Mickey & Co. recreate California
By Daily Bruin Staff
Jan. 17, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 Illustration by Erica Pinto & Jason Chen/DAILY BRUIN
Senior Staff
By Angela Salazar
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Disneyland’s got lots of California love.
The newest addition to the Disney family, California Adventure,
opens in Anaheim on Feb. 8 and, according to Barry Braverman,
Senior Vice President and Executive Producer of Walt Disney
Imagineering, the park is a testament to the dream of the Golden
State.
“When we thought about the dream of California we thought
about the dream of movies and media; we thought about the High
Sierras and the California national parks,” Braverman said at
a recent press day.
Located directly across from Disneyland, the new park captures
the romance and diversity of California. It includes restaurants,
shows and state-of-the-art rides, all of which represent
California’s history and multi-cultural make-up.
“We’re kind of building a theme and a story by the
places that we create in this park,” Braverman said.
From the picture-postcard entrance to the continuously shining
artificial sun, the park taps into the idea of California as a rich
and welcoming cornucopia. Guests enter a world of agricultural
abundance, beachfront amusement and Hollywood fame, all dusted with
a little Disney charm.
 Illustration by Erica Pinto & Jason Chen/DAILY BRUIN
Senior Staff
For the wine connoisseur there is the Golden Vine Winery located
in a section of the park designed to highlight what Disney believes
to be the state’s finest achievements. Run by the Mondavi
family of Napa Valley, the wine country experience blends real
vineyards with wine tasting, dining and a gourmet food and retail
store.
Although it may seem shocking to some that a Disney park would
serve alcohol, according to Braverman, it is not a new
implementation.
“The wine story is part of the California dream and so it
really makes sense,” Braverman said.
“The Disney parks that do not allow alcohol are really
only the Magic Kingdom parks,” he said. “But
we’ve always had alcoholic beverages available in Epcot and
Disney MGM Studios, so it isn’t like we’ve never done
this before.”
Because of the nature of the wine country exhibition, Braverman
does not think the serving of alcohol is gratuitous.
 Disneyland Resort The California Screamin’ roller coaster
and the giant Sun Wheel are two of the attractions at Disney’s new
California Adventure park.
“Our experience has been that most people know how to
consume alcohol in a responsible way and it doesn’t detract
from the experience for everyone else,” he said.
In the same section of the park as the wine country experience
is the Mission Foods Tortilla Factory, a working tortilla factory
where guests can tour, sample and learn the history of the tortilla
and its place in California’s story.
To capture the magic of the Golden State, Disney has also
created its own version of the quintessential beach boardwalk.
Complete with a ferris wheel, street performers and various
eateries, the boardwalk has everything but the water.
 Disneyland Resort Disney’s California Adventure theme
park, located next to Disneyland park, opens to the public February
8.
“When we thought about the California dream, we thought
part of what’s cool about California is the beach and outdoor
life ““ that informal fun of trendsetting, skateboarding and
street luging and all that stuff we do here and we thought how are
we going to capture that,” Braverman said. “So we
thought, why don’t we build our version of the ultimate
beachfront amusement pier, so we captured this idea, this look that
is kind of a nostalgic look.”
The Hollywood pictures backlot is Disney’s tribute to
Hollywood’s film industry. There is a replicated Hollywood
Boulevard, a Superstar Limo ride that takes you through several
mock Los Angeles landmarks in true celebrity style and the ABC Soap
Opera Bistro, a restaurant dedicated to daytime’s popular ABC
soap operas.
“Each of the pieces of architecture is real to California
architecture, but scaled,” Braverman said about the Hollywood
Boulevard set. “We are trying to honor the heritage of
Hollywood but also have some fun with the tongue-in-cheek aspects
of it.”
Other aspects of the park include an aviation exhibition, Condor
Flats, which pays homage to California’s flying history. The
area includes aircraft memorabilia and the new “Soarin’
Over California” ride which takes guests on a visual journey
over California in a simulated flight.
“We wanted to do a ride that all ages would enjoy,”
Braverman said about the attraction. “I told the team,
“˜I want a ride that my mom would enjoy.’ I didn’t
want it to be so violent and so jarring that only teenagers would
enjoy it.
“We have a ride that works for all ages; it’s
absolutely thrilling and exciting to experience but it
doesn’t beat you up in the process,” he continued.
Although all the details for the park are not yet hammered out,
plans are under way to create special passes so guests can get the
complete Disney experience while in Anaheim.
“There probably will be multi-day, two- or three-day
passes and park-hopper passes that will allow you to go back and
forth,” Braverman said. “Obviously what we’d love
to have happen is for people to come and spend two or three days in
this area, visiting both parks, visiting Downtown Disney. If we can
capture them for a length of time that’s what its all about
from our business point of view.”
Because admission prices and park hours will be comparable to
Disneyland’s, Braverman and other park officials are curious
as to how guests will react to having two parks.
“There’s a belief that (guests) might tend to
migrate to Disney’s California Adventure for dining
opportunities because we have some really good restaurants and, if
that’s true, maybe this works as a better late-night party
park. Who knows? The operators will figure that all out,”
Braverman said.
For now Braverman is looking forward to opening day and keeping
his fingers crossed that everything will continue running as
smoothly as it has so far.
“We started planning for the whole park in September of
1995, so it’s really been a little over five years since the
first concept design to today,” he said.
“The project has really gone very smoothly. I mean, for us
to go from parking lot to theme park in basically a little over
five years is pretty amazing. It’s a very fast project and
it’s really gone extremely smoothly and very, very
well,” Braverman said.
DISNEY: For more information on Disney’s California
Adventure go to www.disneyland.com.
