Or, picks, if you like. We’re on the final day of the Disney Parks lands/pavilions bracket, which means it’s time for me to unveil to you the selections I would have made if the bracket followed my way of thinking.
Take a look.
The funny thing is, while my Final Four and Elite Eight were largely very different from the actual bracket, my Top Two are…well, the Top Two of the real thing. There was a brief period near the end of the Elite Eight where I wondered if the Final Four were just going to be…all of the Disneyland originals. Now, on one hand: they’re wonderful lands for a reason. But I also would’ve been a little surprised if nothing from Walt Disney World made its way to the top.
Having said that, I did not expect the Africa section of Disney’s Animal Kingdom to get so close to the Top Two. It’s not so much that I dislike the area — with the caveat that I haven’t been to DAK since the arrival of Pandora, Africa is my favorite section of the park. It’s that, if you had told me that just one land or pavilion from the Walt Disney World Resort was headed to the Final Four, Africa would have been…low on my list of guesses.
I’ll admit to being a bit disappointed that Grizzly Peak in Disney’s California Adventure didn’t get any further in the overall bracket. As you can see, it wound up in my personal Final Four. The funny thing about DCA is, for as much as the park continues to be a work in progress with various bits of intellectual property smashed up against each other in a rarely cohesive way, it also has genuine beauty and perfectly atmospheric theming and design in the right places. When I walk through Buena Vista Street and take a right turn at the roundabout, going straight into Grizzly Peak Airfield, it’s aesthetically flawless. (You’ll also note: Grizzly Peak Airfield is vastly less reliant on IP than most of the other sections of DCA.)
Now, though, we’ve arrived with Adventureland and New Orleans Square, both from Disneyland, in the Top Two. There can only be one winner, and I know which one I’m picking. Well, so do you, too, since the Top Two I predicted is the one we have. I do love both of the areas, but seeing as we’re sticking with the current iterations of the lands, I must select my favorite. A land with the best background music, the calmest and most soothing restaurant, some of the very best attractions, and a weird combination of Africa, Asian, and South American cultures that absolutely shouldn’t work together.
I vote for Adventureland.
But how about you?
