Welcome back to the Disneyland Resort as we continue our Welcome to Summer coverage from the resort. Today we will be covering the Summer of Heroes and other offerings around California Adventure and Downtown Disney and updates from the parking structures.
If you have not read yesterday’s Disneyland article please do so HERE:
Summer of Constant Stuff Going On |
Hero Up!
To start off, let’s take a look at the Summer of Heroes offerings which you’ve probably seen advertised heavily on TV and billboards all over LA and the western half of America.
At the park entrance, these banners are spread out across the park gates.
Meet and Greets
The original meet and greet with Spiderman and Captain American continues as it was before.
The only thing that changed was this additional poster slapped on the far right wall.
The other Avengers meet and greet is with Black Widow and her entrance into the land is awesome!
She comes down the parade route walking with the vehicle until Sunset and Hollywood Boulevard. She then mounts the vehicle and rides it until it comes to Animation Courtyard, where it circles in and pulls up to the meet and greet location.
She then meets guests. When her time is done with the guests, she then rides back to the Parade Gate until her next show, the Avengers Training Initiative. In some ways, she’s the star of the Summer of Heroes. She’s got the flashiest meet and greet and she’s the central character in the show.
The Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Dance Off is surprisingly entertaining show. It sounds awful on paper (the Guardians in a dance off), but I really enjoyed it in the park.
The meet and greet for Groot is in front of the Tivan marquee sign. During our shoot, Groot came out just as the dance off with Star-Lord and Gamora was finishing up and Peter handed the spot off to Groot and said they would be off with Rocket in the ship (the Milano).
The Avengers Training Initiative is a great little show that echoes the Jedi Training Academy show in format pretty closely.
Dr. Zola has infiltrated into the S.H.I.E.L.D. computer database.
He had to have help from the inside and the double agent is revealed.
Since the final Avengers Initiative show each night wraps up at about 7:30pm, with nothing else going on at the Backlot Stage, Disney has added a DJ that will play from 8pm to 10pm every night during the summer.
The Hero Action Center is where you find out which hero you are. Guests line up to take a quiz on a iPad. When they are done, they get a sticker and a comic book.
Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT!
Be prepared for long lines. But also note that the line has been inconsistent. Keep an eye on the Disneyland app and make a beeline for the attraction if the wait drops below 90 minutes. Of course, your best bet is to get to the park early and get a Fastpass.
One of my problems with the lobby/museum is that the queue moves too quickly, guests can only watch at most 2 minutes of the video before they are ushered off to the Collector’s office. This attraction is almost too efficient. Fastpass guests will miss almost all of the lobby/museum area. You’ll get an overview of the room, but after just a few steps, they send you through to the Collector’s office. Perhaps they should merge standby and Fastpass just before entering the building so everyone can see the displays and see the video.
The pre-show in the Collector’s office is really well done.
It feels like the boiler room was the least changed section of the entire attraction. They added a few glowing screens and updated some show elements. But it’s still a boiler room with all the same pipes as Tower of Terror.
As you get off the attraction…
The gift shop has a small collection of attraction merchandise but a variety of Avengers items as well.
Let’s start off with Guardians merchandise
This and That from California Adventure |
Buena Vista Street
It’s hard to believe that Carthay Circle is five years old.
Hollywood Land
Food from Summer of Heroes is just ok.
The tacos look more impressive then they taste.
Tastes like something that came out of the Slurpee machine at 7 Eleven.
I did not try the donuts at Schmoozies but the food I did try was not as good as the offering from Food and Wine. Speaking of Food and Wine, Disney has plopped one the of the food booths in the back of the Hollywood Land to add another temporary food location to the area this summer.
The Animation Building
The entire building is closed until June 10th when Turtle Talk With Crush and the Animation Academy will return. Up Close and Sorcerers Workshop are closed through at least the end of July. It appears that they will be removing the Anna and Elsa meet and greet out of the Animation Building and hopefully restore the Toy Story Zoetrope to Up Close and restore the Ursula Grotto to the Sorcerer’s Workshop as that room was used as the dressing rooms for the girls.
The Anna and Elsa meet and greet has now moved over to Stage 17 where they have left much of the Snowfest set pieces.
Disney Junior: Dance Party
This new show is now puppet free, but still follows the old shows format pretty closely.
The inside of the theater looks like it has received some much needed upgrades.
Everything inside has Mickey motifs on it.
They have added in benches along the far side and along the back of the theater for parents.
The show starts off with DJ coming out and having a child start the show by pushing a button on her iPad.
DJ then has to spin the host of the show, Nick Fiesta, out the screen. But Nick forgot to invite Mickey and Friends to the party, so he calls them up on the phone and convinces them to race over in their roadster race cars.
While they are waiting for Mickey to arrive they spin out of the screen Sofia the First for her to sing a song.
After that, they spin out Doc McStuffins to sing a song.
Finally, they spin Timon out of the screen from the Lion Guard.
The camera comes out and the kids all freeze to watch themselves on the screen.
Yea! Mickey and Minnie have finally made it as DJ spins them in. And now that the show is over, get out!
As I am glad to see an updated theater. But it feels like they only used characters that they had sitting around in the costume room. The show still has a similar feeling to the old Live On Stage show. I still feel sorry for the puppeteers who lost their jobs for a show that is mostly using screens.
Grizzly Peak
Cars Land
Cars Land is now five years old. Time zooms by so quickly.
Out at the main entrance to the land, there is a construction wall around the Car’s Land’s sign. They appear to be adding a tie-in with the upcoming Cars 3 film.
This happened this week over at Radiator Springs Fastpass distribution during the late afternoon – this AP sign popped up and they did say what they were doing…
Turns out they were giving out Fastpass for Guardians but it’s for park closing to just after park closing. They might be doing this throughout the summer.
Paradise Pier
Over at Toy Story, the wait time board was having a bad day, do you see it?
Further down the Boardwalk, along Malaboomer Park, this little construction wall has popped up.
This construction looks to be replacing the door for the fencing around the Screamin’ Track.
Downtown Disney |
Over at Splitsville, the metal supports are going vertical fast. Disney is racing for a Christmas opening this year.
This week I took the time to look around the shopping district and I am loving the new plantings Disney did about a month ago, They look awesome. I wish that with the with upgrades Disney will be doing to the shopping district that they will add more trees to shade the cement walkways.
Over at ESPN Zone, the metal bleachers have returned. They should install a more permanent solution that can close/fold-away.
A couple cute things I spotted at Wonderland Gallery.
Parking |
Eastern Gateway Project
Currently, the entire project is stopped and is waiting for the Anaheim City Council to decide if Disneyland can build a pedestrian bridge over Harbor Blvd. In my opinion, I think Disney should just bite the bullet and build a second screening area for Harbor access. That should make everyone happy.
Nothing is moving…
Mickey and Friends Parking Structure
At the base of the escalators, Disney has finally removed the pay phone and just has an AED. There are only a few pay phones left in the parks. Soon, we’ll only see these dinosaurs in museums.
Inside the Mickey and Friends Structure, Disney has installed this gate along the stairs at the end of the tile walkway on Daisy level to prevent guests staying on Ball Road from walking through the cast parking lot.
Behind the structure, this temporary building has popped up next to the Central Communications Center Building.
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Thank you for reading! |
All of us on the Disneyland Resort Photo Update crew would like to thank you for joining us today. Today’s article was shot by Brian Pinsky.
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