Coco Attraction - Disney California Adventure

[Tobias]

If they're not tearing down some of the parade or maintenance buildings, that would honestly be a mistake. Coco is a very popular IP and it can support a nicely sized boat ride, doing a small one would give us the same issues Frozen Ever After at Epcot had with a ride too small for the IP's popularity.

 

[DrStarlander]

If they're not tearing down some of the parade or maintenance buildings, that would honestly be a mistake. Coco is a very popular IP and it can support a nicely sized boat ride, doing a small one would give us the same issues Frozen Ever After at Epcot had with a ride too small for the IP's popularity.

I think not having a ride-view restaurant and a Santa Cecilia Mexican village and shopping would honestly be a mistake. But DCA has 25 years of history and other than a couple of moments of brilliance (Cars Land) and good, solid effort (Buena Vista St.) about 15 years ago, it is a park cursed with bad, low-ambition ideas and deeply un-Disney compromises (power lines, outside hotel intrusion, a carnival as a land). Based on the park's track record, sadly, betters should expect Coco to be totally underwhelming and a failure to exploit the IP's potential.

 

[Freak]

I think not having a ride-view restaurant and a Santa Cecilia Mexican village and shopping would honestly be a mistake. But DCA has 25 years of history and other than a couple of moments of brilliance (Cars Land) and good, solid effort (Buena Vista St.) about 15 years ago, it is a park cursed with bad, low-ambition ideas and deeply un-Disney compromises (power lines, outside hotel intrusion, a carnival as a land). Based on the park's track record, sadly, betters should expect Coco to be totally underwhelming and a failure to exploit the IP's potential.

I think Avatar has the opportunity to make a Blue Bayou-style restaurant. I think that would be a totally missed opportunity if they don’t do that

 

[Jake S]

I think not having a ride-view restaurant and a Santa Cecilia Mexican village and shopping would honestly be a mistake.

Agreed — but I’m also curious to see if they make any changes to the larger dining area nearby … and how much longer things like Goofy’s Sky School and the Jellyfish have left.

 

[Tobias]

Either way, this is still a wait and see situation. Since if they're hopefully using any of the buildings back there, they'll obviously need to move some things around before they can work on them. Right now, they're working on what they currently can at the moment. Now if we're well into Summer/Fall etc. and it doesn't look like any of those buildings are being touched, then we might have an issue here.

 

[Jerroddragon]

I mean unpopular opinion If they want to retheme the Dinning cool but don't touch the C tickets near bye.....unless you adding new theming to them, DCA needs ALL the rides it can get and this is the issue with Epic..it had almost no fillers and there for the bigger rides have insane waits, plus may of flat rides near the Peir are for families which need more to do at these parks and they take up almost no space

But if want to do a basic retheme to the Garden area near by to fit the Coco them then go for it, It would not take long to match the themeing to the movie

 

[cdogsumo]

I mean unpopular opinion If they want to retheme the Dinning cool but don't touch the C tickets near bye.....

I mean they’ve survived this long (25 years). I doubt they would be bulldozed with no replacement of capacity (looking at you, Maliboomer).

 

[PerceptiveCoot]

I think the current construction footprint is just so they can meaningfully address utilities around the former Mickey shape sidewalk and get that pathway back up and running.

This was never going to be a Pirates level attraction with the space they were working with, but I do think we need to wait and see how much they're going to build.

I’m sensing Disney has severely underestimated how popular this ride will be in this park. This needed Pirates or Small World levels of capacity.

They recognize the property's popularity, but this was the only place they were going to be able to put the ride in on the quick unless they wanted to make more fundamental changes to the structure and layout of Paradise Gardens Park. I'd have to assume Boardwalk Pizza and Pasta are highly utilized given their capacity, the accessibility of the food offerings, and their importance as staging grounds for seasonal events. Accordingly, the area was likely deemed to be untouchable from the outset. I presume they'll get some thematic garnish that more completely integrates that with the Coco attraction come 2028 when there's a corridor a post-attraction exit corridor leading directly to them.

Nonetheless, yes, the attraction is constrained by its location, but that's not immediately a knock on it's ability to handle crowds. Capacity can be addressed by cycling more people, either through a continuous loading system ala the French Storybook River Boats, dual loading, larger boat capacity, and by having less timing dependent elements like the track switches on Frozen Ever After.

Just for the sake of clarity*, here's what the southern side of DCA looks like right now from the most recent satellite photographs. The splotch of black on the left hand side of the image is the bay of Paradise Pier. The white splotch near the upper right is the expanding footprint of the Avengers E-ticket show building. The splotch of brown on the left hand side of the image is the current Coco construction site.



*lol

 

[SkiBum]

I think the current construction footprint is just so they can meaningfully address utilities around the former Mickey shape sidewalk and get that pathway back up and running.

This was never going to be a Pirates level attraction with the space they were working with, but I do think we need to wait and see how much they're going to build.

They recognize the property's popularity, but this was the only place they were going to be able to put the ride in on the quick unless they wanted to make more fundamental changes to the structure and layout of Paradise Gardens Park. I'd have to assume Boardwalk Pizza and Pasta are highly utilized given their capacity, the accessibility of the food offerings, and their importance as staging grounds for seasonal events. Accordingly, the area was likely deemed to be untouchable from the outset. I presume they'll get some thematic garnish that more completely integrates that with the Coco attraction come 2028 when there's a corridor a post-attraction exit corridor leading directly to them.

Nonetheless, yes, the attraction is constrained by its location, but that's not immediately a knock on it's ability to handle crowds. Capacity can be addressed by cycling more people, either through a continuous loading system ala the French Storybook River Boats, dual loading, larger boat capacity, and by having less timing dependent elements like the track switches on Frozen Ever After.

Just for the sake of clarity*, here's what the southern side of DCA looks like right now from the most recent satellite photographs. The splotch of black on the left hand side of the image is the bay of Paradise Pier. The white splotch near the upper right is the expanding footprint of the Avengers E-ticket show building. The splotch of brown on the left hand side of the image is the current Coco construction site.

View attachment 29530

*lol

Could they do a two story attaction to get twice as much out of the footprint?

 

[Jerroddragon]

Could they do a two story attaction to get twice as much out of the footprint?

Maybe the Q, but it feels like this is a D ticket made to just eat up people and the reason Pirates has a two drops was because of the Train....it might not have had it other wise

But they could do what they kind of did with SLOP at Universal and have the Q on a different story from the ride mostly to save space

 

[PerceptiveCoot]

Just my two cents on what I'm expecting:

1. The ride will have a show building with a footprint of about an acre (which is basically TDS Tangled's addressable ride area including the outdoor portions)

2. The ride will have a queue that ends in a dual load station with part, but not all, of the ride track going under the queue (think about how Splash/Tiana's ride path are routed below the initial descent into the load station). This will allow the ride to dispatch far more boats than Nav'i River Journey

3. 4-5 minute ride time with the exact same story as Nav'i River Journey. We are meandering down the forest/town/stream towards the big party/celebration at the end. Miguel and Hector are the DCA equivalent to the Unga-ay Shaman.

HOWEVER COMMA, the ride will be more interesting and humorous than Nav'i River Journey because it will, like Pirates and Mansion, have a series of comedic vignettes starring humanoid characters that are densely packed next to each other.

Essentially what I'm expecting is a combination of the Tangled ride + Pirates from the entry into the town to the jailhouse. Since we're at the height of queue quality within the parks, the queue provides more of the scene setting, mood, and quiet ambiance that is missed by creating a ride that lacks equivalents to Pirates' Bayou and Skeleton Graveyard segments.

TLDR: In my opinion, Coco will be better than Nav'i River Journey because it will take more inspiration from the dense colonial port of Pirates than the contemplative beginning of Pirates.