Disney California Adventure to bring back festivals, Soarin’ Over California ride in 2023, and more
By Chris Geidner, USA TODAY
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — The news is not good for Disneyland.
Disneyland is in the process of closing its California Adventure park and transforming it into a new park called Disney’s California Adventure that will take the place of the original California Adventure park.
The changes mean that the California Screamin’, Soarin’, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Star Wars attractions planned for the parks that opened in 1992 are all headed to the new California Adventure, which was opened on March 11, 2017. The new California Adventure will offer the first phase of the recently announced “Epcot Forever” project.
“We have been talking with the team at Walt Disney Imagineering for the last couple of years and they have told us they want to build the best California Adventure that anyone could think of,” Disney’s chief marketing officer, Bob Chapek, said in an interview Monday.
“This will absolutely be the most exciting park the Walt Disney Imagineering has ever done,” Chapek said.
But Disneyland’s future is looking bleak. Disney’s California Adventure park will open in June 2021, 2023, to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the opening of Disneyland and the 50th anniversary of the park’s opening.
When it comes to the future of Disneyland, Chapek said there’s one clear area to focus on:
“Everything else is just a piece of it,” he said. “We have a great team in place to get our park up and running, and in the meantime there’s other issues we still have to address so we can get the right people in place to make this the best Disney park in the world.”
The plan for the new California Adventure park, however, would require an additional $300 million. That’s because the park is being built on land the company leased from the city. The city will foot the bill, Chapek said.
The changes in the parks announced Monday are part of Disney’s 20-year strategic plan to transform Disneyland into a “high-technology-driven destination.”
It also means Disney will be phasing out its iconic attractions, including California Screamin’, Soarin’, Pirates