Just as Walt said, Disney
Parks will never be completed, they continue to grow and change as
time goes by. Rides have been upgraded, some of the most popular characters have become
rare, animatronics have been abandoned and lands have been retired. But in almost every
case, these changes have been for the best, so today we’ll take a look at 7 Disney
Parks Lands that have been retired! Sunshine Plaza
Location: Disney California Adventure When you enter Disneyland, you step into
the charming turn-of-the-century Midwest town of Main Street USA – an idealized and
romanticized version of the Missouri town Walt grew up in. Just across the way is the
entrance to Disney’s California Adventure – a wide concrete plaza flanked by corrugated
steel walls (yes, this was in a Disney Park), garish neon signs and cartoonish architecture
in squashed perspective. Sunshine Plaza was a budget-conscious and lackluster entryway on its
own but compared with Main Street just a few hundred feet away, it looked positively awful.
And where Disneyland’s entry terminated in the timeless Sleeping Beauty Castle, Sunshine Plaza
was built around a giant metallic sculpture of the sun. Nicknamed “The Hubcap” by fans, the
giant bronze sun faced north, leaving it up to a half-dozen telescoping mirrors to reflect the
real sun onto its shaded face. The effect never worked as it was intended, and Sunshine Plaza
remained like a dark and mediocre entrance to a mediocre park, especially when compared to
Disneyland across the street. Sunshine Plaza was symptomatic of the “edgy,” “modern” style
of the original California Adventure park, which didn’t work as we’ve talked about before.
Sunshine Plaza also had a beautiful fountain under the Sun Icon where people could throw
coins in as a way to donate to Disney Hand, Disney's charitable division, that helps
charitable organizations throughout the world. The area also served as a show area where you
could see things like the X Games Xperience, an extreme sports demonstration, a culinary
demonstration in the Chef Showcase Stage tent during the California Food & Wine Festival, a
live show based on High School Musical 3: Senior Year or a colorful, high-energy show during Glow
Fest. But even that couldn’t make the area work. What’s There Now: Sunshine Plaza closed one piece
at a time when Disney California Adventure’s $1.1 billion restructuring came into effect. The
transformation was so intense that, for a while, entrance to the park was diverted down an
auxiliary path behind Soarin’ Over California, bypassing the main entry path completely.
The vacant concrete area was transformed into Buena Vista Street – a recreation of the Los
Angeles Walt first encountered in the 1920s. Now a bustling street just as detailed and timeless as
Main Street, the new land is a worthy counterpart to Disneyland’s entry instead of being such
a contrast. The Sun Icon disappeared too, replaced by a recreation of Los Angeles’ Carthay
Circle Theater, where Walt risked it all by premiering the world’s first full length animated
feature film – a testament to Walt’s history, the company’s, and California’s. Brilliant
and a fantastic change if you ask us! Holidayland
Location: Disneyland Park Holidayland is often recalled as Disneyland’s
first lost land. No, it wasn’t an area dedicated to Christmas, Easter, and other culturally
significant days of celebration. Holidayland was more along the lines of the British understanding
of “holiday” – an outing or vacation. The land was accessed through a separate entrance and
contained a striped circus tent with a stage, volleyball court, a baseball field, a children’s
playground, a picnic area, and horseshoe pits. You can get an idea of Holidayland’s placement
and layout on this large 1962 souvenir map. Despite its inclusion on the map, Holidayland
didn’t last until 1962. It closed forever in 1961, allegedly due to its lack of shade,
lighting, and restrooms. Truthfully, Holidayland was probably meant to be temporary,
built with a much different lean than the rest of the park and its cinematic realism. The
9-acre spot held 7,000 guests for special events and even sold beer. Milt Albright,
Disney Legend and manager of Holidayland, said of its closure, “It wasn't any one
thing that killed Holidayland. It was just the combined effect of a whole lot of things."
What’s There Now: The map above shows where Holidayland would’ve been in 1962 if it had
lasted that long. The map also shows Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion, which
wouldn’t open until 1967 and 1969 respectively (so the 1962 map was pretty inaccurate!).
The space was used for the Haunted Mansion show building and other backstage elements
of New Orleans Square, which opened in 1966. Camp Minnie-Mickey
Location: Disney’s Animal Kingdom During Disney’s Animal Kingdom’s lifetime, it
has hosted gorgeously, thoroughly themed lands recreating a flowing universal garden, a crumbling
African village, a stunning Asian market, and a North American excavation camp. Then
there was Camp Minnie-Mickey. The land was a stark contrast to the realistic villages of
the rest of the park, filled with temporary wooden structures and long meandering
paths that didn’t seem to lead anywhere. The decorations and even structures felt
temporary. That’s because they were supposed to be. Camp Minnie-Mickey was supposed to be
a very short-lived land holding the place of Beastly Kingdom, the proposed mythical creature
land designed for Animal Kingdom. Of course, Beastly Kingdom was never built, so Camp
Minnie-Mickey prodded on with its one show and character meet-and-greets for more than 15 years.
What’s There Now: In 2011 a new, exciting land was announced. Pandora - The World of Avatar
was coming to life in the place where Beastly Kingdom had been planned. Camp Minnie-Mickey
was finally permanently closed in 2014. This land is based on James Cameron’s film “Avatar”
and is set a generation after the film events. Pandora has two main attractions, AVATAR Flight
of Passage and Na’vi River Journey. This land also includes Pandora's floating mountains,
alien wildlife, and bioluminescent plants. Hollywood Pictures Backlot
Location: Disney California Adventure Disney’s California Adventure had only
four themed lands when it first opened. The first was Sunshine Plaza (which
we already discussed). The others were Paradise Pier (an irreverent and cheap
recreation of a 1990s seaside pier), Golden State (an all-encompassing representation
of “the rest” of California) and the uninspired Hollywood Pictures Backlot.
Inexplicably designed to resemble a Hollywood set recreation… of Hollywood… just
a short drive from the real Hollywood… the Backlot area was full of “punny” business signs
and window displays, cheetah print awnings, and a gritty, intentionally dirty look of old studio
soundstages, 2-D façade buildings, and electrical poles. The land’s only inhabitants were a massive
theater hosting standard fare rotating musicals that played to quarter-full houses and the worst
dark ride Disney’s ever built: Superstar Limo. What’s There Now: When Disney California Adventure
re-opened in 2012, it brought along with it two new themed lands (Cars Land and Buena Vista
Street) while every other land was re-named and given a new identity. Hollywood Pictures
Backlot would cease being a modern façade-filled studio and instead became Hollywood Land. Now tied
thematically to neighboring Buena Vista Street, the land represents a 1930s “golden age” of
Hollywood with the Red Car Trolley whisking guests down the street and to the foot of the
glamorous Hollywood Tower Hotel which now has become Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout.
The Hyperion Theater at the end of the street used to host the long-running and wildly
beloved Aladdin and has also shown shows like Frozen and Rogers. The remaining “backlot”
themed portion of the land was rebranded as the more glamorous Hollywood Studios and cleaned
up to more accurately resemble an idealized studio with a charming and classic Monsters
Inc. dark ride replacing SuperStar Limo. Bountiful Valley Farm
Location: Disney California Adventure Perhaps the most laughable of all themed
lands ever devised for a Disney Park, Bountiful Valley Farm was a sort of sub-land
within the all-encompassing Golden State at the original Disney’s California Adventure.
built to be a tribute to the abundance and diversity of agriculture in California.
It was an exhibition where visitors could walk through fields of real orange trees,
stumble across cow statues and learn about irrigation systems while cooling off in
the Irrigation Station water-play area. But the main event of Bountiful
Valley Farm were the tractors. Sponsored by Caterpillar, Bountiful
Valley Farm had a tractor exhibition where you could learn about tractor history,
admire some exciting Caterpillar equipment, and take a look at three current models. This
was not a ride, the best you could do was climb into the cab of one of the tractors.
The one attraction in the land was It’s Tough to be a Bug, the 3D film
based on Disney-Pixar’s A Bug’s Life. Pretty quickly, Disney executives realized
that California Adventure had almost nothing to actually do and practically zero rides
for young kids. Empty space south of the park became a new land called A Bug’s Land, absorbing
the 3D film and part of Bountiful Valley Farm. What’s There Now: The Farm area closed
for good in 2010. The land was annexed between "a bug's land" and the starting
point for the desert road into Cars Land. Cars Land opened on June 15, 2012. It is
situated where the Timon parking lot and where Bountiful Valley Farms used to be. This
land is awesome! It contains three rides as well as shops and restaurants, all situated in
a perfect replica of Radiator Springs! A Bug’s Land was closed in September of 2018 to make
way for Avengers Campus, which opened in 2021. Mickey’s Toontown Fair
Location: Magic Kingdom In 1988, Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney
World introduced a new themed land: Mickey’s Birthdayland. The temporary land was
built to celebrate Mickey’s 60th birthday. While clearly constructed to be temporary, it was
a charming land recreating the streets of Duckburg and terminating in a large circus tent for a
birthday celebration show. Mickey’s birthday could only last so long, though, and in 1990 the
last was renamed Mickey’s Starland and Disney’s afternoon cartoon block characters were added.
Following in its younger sister’s footsteps, Disneyland in California added the similar, but
much more permanent land in 1993 called Mickey’s Toontown. In 1996, Magic Kingdom decided
to make its cartoon-themed land permanent, too. Instead of duplicating Disneyland’s Toontown,
designers at the Magic Kingdom reused much of Starland’s infrastructure and developed a new
story; casting the new Mickey’s Toontown Fair as a country getaway for the characters, separate
from their permanent homes in California. Toontown Fair had a meet-and-greet inside
the circus striped Judges Tent, walkthrough country homes for Mickey and Minnie, and the
Barnstormer, a family coaster that cast Goofy as a daredevil pilot crop-dusting his Wiseacre
Farmstead. The exaggerated cartoon architecture probably read as "cheap" when compared to the
realistic lands throughout the rest of the park. What’s There Now: When Disney announced
New Fantasyland for the Magic Kingdom, the land formerly occupied by Toontown
Fair was supposed to become Pixie Hollow, a land of oversized blades of grass and mushrooms.
It would have been home to an elaborate and expansive meet-and-greet for Tinker Bell and her
fairy companions from their direct-to-video film series. Fans recoiled at Pixie Hollow and the
rest of the overtly princess-themed expansion, so Disney went back to the drawing board.
Toontown Fair was, in some ways, spared, becoming the charming and outstanding Storybook
Circus, a turn-of-the-century themed traveling circus area within New Fantasyland lovingly
dedicated to classic (and often forgotten) Disney characters. The hyper-detailed land may share a
circus tent or two in common with Toontown Fair, but the exaggerated and toon-style architecture
is gone, replaced with real brick buildings, canvas signs, and charming allusions that are all
class. Most prominently, Dumbo the Flying Elephant was relocated to Storybook Circus with doubled
capacity and an awesome indoor playground queue. Old Fantasyland
Location: Magic Kingdom When Fantasyland opened at both Disneyland
(in 1955) and the Magic Kingdom (in 1971), its many charming classic dark rides were
concealed behind medieval tent exteriors. Striped awnings with jousting rods as poles
and simple marquees did an effective job but were contrary to Walt’s hopes for the area.
In 1983, Disneyland welcomed a New Fantasyland, replacing the aging medieval motif with incredible
European facades. Suddenly, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride was inside a red-brick recreation of Toad Hall;
Snow White’s Scary Adventures in a German castle with vines crawling up its exterior; Peter
Pan’s Flight inside a Tudor-style manor with an English clock tower outside. Finally,
Walt’s dreams of a romanticized Fantasyland had arrived. But at Magic Kingdom, the medieval
tents lived on – simple exteriors with dated pastel colors that did little to inform
guests of the detailed dark rides within. What’s There Now: Half of Fantasyland retains
the medieval tent style, but a very purposeful New Fantasyland began construction in 2011,
dividing the land in half. The eastern half was entirely rebuilt and updated in Cars Land
style, with intricate details and new sub-areas (including Storybook Circus). The new style
– locked behind stone walls and placed in a lantern-lit Enchanted Forest – contains a whole
section of Beauty and the Beast attractions, a seaside village and Mediterranean castle built
into eroded cliffs comprising a Little Mermaid area, and a Seven Dwarfs Mine Train complete
with cottage that set the forest theme alive. There’s also the new-age meet-and-greet/show/
walkthrough of Enchanted Tales With Belle and the awesome Be Our Guest Restaurant.
It’s sort of an evolution of theme parks – detailed environments you want to
spend time instead of focusing just on rides. And if you want to visit any of these new areas
you have to plan your next disney vacation, our friends at PixieVacations.com can help you
plan your perfect vacation to Disneyland, Disney World, or a Disney Cruise specifically tailored to
your vacation style and budget, and working with a pixie is completely free. So talk with them
to make the best out of your Disney vacation!
