Disneyland Resort Update: Just About Doing It

Disneyland Resort, Anaheim, CA

Hey folks! No time to waste today.  It's my birthday, and I got places to go, and stuff to do, so we're going to hurtle through today's update.  Pardon any misstatements!

"Star Wars" Land

The First Order attraction building is starting to round into a more uniform shape--at least the currently constructed two story part.  Meanwhile, more steel has gone up at the Millennium Falcon construction site, which should also start picking up in the upcoming weeks and months.

Whoa! Check out that traffic jam!

This was a common site this past Friday afternoon, Saturday, and Sunday.

More on that at the end of today's update.

But first, lets check out what's going on in "Star Wars" Land!

We start off, as usual, at the First Horder attraction building site.

More steel has gone up, and the concrete portions continue to get formwork set up and have concrete actually cure.

Those concrete walls are getting rather tall for the Thirst Order ride.

The building is pretty darn expansive.

I'm not sure how much of the building will house the actual attraction layout.

But if it's as long as this suggests, guests might be in for one helluva time trying to escape the dark forces of the First Border!

Most of the work seems to be focused on the buildings at the moment.

Any site groundwork has been going for utilities that will serve the show buildings.

Here's the customary noodel-mania photo for our friend, Guy Shelga.

Look at all them poodles!

'Member when this was a big pit?

I 'member.  Also, that welded wire mesh is apparently going to the roof.

From these next upcoming closer-up views, you can see that the amount of steel being devoted to the Fred Durst Order attraction is borderline obscene.

For all you structures enthusiasts, here's a close-up of some pretty dense braced frame intersections.

The roof framing for this part hasn't gone up yet at the Cursed Order attraction.

Some tabs have been added sticking out of these penthouse tower frames.

Secondary steel framing for the ride's stagecraft is also going up on both levels.

Meanwhile, looking further behind, we can spy the foundations for the Millennial Falcon ride.

More columns, beams, and bracing have gone up in the back as well!

The framing for the Millennium Eagle ride that we saw last week has also expanded.

As you can see, a semblance of a building is starting to appear here at for the future Millennium Force ride.

You gotta put all those cranes to use somehow.

Cranes, cranes everywhere.

Not too much new over at the entrance areas to "Tsar Wars" Land.

And over at the Critter Country side, though that Disneyland Railroad bridge has been progressing, we can't really see it from our point of view on top of Mikey and Friends anymore.

Rivers of America

Another crane has magically appeared over by Big Thunder Mountain to help with steel installation in the area.  Meanwhile, construction along the now full-filled river continues in advance of the planned mid-summer reopening.

"Yo dawg, I heard you like peeking through construction walls, so we built a construction wall in front of the other construction wall so you can check out all the construction walls!"

Another crane has appeared at Disneyland, and to prevent public access to this construction equipment, a new work wall is up basically at the end of the Big Thunder Mountain exit.

Peaking through Big Tinder Mountain Railroad, we can see some of the theming along the future re-imagined Big Thunder Trail.

Here's a close-up.

Along the Rivers of America, the dams are totally down.

We're one step back to getting a fully functional Livers of America again.

Frame this properly, and you basically have a completed product.  Tom Lawyer's Island looks great, doesn't it?

They were also doing some testing of the new MANTASMIC! 2.0 fountain equipment.

In show mode, the tops of these nozzles and equipment are barely above water, so it's rare to see the entire platform exposed.

But hey, as with any new (or redone) show, you gotta do testing and adjustments.

At the other side of the Rivers of a Merida, we can see the rockwork beyond continuing to progress.  Just around the riverbend...

Train trestle.

Close-up.

The concrete just beside the tarp on the left is part of the bridge over the tunneled entrance that will lead guests walking along the Rivers of America waterfront beside the Hungry Bear Restaurant into the future "Star Oars" Land.

Peeking through this work wall before they build another one to block the view.

It's coming along!

One gets a bit of a sense of the forced perspective to be in play once everything is done.

The Summer of Heroes Is Coming

Disney California Adventure will be featuring a summer campaigned aimed at showcasing Marvel superheroes, and signage has started going up for the promotion, which starts this Memorial Day weekend!

This summer, Disney California Adventure invites guests to "hero up" and participate in the Summer of Heroes.

Ignoring the possibly intentionally silly tagline, this year's summer motif will give guests exposure to the Marble superheroes made famous on the big screen.

That means you can meet superheroes like Chaplain America.

There's also Starboard and Gomorrah and Pocket Racoon...

The graphics are getting draped in a few places.

You can even meet your friendly neighborhood Fiberman!

Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission: Breakout!

The finishing touches for the new Guardians of the Galaxy ride are coming together, with the exterior basically done.  Set-up has also commenced for the private premiere party that Disney was selling tickets to earlier this year.  And though we don't have photographs of it today, this past weekend, the park was testing new projection mapping effects beyond what we saw in last week's update.  They look flashier than the more traditional theater lighting on display previously.

Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission: Breakout! opens to the public this Saturday, May 27.

Some big screens have been set up for the Gardens of the Galaxy - Mission: Rakeout! Galactic Premiere Party this Friday.

It feels Hollywood, even if the new Collector's Fortress looks completely out of place in this themed land.

Banners run along the path to Guardians Tower too.

See?

There it is, the abode of Chandelier Tivan.

The ride sign was also unveiled this past week.

Clever design: (as pointed out by Gregg at Park Journey) the lettering from "MISSION:" is taken from "FIRST TIME ON DISPLAY:" letters.

It's still closed, though there were some very isolated cast member previews this week.

The entrance is still blocked off.

But new Tivan Tiki Totems have appeared at the empty pedestals from last week.

They're... interesting.

A now-familiar logo.

Looking up at Mission: Takeout!

I still haven't come up with a suitable shortened name, other than "Guardians Tower."

But it does tower still, as seen here from A Hug's Land.

Love it or hate it, it's here to stay.  And when it opens this weekend, there will be a flood of people flocking to ride it as soon as possible.

Return of the Pixar Play Parade

The Pixar Play Parade is back for the summer.  If you like seeing Pixar characters and getting splashed with random squirts of water, this is the entertainment piece for you! 

Someone found his super suit.

Looks like we've got a 2319 here.

Hey, it's Mr. Inshredible!

And his wife, the incredible Elastiguuuuuurl.

Jack Jack's running a fever.

Cars 3 Sneak Peak

Remember when I said that there's a sneak peek going on at the It's Tough to Be a Bug theater for the upcoming Cars 3 movie? Here's photographic proof this time.

See?

Over in Downtown Disney

And Downtown Disney has finally seen something update-worthy, over at the Splitsville construction site.

I don't know what everyone in Orlando's making a fuss about.  We've had Pandora at west coast Disney for a little while now...

And if you look at the construction site for Splitsville, you'll see... ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!

Wait, actually, there is something.

The first columns and parts of braced frames have gone up.  And in fact, on Sunday, beams had joined them.

Here's a random flowery scene.

There's one item I need to address before we end today's Disneyland update: recent traffic and crowds at and around the Disneyland Resort.  This past weekend saw a three day surge in snarling traffic all around Disneyland and Disney California Adventure, with extended hours of cars backed up on local streets and even onto the I-5 freeway.  In addition, lines at security and the entry gates were often excessively long to the tune of what is seen during peak days around Christmas time, not a non-holiday weekend in May.

Part of this was mostly likely due to this past weekend being the final weekend that Southern California residents could use their 3-day SoCal passes, which was this year's replacement for the bygone "Two-fer" deal that Disney used to run for locals.  Though the Southern California 3-day pass is valid for visits until tomorrow, most people work during the weekday.  Combined with grad nights and the typical Annual Passholder crowds, and this was a combination of mind-numbing delays all around the Disneyland Resort.  Disneyland even reached capacity on Saturday afternoon and had to turn away guests at the gate.

There's got to be a better way to handle this, though.  Park capacity issues aside, many of these issues could be alleviated with better staffing and infrastructure design.  Far too often this weekend, security lines and parking lanes were not fully open, or if they were, it had been only after an extended build-up that created excessive waits that seemed avoidable if proper staffing and scheduling had been implemented.  Add to the fact that the traffic signals around the Resort appear programmed to be more conducive to backing up cars rather than keep vehicular flow moving (the lights at proximate intersections are anti-synchronized), and you have a recipe for a lot of frustration.  When it literally takes an hour from getting off the freeway to parking, there is most certainly a problem. 

This past weekend was an extreme case, but the pattern of delays and extended traffic jams lasting multiple hours has persisted greater than usual over the past few months.  Somehow, despite the ticket price increases and greater inconveniences (but necessary inconveniences) in security screening protocol, the Resort has been busier than ever.  And it's not like people haven't been detered from visiting anymore.  Many have.  And yet, crowd issues persist and seem to be worsening.  It's that trend and pattern that is concerning.

One can only hope that these issues are rectified in the design of the new parking structure located on Harbor Boulevard, and that the signalling issues at the Mickey and Friends side can be improved.  All security bag check points should have a metal detector per aisle, rather than have two aisle bottleneck into one metal detector.  There shouldn't be half the screening tents open when long, 15+ minute lines have built up.  Traffic control around the Resort needs to be altered to be more efficient.  Otherwise, there will be a lot of angry and frustrated people sitting and trapped in traffic or waiting in the hot sun outside checkpoints once "Star Wars" Land opens.  It's all just annoyance now, but there is a definite PR crisis in the making if this is allowed to go unchecked.  And it's not the fault of the cast members working these areas.  It seems more like an issue with staffing enough of them to handle the crowds, period.  The CM's certainly try extra hard and put up with a lot of stress in these situations.

That does it for today's update.  I did get a little foam-y at the end there, but these frustrations and concerns are starting to come out from a lot of guests, and not just the usual "sky is falling" Disney Twitter crew.  If left unchecked, the issues with the crowds and traffic will impact the guest experience at Disney, and that will hurt the company.

On the positive side, we've got a nice holiday weekend coming up.  Have a safe and enjoyable Memorial Day, kids!  And remember: don't be ass holes.

Shoo bah!!