Betrayal

I can’t believe I did it. What was I thinking? She had never given me a reason to stray. She had always been constant, even more charming as the years went by. She always took care to look her best and impress me with a few surprises now and again. But I admit, after years of a mutually fulfilling monogamous relationship, I was restless and curious about other rivals for my affection. For years I had been faithful to my one love, but I was eventually to bear the guilt and shame of breaking my vow of fidelity. My union with Disneyland was tested the day I set my heart to visit its younger sister – the Orlando Magic Kingdom – when it opened its arms to me in 1971 and wooed me to travel across the country to see how much more fun she could be.

Why would I commit such an act of betrayal? Disneyland had always been so close, so convenient. I could roll out of bed, stroll down Main Street, and be back home in time for dinner. She was what you might call “easy”. I didn’t have to work for it – wait for it - not like kids who lived in Chicago, Kansas City, or Pittsburgh. One overly crowded day at Disneyland I had to share a sky bucket ride with two kids from out-of-state. They gushed to me that this was their very first trip to Disneyland.

“Oh,” I replied. “This is the third time this month for me.” Their mouths dropped in awe. “Wow,” they uttered. “We’ve waited our whole lives for this.” I could only gaze at them with pity.

And what about the rest of the world? If Disneyland was a faint dream for kids living in Atlanta, Georgia, imagine the kids living in Japan or Europe all pining for their first spin on the Mad Tea Cups! I was always amazed to see any international tourists in the park. While standing in the Matterhorn line, I would occasionally hear people speaking to each other in a foreign language, and thought, “Wow - they traveled the globe to be here.“

I am sure Walt anguished over the problem of making Disneyland more accessible to the world, until he struck upon the genius solution – if you can’t bring the people to Disneyland, bring Disneyland to the people. Why not just build another Disneyland on the other side of the country. Brilliant! So in 1963 he started looking for land in Florida to construct a duplicate theme park. He wanted a little bit more land than he had for his original Anaheim park, which was only 160 acres including the parking lot. So, just to be safe, he bought 27,000 acres south of Orlando. That’s over 40 square miles, or more than twice the size of Manhatten Island. I think that was probably big enough.

Although Walt Disney himself died in 1966 before the Disneyworld Resort could be completed, his brother Roy oversaw the construction of the resort’s first phase – the new Magic Kingdom. When the Disneyworld Magic Kingdom opened in Orlando, Florida, in 1971, my favorite hangout had been cloned on the other side of the country. In no time the inevitable comparisons arose and lines were drawn over the question: which park was better - the original or the clone? I had to take a stand in the great debate.

In my heart I felt deep loyalty to the Anaheim park, the haven of my childhood, but since I had not yet seen The Clone, I could not speak with authority. Although both parks bore the same name, I had read that the Walt Disney people made certain modifications to the new park. They called them “improvements”. I had my doubts. How could they improve on the original? I wanted to defend Anaheim as the best, but until I had seen the Clone for myself, I knew I would have no credibility. Back in the 1970s I didn’t know anyone who had been to both parks. It just seemed that the east coast crowd went to Orlando and the west coast crowd went to Anaheim, and everybody in the middle flipped a coin.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. I felt a little unfaithful, like checking out your girlfriend’s younger sister. I could hear Disneyland whispering in my ear, “I gave you my best years, and this is how you repay me.” How could I betray my first love by patronizing The Clone.

I remember my first visit to the Orlando Magic Kingdom. The experience was eerie and unsettling. It was Disneyland and yet it wasn’t. Like a Stepford Wife, it looked like the original, but her soul and personality was missing.

So, what were the differences? The first thing that struck me was that I couldn’t walk from the parking lot to the ticket booths. The two are separated by the gigantic Seven Seas Lagoon, which must be crossed either by ferryboat or monorail. What was the point of that? Crowd control? It made no sense to me, especially at the end of the day when all the throngs of people are leaving the park and wanting to get to their car.

If this was an improvement, I would have liked to have overheard that design meeting:


“OK, I’ve got a great idea. Let’s make the new parking lot even farther away than the one in Anaheim. Let’s put the parking lot so far away, you can’t even see the park at all.”

At the Anaheim parking lot you could see the tippy-top features of the park in the distance, and it beckoned you on. In Orlando, you have no frame of reference when you park your car. You simply have to trust the signs and follow the crowd.

At the end of the day at Disneyland, when you leave the park, you could always just keep walking to your car. Outside the exit, the crowds are dispersing, and you finally have some breathing room. As exciting as it may feel to join the press of the crowd at the start of the day, it is a relief to get your space back at the close. But no such luck in Orlando. After you leave the park you have two choices to reach your car: monorail or ferryboat, and the lines for both are crushing. Wow – was this ever a bad idea, I thought. At the end of a day at Disneyland most people just want to fall into their car, not mount one last battle against the hordes and the obstacles to make good their escape. Who wants to spend an extra hour just to get out of the parking lot? Not an improvement, this giant lagoon, not to me.

Next, I was immediately taken by the size of the new Magic Kingdom. The Orlando park was bigger – way bigger. The Anaheim Disneyland had about 60 acres of park, while the Orlando Magic Kingdom had over 107 acres. A bigger park means longer walks between land and within lands. But the worst of all is that a bigger park means more people. The Anaheim Disneyland max’s out at about 85,000 people. And believe me, at that point, it is no longer the happiest place on earth. I have been at the park when the press of people was so great, I felt like the ball in a pin ball machine.

And the lines for rides get intolerable when the park is at capacity. So in Orlando, if you increase to park size by 40%, you end up with 40% more people all vying for the Pirates of the Caribbean or the Jungle Cruise. It was nuts. The lines would weave back and forth, and we waited and waited, sometimes for an hour and a half for one ride. At that rate, you could log in six rides and the day would be over. I have to admit, I prefer the scaled down feel of the Anaheim park.

There were some other modifications, such as Liberty Square instead of New Orleans Square. My precious “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln” was gone from Main Street, much to my sadness. I love that attraction. It was always the first thing I saw when I walked through the gates. What a great show and an inspiring message. I always left that attraction energized me for the day.

Most of the rides at the Orlando Magic Kingdom were pretty much the same as the Anaheim park. But the structural differences were striking, and here is where the original park wins out in my mind. The Anaheim Main Street is actually only a scale model. Every brick, shingle, and every lamp post was made five-eighths true size, making the town feel like a toy.

However, the Orlando Main Street buildings are all built to full scale, from the first floor up. When I first entered the park and gazed at the two anchor buildings at the head of Town Square, they appeared massive and overpowering. The same was true for the massive Cinderella Castle (pictured to the right), which was much bigger than Anaheim’s Sleeping Beauty Castle. Also, the Cinderella Castle lacks a drawbridge, to me one of the essential features of a castle. The drawbridge at Sleeping Beauty Castle was to me the hub of the park, and the logical family checkpoint throughout the day.

I know – sometimes you can improve on the original, but in this case I will hold my ground. The Anaheim Disneyland rules. When comparing notes with some of my east coast friends who grew up with Orlando’s Magic Kingdom, they often tell me how disappointed they were when they finally visited the Anaheim park. They thought it felt too cramped and crowded. I guess you just become attached to the version you grew up with. I cannot talk sense to the Orlando “loyals”, and they cannot convince me.

The Clone Wars did not end there. When I heard that another Disneyland was going to be built in Tokyo, I blew a gasket. But nobody asked my opinion, so it opened in 1983. Yet another Disneyland opened in Paris, France in 1992, and still a fifth Disneyland in Hong Kong in 2005. All of these parks have their own modifications to adapt to the local cultures. In France Tomorrowland is called Discoveryland. It doesn’t glimpse into the future as much as it celebrates the past, so obviously it made no sense to call it Tomorrowland. Tokyo replaced Main Street with a World Bazaar under a glass canopy, and Hong Kong Disneyland has no Frontierland at all. I am reminded of the movie Multiplicity, in which the Michael Keaton character gets cloned, and then the clone gets cloned and then cloned again, with each new generation bearing less and less resemblance to the original.

I count my blessings that I grew up with the original. It was the purest rendering of Walt’s vision and executed under his personal direction. And I like it. Even today with all the changes made to the original park, it still rules.

For the sake of comparison, let me ask you this - why is there only one Eiffel Tower in the world? And it is in Paris, France. It is so far away and difficult to visit. Oh, wait. I guess we have the Eiffel Tower clone in Las Vegas. That will due. It is so much closer, and I think it is just as nice. What do you think, France?