Disneyland and Walt Disney World are always in a state of becoming, with new attractions always in development, but at the same time, they are the homes to nostalgia for millions of people. There are numerous attractions that are so iconic, it’s difficult to imagine them ever being replaced. For at least one member of Walt Disney Imagineering though, nothing is so sacred that it might not be replaced one day, even if she cannot imagine some things ever changing.
I recently had a chance to speak with Walt Disney Imagineering Vice President Jeanette Lomboy, who appears in the new season of the Disney Plus series Behind the Attraction, and I asked her about that balance between the new and the nostalgic. As somebody who grew up going to Disneyland, I wondered if there was anything that she thought was too classic to ever be replaced, and her answer was a simple “No” because keeping things the way they are was never what Disney Parks were supposed to be about, even in the eyes of Walt Disney himself. She explained…
No. And why I say that is, Walt never wanted that anyway. Right? Walt said, ‘Disneyland was a living, breathing thing,’ and he meant that, right?
Walt Disney often said Disneyland, the only park to open in his lifetime, would never be completed because it would always be in a state of becoming. While that has certainly been the case, there are some attractions that have been there since Disneyland’s opening day, so it’s difficult to imagine them ever being gone.
Even Lomboy admitted there are parts of Disneyland that she personally couldn’t imagine ever replacing, but that’s not the same as believing they could never be replaced. Even Disneyland’s iconic centerpiece, might one need to make way for something even bigger. Lomboy continued…
I don't think we should ever believe that anything that we do is so precious that it is never touchable. But, as I say, that, you know, like my personal opinion? I could tell you today, would I not want to touch anything like Sleeping Beauty Castle? I don't ever want to touch that. But does that mean that I can't be visionary enough to believe, in four decades or five decades from now there might be something even better that Walt would himself have approved of changing.
It’s difficult to imagine a Disneyland without Sleeping Beauty Castle, or without some of the things that came later, like Space Mountain or Pirates of the Caribbean. But we've seen popular attractions like The Great Movie Ride say goodbye, and the much-beloved Splash Mountain will never be the same again. But Lomboy says that it’s important to keep an open mind when it comes to being willing to let popular rides go, and she promises that when and if the day comes that something iconic must make way for something new, the goal will always be to make it better. She said…
I think from that perspective you got to be open-minded. We have to think of long-term view, and Walt always thought long-term. This moment you might say. ‘No, I won't do that,’ but I think we have to have a long-term view of how we think about our guests' experiences, and being able to continue to push the envelope and respond to what guests want. But I promise you our goal is to always make it better right, make it better than it was.
I certainly have those spots at Disneyland and Walt Disney World that I would hate to see go, The Haunted Mansion has an incredible history and Pirates of the Caribbean is iconic, but I also do believe that if we make Disney Parks museums rather than theme parks, we’ll be missing out on a great deal. After watching Season 2 of Behind the Attraction, imagine what we’d be missing if Mine Train Through Nature’s Wonderland didn’t become Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, or if Indiana Jones had never come to Disney Parks.
