At Disney California Adventure park, Pacific Wharf will be reimagined as San Fransokyo from the Walt Disney Animation Studios film “Big Hero 6,” and feature a place to meet Baymax as well as new spots to eat and shop.

Going just by the announcement, it doesn’t appear that there will be a Big Hero 6 attraction to go with the remodeled land. The concept art does showcase some aesthetic changes to the bridge though!

Commentary

This was maybe the most unexpected and surprising announcement of the entire Parks presentation at D23 Expo. It seemingly came out of nowhere and wasn’t on anyone’s radar. Replacing the current Pacific Wharf is absolutely fine. That land serves its purpose and probably doesn’t do anything beyond that. There’s food there and people can sit and eat that food. Now, they’ll be able to do that in an area that resembles a Disney movie?

I’m fine with that change as Big Hero 6 is underrepresented in the parks and San Fransokyo fits in well enough to whatever DCA’s theme is. The bridge will be some eye candy for an area that is mostly forgotten. That’s all well and good!

I’m not sure there’s reason to expect more than marginal upgrades though. No, I don’t have any fear that they’ll ‘ruin’ the area because there’s nothing to ruin. Any change with some cohesive theme will likely serve as an upgrade to the existing area. But, going off of the announcement, there’s no game changer here even if meeting Baymax will be ridiculously adorable.

Judging from the concept art (which I’ll keep repeating is a dangerous thing to do), there won’t be many aesthetic changes coming. The infrastructure all looks the same to me, it’s just some décor on top of that. What I am hopeful for is a few new restaurants in that section of the park as the current Pacific Wharf options are decent but not much more. Shoutout to my dad, who is a huge Ghirardelli stan. I hope, for his sake, that place sticks around.

All in all, this should be a good change but I would keep expectations low. Small changes do make parks better in the long run and keep them fresh, I certainly think this will fall in that boat. I’ll think that while hoping for a Big Hero 6 attraction in the future.

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