California Adventure

If you're thinking of visiting a Disney park in Anaheim this summer, be warned that the price is about to jump by between $7 and $150 depending on the ticket deal. The annual summer price hike for tickets to Disneyland and the Disney California Adventure Park were announced Friday and take effect Sunday. For example, a ticket for one day at either Disneyland or California Adventure had cost $80 for parkgoers who are 10 or older. The new price, starting Sunday, will be $87, up nearly 9%. The biggest increase will hit people who buy the premium annual pass that includes parking.

If you're thinking of visiting a Disney park in Anaheim this summer, be warned that the price is about to jump by between $7 and $150 depending on the ticket deal. The annual summer price hike for tickets to Disneyland and the Disney California Adventure Park were announced Friday and take effect Sunday. For example, a ticket for one day at either Disneyland or California Adventure had cost $80 for parkgoers who are 10 or older. The new price, starting Sunday, will be $87, up nearly 9%. The biggest increase will hit people who buy the premium annual pass that includes parking.

It was 1997 and Stephan Asseo, having made wine in his native Bordeaux for 17 years, was growing restless, grumpy, tired and distracted, and he knew exactly why. Six years earlier, hail and frost had destroyed most of his grapes, and to make ends meet since then, he'd taken consulting jobs with 10 other wineries. But Asseo is a hands-on winemaker, a husky, 6-foot, 175-pounder with strong, laborer's hands and a tan that comes from time spent outdoors, with the vines and the soil.

The latest expansion of Disney's California Adventure, the new Cars Land attraction, is set to open June 15, Disney officials said Friday, as the park offered a peek at one of the biggest attractions featured in the $1-billion expansion. The 12-acre Cars Land, featuring the characters from the Disney-Pixar film "Cars," will open with several new restaurants and three rides, including Mater's Junkyard Jamboree, Luigi's Flying Tires and Radiator Springs Racers. The most elaborate and anticipated attraction is Radiator Springs Racers, in which small, convertible cars carry passengers around realistic-looking buttes and canyons.

As for California Adventure, expect basic rides that Disney is buying "off the shelf" to be in place by August 1999 at the new park's Paradise Pier area, which will celebrate the state's beach resorts and carnivals. Employees have been told that the first few dozen Disneyland "cast members" will be reassigned to the new park in October 1999 to begin testing the attractions as Imagineers install the thematic "overlays" to add the Disney touch.

Resplendently adorned camels, dancing snake charmers, jugglers -- they all took the spotlight at the party after the premiere of "Disney's Aladdin -- A Musical Spectacular" at Disney's California Adventure. Held under a chiffon-swagged tent, it was a magic carpet ride of a celebration for guests ranging from opera superstar Placido Domingo -- a pal of the musical's director, Francesca Zambello -- to "Hot Chick" movie headliner Rob Schneider.

Ever since Walt Disney Co. opened California Adventure, I've read The Times' stories with interest about the park struggling ["Theme Parks Still Looking for Visitors," Aug. 24]. What never gets mentioned in your articles is one simple, underlying truth: Disneyland was founded in innocent times by a creative genius with a magical vision for something totally new, innovative and spectacularly fun, that would also make money and keep Mickey Mouse in the public eye. California Adventure was founded in the 1990s by a board of directors looking for new revenue streams, market share and a way to grow the value of Disney's stock.

After three years of construction and more than $1 billion spent, Walt Disney Co. pulled back the curtains Wednesday on its new California Adventure park, launching a publicity blitz that will intensify as the February opening approaches. California Adventure, which opens Feb. 8, is a smaller companion park next to the 45-year-old Disneyland in Anaheim.

Concerned that the highly anticipated opening of its neighboring park may lead to overcrowding, Disneyland cut off sales of its yearlong "passports" for the first time in park history Saturday. The move, which park officials called temporary, came five days before the opening of the California Adventure theme park and follows three rare Disneyland sellouts in December. Passports, the Disneyland equivalent of a season pass, allowed guests park access for a year.

How can Disneyland possibly compete with the hoopla that will accompany the opening of California Adventure, Walt Disney Co.'s second Anaheim theme park, in 2001? Some suggest the old park, which opened in 1955, should have a grand opening of its own. Former Disneyland President Jack Lindquist said he thinks the park should close to the public for 30 days of cleanup, repairs and upgrades, then reopen looking immaculate when California Adventure debuts next door.

A nightly dance party created as a last-minute diversion to entertain idle hordes waiting for a wildly popular attraction at Disney California Adventure has turned into an ever-evolving mainstay that might just become an accidental institution. PHOTOS: Mad T Party at Disney California Adventure The new Mad T Party scheduled to debut this summer at the Anaheim theme park replaces ElecTRONica, which replaced Glow Fest, which was designed to give visitors something to do back in the summer of 2010 while waiting hours upon hours to watch the instant hit "World of Color" water show.

The fireworks at Disneyland had ended. It was past closing time and the crowds were pouring out the gates, but we lingered. Layla Alshawi, the 63-year-old mother of our friends, didn't want to leave. She hugged a light pole, joking that we would have to drag her out. We'd spent three days at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim with my friend, Saif Alnasseri, his wife, mother and 5-year-old daughter. Like my husband, whose name is also Saif, he was an Iraqi translator I met in 2007 during my rotations in the Los Angeles Times' Baghdad bureau.

Radiator Springs will celebrate California's car culture with a nostalgic trip down Route 66 when the fictional film town built for and by cars debuts at Disney California Adventure in 2012. > Photos: "Cars" town of Radiator Springs at Disney California Adventure Cars Land, the 12-acre themed spot currently under construction at California Adventure , will feature three new rides set amid a faithful re-creation of the isolated red rock desert town populated by Lightning McQueen and other animated vehicles in the Pixar movie "Cars.

What's better than an E Ticket ride? How about an F Ticket? Radiator Springs Racers aims to redefine our expectations of an E Ticket attraction by combining a classic dark ride with a thrilling head-to-head drag race. Currently under construction at Disney California Adventure , the $200-million ride debuting in summer 2012 will take passengers on a four-minute journey through stalactite caverns, around hairpin turns and along high-speed straightaways. Each side-by-side race ends with a randomly selected winner.

The shops and restaurants along Disney California Adventure's re-themed entrance promenade will pay homage to the Los Angeles that Walt Disney encountered upon his 1923 arrival. When the main esplanade reopens in 2012, Buena Vista Street will reflect the Spanish Revival, Arts & Crafts and Art Deco architecture of the 1920s and '30s-era Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Pasadena and Wilshire Boulevard areas of the city. > Photos: Concept art of Buena Vista Street at Disney California Adventure The names of the Buena Vista Street shops will draw inspiration from Walt Disney's personal history and the animated characters created by his movie studio.

I need another vacation. I began the last one with a colonoscopy. It was either that or talk to Steve Soboroff about his time with the Dodgers. The rest of the vacation was spent with the three grandchildren, who make more noise these days than a Dodger Stadium crowd. It's hard to describe the steady din. The twins still kind of grunt, especially when they are eating. You know, like Tom Lasorda . The 7-Eleven Kid , meanwhile, turned 6 on Monday and someone thought it would be a good idea if G.P. took the kid to California Adventure a few days before that.