Disneyland is back! After three days of Cast Member previews, Disneyland Resort’s theme parks officially reopened on Friday to eager crowds. The emotional homecoming included a warm morning welcome from park cast members and Disney executives alike. Join us today as we take a look at Disneyland’s big reopening after being closed for over 400 days and what the new operations look like. Is it time to make a return trip to Disneyland, or should you wait? Let’s find out…
Magic is here! Disneyland’s emotional reopening
Disneyland officially reopened to the public on Friday, following three days of Cast Member previews. Guests lined up to enter the parks early in the morning, well ahead of their official 9 a.m. opening.
Disney welcomed the first guests back into the parks around 8 a.m., with attractions opening at 9 a.m. Friday morning’s homecoming was emotional, with Cast Members lined up along the tram route, Main Street U.S.A., and Buena Vista Street, welcoming guests back for the first time in over 400 days.
Luckily, due to the current reduced capacities for theme parks, lines to get into the parks were minimal and moved quickly in the morning, thanks to Disney temporarily suspending taking guests’ photos to link with tickets. Overall, the arrival process Friday morning was easy and stress-free.
No lines at all to enter Disney California Adventure Friday morning.
Before opening, Disney CEO Bob Chapek greeted cast with a heartfelt acknowledgment of their hard work and dedication. Our own Dusty Sage was perched atop the Main Street Train Station loading platform with an excellent view of this special moment:
And then, the gates opened for guests at long last…
Inside the gates, Main Street, U.S.A. was lined with waving Cast Members, welcoming guests back home for the first time in well over a year. Cast Members from every department turned out, from custodial and stores Cast Members, to Guest Relations and Team Disney Anaheim executives, and even the highest of executives from Disney including Parks and Resorts Chairman Josh D’Amaro and Disney CEO Bob Chapek.
Once again, our Dusty Sage was right in the middle of the action, waiting at the entry tunnel to record the first guests entering and follow them up Main Street. A very emotional scene:
The dozens of Cast Members welcoming guests back to the park made for a touching opening experience for guests and cast alike. After such a difficult year, the Cast returning to work and guests returning to their happy place left many in tears of joy.
Disney executives were among the Cast Members welcoming guests back to Disneyland. Disney CEO Bob Chapek met with guests along Main Street, former CEO Bob Iger greeted guests, and Parks Chairman Josh D’Amaro snapped selfies with guests during the opening of the park.
Below, Disney Parks Chairman Josh D’Amaro is spotted filming a video during the reopening morning of Disneyland
Magic, Revised
Throughout the parks, Disney has implemented changes to accommodate social distancing and other state-mandated changes. After a year of experiencing similar changes in everyday life, maneuvering these revisions didn’t really make a negative impact on my Disneyland experience. In fact, it felt more effortless here than in most other places I’ve visited.
Distanceland, U.S.A.
The most noticeable change at Disneyland is certainly the reduction in capacity. Experiencing the parks with low crowds had become a thing of the past ever since the successful 50th anniversary of the park over 15 years ago. Through discounting, seasonal events, and the massive growth of the Disneyland Annual Passport program, Disneyland simply no longer had an off-season. But for those familiar with Disneyland’s crowd patterns from a couple decades ago, in terms of crowds, visiting Disneyland right now feels very much akin to visiting on a late-January weekday in 2001. To say it’s a pleasant experience is an understatement — it is absolutely sublime. Below, a photo of a nearly-empty Main Street, U.S.A. about an hour after park opening.
It’s not surprising that park opening tends to be busy, but by mid-morning very few people are still entering and crowds have largely been dispersed throughout the park.
Notorious pinch-points and bottlenecks in Adventureland and Tomorrowland are a breeze to pass through now.
In Disney California Adventure, the park was even less busy.
Re-thinking Queues
Some areas remain hotspots for crowding, however. With two very popular E-Tickets, New Orleans Square is one place where guests will have to navigate a maze of queue ropes, alfresco dining tables, and guests.
Much of New Orleans Square’s sweeping Fantasmic! viewing platforms are now home to overflow queues for Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean. The popular E-Ticket rides routinely draw long wait times requiring their queues to spill into the New Orleans Square walkways. Even with reduced theme park capacity, this remains a problem because social distancing causes otherwise manageable queues to take up large sections of the land’s walkways.
The queueing situation in New Orleans Square has, at times, even with park capacity well below the 25% limit, become an issue. At Haunted Mansion, Disney has started escorting guests through a Cast Member corridor that bypasses the stretching room and drops guests directly into the Hallway to Limbo before the boarding area. Luckily, this is only being done at times when the attraction’s queue becomes too long.
The need to implement a pressure release valve like this at the Haunted Mansion is due in part to the attraction’s pre-show. Due to social distancing restrictions, only six parties are allowed into the foyer and stretching rooms of the Haunted Mansion at a time. Then, once those guests empty into the hallway after the stretching room, Cast Members have to allow for enough time for those guests to clear the hallway and board their Doombuggies before the next stretching room empties into the hallway. The stretching rooms and Hallway to Limbo combination has always been a notorious pinch point for the attraction, leading to a backed up loading area, especially during busy days and the holiday season. With social distancing in effect, Disney has to be very cautious about just how many people are in these spaces at any given time, and so wait times for the attraction can get long.
Over a dozen Doombuggies can go unoccupied in the Haunted Mansion due to the queue and preshow’s social distancing protocols.
With the newly-reimagined Snow White attraction in Fantasyland, this issue caused the queue for the attraction to spill beyond the Castle walls, throughout the Fantasy Faire area, and into the hub at various times on opening day.
The queue fluctuated throughout the day but it seemed to be at its longest in the morning and just before park closing. And although it looked like an extremely long line, the ride averaged just a 20 minute actual wait.
In Adventureland, the queue for the popular Indiana Jones Adventure attraction utilized both levels of the open-air Jungle Cruise queue as well as the Tropical Imports area and some Adventureland walkway space. Hopefully Disney will be able to start allowing for socially-distanced indoor queueing by the time the Jungle Cruise reopens from its makeover this summer. Currently, indoor queue space is not being used to hold guests, so guests simply walk through the entirety of Indiana Jones Adventure’s massive indoor queue after waiting through the long outdoor line.
In Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge, Rise of the Resistance is running but has cut the Rey portion of the pre-show inside the caves. This cut is to make sure the attraction’s overall runtime is under the 15 minute limit imposed by the state of California for indoor attractions.
While a boarding group is still required to experience this attraction, the queue for boarding group returns is restricted to outside as much as possible.
The caves are utilized as pass-through zones to get guests into the shuttle portion of the attraction. The Rey and BB-8 pre-show is not in use at this time.
Guests pass through the caves and immediately board the shuttle
Inside the shuttle, plexiglass dividers and floor markers are in place to allow for social distancing.
Indoor queue in the Star Destroyer is separated by plexiglass
The interrogation preshow operates with reduced capacity.
And the rest of the attraction happens as planned. Ride vehicles are divided by clear plexiglass so multiple parties can board the same vehicle. Due to the reduction in capacity due to social distancing, many ride vehicles are dispatched without guests.
Empty ride vehicles in popular attractions will be a common sight at Disneyland for a while longer…
But the overall experience of Rise of the Resistance is largely the same, or possibly even enhanced, by not having long interior waits. Dusty shared a video of the revised ride:
Other attractions that don’t have extensive pre-shows are largely operating like normal, aside from an influx in empty seats and ride vehicles due to social distancing. Roller coasters like Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, for example, has plexiglass up in its load area and is seating guests multiple rows apart. Splash Mountain is only seating one party per log. And Pirates of the Caribbean is loading a maximum of two parties per boat.
Alfresco Disney Dining
Last week we showed you some of the major changes at dining locations throughout the parks. From numerous closed locations to drastically scaled-back menus, to a heavy push for mobile ordering, dining at Disneyland has changed quite a bit. It’ll take some time before dining returns to a more normal state at Disneyland, but for now Disney is offering limited menus at restaurants with outdoor seating only. This change has required the expansion of the parks’ outdoor dining areas into walkways and sidewalks to accommodate social distancing measures. Without any indoor dining of any kind, Disney has converted much of its sidewalks, walkways, and benches into alfresco dining areas until indoor dining can resume in the parks.
During Cast Member previews, many of these areas were unfortunately in direct sunlight, rendering many of them useless during the hotter parts of the day. Thankfully, Disney listened to the feedback on these areas and has added umbrellas to many of them. On days like Friday, when it reached temperatures in the 90s, this was a huge improvement.
Due to the nature of the scaled-back menus and outdoor-only dining, we highly recommend that you take a look at restaurant menus on the Disneyland website or in the Disneyland app prior to booking a reservation for a sit-down location or planning where to grab your on-the-go lunch from during your visit. Options are limited and your favorite restaurants may no longer be serving the items you expect to see.
Refurbishments and Closures
Safety Closures
Around the parks, certain attractions are closed due to social distancing or other pandemic-related safety concerns.
Blue Bayou is closed while indoor dining is restricted at Disneyland, but could be reopening soon. Cast have been called back to the location and new menu and adult beverages have been announced.
Blue Bayou Dining to Add Limited Adult Beverages When it Reopens
As you’d imagine, the Davy Crockett Explorer Canoes in Critter Country are closed for now.
Nearby, one of the largest outdoor dining areas in the park is also unfortunately closed. With a need for outdoor-only dining, it’s strange that the Hungry Bear is closed. We understand that it has something to do with a cast member elevator, but we hope Disney resolves that issue soon as Dining can be an issue at popular times of the day.
In Frontierland, the Shootin’ Exposition is closed and boarded up.
And on the Rivers of America, Tom Sawyer Island is also closed.
One of Tomorrowland’s most popular dining locations is closed, likely due to the setup of its indoor buffeteeria-style ordering.
Oga’s Cantina in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is closed while indoor dining is on hold
Even some of the park’s larger water features are turned off for the time being.
California Adventure has its own share of closures as well, however, fewer than Disneyland.
Matterhorn Bobsleds
In Disneyland, the Matterhorn Bobsleds are closed for refurbishment, but we don’t believe it’s due to social distancing, but rather due to pre-scheduled maintenance.
Jungle Cruise
The Jungle Cruise is expected to reopen this summer with a new backstory and reworked show scenes that will remove insensitive elements.
UPDATES: New Story Details for Jungle Cruise Attractions at Disneyland and Magic Kingdom
New Tomorrowland Entrance
At the entrance to Tomorrowland, it doesn’t look like any progress has been made on the new retro-style spires and planters that are supposed to be under construction.
Expanded Frontierland Bridge
Frontierland’s expanded entry bridge is finished and welcoming guests.
The Project Stardust project was initiated to allow for better crowd flow in the busy days of yore.
Nearby in Frontierland, the old mural advertising fireworks from “Laod Bahng” has been revised and is now Red Dragon & Co. Fireworks. The pin cart of the same name at California Adventure has also been renamed.
The mural has long referenced the never-built Tony Baxter Designed Discovery Bay project, but has now been revised to remove the insensitive pun.
Grizzly River Run
In Disney California Adventure, Grizzly River Run’s refurbishment is wrapping up. The attraction was filled with water over the weekend.
Little Mermaid and Pacific Wharf
Meanwhile, the rotunda refurbishment for the Little Mermaid has finished and the colors are saturated and fresh.
Strange choice to paint the panel blue behind the blue logo.
Nearby, Cocina Cucamonga on Pacific Wharf is finished with its exterior refurbishment.
Disney Ticket & Travel Deals
We have a few deals from our travel partners that we think you can benefit from. Discount tickets, hotels, and even a parking alternative that we use ourselves!
Our travel partners at Get Away Today are here to help you with that by planning a future theme park vacation. There are all sorts of new theme park tickets and travel deals, including a 2 free days offer at Walt Disney World, hotel discounts, ticket deals to various theme parks, and now TICKETS TO DISNEYLAND: More details and to get a quote (HERE)
Special MiceChat Hotel Offer
We’ve worked with our partners at Get Away Today and the Howard Johnson Anaheim Resort to reserve the lowest rate on rooms across the street from Disneyland FOR YOU!
All you need to do is follow our link and then use the special code mentioned below.
- Use Code: HOJO to get an extra $20 off (for as low as $129 + tax).
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Parking Alternative at the Anaheim Hotel
If you don’t want to park in the busy Mickey and Friends lot and walk to Disneyland, you can take advantage of our special hotel parking deal and save some money at the same time:
See Ya Real Soon!
The reopening day of Disneyland came to an end quicker than most would have preferred. While crowds were light and guests were able to do quite a bit throughout the day, it’s hard to say goodbye to such a special place after not having seen it in more than a year. All-in-all, though, the reopening day (and weekend) of Disneyland went off without a hitch and even with closures and some minor socially-distanced inconveniences, the parks are a treat to be in once again.
Some closures, a lack of entertainment, and shorter hours may seem like a poor value when you’re paying full price for the parks but even with these things, a day in the park is still an incredible experience and the spectacularly small crowds make it worth the price. Do we recommend visiting? Absolutely. If you have tickets already, you’re certainly in for a great experience — and if not, there are still days available in these early weeks of reopening.
We wrap up our opening-weekend recap with a few favorite views from around the parks, including many views we’ve all missed over the last year.
Get Caught Up!
There’s a lot more for you Disney fans to get caught up on. Don’t miss these articles and videos…
Disneyland Shopping Returns & “The Magic is Back” Collection
Disneyland is Back! — FIRST LOOK at New Magic and Big Changes
If you don’t mind spoilers, you’ll love this point of view video of the new Snow White ride:
And, why not take a full walk-though of Disneyland with Dusty Sage, it’s over 2 hours of Disneyland goodness in your own home:
Thank you for joining us today on our tour of Disneyland over its big opening day weekend. It’s kind of surreal to believe Disneyland is really back, but it is — and that is absolutely worth celebrating. After the year the world has had, the reopening of truly special places like Disneyland and the ability to safely escape and enjoy yourself once again is a privilege we should all be happy to have access to once again. Sure, Disneyland will have some growing pains to endure as it scales up capacity and expands park hours over the coming months but at the end of the day, Cast Members are back to work and guests can once again enjoy the magic again. The Happiest Place on Earth is happy once again.
Be sure to join us tomorrow for a special edition of Dateline Disneyland where we take a look at what’s new and what’s next at the Disneyland Resort!
Did you visit over the weekend? If not, are you planning on returning soon? Let us know your thoughts on the new Disneyland experience in the comments section below!
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