUTURE DEVELOPMENT

  The future, seventh land could be any number of things: Pandora, Arctic, South America, Oceans (I feel that Rivers of the Far West and the Grand Canyon Diorama in DLP give a representation of North America), or something not yet proffered up.   I may return to it some day.

***

The End.

EPIC UNIVERSE

An end to America's decades-long new (Tier I) park drought is on the horizon.

My drawing is an amalgamation of the artwork, plans & models that have surfaced on the internet, with some personal flourishes.   The two major influences - the key artwork above and the Drainage Plan - differ somewhat, so I've had to select elements from each for this drawing.

 

Feel free to comment any thoughts or corrections on what is what.

 
CELESTIAL GARDENS

The curvy pathways and water features that form the spine of the park seem to have a SciFi-Victorian (i.e., Discoveryland) style which looks appealing in the artwork.  Here's hoping reality measures up to the feeling conjured by the art.   Kudos to the designers for creating a unique path/park layout - it's something different than anything that has come before.

The Helios Grand Hotel will dominate the park, so many of the important vistas will live or die on the hotel's design & execution.   It would be great if Universal can buck the current trend and create an architecturally-great hotel building (last one was 2001's Mira Costa).

Another cool aspect of the overall park is that there are plans for similarly-shaped-but-appropriately-themed "Spire-Portals" at the entrance of each land (all but the Wizarding World one are visible in the art).  Each seems to have a silhouette echoing a castle:

 

 

 WIZARDING WORLD - PARIS

The art shows that the third Wizarding World in Orlando is planned to look like classic Paris.  With London & New York already represented in the Universal Studios, it makes sense to tackle a 3rd Great City of the World in this park. 

 
Clearly, the original plan was based on the Fantastic Beasts series being a creative & commercial home-run.  Since that hasn't been the case, will Universal cut bait on the Fantastic Beasts connection (as I wish Disney had done with the Abrams trilogy) or change the timeframe & locale of this wizarding world entirely?  It already appears the rumored "Broomstick simulator" is in limbo.

The key art reflects that the Paris of Grindelwald didn't feature much in the way of highly-stylized locales such as Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade.  I wonder if Universal Creative and WB Art Directors take it upon themselves to invent a slanting, "wizarded"-version of the streets of Paris?

MONSTERLAND

Over the years I've drawn a number of Classic Monster lands for various Uni illustrative plans, so I'm excited that one is finally coming to fruition.  The artwork, plan and model found on the web show somewhat varying takes for this land.   For this drawing I went with the enclosed theater in the south.  I've seen a stunt show or a return of Graveyard Revue speculated.   I was thinking a Biergarten-type entertainment/dining venue could be a part of the village.

The art and model show the center of the land will have a Camp Jurassic/TSI style explore area, with rope bridges, caves and such.

  

NINTENDO WORLD

The version of this area that I've drawn is a near clone of the Osaka park's land, slightly-reconfigured.  There is a little more space to the land in Orlando which allowed me to add flourishes in the form of Bowser's Airship near his castle and a temple-themed light dining venue in Kong Country.  

 

Perplexingly, the key art shows a markedly different (City) theme to the area than Japan's Mushroom Kingdom.  The key art & my plan also include a Spire Portal that is much more elaborate than the Osaka entrance.  An artificial hillside conceals the showbuilding from the hub.

 

 ISLE OF BERK

While the available art does not indicate the towering rock spires that the define the island in the movies, in this plan, upon emerging from the Portal into the land, you would to see the two carved statues on the water in the foreground framing the main spire on the far side, beyond the viking ships and village, as in the artwork below:

 

The building on which I've placed the main spire is a question mark.   The footprint of the building and the existence of only one other eatery of any size near the Splash Battle would indicate that this facility has to be a major indoor dining venue, which is what I've labeled.  However, there are rumors this is some kind of simulator ride, such as the vertical 4-bay simulator as seen in the above art.  This might account for the small footprint and give a need for the tall rockwork spire I've included, but likely wishful thinking.  

The land has an assortment of other attractions: a skyfly, a splash battle, an explore zone, and a coaster.   At the bottom of the land, I added as second landmark spire (and other smaller ones) atop the large theater building that supposedly will house a headliner show featuring giant puppet dragons & special FX.  

FUTURE DEVELOPMENT

Rumors from site OrlandoParkStop suggest plans are already in flux from the original ones they first presented.  So it will be interesting to revisit this drawing when construction is at a midpoint and the opening day menu is set in stone.  Regarding my filling in the large expansion pads... that will be also be a future effort.  Some vague IP lands have occurred to me (LotR, Zelda, Kung Fu Panda, etc.) and I have seen others' suggestions (Jurassic World, Classic Universal, Pokemon, Illumination, etc.).   I encourage readers to imagine & draw their own expansions.