Disney’s Ambitious Expansion Marks the End for California Adventure Park

Disney California Adventure Park is undergoing some big changes that spell big trouble for its identity.

The next decade is going to be huge for Disney’s theme parks, with The Walt Disney Company injecting $60 billion into its locations across the globe. Between Disneyland Resort, Walt Disney World Resort, Disneyland Paris, Hong Kong Disneyland, and Shanghai Disneyland, there are some major additions (and major construction walls) on the horizon.

As per the announcements made at D23 earlier this August, Disneyland Resort is getting a significant chunk of this cash. We’ve already seen some huge changes at Walt Disney’s original theme park resort in recent years, with California Adventure – the newer of its two parks in Southern California – arguably undergoing the biggest transformation.

What started as a theme park inspired by the history and culture of California (a strange choice, seeing as how the park is actually in California, but we’ll save that conversation for another time) has gradually evolved over the years. Gone is Paradise Pier and tacky features like a stylized Golden Gate Bridge and the Superstar Limo ride – often considered Disney’s worst ride ever – and in its place is a park with more immersive theming.

The result was a park that felt much more cohesive and uniquely charming, not unlike its neighboring park. Buena Vista Street and Hollywood Land celebrate the Golden Age of Hollywood. Paradise Gardens Park and Pixar Pier serve as nods to the state’s many boardwalks, while Grizzly Peak and, to an extent, Cars Land and its Radiator Springs Racers attraction reflect its natural beauty. It may not do so in the way it originally planned, but this park is a love letter to California, through and through.

Or, at least, it was. The past few years have already seen plenty of major updates to California Adventure, such as the addition of Avengers Campus and San Fransokyo Square, and the closure of the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, which was replaced with the Marvel-inspired Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout!

As per the announcements made at D23, plenty more changes are on the horizon, making for a park that’s rife with IP – but devoid of very little “California.”

Is This the End of Disney California Adventure Park?

At D23, Josh D’Amaro – Chairperson of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts – revealed that several new attractions are heading to Disney California Adventure Park (even if exactly “when” remains a bit of a mystery).

Related: Disney Park Closing Beloved ‘Toy Story’ Ride Forever, Replacement Announced

The park will receive its very own Pandora – World of Avatar, with this one inspired by Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) and future Avatar films, making it notably different from the version found at Walt Disney World Resort’s Animal Kingdom. It’s also set to welcome Disney’s first-ever attraction inspired by Coco (2017) – which will be a boat ride featuring Audio-Animatronics, taking inspiration from Pirates of the Caribbean – plus double the size of Avengers Campus with two new attractions: Avengers Infinity Defense and Stark Flight Lab.

But where will all of this go? Earlier this week, Disneyland Resort confirmed the first sacrifice necessary for the park’s expansion. According to Scott Gustin on X, the Red Car Trolley will close in early 2025 to make way for construction of the next stage of Avengers Campus, which requires the removal of the Red Car Trolley barn.

Reactions have been deeply negative, with some mourning the kinetic energy as one of the few details that gave California Adventure the same whimsy and nostalgia as Disneyland Park. As X (formerly known as Twitter) user @cwyattfilm put it, “Remember that movie Disney made years where the villain was a psychotic ultra-capitalist judge whose evil plan was to dismantle the red car trolley system and eliminate most of the toon population in LA. Suddenly that seems relevant for some reason.”

https://twitter.com/cwyattfilm/status/1828313820693176646

“Not happy about the Red Car Trolley at Disney California Adventure going away to make room for the Avengers Campus expansion,” wrote @Mav3rickRadio. “This was part of the charm of Buena Vista Street.”

Meanwhile, @HelmsmanFreddy wrote: “This is disappointing to say the least. The Red Car [Trolley] is an amazing piece of place making. I’d hate to [lose] a major part of the park’s California theming and I hope at least one of them finds a permanent home on Buena Vista Street.”

While there’s always the chance that the Red Car Trolley could return, the odds are slim. Disney’s been vague about the prospect, which is never a good sign. The overarching fear here is that California Adventure is shifting even further away from the thing that distinguishes it from other generic, theme-less IP-packed parks (by which we mean Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Walt Disney Studios Park).

Related: Disney Shoves Aside Halle Bailey’s Ariel, Another New Version of ‘The Little Mermaid’ Announced

The signs have been coming for a while now, and they haven’t exactly been subtle. Disney already stripped away Paradise Pier to make way for Pixar Pier and the Hyperion Theater is left stagnant most of the time. The park’s California theme was already placed in its coffin a long time ago – Disney’s just now whipping out the nails.

Then there’s the fact that to make way for a Pandora area, there’s really only one spot primed for demolition: Hollywood Land. This area hasn’t received any TLC in a long time, so even though the park would end up losing its Animation Academy (a much-loved spot), its closure seems like an inevitability. (Combined with the fact that this makes up part of the Red Car Trolley’s route, it also doesn’t make us feel much more optimistic about the latter’s future).

While there’s always the chance that Pandora could wind up elsewhere on as-yet undeveloped land for California Adventure (as per the DisneylandForward plans), we’re feeling pretty pessimistic. Disney’s choices, as of late, haven’t had the most thematic consistency. Over in Paris, Walt Disney Studios Park is primed to become Disney Adventure World, ditching its movie-making theme to… Something? The final vestiges of the same theme for Disney’s Hollywood Studios are also a thing of the past.

Meanwhile, Disney’s Animal Kingdom is ditching DinoLand U.S.A. for a Tropical Americas land inspired by Encanto (2021) and the Indiana Jones franchise because they clearly have so much to do with animals, nature, and conservation. Even Magic Kingdom is bulldozing Tom Sawyer Island to make way for a Cars expansion, which has (checks notes) nothing to do with Frontierland.

This is really just a long and convoluted way of saying that we’re worried about Disney California Adventure Park. Its California theme may not have got off to the strongest of starts, but it’s really found its groove in recent years. Demolishing that for the sake of a few more IP cash-ins doesn’t seem worth the damage it does to California Adventure’s identity in the long run. After all, the whole point of Disney’s expansions is to theoretically strengthen a park’s appeal, not slowly chip away at its soul.

The era of “California” Adventure is (and we say this hoping for the best but prepared for the worst) very clearly drawing to an end. We’ll see you in whatever homogenous IP fest awaits on the other side.

What are your thoughts on the current direction of California Adventure?