High summer heat, lower crowd levels, and major construction in the tourist season are all symbolic of the new normal at Disneyland. In years past, summer was the one season you could expect to find all the rides open and the largest crowds of the year. That is no longer true on either front. There are lots of refurbishments planned for this summer and the crowd levels have been very enjoyable most days due to a combination of high heat and annual pass blackouts. With Star Wars on the way, there are lots of projects large and small which must be completed. Let’s take a look at the park Walt Disney built and see how things are shaping up. . .
Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge Construction
Star Wars Land is quite far along now folks. Much of it looks nearly done. The mountain range is mostly shaped up, some of it already painted, and many of the decorative details are now in place. The big show buildings have been complete for quite some time and the smaller shops and marketplace buildings are going up now. Spring testing and previews look quite likely, with an easy summer 2019 opening.
Lower level detailing is taking off now. These rock formations will wrap around the southwestern flank of the land.
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Trees have been planted on the new berm, but they are tiny compared to the trees they replaced.
It’s sort of fun to see how the mountains are constructed. Rocks on a stick. From inside the land they’ll look like massive mountains and petrified trees. But from behind, you can see that they are of various sizes and not at all fully formed (the backs left open on many and the lower portions which can’t be seen from the land are left as empty supports)
As the scaffolds begin to recede, you can see the color scheme and realistic paint job on these intricate structures.
From the river, we can see a bit more of the land and a few glimpses at the shopping village taking shape.
I can’t even look at the round buildings without hearing John Williams music in my head.
The turquoise walls and supports are the new marketplace.
While I sure do wish they’d have saved Star Wars for the 3rd park, I’m so excited for this new land to open that I can’t stand the wait. Less than a year to wait!
Pirates of the Unnecessary Fastpass
One thing I’d be happy to never see come to the park is Fastpass for Pirates of the Caribbean. The ride gets long lines on its own without slowing down the standby queue with the popular reservation system. But it’s looking like Fastpass/MaxPass may roll out before the end of this month. How quickly Disneyland management forgets the mistakes of the past. Fastpass was tested and failed miserably in the early years of the system. And yet they are on the brink of repeating the sins of the past. Unfortuantely, New Orleans Square just can’t handle the strain of more crowds forced into the walkways.
It’s truly a trainwreck scenario just waiting to play out. If the standby queue is slowed down by 20-40%, as they have been on other Fastpass attractions, we can expect to see New Orleans Square completely clogged with lines from now on. That’s just negligence on Disney’s part. Rather than make guests more uncomfortable, they should focus their energy on the loss of capacity at the attraction and solve load/unload issues and boat capacity problems which have plagued the ride since the drops were rebuilt and the boats replaced.
On our walk from Pirates to the likely Fastpass distribution location, we ran into Redd on the Columbia.
Where would they distribute the Fastpass tickets? Mostly likely by sharing the machines at Haunted Mansion and/or Big Thunder (as is currently done with the Buzz and Star Tours passes and the Small World and Matterhorn passes). But that would also make the system easy to reverse as no new machines have been installed, only ticket scanners at the entry of the ride.
Other attractions share Fastpass machines . . .
We are watching this situation very closely. Please let us know if Fastpass goes live folks. If it impacts the park experience in a negative way, go straight to City Hall and social media to complain. They are willing to listen to guest complaints if enough people speak up and/or share photos on social media of clogged walkways and unhappy guests. You have a lot more power to help stop stupid things like this than you may realize.
Tropical Hideaway Construction
There’s another project nearby which is also racing forward. This one is mostly good news. . . The underutilized Aladdin’s Oasis is transforming back into a tropical paradise. While it won’t be an expensive dinner show as it once was, it will be a refreshment patio with Jungle Cruise views and will offer food and beverage. We assume that the Dole Whip, beverage stand and possibly Bengal BBQ are moving into this space to help free up the walkways of Adventureland.
A peek through the holes in the fence show that there has been a lot of clearing.
And in a partially related project, the Tiki Room is also undergoing renovations, which will likely result in the loss of its ancient bathrooms. (Did you know that Tiki Room has bathrooms?).
Enchanted Tiki Room Construction
The disabled access to the theater will likely also be addressed. The little wheelchair lift was never an efficient option when a ramp would allow easier access.
Mint Julip Bar
For years you could walk right up the Mint Julip Bar (on the back side of French Market in New Orleans Square), but for the last few years it has had a steady line which sometimes backs up into the narrow walkway near the New Orleans bathrooms. Let’s hope the changes address the growing problem of popularity.
Upcoming Refurbishments
The refurbishment calendar is starting to fill up. Generally, the wave of refurbs begins in fall, after the kids go back to school. This year we’ll see Big Thunder, Matterhorn, Pinocchio and other closures during the summer season.
- Big Thunder – July 16 through 27th
- Matterhorn – starting July 30th (with an unknown end date)
- Pinocchio – July 30th through August 3rd
- Tiki Room – starting August 8th (again with no end date). We expect that this one is tied to the construction on the Tropical Hideaway.
- Haunted Mansion – conversion to Nightmare Before Christmas begins August 20th (And should return no later than Sept 7th)
- Space Mountain – will also go down briefly for conversion to Ghost Galaxy. The dates for this aren’t on the calendar yet, but it should go down just before Halloween launches on the 7th of September.
This and That
To get your Star Wars shots, I hitched a ride on the Mark Twain.
Someone cleaned most of the bird poop off the backs of the Moose. Thank goodness. Looks much better.
Load Bang’s fireworks gate is being repainted between Stagedoor Cafe and Riverbelle Terrace.
Have you tried out the Disney Play app yet?
The new doughnuts off the Hub are really interesting. The Up doughnut has chocolate ball balloons.
This next doughnut has a shredded Matterhorn Macaron on top. Tres yummy.
And the Dole Whip (pineapple) doughnut has returned . . . this time without a line. I was the only one in line mid-day.
The good news/bad news on the castle is that the roof toppers have returned and look really good. . . .
But the roofs just behind the castle are in horrible shape and getting worse by the day.
What happens when it’s hot and many of the annual passes are blocked? The park is enjoyably uncrowded. On a normal hot day the line for ice cream would be all the way out the door at 3pm. But not this past weekend.
There are some fun women’s shirts on Main Street. . .
The newest ears look like someone has taken a bite out of a Mickey Premium Ice Cream Bar . . .
I watched a bunch of young girls argue about which color ears they most wanted . . . they more or less agreed upon the new-ish iridescent ears. The ears themselves have a Millennial Pink look to them with the plastic iridescent bow. They do look pretty, but I’ve got to wonder if Disney has over-saturated the ear options at this point. And you find the ears EVERYWHERE.
You can get 2 graphic tees for $20 each right now. That’s actually a really good price by Disney standards.
Unfortunately, our trip has been cut a bit short by heat stroke. Stay hydrated folks. The sun can really ruin your day, as it did mine, if you ignore the warning signs.
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