Aladdin In The Parks

Hello  & welcome  back to A Look at Disney  and man,  it's been  a while since  I've done  I've done  one  of these  In The Parks  articles,  where  I take  a look at  how a various film  is represented in the parks.  The very  first one being   Indiana Jones,  I've since  looked  at  the Toy  Story and Finding  Nemo  things  in the parks  and  I will be doing a Pirates In The Parks  article for   the summer  event  and  I'm even considering  doing a Little Mermaid  In  The Parks  article.  Well,  today, even  though  I've gone  over a lot of this stuff recently  as I've talked about Aladdin quite a bit this year,   I've decided to take a look at the various ways,  Aladdin is represented in the parks.   Per  those  previous  articles,  this  is going to be a long  article  and again, I only   have experience with 4  of the things,  I'm going to talk about  in this article  and only  three of them are  from personal experience.



Storybook  Land  Canal  Boats /  Le  Pays  des Contes Fees   - Disneyland/Disneyland Paris

 











We  start  with the  Storybook  Land  Canal  Boats  at  Disneyland  and  Disneyland  Paris,  where you'll find various  movies  represented  in miniature vignettes  and  in Disneyland, you'll spot  Sultan's  Palace and The Cave of Wonders and  in Disneyland Paris,  you'll  find   just  the Cave of Wonders.  I've  never been on this ride as we don't  have it on the East  Coast  but  Legoland  has  something like this with Miniland  and  I like the idea of it,  its'  just a leisurely  boat ride, that'd  be  nice  after a long  day at the park.


Le  Passage  de  Enchante'  d'  Aladdin  -  Disneyland  Paris

   










Continuing  our  stay  in  Paris,  we are  looking  at  Le Passage de  Enchante'  d'  Aladdin.  From  what  I understand,  this  is a walk through  attraction that retells  the story of film  in windows for guest to view.

 

I don't  know,  walk through attractions are hit and miss to me.  Because  if done right, they can be fun but  sometimes,  they can be pretty boring  and  doesn't  seem very interesting to me.   I'm not saying that it isn't but from an outsider's  perspective,   I don't think, this would  be all that great.  It appears to be nothign more than a time waster.  

Arabian  Coast   - Tokyo  DisneySea

This  here is a land  in Tokyo  DisneySea   that  uses  elements from both Aladdin.   This  seems  pretty  cool  and  I like  the idea  of having this land and you have  various  restaurants and stores, and  they even recreate the marketplace from the film in this land.

 











However,  as we will see, this is not the only land  based on Aladdin.  And as mentioned,  there aren't  just  Aladdin attractions, as one the rides here is based on the tale of Sinbad. 

I'm surprised that  Disney  hasn't attempted to make a Sinbad movie, yet.  I think they  could do a good job with it but would they feel that it's too similar to Aladdin?



Adventureland  Bazaar  -  Disneyland  Paris

The main entrance  to Adventureland  at  Disneyland  Paris  themed to  Arabian  tales  that also  uses  Aladdin  and this is fun to see and  this first opened in '92 and that walk through,  I mentioned up above, is  a part of this area and opened one year after this opened.


Agrabah  Bazaar  - Magic  Kingdom

Now,  I've walked past many a time , each time,  I've visited  Magic Kingdom  and it was the second   area  based  on Agrabah  to open  up, but it's  nothing more than a place to buy Aladdin merch.    So, I never paid  much  mind  to it.  


The  Magic  Carpets  of Aladdin/Flying Carpets  Over Agrabah/ Jasmine's  Flying  Carpets  -  Magic Kingdom/Walt Disney  Studios  Park/ Tokyo  DisneySea

Now,  I went over this attraction before  in my  Top 6 Most Disappointing  Attractions.   I rode this once at the Magic  Kingdom and it was a big letdown because all this, really is a Dumbo clone dressed up to look like Carpet  and  look,  I see nothing inherently wrong with Dumbo clones as  Dumbo  The Flying  Elephant  is a ride concept  that has been mimicked  for years but  my issue with the one,  in Magic  Kingdom  is that it feels a bit redundant,  when you already  have  Dumbo  in the same park.   Now,  I'm sure people  have made arguments  that Astro  Oribiter  in  Tomorrowland  is similar,  which  I wouldn't agree with, as that is a more high octane  ride, that  from what  I've  seen, can go pretty fast.   Whereas  both  Dumbo  and Carpets, serve the same purpose,  to give you an aerial  view  of the park and  you can maneuver how they move.  But  again,  why would  you want to put a ride like this in,  when you already have the ride, it's aping in the park.   That doesn't  make sense to me.   And from what I understand,  the international  versions  at least  don't  have to compete with Dumbo,  so that does make them a little less redundant.  


Enchanted Tiki  Room: Under  New Management

 











Now,  we  come  to  the other attraction from my Top 6 Disappointing  Attractions  List.     Something  about this attraction always felt weird  to me  because it  just  felt  out  of place to put  classic  Disney characters into  an attraction that they had no relation  to other than they are birds  and Zazu  and Iago was such an odd pairing.   I  guess, they were going for an Odd Couple  type  vibe  but I don't  know,  I didn't care for the idea of these two  coming  and thankfully,  it was closed recently  in 2012 due to a fire.   That's the thankful  part  but the fire allowed  Magic  Kingdom to install an abridged  version  of the 1963  Tiki  Room,  that went  back  to the original  management.    This  attraction   idea just never sat well with me  and it kinda  reminds me of why,  I don't like   seeing  Jack  Sparrow  on the Pirates ride but  I'll give that more leeway  because at least  Jack has an association with that ride.


Aladdin:  A Musical  Spectacular  -    Disney  California Adventure

 












I went  over this show during  my Aladdin  Week as I talked about the music and I watched it all on YouTube and to give you an idea,  this is an abridged stage adaption  of the film, that for the most part is pretty faithful to the movie.  All of the songs plus  one new  song that was written fro the film are included and  one of the things,  I really like  is that Genie  in this show is allowed to ad lib his lines as to pop culture references up to date,   I've heard this Genie  make  Paula  Deen,    Lady Gaga,  and Facebook  jokes.  It's  a fun little  show, that I'd  like to see in person.



Fantasmic!   - Disney's  Hollywood  Studios

This  is a really  cool  show,  that takes  you into the imagination  of  Mickey,  which  is all  good and fun but The Evil  Queen  won't  have any of this,  after Belle,  Ariel,   and Snow White,  with  Beast,  Eric,  and The Prince respectively  show  up,   The  Evil  Queen   calls  upon the help  of her fellow  Disney  villains  to turn  Mickey's dreams into nightmares.  Even though,  the Magic Mirror  warns  her  that 

"in Mickey's imagination, beauty and love will always survive."

And  Jafar  is the first  villain that Mickey  has to face.  Jafar uses his magic to send  Mickey to the Cave of Wonders and  Mickey  has to escape  a wave of lava and onstage, Mickey confronts  Jafar as he turns  into  Snake  Jafar  and  Mickey sees  a lamp of the Genie that he thinks will help  him and he defeats Jafar  by  Jafar  turning  into  a Genie  but not before Jafar  calls  upon Hades for help.  I'm surprised  Jafar would go to Hades after the last time, they worked together.  

That  is  just the tip  of the iceberg  for this show.  This  show  is just  stunning and  is a must  every time,  my family  goes to  Disney World.   It  is easily  in my opinion, the greatest night time at Disney World.  I'm  not  doing  it justice,  you have to see it for yourselves to get  a full appreciation for it.



World  of Color  -   Disney  California Adventure

 

Now  again,  I've never seen World  of Color  but it is another nighttime  show  and this time at Disney California Adventure.  It appears to have a loose narrative and  scenes are projected onto water mist screens in the lagoon  of  Paradise  Bay and the second  part of the show  includes  scenes from Aladdin such as  the end of the film  or Genie dancing.  This looks pretty cool and is something that I'd like to see in person.

Aladdin's  Magic  Carpet   Ride  - DisneyQuest   (Disney World)

  

Aladdin's  Magic  Carpet  Ride  is  a ride  that  the arcade/theme park  hybrid  in  Disney World's   Downtown  Disney  and  it is a virtual  reality  ride as you ride on these bikes  that serve as your carpets  over Agrabah. 

And  you also  put  on those helmets.  I've done this but that was over ten years ago and I can barely remember anything about it.   I think it was fun but  again,  I was a young kid hyped up on Disney  (well, that much hasn't changed).    So,   I can't recall too much but apparently, you have to collect gems to find Genie.  Speaking  of Genie,  he's kind of the former mascot  for DisneyQuest.  It's  technically not  official  but  you  have this "magic"  elevator  that you have to ride in to get to main floor of DisneyQuest and in it is a screen with Genie , just being  Genie  and cracking  jokes to entertain the guests.  I say former because I just found out that they got rid of the video,  which you can watch  by clicking this link.  Shame too,  while it was  nothing special, it was cute and sure it was Dan Castellaneta  doing the voice  but I thought it was fine.

It's  A Small World  - Disneyland

Ooh boy, do I remember the uproar this caused in the Disney fan community.    In  the '08 - '09  era,  new dolls were added to the classic  Disneyland  Small World based on classic Disney characters and each put in the respective land of their origin.  Thus  Aladdin, Jasmine and Abu  were put in the Middle East section and at first,  I didn't like this idea and it's  kind of the same  issue  I have with Jack  Sparrow  being a part of the Pirates  of the Caribbean ride.  It didn't feel needed, however over time,  I've calm down  on the dolls because unlike  Jack on that attraction, where it still feels a little blatant,  looking at the dolls  here.  They did a nice job  of  getting the dolls  to match the excellent style  of Mary Blair and blend  in wonderfully.   I still need to do a Mary Blair  tribute,  her excellent  design  on this ride can almost make me forget  how much I loathe the song.    She  was a great  designer and one of the best artists to ever work  for Disney.     

There you have it,  my look  at the various  way,  Aladdin  is  represented  in the various  parks.  I hope that you've enjoyed this article and I can promise you that there will be more In The Park articles in the future, as they just  so much  to  write.  The next one will probably be  Little Mermaid  In The Parks.  Peace!