The January, 1994 opening of Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin started the year off on a high note at Disneyland. By now, fans had grown to expect something new and exciting on a fairly regular basis. After all, we were approaching the middle of “The Disney Decade.”
Even walking through the vast parking lot that faced the Disneyland main entrance, one couldn’t help but notice that something was going on. Starting in summer of 1993 a portion of the Eeyore parking lot had been closed off, and a section of the monorail beam to the west of the entrance had been rerouted. Now, in February of 1994, construction cranes had appeared.
Upon closer examination, a large structure was rising inside the new curve of the monorail track. It looked awfully big for a warehouse. But it seemed too far away from the park to be an attraction. Perhaps it would be possible to see it from inside, especially with those tall cranes pinpointing the location.
Sure enough, once inside the park, the cranes could be spotted rising up behind New Orleans Square. (Sharp-eyed readers may have seen these in the images of the new New Orleans Square waterfront that were shared here in last December’s blog.) No upcoming attractions had been announced for this section of the park. And besides, how would guests ever make their way through the winding streets of New Orleans to get to it?
Back outside it was easy to confirm that these were the same cranes. And they were being used to build a very large structure. Today it would be a simple matter to look it up on any of several Disney fan sites (official and unofficial) on the internet. But that was a nascent technology 30 years ago, and so it was much easier to just, you know, walk over and take a look.
There was, after all, a large construction fence to keep curious visitors away from the site. You can see that fence just to the left of the monorail beam, with the new construction over to the right. Between them, visible beyond the trees, is the original Disneyland Hotel tower.
It was late dusk before I was able to make my way down to the construction fence. Guests hurrying out to their cars in the Eeyore and Flower parking sections blocked the view. But there was definitely a sign posted on the fence. What would it tell us?
It wasn’t much. In fact, it wasn’t informative at all.
But have no fear. In just a month, all would be revealed.
