Disneyland Resort Update: Villains Day 2022 and Park Stalkaround

Disneyland Resort, Anaheim, CA

Happy Friday! We’re celebrating the end of the week by posting another non-haunt, non-holiday, non-press release update. Can you believe it? It’s like Westcoaster nature is healing, and we’re kind of getting back to normal!

Today, we’re taking a spin around the Disneyland Resort to check out the offseason refurbishment and construction scene at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure and also including a few snapshots from an unofficial fan dress-up event that occurred last Sunday, Villains Day, celebrating the baddies of Disney lore. It’s a shorter Disney update compared to usual, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, right?

Villains Day

Many Disney fans probably know about Dapper Day, the twice-a-year event that encourages guests to come to the parks dressed in their elegant clothing and which has turned into a showcase for spiffy Disneybounding (using regular clothes to reference Disney characters rather than dressing up to exactly look like them). But there are other, less prominent events occurring throughout the year that have a similar spirit, and one of the longer-running ones is Villains Day, a dedication to—naturally—the bad guys an gals of Disney movies, shows, cartoons, and even ride attractions.

Guests who participated made sure to feature plenty of Disneybounds devoted to their favorite Disney villains. Expectedly, there were a lot of Loki’s, given last year’s resoundingly successful Disney+ show. But other fan favorites, like Captain Hook, Cruella De Vil, Maleficent, Ursula, the Evil Queen, and many more were represented.

A trio of Loki’s pose at Villains Day.

Wait, make that a quartet!

These two friends make for a great gender-bending Captain Hook and Smee!

My friend, Melissa, braved the heat in her Harold Disneybound.

Harold would be the abominable snowman of the Matterhorn, for any not in the know.

Melissa’s friend, Lynette, did a great Queen of Hearts bound.

Candidate Loki was out collecting future votes.

This Loki was in line in Avengers Campus to meet Disney character Loki!

A big group photo gathering from the early afternoon.

Everyone looked great in their outfits!!

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Magic Key Celebration Month

In other news, February is Magic Key Celebration month and Disneyland Resort annual pass holders have a couple special photo ops at Disneyland and California Adventure and can receive some nice collectibles. The first can be collected inside DCA, off the parade corridor near the entrance to Cars Land. For the first half of this month, it’s a mini poster print of the mountains of the Disneyland Resort. For the second half, a mini poster print celebrating Disney transportation will be available.

In addition, at World of Disney, Magic Key holders can receive a free blueprint of the Stark Industries complex seen inside the WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure attraction that opened last year with Avengers Campus.

Looking to get your Magic Key special mini poster print? Head over to just before the Cars Land entrance along the parade corridor and look left (if coming from the park entrance).

There’s a little line to get the free souvenir.

Supplies are limited to one per Magic Key presented to Disney Cast Members, though it did appear that guests could present Magic Keys for guests not present and obtain a print for their friends.

Here’s the print available now through Monday.

At World of Disney, head to the Pixar section in the middle of the store to get a blueprint of the ride building for WEB SLINGERS.

Disney California Adventure Construction

The start of the year is typically the time to see general refurbishments happen. Improvements and TLC are occurring in Hollywood Land, at Grizzly River Run, and at Paradise Bay for World of Color’s return. There was also a set-up for this Sunday’s Superb Owl in Paradise Park for ESPN to film some promotional vignettes, since the Big Game is at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles (Inglewood) this year.

There’s a bit of repaving happening in Hollywood Land.

Grizzly River Run is closed for its annual winter maintenance.

Sorry, river’s dry.

No whitewater rafting today!

I’d make a drought joke, but that’s not actually a laughing matter.

The rafts are all stacked up here.

The mill still makes for a nice photo op though.

No word on any truth to the rumor that the feral Disney cats are the supers of this refurbishment.

There’s been a platform the past several weeks around the Pixar Pal-A-Round to service the projector towers for World of Color.

A big tower structure was erected last week for some ESPN Super Bowl filming.

It’s pretty impressive. I’ve never seen a setup this grand in the park before.

Looking from across the water. A Cast Member mentioned that this was for filming in advance of the game. It did not appear like there was going to be a live broadcast or live game festivities of any sort here this Sunday.

Follow-Up on Lunar New Year Celebration Food Lines

We noted a couple of weeks ago that the lines at the Lunar New Year Celebration had been pretty horrendous the first couple of weekends. Things seemed improved last weekend, as a cruise through the area around 5:00 showed much shorter waits for food pick-up, though still some lengthy lines to order. But this at least made the strategy of ordering all desired food at the shortest line and then picking up at each booth much more effective. Not sure what exactly caused the difference—maybe the Lunar New Year Celebration’s novelty has worn off, or maybe Sunday late afternoon is a good sweet spot. In any case, this was a welcome sight after the insane lines observed and reported the previous two weekends.

Checking up on the Lunar New Year Celebration food stall lines, the waits are still sizable to order.

This length matches what we saw opening weekend. But fortunately, the pick-up line was much shorter. In fact, in the last photo in the previous section, the line was stretching to the middle of the World of Color viewing area but was only a dozen people long when I stopped by last Sunday.

The Paradise Garden Grill line was also much shorter, no longer stretching to the entrance of the Boardwalk Restaurants area.

Definitely more manageable.

At Spice Traders, same story. Line to order was a bit of a wait, but line to pick up was much shorter.

Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway

Over at Disneyland, work continues in Mickey’s Toon Town on Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway. We won’t be able to cover much more of this, starting as soon as next month, once Toontown closes down. But for now, visible progress this time around include shaped parapet walls of the ride building being installed to form the top of the backdrop facade that will shield the building, more steel work progressing for the El Capitoon Theater facade entrance to the ride, and some more adjacent facade demolition.

Construction continues in Mickey’s Toontown.

More steel supports have been erected at the El Capitoon Theater facade.

And the parapet of the ride building is going up, reflecting either clouds that will be behind the green hills to that work to screen the ride building.

In the food court area, the work walls have been moved up a couple dozen feet.

The sitting area is about half of what it used to be, though the gazebo is still accessible.

A look at the added steel. The red is primer.

More steel has been added stretching out from the main theater facade.

Hopefully that piping will be screened too.

The Toontown facades are definitely getting some makeovers.

Some by addition, others by a certain amount of subtraction.

The view from the fountain.

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Future clouds.

A couple angles from the Roger Rabbit’s Cartoon Spin side.

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Disneyland Updates

Beyond Toontown, refreshments continue and have been sighted along the Rivers of America, at Tarzan’s Treehouse, on the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage ride, and along Main Street. Also, It’s A Small World has returned to its regular operating mode, shedding its Christmas overlay that ran into the end of January. Plus, work walls remain up for the long-advertised landscaping refurbishment at the entrance of Tomorrowland—only they don’t really cover the extents shown in the artist rendering posted, and the area blocked off hasn’t changed for months.

Last month, on Monday, January 24th, Disney historian Dave Smith was honored with his own window on Main Street.

The windows of Main Street are a sort of hall of fame of renown Disney Imagineers, and it’s great to see Dave get his recognition!

Elsewhere on Main Street, we had heard a couple of weeks ago that the clock on Main Street might have accidentally been knocked off during an overnight mishap, and while nothing’s official, it does seem like there was some sort of an accident here. Disney wouldn’t just remove a clock for refurbishment and leave wires exposed and looking awkward like this. (Or would it? Under Chapek, who knows…)

The Crystal Arcade facade is being refurbished.

The store is open inside, but the outside is covered up while it’s being cleaned and repainted.

Over at Tarzan’s Treehouse, refurbishment is actually deepening, as scaffolding has been erected all around the attraction.

I suppose this means it won’t be reopening anytime soon, despite having already been closed for a while.

More work along the Rivers of America continue in advance of FANTASMIC!’s return.

A few parts have been cofferdammed to work on the projectors and visual rigs.

In Tomorrowland, these work walls have been up forever.

Still waiting for that new entrance renovation.

It’s a Small World is no longer Holiday Edition.

Just the regular classic iteration.

Finding Nemo remains closed for its extended rehab.

It’s resurfacing later this winter, but not now!

Lines in the Age of Genie+ / Lightning Lane

Finally, noted in our recent “catching up” update that park crowds and wait times weren’t that bad after the Resort reopened last spring, and that once guests were able to get in, the notably lighter queues made up for the advanced reservation and capacity control hassles. However, since Genie+ and Lightning Lane have been implemented, we’ve seen an increase in weight times on multiple occasions, rivaling busy weekend levels seen before the pandemic. Disney fans have always known that FastPass does increase the standby line wait times, but it’s a little disappointing to see lines for some popular rides as high as they are already, when it’s still the off-season. Will they grow even higher once the summer hits, as the standby wait becomes artificially inflated to incentivize Lightning Lane?

On the other hand, some of the increases in wait times have occurred at non-Lightning Lane attractions, suggesting that Disney has been slowly increasing their park capacity over the past few months and returning to allowing more typical crowds.

Although some waits, like at Galaxy’s Edge, remains pretty low and comparable to earlier reopening waits (though I’ve also seen Smuggler’s Run up to 30-40 minutes), other attractions like Big Thunder and Indy are back up to peak times. Some even longer—Thunder used to often be 35-40 minutes pre-pandemic. And both rides had twice the wait of last summer and fall.

Space Mountain was often 30-45 minutes before. But the Fantasyland rides have been pretty manageable (Peter Pan’s 30 minute wait is even below average). So it’s a bit of a mixed bag with wait times, though there have also been waits longer than shown here for most of these attractions.

Other Tidbits

No photos to accompany, but some other noteworthy items to mention:

• The Mickey and Friends and Pixar Pals Parking Structure trams will FINALLY return on Wednesday, February 23rd. Disney just made the announcement yesterday.

• Splash Mountain is also closed for refurbishment. Just a regular one; they’re not turning it into the new Princess and the Frog ride… yet.

And that’s it for this week’s sojourn to the DLR. As we head into a scorcher of a weekend… in February… we hope you can stay cool, have a great weekend, and enjoy the handegg game if you are a fan—and Sunday if you’re not!