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The Enchanted Tiki Room sits at the entrance to Adventureland. Added to the park in 1963, this attraction was the first to feature Audio-Animatronics, or mechanical characters controlled by sound signals. Starring a cast of singing birds, flowers, and Tiki gods, the show was written by Wally Boag and Fulton Burley, who at the time were stars of the Golden Horseshoe Revue in Frontierland. These two men also performed the voices of Jose and Michael, two of the four bird-hosts of the attraction. The birds talk and sing several songs until they are interrupted by a rainstorm. The attraction's waiting area features different island gods telling their stories. The pioneering use of Audio-Animatronics in the Enchanted Tiki Room paved the way for such future Disneyland attractions as Pirates of the Caribbean, the Carousel of Progress, the Country Bear Jamboree, and America Sings. Just down from the Enchanted Tiki Room is Aladdin's Oasis; when it opened in 1993, this restaurant also featured a dinner show starring Aladdin and his friends. The restaurant has an Arabian setting which can be seen in the decorations; to the right of the entrance is Jasmine's fountain and courtyard. This site was originally home to the Tahitian Terrace restaurant, which included a Polynesian show. The lighting for the stage was housed in a huge artificial tree. When the restaurant was first being built, Walt Disney looked at the tree and declared that it was too low and would obstruct the view of the stage. After the engineers had wrangled with a solution, Walt came up with the idea of adding a few extra feet to the middle of the tree by cutting it in the middle and raising it.
The Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye opened in 1995. Based on the movie character created by George Lucas, this fast-paced ride takes guests on a tour of an ancient temple guarded by a curse. The vehicles, called EMVs or Enhanced Motion Vehicles, used in this ride are a new design by Walt Disney Imagineering that feature a motion simulator on a base which moves along a track, giving guests the sensation of steeper hills, sharper curves, and greater speeds than what they are actually experiencing. This attraction is packed with details from the Indiana Jones movies, such as Indy's office, which is made of the crate used to store the Ark of the Covenant from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." The jeep seen at the entrance is the actual one used in a chase scene from that movie. The large generator in the outdoor waiting area "powers" the lights throughout the temple, which flicker as if they are actually generator-powered. As they enter the temple, guests are given a crd to help them decode the messages and warnings found on the walls, which are written in an ancient alphabet. One room contains the initials of the Imagineers who worked on the attraction in this ancient language. The waiting area contains several traps which were found and marked by Indiana Jones, such as a room where poison spikes come out of the ceiling. Because of the size of this attraction, its construction caused changes in the Jungle Cruise river, as previously mentioned, as well as the Monorail track which crosses the main parking lot. A tunnel was also placed under the railroad tracks because the building is actually outside of the berm which surrounds the park; guests are walking under the train tracks when they are in the Spike room. Between the Indiana Jones Adventure and New Orleans Square is Tarzan's Treehouse. This attraction was originally the Swiss Family Treehouse, which is based on the movie "Swiss Family Robinson." In the original attraction, guests could tour the home made by the Robinson family using what they salvaged from a wrecked ship, which was named the Recovery; incidentally, in Walt Disney World's version of this attraction, the ship is named the Titus. The attraction was changed to coincide with the release of the animated film "Tarzan" in 1999. This artificial tree, which looks so real that it confuses some guests, has 300,000 vinyl leaves which were all attached by hand. This attraction also offers some great views of Adventureland and New Orleans Square. Because of its uniqueness, the tree was given the exotic species name Disneyodendron.  |
Adventureland, the first land encountered traveling west from Central
Plaza, conjures up ideas of exotic climates and far-off places. Based
largely on Walt Disney's "True Life Adventure" series of films, Adventureland
is set in a jungle, although no one particular jungle is represented. Several
varieties of plants are used to create the jungle illusion; while some are
native to jungles around the world, some are plants common to the Southern
California climate substituted for actual jungle plants. Guests wandering
through the land may hear distant jungle drums, or perhaps the cry of a wild
animal from the Jungle Cruise. Interestingly,
Adventureland at Disneyland Paris represents a completely different theme - the
desert and oasis environment such as that found in the Arabian Knights tales. It
seems the Europeans have a slightly different concept of "adventure" than Americans,
so Imagineering created a completely new Adventureland for that park. Once a
rather quiet part of the Magic Kingdom, Adventureland often has many people due
to the popular Indiana Jones Adventure.
The Jungle Cruise is one of the original attractions from Disneyland's opening
day; however, it has undergone several changes since its opening. Reportedly,
Walt overheard a guest say that he could skip the attraction because he had seen
it before; this statement prompted him to order a major renovation to add new
scenes. A bend in the "river" had to be changed slightly to make room for the
new Indiana Jones Adventure, which can be seen from the Jungle Cruise.
Incidentally, Walt originally wanted to have live animals for this attraction,
but zookeepers warned him that most of the animals would sleep during the day
and therefore be out of view of the guests. The ride was originally a serious
cruise, but one addition included the elephant bathing area, where the elephants
appear to be smiling; another addition featured the safari party chased up a tree
by a rhinoceros. The humorous monologue of the skippers was also added later.
The boats were modeled after the boat in "The African Queen" starring Humphrey
Bogart, although the color scheme was much different; the boats were originally
white with striped canopies. In the mid 1990's, the boats were repainted brown when the
attraction was renovated to coincide with the Indiana Jones Adventure opening.
Each boat now also has a "history" associated with its "owner," such as butterfly
nets on a boat owned by an insect collector. Also during one renovation,
the waiting area was redesigned as a two-story boathouse; careful observers will
note an animated hornbill and snake in the rafters of the second story.