If you've been here at Blogography for any length of time, you know that theme park design is a big obsession of mine. So of course when Disney Parks Blog had an entry this morning about the new expansions to Disneyland, I took note.

To start, the new bridge over S. Harbor Blvd. which goes to a new load/unload zone and 6,000 space parking lot (along with the new entrance on the east-side) is very cool...

But my attention was laser-focused on the information for the new Coco ride...

I loved Coco. The gorgeous art of the film and incredible visuals would make a fantastic idea for an attraction. All we really know about the ride is that you're in a boat...

Now, one would assume that this new ride is going to be at least as big as It's a Small World or else why do it? On the Google Map below, It's a Small World is in the upper-left in pink. Dropping the ride at the location in the press release would put it at the location of the green building I've dropped in the lower-right of the same map below...

Except, a few problems...

• There's this odd road that wraps around the south end of California Adventure (shown to the right on the above map). I have never understood why it's there. I don't think it's a Disney access road, because it's almost completely separated off from any Disney access (the exception being an entry point to the South) and there's another road for Disney inside of it. But the oddest part is that anybody needing this road would just drive on the already-existing S. Harbor Blvd., W. Katella Ave., or Disneyland Drive. Regardless, to put Coco in the above-shown location would require a chunk of this road being ripped out.
• From the artwork we've seen, the Coco ride appears to be a part of a larger Coco "land" expansion that's a part of Pixar Pier. Which means Disney is going to need a big enough area to build that... the ride isn't going to be directly off the walk between Paradise Gardens and Pixar Pier.

And so the actual "Coco Land" will more likely be somewhere within the space I've drawn in green on the map at the lower-right below. It's located behind the IncrediCoaster...

The region I've drawn in yellow is the area available for the Avenger's Campus expansion (which I've already talked about here). The area in Blue is the area available for Avatar Pandora Land West (which seems surprisingly small)...

After these additions, the only real space available for expansion (other than the Disney Forward project areas which I talked about here) is the region to the north of the original Disneyland. That's assuming Disney doesn't buy more property in the area. But in order to use this land (which is fairly substantial, dwarfing even Star Wars Land), Disney would have to level a lot of expensive construction (including the massive Team Disney admin building and the warehouse where I'm guessing the parade floats are built and housed). This seems unlikely, but maybe a portion of this space could be used for park expansion...

At this point all I can really, really, hope for is that Disney doesn't cheap out and give us some crapy boat ride that's undeserving of Coco. It should be more than a bad retread of Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros from Epcot's Mexico Pavilion. Much more. It should be a destination-worthy spectacle that draws people to the park just to see it.

The Coco ride should be every bit as big and impressive and jaw-dropping as what they did with Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.

But will it be?

Only time will tell.