My son celebrated his tenth birthday last week. I gave him a choice between a baseball game or a day at Anaheim's new Disney Resort complex.

My son's pretty shrewd. The Dodgers were mired in a painful-to-watch late season swoon. So off we went to Disneyland and its freshly minted, eagerly anticipated sibling, Disney's California Adventure.

When I was kid, I built haunted houses in my back yard. These were billowing, tent-like structures made of old blankets, tape and cardboard. I could pull a string and a paper ghost or a pumpkin would suddenly appear before my friends.

The original Disneyland's spectacularly detailed, minutely crafted rides always dazzled me with the promise of what I might have created with a limitless budget and top-flight staff. To be sure, the park's commercial hype, infamously authoritarian labor policies, and apple-cheeked manufactured happiness can be grating.

But, at its best, Disneyland weaves engaging stories with futuristic technology like the animated characters in the Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion holograms or the thrilling Indiana Jones motion control vehicles. From an empty field, the brilliant entrepreneur, Walt Disney, invented the theme park that changed global culture. Disneyland remains one of the most powerful symbols of America's post-war boldness and creativity.

Absolutely none of that heritage is on display in Disney's California Adventure. Passing under the cheesy Golden Gate Bridge entryway to the park, my son and I found ourselves in an unappealing, nondescript world of pastel stucco, cement and canned music.

Shopping malls have more charm.

Unlike Disneyland, where guests are magically immersed in beautifully engineered micro-environments that shut out the outside world, parking lots, neighboring buildings, power lines and incompatible architecture everywhere intrude. The skimpy landscaping offers minimal shade. Park guests bake as they traverse the empty spaces in search of amusements.

What they find are mainly stores and fast food joints. There's not a single Disney-esque ride with a breathtaking set to be found. Almost of the major offerings, in fact, are just movies.

Guests queue up for an utterly forgettable chance to see the Muppets cavort in 3-D or a recycled Disney Florida production featuring an ant and a grasshopper. A limousine ride, perhaps the worst Disney creation ever, limps by shockingly amateurish likenesses of Disney owned-television personalities like Regis Philbin and Whoopie Goldberg. A sweaty "agent" bellows "You're a star!" from a car-mounted LCD screen.

Even the park's one truly innovative attraction disappoints. It suspends riders on a unique, movable swing in front of a circular IMAX screen on which birds-eye views of California landscapes are projected. The swing turns and bobs as the scenes unfold, and scents of the seashore, pines or oranges are pumped into the theater when appropriate.

The soaring sensation is spectacular, but Disney management makes the least of it. Guests are routed to the theater through barren hallways devoid of any effort to tell a story or build anticipation . The flight scenes are unaccountably spliced together without a shred of connection.

"They could have tilted us into the sky and then down into the next scene," my son muses. "That would have been neat." But they didn't.

The rest of the park reeks of corporate spreadsheets. It's a melange of second-rate thrill rides, sponsored "events" like a McDonald's tug boat for kids to climb on, and, of course, endless merchandise kiosks. The absolute nadir is a place called Paradise Pier, a spiritless part of the park littered with overpriced carney booths Disney pioneers would have abhorred.

"Current management cut corners everywhere," says Al Lutz, editor of the travel advice website mouseplanet.com. "The core concept is bad."

Lutz is posting pictures of the new DisneySea Park opening next to the Tokyo Disneyland in Japan. Unlike their American counterparts, the Japanese project managers cared deeply about the Disney tradition. They funded a truly spectacular facility. Lutz' photos reveal an enchanting park chock full of detail, craft and design.

It's everything California Adventure should have been. Instead, Disney's American management offered up such fare as a bread making exhibit "hosted" by a pre-recorded Rosie O'Donnell.

"I'm bored" says my boy after he rides the roller coaster. We leave well before sunset.

In retrospect, I think, he'd have preferred watching the Dodgers, even if they lost.