I recently read a small feature (nevermind where) about the newly opened play area in Toontown with the following text:
“When Walt Disney developed his first theme park, he intended it to be a place where children and adults alike could share in the fun.”
Just to the right of that is a photo of the sign outside the play area reading:
“Goofy’s Playhouse is intended for the enjoyment of children ages 2-5 years old.”
So we intend for children as young as two, and adults as old as 5 to enjoy this attraction together. This specifically just seems like somebody is trying desperately to shoehorn this square little “Waltism” into a decidedly round hole.
I’ve never really been a fan of these age specific areas in the parks. We should make magic that can be experienced together. Just because a playground is a different shape/color/texture doesn’t make it any different then the one behind the school. While this playground may be useful, I feel like the whole concept is just uninspired.
Lets look back to what did happen when a really creative play area was needed… Tom Sawyer Island. Now that’s a playground you can be in without even realizing you’re being spoon fed a jungle gym. The complex as a whole was designed with no specific age range in mind. There are features for every age, always with the story at it’s heart.
If you visit Goofy’s Playhouse, you won’t see parents having fun WITH children, you will see parents waiting while their children have fun. That is exactly what Disneyland was built to avoid. Walt himself said he thought of Disneyland while waiting for his girls to ride a merry-go-round. He wanted a place that he could have fun with them too.
I walk by this ‘new improved’ area and just want to take a big ‘ol nap. Doesn’t make me happy, doesn’t elicit any kind of emotion really. So it’s just wasting good space where space is at a premium.
Ok… that’s my rant.
(photos from laughingplace.com)
You are absolutely right! That fact and kids and adults enjoy TOGETHER is what makes Disneyland differenct than all the other theme parks!!!
Ya know, I never would have thought about it – but you’re right!
You are absolutely right. I have never gone to Disneyland, but I have been to WDW. There is an area by the Winnie the Pooh ride that says ” intended for children from aged 3-5.” A few days later we go to MGM and as I force my husband and kids to go to one man’s dream, it says that Walt Disney wanted kids and adults to have fun together. I’m not really having the time of my life as my husband is complaining because he hates Fantasyland as my kids are jumping off of honey pots.
No Kidding! Same thing happened at Sea World of San diego. Back in the day, when they first put in Captn Kids world, kids of all ages were allowed to run through the forest of huge, round, priate painted, foam (like hanging punching bags). You could play king of the wave on the blue, canvased, padded, hill, pushing others over the side. You could dive into the large, deep vat of hard plastic balls. you could swing down and across on a rope, climb high and around on netted climb ways, you could slide down slides. Imagine the fun playing hide and seek in such a place, swinging, hiding, diving, sliding. Then they decided that they would only impose age and hieght restrictions. We would have to sneak around into these areas until someone caught us.
The fun was over as age restrictive discrimination took over, like Disneyland’s Goofy playhouse. Then they took out anything that someone might be capable of injuring them selves on if they really tried hard enough. Gone was the rope swing, gone was the really dense forest of sockem pirates bags, gone was king of the wave, gone was the deep, vast vat of hard plastic balls Thigh deep. In it’s place… phoofy kiddy stuff and boardwalk arcade games you had to pay to play with.
Even in Toontown we get kids only. Why? I have no idea. I did get the opportunity to go in, and ride everything in Toontown when it first opened. Why the sudden change, whether in Disneyland or Seaworld? Unlike Melodie’s husband, I do like Fantasyland as much as any kid and would love to jump off the honey pots!
My father and we kids would always run around Tom Sawyer’s Island, climbing about in the caves, both enjoying the experience equally. He enjoyed it as kid in the first years Disneyland opened, and enjoyed it just as much when he was an adult. Today you can’t run around Tom Sawyer’s Island as we once did playing hide and seek, and again, like Seaworld, they took out places they thought someone, if they really tried, could possibly hurt themselves, even sealed off caves.
So the question is, where can you go to experience that original vision of Walt Disney’s, where you can share the experience of play with your kids? A ride is like a movie, and is hardly interactive. I think the ‘powers that be’ at Disneyland sould rethink such areas and make them once again interactive, fun spaces for the entire family to experience, as just that, a family.