Disney's second gate in California

Over the weekend our family visited Disneyland and Disney California Adventure.

When I was growing up in the 1970s and 80s, it seemed like admission prices to Disneyland were more affordable. For example, an old magazine I have which published by Disney in 1980 shows that an adult 15-ticket book cost $9.25, and a child ticket book was $7.50.

Granted, the ticket books back in the 1970s didn't cover an unlimited of rides, but then again, most people didn't plan to ride the same roller coaster five or six times in the same visit.

 

Since 2000, Disney has been raising the price of tickets pretty much every year, and sometimes twice in the same year. Today the cost of visiting either Disneyland or Disney California Adventure for one day is $87 for adults, compared to $41 for a one-day pass in 2000. If you want to visit both parks on the same day, the cost for a ticket is $125.

In June, Disney completed the last phase of its refurbishment of the California Adventure theme park, which was seen as the much less popular neighbor of its sister park Disneyland with fewer quality attractions and less of the so-called Disney magic that attracted customers to visit again and again.

The new attractions which were completed in June included Buena Vista Street, a re-imagining of 1920s Los Angeles and Hollywood when Walt Disney first arrived from the mid-West, and Cars Land, an ambitious re-creation of the town Radiator Springs from the Disney-Pixar movie Cars whose residents are all cars with human qualities.

What struck me during this past visit was the degree to which Disney has turned things around in the Califonia Adventure theme park. Although the newer park had opened in 2001, our first visit there was not until two years ago. We bought park hopper tickets (allowing you to visit either park on the same day), and when Disneyland got too crowded around noontime, we headed over to California Adventure and enjoyed the attractions there with the fewer crowds.

We got a chance to preview the new attractions in California Adventure in June during the media day with special tickets won in a sweepstakes, but only about 8,000 people were in the parks that day. On Sunday, both parks were very busy, and the crowd levels were probably higher in California Adventure.

We went on two rides in Disneyland first, and entered California Adventure before 10 am, but the line for reserved tickets (called Fast Passes) for the popular Radiator Springs Racers ride in Cars Land were already almost gone. Our return time for the ride was 7 pm that evening.

It's well documented in media accounts that when California Adventure opened in 2001, this is what the Disney corporation had envisioned: a sister park to Disneyland which would be equally popular with consumers, and create a multi-day destination along with the Downtown Disney shopping and entertainment area and three Disney-owned hotels on the same property, where visitors would spend their entire vacations instead of just a day or two.  It took about ten years longer than they had foreseen, but that wildly popular companion park to Disneyland has evidently arrived.