ANAHEIM, Calif. — The opening of the 12-acre Cars Land at the Disneyland Resort's Disney California Adventure last week ends a five-year, $1 billion overhaul that Disney executives hope will help transform the Southern California theme park and resort into a multiday family destination.
The plan to expand Disney California Adventure was announced in 2007, six years after the park opened adjacent to Disneyland. The project culminated with the unveiling of Cars Land, a replication of the scenes and characters from the Disney/Pixar movie "Cars."
Cars Land, which is the largest and most ambitious project of the expansion effort, features three new rides: Radiator Springs Racers, the most anticipated of the theme park's new attractions, on which guests race in cars through sprawling canyon landscapes; Luigi's Flying Tires; and Mater's Junkyard Jamboree.
There are also three dining venues in Cars Land: Flo's V8 Cafe, Cozy Cone Motel and Fillmore's Taste-In.
Additionally, grand reopening ceremonies revealed a new entrance area to Disney California Adventure, Buena Vista Street, designed to evoke 1920s Los Angeles.
Buena Vista Street's landmark building is the Carthay Circle Theatre, modeled after the cinema where "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" premiered in 1937. The theater houses the more upscale Carthay Circle Restaurant and Lounge, which serves Southern Californian cuisine.
There is also a new Red Car Trolley, based on Los Angeles' historical Pacific Electric Red Car Line; the trolley transports guests from Buena Vista Street down Hollywood Boulevard to the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror ride.
The Disney California Adventure enhancement project has resulted in the opening of Toy Story Mania in 2008, the nighttime water show "World of Color" in 2010 and the opening of the Little Mermaid — Ariel's Undersea Adventure in 2011.
"Not long after the transaction that brought Pixar into part of Disney forever, Bob [Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney Co.] had the vision of transforming Disney California Adventure by using more of our great characters, our stories and more of what makes Disney so special into the entire park," Tom Staggs, chairman of Disney Parks and Resorts, said at the Cars Land opening event last week.
While most of the efforts to transform the Disneyland Resort into a multiday vacation hub for families have been focused on Disney California Adventure — which reportedly stumbled out of the gates before executives decided to refocus the theme park's look and attractions around the core Disney brand and characters — other areas of the Disneyland Resort have also received upgrades.
In 2009, a major expansion of Disney's Grand Californian Hotel & Spa was completed. And a renovation of the Disneyland Hotel concluded in early 2012, including new guestrooms, a new restaurant and bar and a new pool with monorail-themed water slides.
Randy Garfield, executive vice president of Walt Disney's worldwide sales and travel operations, said it was too soon to report whether parkgoers were already extending their stay at the Disneyland Resort as a result of Disney's $1 billion investment in Disney California Adventure.
As for whether the opening of Cars Land marks the end of larger expansion projects at the Disneyland Resort, Garfield remained mum.
The parks and resorts division is the second-largest division of the Walt Disney Co. after media networks. Last month, the parks and resorts division reported a 53% income jump for the fiscal second quarter, to $222 million. Revenue for the division increased 10%, to $2.9 billion for the quarter, which ended March 31.
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