Adventureland

On the maps Walt's team drew in the early 1950s, this corner of the park had a different name. It was True-Life Adventure Land, after the studio's True-Life Adventures nature films. It was also on the other side of the park. When construction began in 1954, the planners noticed a stand of eucalyptus trees on the west side and moved the jungle there, where the shade already grew. The east side became Tomorrowland. The jungle became Adventureland (Walt Disney Family Museum).

On opening day it held exactly one ride. Art director Harper Goff, whom Walt had met in 1951 in a London shop that sold model trains, laid out a river and the boats to carry guests down it. Walt's first wish was to fill the banks with real animals. He let it go, and the museum quotes his reason: live animals were "neither safe nor practical." Mechanical ones were built instead, by sculptor Chris Mueller and Bob Mattey of the studio's effects department. The trees were real. Landscapers Bill and Jack Evans went door to door in Southern California, buying mature specimens from homeowners; one Beverly Hills owner gave theirs away to get the light back (Walt Disney Family Museum).

For seven years that was Adventureland: one river and a few shops. Then, in the space of a single year, a Polynesian restaurant opened beside it, a treehouse rose above it, and a room full of singing birds changed what a theme park could do. The boats themselves have their own story in the The Boats chapter. This chapter follows everything else.

Attractions

Adventureland has always been the park's smallest collection of rides. What it lacks in number it makes up in staying power: the Jungle Cruise has run since opening day, and the tree that holds the treehouse has stood since 1962.

The birds and the temple

The Enchanted Tiki Room, 1963

It began as a restaurant idea. Diners would eat while mechanical birds sang overhead, and the fountain in the middle of the room was meant to be a coffee station. Seating would have limited the audience, so the meal was dropped and the show kept (D23; Wikipedia).

Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room opened on June 23, 1963. D23 calls it the first attraction to use sophisticated Audio-Animatronics, the studio's system of figures moved in time to a recorded soundtrack. The count of performers depends on who is counting: more than 150 by Wikipedia's tally, more than 200 by D23's, and 225 by Disneyland's own fact sheet. They include birds, singing orchids, tiki drummers, totem poles and the fountain. Four parrots host: José, voiced by Wally Boag; Michael, by Fulton Burley; Pierre, by Ernie Newton; and Fritz, by Thurl Ravenscroft. Richard and Robert Sherman wrote "The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room."

The building was owned apart from the rest of the park, so for years guests paid a separate 75 cents to go in. United Airlines sponsored it first. Dole took over in January 1976, and that is why the snack bar outside sells Dole Whip (Wikipedia). The sources disagree on United's exact years: Wikipedia gives 1963 to 1976, D23 1964 to 1973.

Indiana Jones Adventure, 1995

Forty years after the park opened, Adventureland got its biggest expansion. Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye was built on part of the old Eeyore parking lot, outside the original berm. The Monorail and the Jungle Cruise were rerouted around it. Groundbreaking was in August 1993, and Imagineer Tony Baxter led a core team of nearly 100 (Wikipedia). At opening it was the park's largest attraction, and it made Adventureland a third bigger (Disney Parks Blog).

The story is set in India in 1935. A temple to the goddess Mara grants one of three gifts to visitors who never look into her eyes. Of course, someone looks. Riders board a troop transport built on a new ride system, the Enhanced Motion Vehicle, which seats twelve and reaches about 14 miles an hour. James Earl Jones is the voice of Mara. Harrison Ford did not record for the ride, so Dave Temple voiced Indy, though Ford's likeness was used for the figures (Wikipedia).

The queue is half a mile long, and it rewards people who read the walls. The carvings are written in "Marabic," a simple letter-for-letter code. Early riders were handed decoder cards. George Lucas worked with Imagineering on the project, and the Temple of Doom screenwriters Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz consulted on the script. A mine-car chase was considered and dropped, because Big Thunder Mountain already had one (Disney Parks Blog).

Dining and shops

For thirty-one years the biggest table in Adventureland sat under a tree that was not a tree. The Tahitian Terrace opened in June 1962, in the same building project as the Tiki Room. Stouffer's sponsored it first and Kikkoman later. On summer evenings it put on a Polynesian revue that ended with a barefoot fire walk and a fire-knife dance. Over the stage stood a 35-foot artificial tree with about 14,075 hand-attached leaves (Yesterland).

The Terrace closed on April 17, 1993. The same stage then ran through a string of new uses, and none of them lasted long.

Dates are from Wikipedia and Yesterland. In between these uses the space hosted private events and character meetings.

The main shop is the Adventureland Bazaar, which carries a tribute to Harper Goff (TouringPlans).

The treehouse, three times over

The tallest thing in Adventureland is a tree made by hand. It went up for the Swiss Family Treehouse, which opened on November 18, 1962, two years after Disney's film Swiss Family Robinson. Guests climbed through the Robinsons' rooms, past a plumbing system that carried water up from the stream below. A gramophone played a tune called the "Swisskapolka" (Wikipedia; Yesterland).

The Robinsons moved out on March 8, 1999. Tarzan's Treehouse opened on June 23, 1999, five days after Disney's Tarzan reached theaters. Some fans protested in "Save our home" shirts. Tony Baxter later said the new theme was what saved the tree from removal, and that twice as many people came as expected. The gramophone stayed, still playing the Swisskapolka (Yesterland).

Tarzan closed in September 2021. On November 10, 2023, the Adventureland Treehouse opened in the same 80-foot tree. It is inspired by the Robinsons, not about them. An unnamed family of five lives there now: a father who cooks, a mother who makes music, a daughter who watches the stars and twin sons who love animals. Nobody narrates. Guests piece the family together from their rooms. The mother's music room still plays the Swisskapolka, and the water wheel is back (Wikipedia; Yesterland).

The river gets a new story

The Jungle Cruise changed too. It reopened on July 16, 2021, with a new backstory built around Alberta Falls, granddaughter of the company's founder, Dr. Albert Falls. New scenes were added: a safari party stuck up a tree, chimpanzees that have taken over a wrecked boat, and a lost-and-found turned into a gift shop by Trader Sam. Imagineer Chris Beatty, who led the work, described the goal as "more humor, more wildlife, and an interconnected story" (Disneyland press release).

Indiana Jones Adventure has had its own work done. It closed for refurbishment in 2012 and again from January 9 to March 17, 2023, when figures and projections were updated and the rat cave scene was replaced by a projected tunnel collapse (Wikipedia).

Adventureland in pictures

Fun facts: Adventureland

1. Adventureland was planned for the east side of the park and named True-Life Adventure Land. A grove of eucalyptus trees moved it west (Walt Disney Family Museum).
2. Harper Goff met Walt in a London shop that sold model trains, in 1951 (Walt Disney Family Museum).
3. The Jungle Cruise travels four rivers on one trip: the Nile, the Amazon, the Irrawaddy and the Ganges (Disneyland fact sheet).
4. Disney Legend Bill Evans, who directed much of the park's 1950s landscaping, is called the father of the jungle. It was planted in three layers: canopy, understory and forest floor (Disneyland fact sheet).
5. The fountain in the middle of the Tiki Room was meant to be a coffee station, back when the room was planned as a restaurant (Wikipedia).
6. Rosita, a white cockatoo, used to sing in the Tiki Room chorus. Since 2018 she has worked outside, telling jokes at the Tropical Hideaway (Disneyland fact sheet; Westcoaster).
7. The Tahitian Terrace's artificial tree carried about 14,075 leaves, each attached by hand (Yesterland).
8. The "Swisskapolka" has played in all three versions of the treehouse: Swiss Family, Tarzan and the Adventureland Treehouse (Yesterland; Wikipedia).
9. Indiana Jones Adventure counts 2,129 snakes, a 100-foot king cobra and a 45-foot Mara skull (Disney Parks Blog).
10. The German patrol truck in the Indy queue has golf balls on its bumper, left from a stunt in the filming of Raiders of the Lost Ark (Disney Parks Blog).

Quotes

"Here is adventure. Here is romance. Here is mystery."

— Walt Disney, opening lines of his Adventureland dedication (Disneyland fact sheet)

"…neither safe nor practical."

— Walt Disney, on stocking the jungle with live animals (Walt Disney Family Museum)

"More humor, more wildlife, and an interconnected story."

— Imagineer Chris Beatty, on the 2021 Jungle Cruise update (Disneyland press release)