Should Disneyland and California Adventure be merged into one giant park?
Attendance for California Adventure has been all over the place, to say the least, while Disneyland’s attendance has stayed strong (for the most part) despite the downhill state of the economy. World of Color and events like Glow Fest and ElecTRONica have brought up attendance slightly, but not much compared to Disneyland’s daily numbers.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Bob Iger talked about how Disney officials have considered merging the parks. The costs, though, might outweigh the benefits if this were to be done. Iger mentions how the parks would be merged and one higher priced ticket would buy you everything, but the costs to build transportation to get around the park would be a blow to Disney’s wallet. He explains that the way to bring up California Adventure’s attendance is the current $1 billion construction projects going on in the park (Cars Land, new entrance, etc.)
According to Iger, California Adventure’s attendance numbers rose 20% since the debut of World of Color.
ElecTRONica is also drawing in crowds on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
So what do you think? Should the parks be merged together to create one giant park, and we just pay a higher ticket price? Or should California Adventure remain separated from the main park?
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The two parks are close enough in proximity to walk to the entrances. I’ve never been to WDW, so I can’t exactly compare, but the entrances to Disneyland and California Adventure are separated by a short distance.
No-Thats like combining tha Magic Kingdom & EPCOT into one park. Have a Park Hopper 3-day ticket. & have a Bus system to start, then a monarail to go park to park as things grow.
Why, yes, that was a long comment! But it’s great that you took the time to read my piece and say something about it 🙂 It’s exactly what I like.
Luckily, they AREN’T merging the parks. I see both sides — you don’t have to pay fora park hopper, BUT the price of visiting the giant park might end up being the same or close to the park hopper price. Plus, I’m someone that likes to walk around Disneyland and California Adventure for some extra exercise. A giant park would be way too much for me to do at once. And, as a California native, I think that California Adventure should stay DCA. No other place in the world can have California Adventure!
In order to properly answer this question, Disney would have to take a look at what kind of attendance it would lose. Specifically, what do the statistics look like when you compare the average number of people who choose to visit only one of the parks on a given visit versus those who visit both of the parks anyway? Merging the parks would be opening the door to a potential<< huge loss in overall attendance. Not necessarily saying that it would be, but the potential is there.
I have a lot of friends in Japan who always ask me which park they should go to when they visit California, as they often only intend to visit one. It's the same for me here–I'll probably be visiting DisneySea soon, but I don't necessarily want to pay for a park hopper ticket in order to see Tokyo Disneyland on the same day. It's too expensive and I don't feel like I'd have enough time to fully enjoy both parks. If the parks here were merged, it would make it a lot more difficult for me.
So! Despite the fact that in California I have an annual pass and can visit both parks whenever anyway, I think that for those who don't, merged parks with a higher price might be a deterrent.
As long as Disney keeps working on expanding that which California Adventure has to offer, I personally believe that keeping the parks separate is the better idea.
This was a very long comment hahahaha.