7. Port of Entry
Image: Universal
Location: Universal’s Islands of Adventure
Believe it or not, this is the first entry on our list not tied to any existing intellectual property – and for good reason. Port of Entry is the “main street” equivalent to Universal’s Islands of Adventure – the industry-changing IP park that opened in 1999. What kind of “main street” do you build for a park that seemingly unites completely dissimilar and disconnected lands from Marvel Super Hero Island and Jurassic Park to The Lost Continent and Seuss Landing?
Image: Universal
In this case, designers decided to do something far and above what anyone could’ve expected from Universal (who, again, operated exclusively “studio”-themed parks prior). Port of Entry is a fantastic, otherworldly, seaside port brought to life as if built by all corners of the globe coming together. Fanciful pagodas, ivy crawling across Moorish domes, wooden windmills, stone cathedrals, stained glass windows, sloped copper roofs, ancient bridges...
Designer Adrian Gorton explained, "I designed Port of Entry so that anybody entering Islands of Adventure could see something from their country or culture and say, ‘Hey! That’s where I’m from!’ ... Western, Chinese, Portuguese, South Pacific, and many other influences."
Image: Touring Plans
Port of Entry's red-rock shore is home to docked sailboats and submarines as if from a storybook. And it's all reigned over by the park's icon, the Pharos Lighthouse, whose spectacular white beam encircles the resort each night, leading guests back to the port.
Port of Entry doesn't feel like a "real" place, but that's precisely the point. To the tune of chirping sea birds, ancient instruments, and ringing gongs, this mystical trading post feels like something from a dream, and something that – until 1999 – we would've thought only Disney could pull off.
6. Adventureland (Disneyland)
Image: Disney
Location: Disneyland
There's perhaps no "land" at Disney Parks that tells the story of pop culture's advance than Disneyland's own Adventureland. When the park opened, the densely-jungled, African-themed land reflected exactly the kind of "adventure" that fascinated audiences of 1955, and its headlining Jungle Cruise is perhaps recognized as the ride that defined Disneyland in that time. When American's definition of "adventure" changed to the South Pacific thanks to Hawaii's 1959 statehood, Disneyland's Adventureland pivoted to match, opening the Enchanted Tiki Room.
But perhaps the land's most significant shift occured at the hands of Michael Eisner who, upon becoming CEO of Disney in the '80s, decided that Disney Parks needed a wake-up call. Back in the '50s, Walt had stocked his park with the settings, characters, and stories that mattered to mid-century audiences, but in the decades since, they'd stagnated. To Eisner's thinking, Disney Parks needed a refresh by way of the stories modern audiences cared about – even if they weren't Disney stories! Luckily, "adventure" had shifted once more thanks to George Lucas' Indiana Jones.
Image: Disney
Beginning in 1994, a wave swept across Adventureland, uniting most of the land as a 1940s Southeast Asian remote jungle outpost. The land's bazaar was aged; the Jungle Cruise's boats were redesigned to be rusted with tattered canopies; and the newest E-Ticket to hit Disneyland – the Modern Marvel: Indiana Jones Adventure – brought it all together into one continuity. Now, guests are cast as European nouveau riche drawn to this remote outpost by black and white news reels promising that it's an escape from our mundane upper class lives.
Paired with Magic Kingdom's elaborate New Tomorrowland (home to Lost Legends: Alien Encounter, If You Had Wings, and The Timekeeper), Adventureland was one of Disney's earliest stateside attempts at giving guests a "role" to play in an immersive land of connected stories. But arguably the first to test the formula is next on our list...
5. Frontierland (Disneyland Paris)
Image: Disney
Location: Disneyland Paris
Designers knew they had an uphill battle when it came to "EuroDisneyland," but even Disney was surprised by the outright rage that the French media had toward a Disney Park in Paris – to their thinking, an invasion of American commercialism and consumerism in the "City of Lights." That's why designers quickly pivoted and worked to reimagine each of the tried-and-true Disneyland "lands" without the heavy emphasis on Americana and U.S. pop culture.
Back in Walt's day, Frontierland was meant as a celebration of America's heralded past and a complement to pop culture in the era, when Howdy Doody and Zorro were heroes for American kids. But Parisians wouldn't care at all about Huckleberry Finn and The Lone Ranger, so Paris' Frontierland was redesigned to emphasize the romance and drama of the Old West. The result was an early experiment in land-wide continuity, uniting all of the land's rides, shows, and even restaurants into one giant overarching story.
image: Disney
In this case, it's of the Ravenswood family who founded the town of Thunder Mesa and started up a mining business by way of the supposedly-cursed Big Thunder Mountain. But when the young Melanie Ravenswood fell in love with a lowly miner in her father's business, Mr. Ravenswood plotted the man's demise – and ultimately triggered the demise of the town. That's the story that fuels the park's Modern Marvel: Phantom Manor, a dark and dramatic take on the Haunted Mansion. By uniting so much of the land into the story of the Ravenswoods, evidence of their story follows guests throughout the land, creating a mystery-within-the-mystery for guests to solve.
4. Mysterious Island
Image: Disney
Location: Tokyo DisneySea
For decades, Disney Imagineers have been trying to find a way to incorporate the literary, science fantasy worlds of Jules Verne into Disney Parks. From the unbuilt Possibilityland: Discovery Bay and a never-finished scene on Disney-MGM Studios' Declassified Disaster: Backstage Studio Tour to the closed classic Lost Legends: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Space Mountain – De la Terre à la Lune, for some reason Verne's encyclopedic novels just can't seem to stick around.
Except, of course at Tokyo DisneySea. The renowned park – considered by many to be the best theme park on Earth, and an international Mecca for theme park fans – contains nautical "ports" connected to the myths and legends of the ocean and the planet. Truthfully, any of DisneySea's lands could make this countdown, from the sprawling Arabian Coast to the 21st century Adventureland of Lost River Delta, or the spectacular American Waterfront with its New-York-set Modern Marvel: Tower of Terror that ditches The Twilight Zone entirely. But by far, the park's pinnacle lies beneath the peak of its icon, Mount Prometheus.
Image: Disney
There, in the collapsed caldera of the volcano lies Mysterious Island, named for and themed after the tropical secret hideaway of Verne's notorious Captain Nemo. The land features two attractions: a new-age version of 20,000 Leagues and a ride considered by many to be the greatest modern dark ride on Earth – the Modern Marvel: Journey to the Center of the Earth.
Image: Disney
But even ignoring its anchoring attractions, Mysterious Island is an E-Ticket in its own right, comprised of the oxidized catwalks clinging to the caldera's interior. Still-cooling lava flows surround guests, seeping down the mountainside while immense metallic nets seem to have captured splattered magma. The steaming, rumbling volcano looms overhead at all times, with immense geothermal geysers bubbling and erupting from the sunken pool of water beneath. Completely surrounded in Prometheus' 750,000 square feet of rockwork, completely and totally immersed in this literary land. Though Disney's other attempts at bringing the world of Jules Verne to life have fallen to intellectual properties, Mysterious Island remains an absolute pinnacle of what Imagineering can do.
Comments
Hello Brian, thanks for this great article! I quite agree with your list. Personally, I would add Main Street USA to it (the original Disneyland version and the Paris version). Even without the big attractions, I feel transported in time and place, so it works quite well.