I love the Disney experience. Immersive escapism, allowing old guys like me to dress and act like a kid for a day or more… it’s great fun; but make no mistake — Disney Parks are really just the world’s biggest shopping mall.
Let’s take the recently developed Cars Land as an example. It is a 12 Acre, 5 year development in Disney’s California Adventure Park in Anaheim, California. The backdrop is a 280,000 square foot recreation of Ornament Valley rockwork, topping out at 125 feet in height. 4,000 tons of steel were used to construct that engineering marvel. The estimated cost of development? $200,000,000+
Pretty amazing, isn’t it? Even more amazing? That entire 12-acre attraction area provides (wait for it) 10 minutes of actual theme park ride experience. You read that right: TEN MINUTES. There are exactly 3 rides in Cars Land:
- Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree — pretty much a themed-up tilt-a-whirl type ride. Very well executed, and 2 minutes, start to finish.
- Luigi’s Flying Tires — Bumper cars, with a high-tech twist. The platform is a huge airbed, like an air-hockey table, and the ride cars are hover craft riding on that air bed… for 2 minutes, start to finish.
- Radiator Springs Racers — the showcase attraction. It is really amazing. Pretty much a high-tech cars-on-a-concealed-track ride with super-long lines. Total ride time? 6 minutes.
So the 12 acres of Cars Land contain a total of 10 minutes of actual ride time, and potentially 2-3 hours of wait time. Fast Passes for Radiator Springs Racers are gone for the entire day by 10-10:30 AM. The rest of the 12 acres? Food service, gifts shops and a few photo-ops and live street-shows.
When you actually count them all up, there are far more stores and food service elements than “rides” and/or attractions. It’s a mall with diversions.
“But,” you ask, “what about all the freebies? Parades, street shows and that incredible World of Color?” Opportunities to sell more snacks, balloons, and light-up gadgets for the kids.
Like I said — I love the Disney experience, but I am a realist. It’s just the world’s biggest mall.