9. Universal Islands of Adventure (1999)
Universal Islands of Adventure is a park with substantial steadiness thanks to its founding ethos: that it leaves flavor-of-the-week movies to its older sister (Universal Studios Florida), and instead features something much less fleeting – stories – as its centering spirit. The result is a lineup that’s entirely IP-centered, but timeless and intergenerational. (As we often say, a glimpse at Universal Studios Beijing shows us what an Islands of Adventure designed today would probably look like – Transformers instead of Marvel, Minions in place of Seuss, Jurassic World instead of the literary Jurassic Park, and Kung Fu Panda in place of Popeye.)
In a “zoomed out” sense, there have only been a few major changes to the lineup of the park’s lands. The Lost Continent ceded one of its three literary realms to create The Wizarding World of Harry Potter: Hogsmeade. Then, an expansion pad that was technically set aside for Jurassic Park was annexed to create the park’s only “inland” island, Skull Island – really just a segment of midway serving as the entrance to the Reign of Kong ride. It’s not a great ride, and Kong doesn’t really fit the “vibe” of the otherwise-storybook park, which is why my Build-Out of Islands of Adventure (one of my favorite projects ever) uses the space for a Jurassic expansion instead!
There are no doubt machinations behind the scenes to figure out what’s next for Islands of Adventure… rumors have consistently suggested, for example, that The Kingdom of Hyrule from Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda would be a shoe-in for the now-vacant remains of the Lost Continent’s vestigial parts, or that Universal may eye something new to take over Toon Lagoon, or that Disney could buy back the rights to Marvel in Florida theme parks, leaving Universal to reinvent their existing superhero land. But more than anything, we can hope and pray that Universal knows to keep this park timeless. Minions, Transformers, and Trolls are really best left to studio parks…
10. Disney California Adventure (2001)
For me, this is the Landline that “started it all,” created to tell the story of the lifelong transformation of Disney California Adventure. (Thanks to @sammyruntz on Bluesky who suggested turning it into a series!) The first of a series of three under-built, under-funded New Millennium parks, California Adventure’s “landline” will become a norm for the next few entries – lots and lots of chaos, clutter, “undos” and “redos.”
Designed to be very different from the timeless, historic, and romantic Disneyland next door, California Adventure opened in 2001 touting an “MTV attitude,” stylized as an oversaturated, post-modern salute to the Golden State that bordered on a spoof. “Too much California, not enough Disney,” it opened with just four “districts” – Sunshine Plaza, The Golden State, Hollywood Pictures Backlot, and Paradise Pier. From go, the park was heavily criticized for having very few Disney quality rides, practically no Disney characters, and almost nothing for families to do. “a bug’s land” opened in 2002 as a quick-fix solution to stem the flow of families out of the new park.
But of course, California Adventure’s story became very interesting in 2007 when – in an unprecedented move – then-new CEO Bob Iger announced a five year, billion-dollar reinvestment that would recast the park in the same style as Disneyland: historic, reverent, idealized, and filled with character. In a first ever move, the park had an official re-opening and second dedication on June 15, 2012, with eight lands – the same number as Disneyland – including the enviable and exceptional Buena Vista Street and Cars Land..
Of course, as those who’ve read our epic three part retelling of the park’s story will know, the decade since has weirdly seen Imagineering undo much of the placemaking, storytelling, and California-focus they rolled out in 2012. The result is a park that’s arguably “too much Disney, not enough California,” anchored by the “cute but dumb” Pixar Pier, the anchor-less Avengers Campus, and the label-slapped San Fransokyo Square. It turns out that stickering Disney, Pixar, and Marvel IPs across the park has had virtually zero impact on the park’s attendance. Who could’ve guessed?!
Disney’s clearly hoping that a big budget, high quality expansion (something the park hasn’t had since Cars Land) will do the trick. That’ll be by way of a West Coast version of everyone’s favorite region of California – Pandora: The World of Avatar – announced in 2024, set to replace a portion of the park’s Hollywood Land.
11. Tokyo DisneySea (2001)
As theme park fans know all too well, Tokyo DisneySea is a vast divergence from what other Disney Parks of the era were looking like and going through. That’s again because of the Oriental Land Company (OLC) who owns and operates the resort somewhat like a franchisee, paying big licensing bucks to Disney and hiring Walt Disney Imagineering as a contractor to develop its rides and attractions.
Considered by many to be the best theme park on Earth, DisneySea opened with the concept of containing seven “ports of call” for each of the seven seas; each exploring a particular region’s relationship with water. Guests enter via the Italian-themed Mediterranean Harbor, a seaside village reigned over by the Hotel MiraCosta. American Waterfront recreates a New York City of the 1910s, including a docked ocean liner. There’s Port Discovery (a sort of “Tomorrowland” for the park) then Lost River Delta (a South American archaeological site), Mermaid Lagoon (an indoor “Fantasyland”), and Arabian Coast (lightly themed to Aladdin).
Of course, bar none, the park’s highlight has always been Mysterious Island – a land fully contained within the collapsed caldera of the park’s 189-foot-tall volcanic icon, Mount Prometheus. Themed to the science-fantasy adventure novels of Jules Verne and his antiheroic Captain Nemo character, the land is entirely comprised of suspended catwalks and bored tunnels through the volcano – an absolute icon.
Showing all the stability of a Castle Park (which, as you’ve seen, is very, very rare among non-Castle parks), DisneySea has never lost a land. Of course, it’s only ever gained one, too. After briefly announcing then retracting plans for a Frozen themed land, in 2018 the park shifted its focus toward a much larger storybook-inspired land, Fantasy Springs, which opened in 2024. The port is made of three sub-sections dedicated to Frozen, Tangled, and Peter Pan, respectively, and each – yes, each – has its own E-Ticket attraction, representing a massive growth for the park in square footage, ride count, dark ride count, and E-Ticket count.
12. Disney Adventure World
You don’t have to be part of the Disney Parks fandom for long before you hear the jaw-dropping story of the Declassified Disaster: Walt Disney Studios Park. Opened in 2002 as a contractually-obligated second theme park for Disneyland Paris, Walt Disney Studios was by far the worst Disney theme park on Earth.
The studio-themed park opened with four “Lots” – the Front Lot, Animation Courtyard, Production Courtyard, and Backlot. Between them, they offered only three rides: a copy of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, a Magic Carpets spinner, and a faux Studio Tram Tour. A park of barren backlots, industrial showbuildings, and concrete expanses, it was a bleak place… and a total antithesis to the warmth, scale, and charm of Disneyland Paris.
In 2018, Disney announced that it was time for a fix. A €2 billion, multi-year, multi-phase “reimagining” would expand Walt Disney Studios beyond its existing footprint and introduce a new organizing principle. Yep, like Disney’s Hollywood Studios, the park’s future resided not in seeing “behind-the-scenes,” but in stepping into the worlds of our favorite Disney + Pixar + Marvel + Star Wars + 20th Century films. Paris’ second gate would make that incarnate as a new lagoon meant to be surrounded in “Living Lands.”
Of course, Imagineers would also need to salvage a bunch of soundstages, deal with a fundamentally-flawed layout, and work around a bunch of faux “studio” styling that can’t be disguised or corrected without starting from scratch… So it’s probably fair to say that while the reimagined park kinda sorta tries to do the Epic Universe thing, it’s… inelegant.
Given need for a genuine PR restart, Disney announced that Walt Disney Studios would relaunch in 2026 under a whole new name: Disney Adventure World. It’s a fittingly generic name for a sort of post-studio, catch-all IP park serving as the living embodiment of Disney+ Parks mentality. Alongside the rebrand, nearly all of the park’s existing spaces would be renamed, fractured, combined, segmented out again, and then reformed once more, absorbing and expunging elements in what sounds like (but certainly doesn’t functionally feel like) a “master-planned” rebirth.
For example, the opening day Front Lot survives(?!) just as a name for the exterior courtyard that contains Guest Services and Ticketing. Then, World Premiere Plaza nominally replaces Production Courtyard, but also absorbs the indoor “Studio 1” Main Street from the Front Lot, the parts of Toon Studio that didn’t make the jump to the amalgamated Worlds of Pixar (formed by combining three coincidental Pixar mini-lands), and even elements of the former Backlot that weren’t used by Marvel Avengers Campus).
The park’s acreage expansion takes place in previously-unused space “behind” the existing footprint. From the entrance, a new wooded mall called Adventure Way leads straight back to a new lagoon called “Adventure Bay.” The idea is that several IP lands could eventually surround it, but only one – World of Frozen – will be ready for 2026. At least one other pad will be activated by a Lion King mini-land… eventually!
When all is said and done, the park’s very expensive reimagining will apparently yield a re-themed Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, Web Slingers (copied from California Adventure), a Ratatouille dark ride (identical to EPCOT’s), Frozen Ever After (also already at EPCOT), and eventually, a unique Lion King flume ride. It seems somewhat doubtful the sum total of those additions will suddenly make Walt Disn– er, Disney Adventure World into a desirable, destination park. But we’ll see…