The Disneyland Book of Secrets 2014: One Local's Unauthorized, Rapturous and Indispensable Guide to the Happiest Places on Earth (186 page)

At dinner
(supper) time,
Balsamic-Braised Short Ribs
($20.50),
Braised Lamb Shank
($24), and
Herb-Roasted Chicken Breast
($18) are added on the
Trattoria
’s entrée menu.

Children’s meals joined the menu in the summer of 2010
and continue to evolve.  There’s a
Fish of the Day
with roasted potatos and vegetables ($9);
Grilled Chicken Breast
with spaghetti and marinara ($9); and
Choose Your Pasta and Preparation
($8.50). 
Cheese Pizza
($8.50) and
Pepperoni Pizza
($9) are also available.  Kid’s meals include
Antipasti
(fresh fruits and veggies) and a small beverage.

Dessert lovers will adore the
Trattoria
’s glorious selection of treats including
Seasonal Roasted Fruit Crostata
,
Vanilla Bean Panna Cotta
,
Warm Chocolate Espresso Tart
, and
Wine Country Tiramisu
.  At $6 to $6.50 each, these desserts are a delicious bargain.

Beverages include the park’s usual assortment of coffee, juice, soda
, and water, but you can also order sparkling
San Pellegrino
($7.59) and
Specialty Coffee Drinks
like
Espresso
,
Cappuccino
,
Caffe Latte
, and
Caffe Mocha
.  Standard beverages are about $3 - $3.50 each; special coffee drinks run you $3.19 to $4.50.  Guests can also order
Domestic Beer
(
Budweiser
,
Bud Light
, or
Miller Lite
) for $6 per glass,
Imported/Specialty Beer
(
Anaheim 1888
,
Corona
,
Corona Light
,
Dos Equis
, or
Heineken
) for $6.75 per glass, or
Premium Beer
(
Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA
,
Blue Moon
,
Karl Strauss Amber
,
PranQster
,
Samuel Adams
, or
Sierra Nevada
) for $7 each.  Not a beer drinker?  Try the
Sangria
(red Spanish wine, citrus, and Cointreau) for $9 per glass.  Specialty “glowing” punches in souvenir sippers are available for about $7 each. 
Did You Know?
 
DCA
used to host the annual
California Food and Wine Festival
, which ran from late spring through early summer and offered events throughout the park and the resort hotels.  The festival celebrated the cuisine of California and the many cultures that make up the Golden State’s uniquely diverse population.  The
Golden Vine Winery
was often at the center of these special meals, receptions, presentations, cooking demonstrations, and wine tasting events.  Some activities were open to the public, while others required separate ticketed admission.  Visit the resort website at
www.disneyland.disney.go.com
for details about the next festival. 
Night Vision: 
When
World of Color
was introduced on June 11, 2010, the
Trattoria
added
prix fixe
menus for diners who wish to
mangia
delish Italian fare and enjoy the
Paradise Bay
extravaganza.  Guests are advised to call
Disneyland Resort Dining
at (714) 781-DINE in advance to arrange your
World of Color
meal.  Each meal includes a ticket for a prime
World of Color
viewing location.  Lunch:  Adults (Guests 10 or older) pay $30 for arugala salad and soup, and a choice of
Broccolini Aglio Olio
,
Grilled Chicken Sandwich
,
Lasagna Rustica
, or
Tuscan Salad with Grilled Shrimp or Chicken
, and
Chocolate Caramel Espresso Tart
,
Europeran Macaroons
,
Trattoria Tiramisu
, and
Vanilla Bean Panna Cotta with Fresh Fruit
.  Dinner:  Adults pay $42 for salad or soup, their choice of entrée (
Braised Lamb Shank
,
Broccolini Aglio Olio
,
Filet Mignon
,
Herb-Roasted Chicken Breast
,
Seafood Pasta
, or
Today’s Sustainable Fish
) and
Chocolate Caramel Espresso Tart
,
Europeran Macaroons
,
Trattoria Tiramisu
, and
Vanilla Bean Panna Cotta with Fresh Fruit
.  Children (Guests 9 and younger) pay $19 (Lunch) or $22 (Dinner) for
Kid’s Antipasti
(fresh fruit and veggies), their choice of
Fish of the Day
,
Grilled Chicken Breast
, or customized
Pasta
, and a
Mini Chocolate Tart with Berries
.  Juice, milk, or water is included with every
World of Color
kid’s meal.

Pacific Wharf
Character Meetings and Performers

Pacific Wharf
is rich with character, but light on performers.

Fans of mariachi music will be pleased to
learn that the
Pacific Wharf
dining district is home to the all-female, Grammy-winning
Mariachi Divas
, a talented group that plays Mexican music from late morning through mid-afternoon on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, and daily during the holidays and other peak seasons.

Paradise Pier

Paradis
e Pier At-a-Glance

Attractions:
 
California Screamin’
(FP) (S),
Disney Channel Rocks!
(RIP)
,
Games of the Boardwalk
,
Golden Zephyr
,
Goofy’s Sky School
(FP) (S),
Jumpin’ Jellyfish
,
King Triton’s Carousel
,
Little Mermaid:  Ariel’s Undersea Adventure
,
Maliboomer
(S) (RIP)
,
Mickey’s Fun Wheel
,
Silly Symphony Swings
,
S.S. rustworthy
(RIP)
,
Toy Story Midway Mania!, World of Color
(FP)

Gear:
 
Boardwalk Bazaar
,
Dinosaur Jack’s Sunglass Shack
(RIP)
,
Midway Mercantile
,
Point Mugu
,
Seaside Souvenirs
,
Sideshow Shirts
,
Treasures in Paradise

Grub:
 
Ariel’s Grotto
(B, L, D),
Bayside Brews
(S),
Boardwalk Pizza and Pasta
(L, D, S),
Corn Dog Castle
(L, D, S),
Cove Bar
(L, D, S),
Don Tomas
(L, D, S),
Hot Dog Hut
(L, D, S),
Paradise Garden Grill
(L, D, S),
Paradise Pier Ice Cream Co.
(S)

Paradise Pier Introduction

A Guest’s first glimpse of
Paradise Pier
is a dramatic experience.  From across
Paradise Bay
the
Paradise Pier
skyline seems a waking dream, a playful, surreal composite of Coney Island and myriad other seaside amusement parks.  The silhouette is a Jungian archetype of the amusement pier of our collective dreams.

Imagineers
have always been masterful at engineering dramatic reveals at
Disneyland
.  The view from the northern shore of
Paradise Bay
is one place in
DCA
where they got a reveal absolutely right.  As you approach
Paradise Pier
, the view is bracketed by charming replicas of Monterey Bay and San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf to the east, and San Francisco Victorian houses to the west.  Filling the horizon ahead of you? 
Paradise Pier
, that fantastic image of the quintessential seaside amusement park.

It’s
a vista that one might see in pleasant hallucinations: A broad bay girdled on its far shore with enormous icons of seaside amusement, their gleaming white paint and antique silhouettes reading instantly as ideals from a past channeled through rose-tinted nostalgia.

There’s the
quaint roof of a carousel.  There are the cool, shaded booths of the midway.  There’s a gargantuan Ferris wheel, once emblazoned with a sun, now beaming with a giant
Mickey Mouse
face.  In comparison to the attractions around it, the wheel’s size almost seems to rival the original 260-foot tall, steam-powered Ferris wheel at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

There
was once a massive orange peel on the southwestern shore, a fantastic image you’d never see outside of a surreal painting–or the imagination of
Imagineers
.  Its hollow sphere cupped Guests suspended from a Zierer Wave Swinger canopy.  The canopy tilted, and Guests whirled madly in little swing chairs painted like yellow-and-black bees.

There
were three 180-foot tall towers on which Guests rocket up and down at speeds of up to 40 miles per hour, like the pucks that carnival strong men send (with a swing of their mallets) shooting up to strike a bell.  Those towers have been torn down.  But there are still gleaming, Buck Rogers-like spaceships that flash silvery arcs over the bay.

Knitting this fantastic landscape together, weaving behind and through and in front of the other attractions, are the
sinuous, bleached undulations of what appears to be a mammoth wooden coaster from the early days of amusement parks.  Its tortured spine twists and loops among the attractions, at its highest point swooping like a skeletal mountain summit against the blue Southern California sky.

No one crafts a stunning environment better than a
Disney Imagineering
team.  When they’re at the top of their game, they’ll transport you to places you’ve only imagined.  Anyone who’s seen “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” (the 1971 film based on a Roald Dahl book) remembers gasping when the chocolate room is revealed, with its vividly colored candy plants and flowers and the mouth-watering chocolate waterfall and river.  It’s something out of a child’s Candyland dream, dazzling audiences.  Even the film’s cast and crew recall being stunned when they first saw the set.

It should come as no surprise to us that th
e chocolate room set, and all of the film’s dreamlike vehicles, contraptions, chambers, and landscapes, were designed by an Art Director who was also a
Disney Imagineer
, none other than
Harper Goff
, the genius who mapped out
Disneyland
’s hyperreal
Jungle Cruise
and
Main Street
, among many other contributions.

Goff
passed away in 1993 and had no involvement in the design of
DCA
or its
Paradise Pier
, but the modern
Imagineers
were channeling that level of fantastic vision when they designed the dreamy beauty of
Paradise Pier
’s panorama.  Viewing the
Paradise Pier
district from a distance, Guests were utterly enchanted from
DCA
’s
Opening Day
onward.

Unfortunately, it was only from a distance that
the original
Paradise Pier
charmed.  Once Guests entered the district, whether via the bridge that leads to
Paradise Bay
’s eastern shore, or by following the bay’s western shore, once Guests saw this seaside land up close, enchantment generally melted away.

It’s fair to say that
Paradise Pier
was the biggest disappointment at
DCA
.  Not only did its attractions lack relevance to
Walt
or the
Disney
canon, almost everything about it was actually contrary to what
Walt
considered to be imaginative, high-quality entertainment.

Walt
wasn’t about roller coasters and Ferris wheels and pay-to-play boardwalk games, the typical seaside amusement park.  Even though
Walt
initially had considered incorporating a realm of midway rides in his original designs for
Disneyland
, ultimately his theme park was specifically designed to offer Guests amusements that were many cuts above what they would find at typical fun parks.

What would
Walt
, the man who conceived flights of fancy like
Main Street
, the soaring
Matterhorn Mountain
, the majestic
Mark Twain Riverboat
, and playful
Tom Sawyer Island
, what would he have said if he were able to stride along the original
Paradise Pier
, observing its standard fare, the attractions that you could find in so many traditional amusement parks?  It’s safe to imagine that he would’ve felt the same disappointment that many Guests felt.

There was nothing
wrong
with the attractions, but for the most part they didn’t seem to belong in a
Disney Park
.  Forking over dollar bills to bored-looking Cast Members so one could throw baseballs at clown heads, one might easily have been at Santa Monica or Santa Cruz or Coney Island.  The coaster was delightful, but one finds coasters at most amusement parks.  The architecture, dreamlike from a distance, was for the most part bland and uninspired up close.  Where was the
Disney magic
?  Where was the
Disney
anything?

When
Disney
execs finally decided to invest in a thorough overhaul of
DCA
,
Paradise Pier
was front and center in the discussions, and would ultimately be tapped to receive the most extensive face lift.  It wouldn’t be enough to paint pictures of
Mickey
,
Minnie
, etc. on the attractions’ façades.  Substantive changes conceptually tied to
Walt
and his creations had to be made.  It would take time, imagination, and lots of money, but to their credit execs knew that to preserve and improve
DCA
, all three had to be invested in mass quantities.

Disney
artists’ color renderings of their plans for
Paradise Pier
’s transformation were ravishing.  Many were displayed at the
Walt Disney Imagineering Blue Sky Cellar
just north of
Paradise Bay
.  The illustrations portray a romantic seaside fairyland of Victorian gingerbread architecture and twinkling strands of lights.  Refurbished and new attractions would relate to
Disney
characters and themes.

Does
the new
Paradise Pier
live up to the artists’ projections?  Yes.  It certainly does.  The transformation unfolded slowly and surely. 
Toy Story Midway Mania!
was the first winner, introduced in the summer of 2008.  This high-tech experience is set within a nostalgic Victorian environment.  It relates to
Disney-Pixar
characters, it’s imaginative, and it’s a heck of a lot of fun for the entire family.

The generic
Games of the Boardwalk
that brought to mind down-at-the-heel carnivals were cocooned from Guests’ eyes and completely revamped, emerging in 2009 as wholesome, vividly painted games themed to
Disney
characters like
Goofy
and
Dumbo
.

The giant
Sun Wheel
, modeled on Coney Island’s famous Wonder Wheel, was encrusted with hundreds of feet of scaffolding for months as the huge sun emblem was removed and replaced by a classic
Mickey
face,
Mickey
of the early cartoons,
Mickey
with the pie cut eyes.  Vintage images of
Minnie
,
Goofy
,
Donald
, and
Pluto
were added to the gondolas, and the Ferris wheel’s lights (and light show) were enhanced.  Christened
Mickey’s Fun Wheel
, the attraction re-opened to Guests in 2009; Guests instantly embraced it as a significant improvement.

The
Orange Stinger
was closed and dismantled.  Construction began on a new Zierer Wave Swinger attraction.  Guests are no longer bees buzzing within an orange-scented California orange.  Instead, they’re caught up in a storm in an attraction based on
Disney
’s 1935
Silly Symphony
cartoon
The Band Concert
, the first color
Mickey
cartoon. 
Silly Symphony Swings
opened to positive reviews in summer 2010.

Nearby, the
Mulholland Madness
roller coaster was re-themed as
Goofy’s Sky School
, an oceanside barnstorming school with
Goofy
as teacher.  The silly sky school opened in summer 2011, and remains so popular it continues to offer
FastPasses
.

For most of 2009
Paradise Bay
was dry as a bone, its water drained away (in an ecologically sound manner) so that armies of construction workers, engineers, electricians, bulldozers, and backhoes could scramble like purposeful ants across its massive surface, installing rebar and wires and nozzles and high-tech devices which, beginning on June 11, 2010, shot fountains high above
Paradise Bay
and projected luminous images of animated
Disney
favorites like
Pocahontas
,
Captain Jack Sparrow
,
Dory
from
Finding Nemo
, and so forth.

The jets of water serve as the kinetic screen for these
Disney
images, all synchronized to a soundtrack of
Disney
music.  An extravaganza that rivals and even surpasses
Fantasmic!
at
Disneyland Park
, the show is called
World of Color
, a reference to
Walt
’s popular color television program.

The theater hosting the lightly-attended
Golden Dreams
film, and, in fact, most of
Paradise Bay
’s western shore was, for a long time, hidden behind tall blue fences inscribed with a request to “Pardon Our P
ixie Dust
”.  What was happening? 
Imagineers
spent years building a gigantic new dark ride at that location,
The Little Mermaid:  Ariel’s Undersea Adventure
.  Opened on June 3, 2011, the dark ride uses lighting techniques and set designs that immerse Guests in
Ariel
’s undersea environment, making us–temporarily anyway–part of her world.

In addition to all of the
Disney
-related attractions,
Paradise Pier
benefitted from a comprehensive architectural overhaul that unified the district’s appearance.  The land has been refreshed in the whites and creams, the blushes and golds and reds and blues, the gingerbread accents and turrets and cupolas and gracious lines of fine Victorian seaside design.

The Victorians fell in love with the seaside as no one else had for centuries.  Suddenly the shore wasn’t a damp, unpleasant place that smelled of seaweed and was solely the domain of
fisher folk.  Suddenly it was fashionable for middle-class and well-to-do families to visit the ocean for bracing walks in the sunshine, clad head-to-toe, of course, in the voluminous fashions of the day–including woolen bathing costumes–and shielded from the sun by pretty parasols.