How to Save DCA - If It's Worth Saving, That Is

(Just to refresh your memory, a month or two ago I wrote that the big problem with Disney's California is that they built the wrong park for the right customers - read it here. Now the question is how - or if - to fix it?)

So how can Disney fix the mess that is Disney's California Adventure (DCA)? I'm of half a mind to say they should just level the place and start all over. I think I feel this way partly for artistic reasons, dreaming what they could have done - and really still could do - with that real estate. But even from a business side, I could very easily argue that DCA has such a bad reputation that it might be cheaper to eliminate all traces of the thing. It just might be cheaper and more successful to start from scratch than to spend a lot of time and money on marketing to the public in an attempt to convince them that DCA is now somehow "new and improved".

I originally began this post as a lengthier analysis on whether DCA should be closed completely. But let's face it: that will never, ever happen. Why? Because that would require Disney's PR flacks to eat crow and admit that this supposedly great and magical new park they've been touting was actually more a pile of manure. And it would also mean that the executives who planned and approved the DCA project (at least those who are still at Disney) would have to admit to the public - and the shareholders - that they made a huge mistake, and a very costly mistake at that. There's absolutely no way I can possibly imagine Michael Eisner publicly pronouncing that DCA was a wasteful, money-losing, unpopular failure, and that he was mistaken to have approved it.

So we don't have to bother even debating whether DCA will be closed. Instead, we can just go straight to figuring out how to fix the thing.

(I wonder, though, if Disney could get away with not changing the park at all - but instead simply reprice the single day's pass to around $25, which is half of Disneyland's 1-day admission price, and comparable to regional theme parks like Paramount's Great America. Because, frankly, that's about the level of experience you're getting with DCA right now. But I'm not sure that even this would be successful, given DCA's less-than-stellar reputation - plus it would also open the door to Florida visitors asking why Animal Kingdom and Disney Studios cost the same per day as the Magic Kingdom and Epcot. So maybe this isn't such a good idea after all.)

Now on the plus side of fixing DCA, the Imagineers have a lot of flexibility and room to work with. Because, basically, you could level everything in the park except Soarin' Over California, Grizzly River Run, the Tower of Terror, and California Screamin', and you really wouldn't lose much. On the minus side, turning DCA into a Disneyland-quality theme park experience will take truckloads of time and money.

So let's start on the tactical side of things and later move up to the Big Picture. Tactically, the changes needed are actually pretty easy to see: There just aren't enough "E-ticket" attractions at DCA, nor are there enough family-friendly "dark rides". (Personally, I wish DCA would get some combinations of the two - family-friendly dark rides like Pirates of the Caribbean - but why Disney hasn't been able to make a decent one of those since Epcot opened is a topic for another day.) Today, there are maybe 3 to 4 E-tickets at DCA at most. In fact, I could even argue that there isn't even one: California Screamin' has no theming and is not thrilling enough, Soarin' is good but way too short, Grizzly River Run also has nice theming but no story to it, and Tower of Terror (which I'm yet to ride, so this is just based on what I've heard) has had too much story stripped out of it and has become mostly just a really nicely themed drop ride.

On other hand, Disneyland itself has at least 6 E-tickets (Pirates, Haunted Mansion, Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, Materhorn, and Indiana Jones) and maybe even a few more depending on how you count Big Thunder, It's a Small World, Star Tours, Roger Rabbit, etc. Walt's first park has a good dozen D- and E-ticket attractions compared to DCA's paltry 4. Even Tokyo's successful DisneySeas park has about 6 D- and E-rides, and frankly, even that feels a little light. So Disney's California Adventure will need at least 2 to 4 new big E-ticket attractions and probably a couple of new C-level dark rides as well. And at roughly $100 to $150 million for an E-ticket and around $25 million for a C-ticket, Team Disney will need to invest somewhere between an additional $300 million and $600 million in new attractions to make DCA competitive.

(And if it does take another $600 million, and then adding in the cost of the Tower of Terror and A Bug's Land means the additional investment into DCA after it opened is nearly equal to the original Opening Day cost for the place. So for those of you who said that DCA was only half a park when it opened, you may have been exactly right.)

Immediately above the tactical level is the theming and immersiveness of DCA. This isn't too much of a problem in most places, since a lot of the usual WDI details are already present. So in many places throughout the park, it will just be a matter of walls (facades, perhaps?), trees and other scenery to block out the views of the real-world motels surrounding the park. However, in other places, this is going to be very difficult - hiding the real world from riders on the Tower of Terror, California Screamin' and the Maliboomer (assuming it stays) would be pretty much impossible. And then there is that huge hotel looming over the Grizzly River Rapids area. That's another tough one, since the people staying in the Grand Californian are paying big bucks to look out on DCA. But why do the DCA visitors have to look back at it? Perhaps the wizards at WDI can modify the hotel's facade using false perspective or something to make it less obtrusive - and thus stop it from breaking our suspension of disbelief. Only then can DCA guests feel like we do in Disneyland, with the feeling of being in a spot far, far away from the real world.

And finally, we need to address the Big Picture: Can DCA's "California" theme fit all the changes and additions needed to make this a Disneyland-level experience? Probably not. As I've argued many times before, the real-life California theme is just too limiting. So either WDI will get creatively strangled attempting to make new attractions that fit within DCA's theme, or they will end up stretching the theme so much to fit good attractions into DCA that the California theme really isn't much of a theme anymore. It becomes just a collection of attractions, which is no fun. And the third alternative - radically changing DCA's overall theme - would likely add even more additional expense by causing a lot of rework effort to the areas of the park that might otherwise not need to change.

Is there perhaps another way around the themeing problem, particularly one that won't cost a fortune? Yes, there is: Disney can change the theme of Disney's California Adventure to something much more flexible and, more importantly, much more fun. And the kicker is that they don't even have to change the name of the park! Simply make Disney's California Adventure to truly be "Disney's" California Adventure - that is, California as seen through the eyes of the Disney characters. Sort of a Toontown version of California. This would allow "realistic" attractions like Grizzly River Run to fit in right next to cartoony flights of fantasy. Plus, it would be easy to have lots of Disney characters all over the park - which would definitely make DCA much more fun!

And the nice part is that this "conversion" could begin right away: change some of the names of things (and good riddance to the way-too-numerous bad puns like "Award Wieners" and the like - replace them with character or film-based names!), some new signage, and a bunch more characters out and about in the park . This just could be the way to get DCA back on track - as long as Disney realizes this is a just a good start and not an entire solution. They'll still need to back these minor changes up with the additional new attractions.

So as underwhelming and unsuccessful as Disney's California Adventure is right now, this patient is not necessarily terminal. And just as in medicine, the key to solving business disasters is also a quick and accurate diagnosis of the problem followed by timely and aggressive treatment. Since we now know DCA's problem, not moving to aggressively fix it would be - from a shareholder's point of view - gross and deliberate malpractice on Disney's part.