Why, yes. A staff editorial in today's New York Times has the details, and the disapproval. Noting that Dickens spent much of his boyhood among the Chatham docks in east London, the editorial deplores the South East Development Agency's decision to build an amusement park called "Dickens World" there :

Dickens is so various an author that it's possible to justify almost any excess done in his name. But "Dickens World" is really too much. Dickens himself might have seen it - and the $116 million, before overruns, it will cost to build it - as an enterprise worthy of Mrs. Jellyby, a case of good intentions run hideously amok. "Dickens World," its promoters say, will be a "family attraction." It will help revive a depressed area. And above all, they claim, it will bring new attention to Dickens. As the project leader put it - in curiously strangled English - in an interview with a British newspaper: "For a man who wrote 15 books and 23 short stories, you would be hard-pressed to find anybody under 30 who can name 5 of them."

There is a lot to fear here. There is the prospect that characters from Dickens's novels - Mr. Pecksniff and the Artful Dodger, Mr. Pickwick and Uriah Heep - will wander through "Dickens World" the way Goofy and Mickey walk the streets of Disneyland. There is talk of an Ebenezer Scrooge ride, which, unless it delivers a delirious redemption and the sudden desire to buy a prize turkey, will be a disappointment to everyone. No theme park can be true to Dickens unless it manages to terrify children - turning them into pickpockets and paupers - as well as delight them.

But the real fear is this. What if "Dickens World" is a moneymaker? After all, the poet Philip Larkin was a leading citizen of the city of Hull, also a naval town. "Larkin World," anyone?

Why stop there? Lets have Acker-Land, Bataille-ville and the Greater Easton Ellis Zone.

I'm sure the "female pirates" attraction at Acker-Land will pack them in. How about Poe/Lem/Nin Village?

I think the editorial writers at the NYT should be asked to audition for the role of Scrooge. Seems like a good fit to their personalities.

To me, Dickens Land seems like a neat idea. then add on Tolkien Land, Kenneth Grahame Land, Melville Land [on a coast, obviously]. It could get more people to go to the original works, no?

Years ago, early eighties maybe during the economic woes of Thatcher years, there was an essay in Esquire magazine. The premise was that Britain had been turned into one huge theme park.
This was to be their economic salvation.

I have thought that Dickens would have loved the television mini-series as a medium for his works. Theme parks, particularly rides, suit him too.