In this episode of Synergy Loves Company, host Eric explores the experiences of visiting Disneyland and Walt Disney World within a few months of each other. He delves into topics like the blessing of size, comparing the parks, and how each park offers a unique experience. In trying to capture the vibes of the parks on both coasts, Eric also draws analogies between the parks and music albums, making insightful comparisons. From the parks' settings to the attractions, he offers a comprehensive analysis of the Disneyland Resort. Tune in to hear his unique take on the differences between the two iconic Disney resorts.
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00:03 --> 00:07 Synergy loves company on both coasts.
00:10 --> 00:34 We have this coterie of rich franchises. The company now that people want to engage with. I came here to try and continue what Walt Disney and his associates set in motion 50 years ago, which is to experiment with every new and innovative kind of entertainment possible.
00:40 --> 00:53 It's what we hope to do here to really develop something that just, more than an entertainment enterprise, it's something that contributes in many other ways.
00:59 --> 20:54 Hey, this is Synergy Love's company, where we explore how Disney connects to everything. Because you don't have to be at the Disney parks to experience the magic every day. I'm Eric, and I had a once in a lifetime opportunity this year. Well, once in a lifetime for me. You see, like I said at the beginning of the show, you don't have to be at the Disney parks to experience the magic every day. I don't get to go to the Disney parks as much as some of those other podcasters and youtubers out there. Some of them are vlogging from the parks and they're there every day. And I do live vicariously through them. But I usually only bring my family to the parks about once every two to three years. But earlier this year, over spring break, my family went to Disneyland in California, the original Disney theme park. And it was the first time for all of us. I didn't actually talk about that trip so much on the show because I was waiting till something else was going to happen. You see, over our summer break, we went on a big family trip with my parents and my sister and her family to Walt Disney World. Thats right. This year I actually got to go to Disneyland and Walt Disney World within a few months of each other. I didnt want to talk about Disneyland until I had that fresh taste of a Walt Disney World trip to remind me of what I love so much about the Florida parks that ive visited so many times. In todays episode, Im going to break down my experiences at Disneyland in the context of Walt Disney World. As someone who maybe even, like you, considers the Florida resort my Disney home base, lets get to the first topic I want to explore, and thats the blessing of size. When Disneyland was built in 1954 and 1955, it was in the middle of an orange grove in the middle of nowhere in Anaheim, California, which really wasn't even on the map. But after it opened, businesses started popping up all around and Walt Disney became a little disappointed about how this could ruin the magic for his park guests. I always had heard this story from so many different sources, but actually staying at a Disneyland good neighbor hotel. I saw this in action and I totally believed what Walt was going through. It was a strange experience. I have almost always stayed on property at Walt Disney World. It is my favorite. I love the Disney bubble. The blessing of size that Walt wanted for the Florida project was made so that the company could control the outside influences on the Disney experience in Florida. This works. You are totally engulfed in the Disney bubble fully. The Disney bubble even defends against itself at most Disney resorts. You can't even get a glimpse of a theme park. Sure there are a few like the originals on the seven Seas lagoon, but you do have to pay a premium for it. At Disneyland though, our good neighbor hotel was directly across Harbor Boulevard from the Matterhorn. We could see the Disneyland fireworks from our window. Whats more, we could see the whole of Disneyland resort from our window. If you got the right angle you could even see all the way over to Pixar Pier. We could actually see the top of the water from the world of color show from our window too. It was really cool to be that close to the parks, but im not going to lie. When I stepped out the door to walk to the Disneyland resort, I really felt what Walt was feeling when he decided to buy all that land in Florida. Walking just across the street from the happiest place on earth down to that public crosswalk to the Disneyland entrance, we passed all sorts of things. Restaurants, convenience stores, people selling bootleg gibbets on card tables, and a dude in a sandwich board sign shouting over a bullhorn that I would go to hell if I didnt find Jesus. And that kind of takes you out of that Disney magic, Walt. I feel ya. I totally know why you wanted that bubble buffer down in Florida. But once you do get inside Disneyland's smaller Disney bubble, there were some really great things going on that the blessing of size in Florida does lose out on. The entrance to Disneyland. Disney's California adventure and downtown Disney are all right there. It doesn't take much to get from one to the other. We had the park hopper here and it was totally worth it. That one central security line made smooth transitions between the parks and experiences. Dare I say how similar it was to Universal Studios, islands of Adventure and city walk. They're all set up kind of the same way, and there are some benefits to that. The blessing of size in Florida and the lack of size in California both do have their pros and cons. But now we're in the parks and I want to talk a little bit about my next comparison topic. The parks themselves. Let's start by comparing the castle parks. This was crazy. Disneyland felt both expansive and intimate at the same time. Disneyland is actually a lot smaller than the Magic kingdom in Orlando. Magic Kingdom is about 107 acres in size, and Disneyland's only about 72 acres. But Disneyland has so much more packed in there, and even though it's packed in, it doesn't feel overcrowded with stuff. For instance, in Fantasyland, just counting rides, I counted nine ride based attractions in Florida's Magic Kingdom, where in Disneyland, I found twelve. Disneyland's fantasyland feels smaller. Yeah, but it's jam packed with attractions. If we compare attraction to attraction across the two coasts, we do get a lot of crossover from these two parks. Dumbo, small world, the mad tea party pirates, the Haunted Mansion, Winnie the Pooh Tiana's coming soon, November to California. Sure, both parks do have their own rides that are very different from each other. And D 23 just made announcements about a whole slew of things that are going to happen over at Walt Disney World, beyond Big Thunder and right in front of it in the rivers of America. I still don't know how I feel about that. But when looking at the two castle parks, I wanted to find a way to compare the two with something else that's familiar to me, something else I love. And I do love music. And my brain started to compare Disneyland and the Magic kingdom kind of in the realm of music. Like. Like record albums. Like, I mean, I guess they could be cds or tapes or whatever you like to listen to your albums on, but like record albums follow along if you got me. Okay. Disneyland was Walt's masterpiece, so to speak. He came up with the ideas, the hub and spoke all the lands, milestone attractions, audio animatronics. And it really kind of mirrors what musicians go through to create a great cohesive album. Musicians who take the time to make a great album, write songs, sometimes link them together thematically. I'm looking at U concept albums. And then they painstakingly decide on things like track listing, album art titles. A great album has hit songs. Yeah, like the e tickets of the album. But they also have some album tracks that support the vibe and feel of the albumen as a whole. Maybe some of the tracks were new experiments into a new way of recording or playing an instrument, you know, just trying something new. And sometimes those album tracks are the ones that the biggest fans grow to love the most. Kind of like our a, b, C and D tickets. To me, Disneyland feels like a well crafted, iconic, best of all time albumen. The Beatles Sergeant Peppers, Lonely Hearts Club band the Beach Boys Pet Sounds Michael Jacksons thriller Walt Disneys Disneyland okay with me so far if Disneyland is that well crafted album, Walt Disney Worlds Magic Kingdom is like the twelve inch remixes of that album. If youre not familiar with the term. Twelve inch remixes were extended editions of songs to be played out in the clubs by dj's because the original version werent long enough to keep the dance party going. They were also called twelve inch mixes because they usually took up the whole side of a twelve inch record. The magic kingdom was made in that what would Walt do era just after Walt Disneys death. A lot of the rides and experiences from Disneyland were included in Walt Disneys World, but with a little more space to breathe, a little more space to move around in. Sure there were some new things in Walt Disney World that werent from Disneyland, but like the country bears, they usually came along with something Walt had worked on but had gotten abandoned from another project. Just like a twelve inch remix might include a solo or a bridge or other instrumental section that didnt make it on the album or single version of a song. Twelve inch versions never sounded that different from the original. They were just teased out more, expanded upon. Okay, okay. If Disneyland is a well crafted album and the Magic Kingdom is the twelve inch extended remixes of that album, where does that leave the other parks in Florida and California? Let's keep the music metaphor spinning on our metaphorical turntable. I also think Walt Disney World's other parks kind of fit into this cohesive album idea. Theme parks are cohesive thematic experiences. Animal Kingdom is a cohesive folk world music album about conservation and nature. Hollywood Studios is a flashy pop album full of big time billboard hits with big sing along choruses. Nothing can stop us now, you know, like that. An Epcot is Pink Floyds dark side of the Moon, an experimental concept album where side a and side b of the record are each their own continuous pieces of music spread across a few different tracks. Each side works well on its own, but really goes together to make one exceptional experience. Over at Disneys California Adventure, I think we get the greatest hits compilation of all those other parks, Epcot, Hollywood studios and Animal kingdom them. But we also get some tracks from Disney's eps, extended plays. You know, those records that were not quite as long as a whole album. They were a little shorter, but they were longer than maybe a single release. Four or five tracks maybe in my mix. Disney's eps are their resorts and they're also represented in the greatest hits. That is Disney's California adventure. So should we go through the track listing? Alright, Disneys California Adventure the greatest hits of Walt Disney World. This collection starts off with Buena Vista street and Hollywood land. This area's vibes are totally stripped right from Disneys Hollywood studios. If these two lands were linked off of the far side of Echo Lake instead of the Indiana Jones stunt spectacular, no one would even bat an eye. Continuing clockwise around the park, we move into Avengers campus, heavy with technology and anchored with the Guardians of the Galaxy thrill attraction. Tell me its not future world from Epcot. Theres a lot in common here. I just wish we could get more of that marvel in Florida. Next door to the Avengers we have cars land and I guess you could say its not really like anything at Walt Disney World. Wait, that's right, Josh tomorrow just said we're going to get that cars themed frontier land at Florida's Magic Kingdom in the middle of the rivers of America. So I guess that'll be something that's kind of like when they put a never before released track on the greatest hits compilation. But then that song shows up again in the deluxe expanded edition of one of the original albums. Am I taking this too far? I don't care. Let's keep going. Next up we have San Fransokyo. Even though it is a fictitious place from Big Hero Six, it has all the theming and great food of an Epcot world showcase pavilion. Next we're moving on to Pixar Pier and Paradise Gardens. Remember when we talked about resort influence? Those extended plays eps this area is totally the boardwalk resort, but the one that we never got. Back in the 1990s, Michael Eisner envisioned the boardwalk to be less of a resort and more of a mini theme park that was themed to a boardwalk with carnival rides and games and everything. This may have had something to do with a small theme park down the road called Boardwalk and baseball that had a similar theme. Or it could have had something to do with taking advantage of all of the convention attendance at the new Swan and Dolphin resorts on the other side of Crescent Lake. Disney could provide them with some Coney island style nightlife. Ultimately, the boardwalk became an amazing resort with arguably better nightlife for the convention crowd. But I think if it would have gone through as a mini theme park, it would have felt like Pixar pier and paradise gardens feel in DCA. And moving on to complete our circle at Disney's California adventure, we have grizzly Peak. Grizzly Peak does have a quick, straightforward hit from another resort. The grand californian resort has its own entrance into the park in the grizzly peak area, which is amazing and it shares a vibe with Disney's wilderness lodge in Walt Disney World. But wait, there's more. Grizzly Peak brings a similar feeling and vibe as animal kingdom. I know there aren't any animals. It's grizzly peak and there used to be condor flats, but there are no real animals here. We do however, get a great national parks. Nature in the middle of a theme park feel here. The one thing I love about animal kingdom is its lush vegetation and the paths that meander through it. Nature has a calming effect and you could definitely feel this in animal kingdom, especially when you compare it to the other parks like magic kingdom. When people talk about theme park stress, they dont usually talk about animal kingdom. Ive felt the stress of a crowded magic kingdom before. But animal kingdom can be just as crowded and it just seems to carry a more relaxed vibe any way you slice it. I felt this on a smaller scale. Under the trees of grizzly peak, you got a little bit of nature right in the middle of a theme park and it gave you kind of a nice relaxing stroll as opposed to the major thoroughfare down the other side of the park. On the way out of Grizzly Peak, you'll pass Soarin from Epcot and you'll find yourself back at the front of the park. One more epcot nod. We were there during the food and wine festival. It's California's festival park over there. So DCA is spinning the greatest hits of Walt Disney World. Overall, we really loved Disneyland resort. Disney's California adventure is probably the coolest looking park after dark. And I really loved world of color. Disneyland itself really felt like we were at home in a park. It was a just right castle park. There's less walking, but so much more to do. The food is so much better. There are characters everywhere. Galaxy's edge is right there behind the rivers of America. And the Disneyland railroad has dioramas. I love a railroad at a Disney park. Anywhere but Florida could so use these dioramas. When I rode the railroad at Magic Kingdom and saw the concrete tunnel walls of Tron, it was a little disappointing after the primeval world in the Grand Canyon at Disneyland. The consensus of my family after visiting both parks in one year is that Disneyland is definitely the Better Castle park by far. But Walt Disney World is the better deal overall. That blessing of size really does make the difference. Now if we could only get them to bring back the magical express. Anyways, I want to hear from you and how you feel about Disneyland and Walt Disney World. Do you have one that you love more than the other, resort wise? Park wise? Maybe you're wishing that you could visit Walt Disney World or Disneyland. I want to know what you think. I also want to know what you think about my impression of the Disneyland resort. Did I hit the nail on the head? Was I way off with my interpretations? Did I take that musical metaphor too far? You let me know. 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