10. Merlinwood (9 years) vs. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (12 years)
Merlinwood: 1999 – 2008 (9 years)
Hogsmeade: 2010 – Today (14 years)
Universal Islands of Adventure opened in 1999, serving as quite a statement about Universal’s ambitions in Central Florida. Eschewing mere movies in favor of timeless, intergenerational stories, the 21st century park opened with six “islands” centered on novels, picture books, comics, and cartoon strips. But one of the park’s highlights was the Lost Continent – a land themed to myths and legends from around the globe.
The Lost Continent was technically divided into three sub-sections: the Lost City, Sindbad’s Bazaar, and Merlinwood. It’s the latter that was probably the best known thanks to its anchor attraction, the inverted B&M coaster Dueling Dragons. As we explored in our THEN & NOW feature of hand-drawn theme park layouts, Merlinwood is the space that was transformed into the Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Hogsmeade, reskinned as a to-scale version of the Scottish village seen in the Warner Bros. films
Obviously, Hogsmeade singlehandedly changed the course of thematic design forever, and launched what’s become a decade-plus arms race to build IP-based “Living Lands.” What’s fascinating is that Merlinwood only existed for nine years – meaning that Hogsmeade has already almost doubled the lifetime of its predecessor. Yep, even if Hogsmeade was revolutionary, it’s also now a time-worn “classic” in its own right.
11. “DCA 1.0” (11 years) vs. “DCA 2.0” (12 years)
It was 2007 when Disneyland’s beleaguered second gate took the first steps in what would be a five-year, billion-dollar reimagining meant to correct the park’s fundamental flaws. We chronicled the park’s original form and its transformation in an epic, multi-part Disney California Adventure feature, watching as the park added more character, more class, more for families, and more Disney-quality storytelling and placemaking.
You might even still think of California Adventure’s “Grand Re-Dedication” as relatively recent, with Buena Vista Street and Cars Land feeling like still-fresh projects. But actually, as of 2024, “DCA 2.0” has technically been around longer than the “DCA 1.0” version of the park ever was! Yes, the park has now had more years with Radiator Springs Racers, Ariel’s Undersea Adventure, Midway Mania, World of Color, and the Red Car Trolley than years it had without them.
Of course, whether or not “DCA 2.0” has outlived its predecessor depends on whether or not you think we’re still in the “2.0” era at all. Many Disney Parks fans suggest that we’re now in the midst of “DCA 3.0” – a sort of thematic about-face made just a few years after the grand unveiling of their billion dollar revitalization wherein Imagineers seem to have edged California Adventure away from the historic, idealized “DCA 2.0” ethos in favor of a new era primarily centered on Disney + Pixar + Marvel + Star Wars. Recent “cheap and cheerful” IP overlay projects – like Pixar Pier, Avengers Campus, and San Fransokyo Square – haven’t moved the needle on the park’s attendance, but there seems to be no end in sight to the M.O
Getting Close…
PeopleMover (28 years) vs. Nothing (23 years)
The closure of the Lost Legend: The PeopleMover at Disneyland is a sort of nexus point in the park’s story. A gentle, functional, reliable, and high-capacity ride physically built into and running throughout the park’s Tomorrowland, the PeopleMover was shuttered in the ’90s so that its track could be reused for one of the most legendary busts in Disney parks history– the Declassified Disaster: The Rocket Rods. Since the high speed thrill ride fizzled out in 2001, we’re going on 23 years of the PeopleMover tracks being abandoned in plain sight… nearly as long as the PeopleMover existed to begin with.
The Living Seas (19 years) vs. The Seas with Nemo and Friends (17 years)
If you’re still thinking of “Nemo & Friends” as a semi-permanent IP overlay that’ll inevitably disappear eventually to restore the “true” Lost Legend: The Living Seas version of the pavilion, it might be worth it to check the calendar. Very soon, The Seas with Nemo and Friends will graduate to become the longest-lived (and maybe by extension, de facto) version of the attraction.
Wonders of Life (18 years) vs. Nothing (17 years)
EPCOT is a park defined by change. This list alone has included a pavilion whose existing ride was totally reimagined, a pavilion that was gutted for a whole new ride, and a pavilion that was torn down and replaced with a new attraction entirely. Even among all that, one of the oddest fates in the park must be that of the Wonders of Life pavilion. It and its anchor attraction – the Lost Legend: BODY WARS – closed forever in 2007. Then… well… nothing.
The golden domed pavilion was used as the park’s “Festival Center” of demonstration kitchens and workshop spaces. With each subsequent seasonal celebration, fewer and fewer remnants of Wonders of Life remained. At the semi-annual D23 Expo in 2019, it was announced that as part of EPCOT’s massive, multi-year reimagining, the vacant structure would become the “Play” pavilion. Except… it didn’t. The pavilion has been empty or in its flexible “Festival Center” arrangement for nearly as long as Wonders of Life existed to begin with.