What WAS to Be...

I found this interesting article over on Yesterland about the Preview Center for Disney's California Adventure before it opened. You can read more in the article, but I'll give you a bit of an overview now. The Preview Center opened around July 2000 in the exit area of the Main Street Opera House in Disneyland Park. It showcased artwork and mostly conceptual drawings of how the park would be once finished. You could also buy your very own California Adventure shirt, pre-park opening, to show off to your friends.

It's really fascinating to see the drawings for this park before it opened. Conceptual drawings are often slightly different from how they end up looking, so while it's cool to look at how the park is the same, it's even more so to see how it changed. DCA suffered from a severe lack of funding, so cuts were inevitable, but one can't help but wonder how much better the park would have done if only planned or implemented better. Go ahead and check out the article (with lots of pictures) HERE.

I'm young enough that I only know the Disneyland Resort as it is now, and my earliest remembered trips to Disneyland always included DCA. I don't remember ever having been to Disneyland with a big parking lot right outside the gates, but rather the long tram ride to the gates from the large parking structure at the end of Downtown Disney. Whether I missed out on experiencing the original DLR, it's still great to be reminded from time to time of how things were as we look forward to how things will soon become.

P.S. I hope you're having a better day with you read this, Sis.