Welcome to Extinct Attractions. This week, I took a look back at one of my favorite time killers at the Disneyland Resort.
After closing for over a year because the Maleficent dragon caught on fire, Fantasmic has returned to Disneyland. Unfortunately, Murphy (ironically named for Murphy’s Law that anything that can go wrong will go wrong) has breathed its last fireball, but Disney cheered fans up by bringing back the Peter Pan sequence of the show, replacing Jack Sparrow and his need for a compass. It’s good to see Disneyland get some love with everything feeling a bit static in recent years, even if it’s just the updated return of a classic show.
Now that Disneyland Forward is officially approved, we should see a bunch of announcements about new additions to the Disneyland Resort at D23 in August, though it will be interesting to see how new attractions are distributed between Disneyland, California Adventure and the proposed theme park zone near the hotels. No matter how it shakes out, it will change the shape of the Disneyland Resort as we know it, just like what happened over fifteen years ago when Disney California Adventure got its long overdue glow up.
When California Adventure first opened, it was a mess. The whole park had a corny atmosphere to it and it just lacked so much of that Disney charm that we have all come to know and love. And so Disney announced a billion plus dollar expansion to California Adventure barely six years after the park opened to try and fix the rush job that had happened in the first place.
With that much moolah being thrown around, Disney decided to give guests a sneak peek of everything as it was being created, converting the Seasons of the Vine Theater into a preview center for DCA 2.0. Because the building was still right next to the winery, the Imagineers decided to keep barrels on the walls and cellar in the name with Walt Disney Imagineering Blue Sky Cellar officially debuting to the public on October 20, 2008. Taking its name from the “blue sky” phase of Imagineering ideas are hatched for new attractions and shows and no idea is a bad idea, the cellar was a true view into the world of Imagineering with concept art, ride layouts and models, all taken from Imagineering’s own archives.
When the cellar first opened, guests could enter and take a gander around a decent-sized room filled with art and those fun Imagineering pieces related to the updated Paradise Pier. Guests could dream about swinging on Mickey’s Fun Wheel or the Silly Symphony Swings. If someone was feeling adventurous, they could see what it would be like to ride on Goofy’s Sky School or go under the sea on Ariel’s Undersea Adventure. To cap it all off, guests got a first look at World of Color and what promised to be a magical experience.
As a youngster who really wanted to become an Imagineer, I was obsessed with poring over every single detail that they had in the Blue Sky Cellar with a ride layout of Ariel’s Undersea Adventure particularly enthralling me. I had never seen anything like it before and it just drew me in immediately as I could imagine riding the attraction in my head for the first time. And to put a nice bow on it, there was a short video where a bunch of Imagineers detailed everything coming over the next few years. I could not get enough.
But that wasn’t even the best part because every year, the cellar got an upgrade because as new attractions opened, the preview center moved along to what was coming next. In this case, Buena Vista Street and Cars Land hit the showcase circuit, with the model of Radiator Springs especially standing out to me. I have always loved miniatures, so seeing Radiator Springs coming to life like that left me nothing short of awestruck.
With the completion of Buena Vista Street and Cars Land, Disney California Adventure had officially completed its transformation, so the Blue Sky Cellar was on the prowl for something new to display. It decided to partner up with Disneyland to show off the upcoming Fantasy Faire along with another awesome model and the chance to test one's Disney trivia knowledge on a few screens within wine barrels.
With all that money put into the DCA expansion, Blue Sky Cellar’s time dwindled to an end with the introduction of Mickey and the Magical Map and the overhaul of the Market House on Main Street into a Starbucks. Once you hit the level of showing off a restaurant transforming into a chain, it’s probably time to call it quits, so the Blue Sky Cellar rightfully closed on September 29, 2013. I was bummed but with nothing to show off, it made no sense to keep it open.
The building stood closed for years, but once Pixar Pier was announced, it was the perfect opportunity to show off the exciting changes in the pipeline, especially with another awesome model. I distinctly remember staring at the model for at least twenty minutes the first time that I re-entered the Blue Sky Cellar because I was simply transfixed. With Pixar Pier opening that June, the Blue Sky Cellar only reopened for a few glorious months, before “temporarily closing.” For nearly two years, Disney waited to officially close the cellar with the news not truly becoming official until the March 14, 2020 COVID closures. Even then, the building sat without a purpose for years until it was finally announced last November that it would become a DVC Welcome Center, which appears like it will be ready sometime this summer.
Obviously, a preview center like the Walt Disney Imagineering Blue Sky Cellar is going to have a limited shelf life, so I’m happy that they updated it as many times as they did. It was the perfect place for me to spend half an hour while my parents sipped on a little midday wine. It was right up there with my favorite Disney attractions and I’ll always miss spending time there and learning more about the magic of Disney.
Via Pinterest
As always, don’t forget to check out my interactive maps of the Disney Parks throughout the years where you can watch or learn more about all the attractions from every Disney park around the world.
Thanks for reading and have a magical day!