Disneyland Resort Update: Keeping Up with the Disneylandians
Disneyland Resort, Anaheim, CA
Last Friday, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge finally completely opened when Rise of the Resistance debuted to the public. We’ll get more into that at the end of this update and in a dedicated update later [hopefully] this week, but you’d think that with this major epic project finally wrapping up, we’d have less things to cover in our regular Disneyland Resort updates.
Well, somehow, that’s not the case this week, because work and new developments keep on happening. “Disneyland will never be complete,” Walt Disney said, and he really meant it. So lets check out what’s been happening since our last check-in!
Avengers Campus Progress
We’ve got a lot of new angles that show content this time around compared to the previous rounds we’ve stopped by “Marvel Land.” Guests can now see architecture being framed and finished from multiple parts of Disney California Adventure—be it from Guardians of the Galaxy or Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree or even from Luigi’s Flying Tires. Crews are working plenty of overtime—including weekends—to get the new land ready in time for its late spring opening later this year. The new Spider-Man attraction has shown the most amount of completed exterior, but other buildings like the Avengers Headquarters are also taking shape. But there is definitely a good amount of work still to be done!
Alfresco Tasting Terrace Goes AP-Only
The upstairs lounge over by the Wine Country Trattoria became an Annual Passholder-only lounge earlier this month, in an effort to activate the space by making it more exclusive. Regular guests are not allowed in the area, which overlooks the main parade corridor portion of Pacific Wharf and also offers views of Cars Land and the future Avenger’s Campus.
Guests must first check in over near the entrance of Blue Sky Cellar in order to get a reservation, and upstairs, Annual Passholders and their guests will find a new drink and appetizer menu featuring a variety of Italian-inspired dishes. The drinks are a tad pricey, clocking in at Los Angeles craft cocktail bar prices, though the food prices seem at a reasonable, typical Disneyland quick serve rate. After an initial rush, it seems like the crowds in this space have died back down. But it’s still a good venue to have a relaxing respite from the bustling park crowds.
Downtown Disney Things
Jamba Juice continues its renovation and is closed for its makeover. Over in front of the Rainforest Cafe, Asian Street Eats has seen so much success that its food truck has been replaced by a more permanent and stylish shack structure in front of the old Rainforest Cafe entrance.
Mickey & Friends Elevator Addition
Work continues on the elevator addition at the Mickey & Friends Parking Structure, though construction itself has largely completed. The new tower adds two new elevator shafts and doubles the vertical lift capacity in that location, going along with the added elevators at the Pixar Pals Parking Structure. The new tower is essentially a clone of the existing, and while there’s a bit of paving work at each level leading into the elevator from the parking side, it seems like overall, we should be expecting the new elevators to open soon—barring inspections delays and all!
Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway
From the northeast corner of Mickey & Friends, we can also glimpse a small portion of the next new project for Disneyland: Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, a new major attraction coming to Mickey’s Toontown in 2022. It’s actually opening at Walt Disney World in Hollywood Studios later this year, but over at the original Magic Kingdom, ground work is only starting after initial demolition has occurred. The location of the ride doesn’t really afford any clear angles from most publicly accessible areas, so there’s a good chance this attraction won’t see as much coverage as some of the park’s other and more recent additions.
In Adventureland…
Last time, I posted a picture of the complete, redone Adventureland entrance sign at night. Here it is by day. Looks nice! It’s a little wider, but you wouldn’t really know it had been replaced unless you gave it a more meticulous look.
In Fantasyland…
Christmas is over, which means that rides such as It’s a Small World are back to their regular, non-holiday selves.
Meanwhile, the Scary Adventures of Snow White has gone down for an extensive, multi-month refurbishment that will see the addition of new scenes and some enhancement of effects. One of the biggest [light-hearted] criticisms of the ride has been how abruptly its story-telling ends, going from the fall of the Evil Queen to “and they lived happily ever after.” There might have been a key scene or two missing in between, and Snow White awaking from her slumber and reuniting with her friends will both be added to the upcoming enhanced version of the attraction. The ride will also be receiving new audio and visual effects, plus soundtrack enhancements and scene plussing, as well as some exterior improvements. It will be a few months before the ride reopens, and it should be interesting to see how this new version shapes up to be!
In New Orleans Square…
This year, the Haunted Mansion Holiday stayed open a little later than usual. Rather than go down for transformation back to its regular form the Monday after New Year’s, this Nightmare Before Christmas classic didn’t close until yesterday, after the Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, to undergo a couple month refurbishment that seems more aimed at fixing up effects and scenes rather than implement any design changes or additions. Still, the ride will be down for at least a couple of months, rather than its normal weeks-long maintenance.
In Tomorrowland…
Similar to Adventureland, here’s a daytime look at the construction on the new Tomorrowland entrance so far. Not really a lot going on here. Even the work walls are about the same location as the last time.
Meanwhile, part of the wall facade on the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters building is getting a bit of TLC. Space Mountain is back to normal and non-Star Wars-y. On the flip side, Star Tours has added new scenes based off the new Rise of Skywalker movie, featuring journeys to Kef Bir, the ocean moon of Endor where the Death Star crashed, a transmission from General Lando Calrissian, and a massive space battle above the Sith enclave of the planet Exogol. It’s an action packed romp with a whole lot to take in, and it’s still on heavy rotation at the moment, as the movie continues to play in theaters.
Last last weekend, two new popcorn and fry buckets showed up over at the Galactic Grill (formerly Tomorrowland Terrace, across from Star Wars Launch Bay). One features Kylo Ren’s TIE Interceptor—the model featured in the latest Star Wars movie, and is $19.49 plus tax when including fries or a slush drink, or $18.49 when including just a fountain drink. The second is a rather large and surprisingly and pleasingly detailed Millennium Falcon popcorn bucket, available for $24.99 and $2.00 popcorn refills. There are lights on the back that illuminate, and a carrying strap for easy sling. Incidentally, the TIE Interceptor does not come with any strap, so guests simply need to carry it along and fly it through the pathways airspace in order to carry it around.
Baby Yoda / The Child / Unknown Species Merch Galore
With The Mandalorian complete for season 1, the “Baby Yoda” merch has really started to come out, and plenty of souvenirs featuring everyone’s favorite and most lovable Dagoban (or wherever Yoda species is from). There are shirts and phone cases for starters, and probably a few other mementos I missed. I wouldn’t consider these to be the most stylish of garb (though the green peeking Baby Yoda shirt has been by far the most popular—judging by how many people have been wearing it in the parks), but it’s still The Child. He’s adorable! So go get yours today! This is the way.
New in Batuu
We’ve had a few new features and amenities show up in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge recently, so before we really dive into Rise of the Resistance, lets take a quick glance into some of the features that weren’t available on opening day last summer.
These cool soda carts have been around for a little while and are pretty clever. Little astromech droids appear to operate them, and their main housings look at once like something very fitting in an old, grungy spaceport and provide still-recognizable branding on a much more subtle level.
There are also new popcorn flavors and snack options, plus a MSE-6 series repair droid.
Ride Rise of the Resistance first, then buy it! Well, at least a replica of the ride vehicle, complete with matching R5 droid. It will set you back a cool $74.99 (plus tax), but for fans of ride vehicle models, this will be on the shopping list. Other models for TIE Fighters and First Order Walkers are also available for purchase—all in the First Order Cargo store.
In addition, for those who make their droids in the Droid Depot, there are little courses that they can navigate through, with mediation from a Cast Member working the interactive play area.
Recently, an R2-D2 roaming droid has also begun rolling around the Black Spire Outpost, near the Millennium Falcon, up to Docking Bay 7, and even through the Merchant Row marketplace area. The droid interacts with guests (though it has shown a penchant for squealing), and the addition is a magnetic draw to guests (especially children) who love everyone’s favorite Astromech Droid! R2 comes out at various times of the day, and there is no regular schedule. Guests will just need a bit of lucky timing in order catch a visit with everyone’s favorite droid.
Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance Opens
Finally, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance officially opened to big fanfare and even more rave reviews—but also to logistical and technical issues that made opening weekend a little rougher than most new rides tend to be. Make no mistake about it: this is the most technically complex, massively scaled, and comprehensively immersive attraction that Disney has ever built, and the frenzy to get tickets has been real.
Disney implemented a lottery system to distribute virtual boarding groups to manage crowds. Rather than just have guest dash to Galaxy’s Edge and line up in the physical queue first come first serve, backing the line out into the main pathway and perhaps maybe even into Critter Country, guests get a boarding group number and are called back when it’s there turn.
The problem is that unless guests are inside Disneyland park before 8:00am (or the park opening time), they have no chance of snagging a boarding group number for the ride. Immediately upon the turning of the morning hour, guests should open the DIsneyland Map, click to access a boarding group, and hope that they have been able to secure a number within the implied guarantee group—rather than the backup boarding group, which may not actually ride.
Looking to try to ride anytime soon? Here are some important tidbits to keep in mind:
The lottery opens at exactly park opening (8am for now) and is a pure, random lottery. This means that guests arriving two hours early before park opening will have the exact same chance of acquiring a boarding number as guests arriving five minutes before. It is first some first serve in terms of nabbing the boarding groups, but the lottery part comes from who may actually be able to get through in time.
Leave plenty of time to get through security and lines at the turnstiles. Try to aim to arrive at parking an hour before park opening.
You must be inside Disneyland Park in order to try to get a boarding group. Guests outside of Disneyland Park will be asked to be removed from the list of linked accounts for those who do manage to get a boarding group number.
The main batch of numbers has literally been running out in less than a minute. Backup boarding groups have likewise filled up no more than ten minutes after that. Once those are gone, guests are completely out of luck.
Linking more ticket holders to a group gives a greater chance of getting a boarding group, since there are more people who can try for the group. However, whoever gets a boarding group number first will lock in that number for the group, and the others will simply have to take it. It is not [supposed to be] possible to have two members of the same group acquire two different numbers and then just choose the best one to use.
Don’t bother getting paper boarding group tickets, since the boarding groups will run out almost immediately. Unless you’re one of the first ones at a physical booth, you won’t get a boarding pass in time to beat out the rest of the crowd on Main Street. It does work as a nice souvenir for those who get a boarding group online, though!
It is recommended to close all other apps on the phone and even the Disneyland app itself just prior to the lottery opening at park opening. Consider restarting the phone if that helps. The aim is to have as little clutter that might cost the app microseconds to sort in order to maximize access to the park servers to try to snag a boarding pass. Rather than constantly refreshing at 7:59, wait till the turn of 8:00 and open the app then or refresh the main Galaxy’s Edge tab.
Disabled guests still need to obtain a boarding group number in order to use their D.A.S. privileges for quick entry. They’ll take the shorter queue that will eventually be the FastPass line. Their D.A.S. pass by itself is not sufficient to gain passage onto Rise of the Resistance.
Once the lottery fills up, signs all around both parks and the whole Resort immediately go up to warn guests that riding the new E-Ticket is not possible at this time.
The Rise of the Resistance page on the Disneyland app will indicate the boarding group number expected to be guaranteed entry onto the ride. This has varied from the low 70s to the low 80s. In comparison, over the past few days, the actual final boarding group numbers of the night called have been as low as 81 and as high as in the 110’s.
The ride may not open right at park opening. This past weekend, Rise of the Resistance has bee opening at 8:30 or even 9:00, notably past the 8:00 park opening.
On average, there will be about 10 boarding groups (each accounting for several hundred guests) that get through per hour.
The ride does not run until the end of the park operating night. It closes around 9:00 to 9:30, so those with later boarding numbers may not have the full two hours grace period to return to the ride after one’s boarding group number has been called.
If the ride does go down (and it did several times this past weekend), it takes at least 30-45 minutes to reset. The actual time has been closer to 1 hour for each of the minor breakdowns. The bigger breakdowns may cost more time. As an example, Saturday’s line called boarding groups up to 117 (though I heard that only 110 actually got on the ride. However, on Sunday, there was a lot more chaos, and the ride only made it up to group 81.
Going through the line will take anywhere from 20-30 minutes to upwards of an hour if the ride was previously down. The attraction itself is another 10-15 minutes—whole experience tallied.)
Overall, there is a lot that can still be tweaked and adjusted and learned from on this attraction. The breakdowns need to become less frequent, since they throw monkey wrenches in everyone’s plans for when to stay in the park vs anticipate returning to the queue entrance. Unlike a physical line, which tends to have a wait time attached telling guests exactly how long to expect before riding, Rise of the Resistance only has its its app-based virtual queue, so guests who are visiting must track the ride throughout the day in order to estimate a remaining wait time.
The ride is amazing, with cutting edge projection mapping and screen effects mixed with physical sets and a few nifty animatronics to boot. The acting and commitment to realism and immersive detail inspires both awe and intimidation, and there are several rooms that will leave guests’ jaws dropped. It’s definitely the best work Disney has ever done in this park!
That does it from the Disneyland Resort for today, but we have more updates to come, including a deeper dive into Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, and coverage of this year’s Lunar New Year festivities over at Disney California Adventure. Look for those coming soon, and in the mean time, may the Force be with you (to get a favorable and low boarding group number)!
Architect. Photographer. Disney nerd. Haunt enthusiast. Travel bugged. Concert fiend. Asian.
