Anyone else think Magic Carpets of Aladdin would've gone great in Morocco in the space between it and Japan? Of course, I could only picture WDWMagic's meltdown if that had been the case.
If it wasn't *technically* in Morocco, maybe. But, as I understand it (and I could be wrong,) I
believe Moroccan culture doesn't allow characters in art, so I doubt a cartooney spitting camel and monkey with a genie lamp wouldn't work there. For the Egg hunt at Flower and Garden they place the egg on the farthest edge of the land because it has a character's face on it. For Figment's scavenger hunt at Arts Festival it was the only painting that didn't have Figment in it (in fact it was just tile shapes.) All the art and murals on the walls of the Morocco pavilion are geometric tile mosaics for this reason. And I think it would be insensitive to place character depictions there (besides, ya know, Jasmine, that works I guess because she's a real person, and not an artistic representation through a non-living medium.)
That. And you know, the fact that Aladdin takes place in a made-up city in the Middle East based on a story that takes place in Baghdad, (which itself was based on a story that takes place in China, believe it or not.) In any case, it's a completely different place and culture than Morocco, a country in North Africa. But then again, that doesn't stop Disney from shoving Jasmine in there or Frozen into Norway, so what do I know. I guess they figure, hey, it's an
Arab country, close enough.
Also, fun fact: I saw concept art for the Flying Carpets ride in Adventureland in the manager's office when I worked at Jungle Cruise in 1996, 5 years before it opened. When I asked why they weren't building it yet they said they had to do some extensive foundation work for the weight of it to be held. Guess that had to do with Utilidor stuff. Thought it was cool when it eventually opened years later. Looked exactly like the concept art they had up.