After years of stories about pathway widening, garden reduction, and how Disneyland will handle increased crowding when Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opens, the park has made it official that all of these things are related and part of their project “Stardust.” Tradition meets a new frontier, as the park attempts to enhance story while at the same time making operational and physical changes to support the next phase of growth at the Disneyland Resort. We’ll share details about project Stardust below as well as a few new things going on in the park.
PROJECT STARDUST
Comprised of the words “Star” for Star Wars and “Dust” for pixie dust, Project Stardust is the multi-faceted effort to free the flow of walkways, enhance and expand queues, address show schedules and locations, create dedicated stroller parking, remove obstructive seating and replace it elsewhere, refurbish park structures, and increase the capacity of anything possible.
Show Changes
While some things have been removed (such as gardens and show elements in the way of guest traffic flow), other things are being enhanced. For example, moving Space Mountain’s queue indoors, adding brick to the Main Street Trolly tracks, or adding story to attraction queues.
A current project involves the extensive refurbishment of Sleeping Beauty Castle. The project is being scheduled to be completed before the new Star Wars land opens so guests will see the park’s icon looking its best. But it won’t be a simple repaint, they’ll be taking the classic color scheme and adding forced perspective techniques to shade it slightly darker at the bottom and slightly lighter at the top to make the structure seem taller.
Imagineer Kim Irvine has been involved with six castle refurbishments during her career, the first three with the legendary Imagineer John Hench. She created the promotional sparkly “Diamond” look for the 60th anniversary but will be inspired by nostalgia on the current rehab.
To hide the castle construction, a printed scrim of John Hench’s second rendering for the castle will be stretched over the scaffolding. You might have noticed that the original rendering showed the castle topper reversed. That image was used on a printed scrim the last time the castle was refurbished. The second rendering is featured below. On the back side of the castle, it is rumored that Kim wants to feature the Maleficent Dragon on the construction scrim.
Last year’s trolly track replacement wasn’t a simple job. They budgeted extra for new brickwork to add definition and character to the tracks. Here’s how Main Street looked just before the Trolley refurbishment last year:
A project like that would have taken the better part of a year in the past, but new streamlined engineering and project management allowed it to be done in record time. You’ll note that all the new projects are happening at a more rapid pace.
Queue Changes
One of the most noticeable changes has been the enhancement of unthemed queues, which frequently overflowed into park pathways on busy days. The new queues expand capacity of the lines, add shade, and most importantly add show elements and story where there wasn’t before.
The old Dumbo queue, for example, had about 10% shade. It made for a challenging wait on a busy sunny day. The new queue adds a circus tent theme and pushes the queue back toward the Calliope, so guests can enjoy the music while they wait.
The new queue provides, shade, color, story elements, and is more than adequate to contain the line, even on very busy days.
The old Small World queue was an unshaded switchback which was so inadequately short that it would spill across the parade route and up onto the parade viewing platforms. By moving the parade gate over and back, the park was able to create a forested queue area tucked next to the attraction itself.
Another brilliant queue rework is the Matterhorn. Previously, guests would come to the front of the ride only to find that they’d have to walk around the base of the mountain to find the end of the line. There were few theme or story elements. The new queue moves the entry of the line to just under the marquee for the attraction. Trees have been added, disabled and FastPass access has been streamlined and story elements, such as the Abominable Snowman footprint, have been added.
Space Mountain received an air-conditioned indoor queue in the unused Starcade space, with new story elements, spaceships and futuristic lighting.
Walkway Improvements
Re-configuring space to accommodate more guests and making small adjustments to walkways overall is another major component to Project Stardust. Flattening curbs in the most congested spots and retooling planters to remove built-in seating is a primary example. And while some planters have been lost, most have only been reconfigured or shaved back a bit to remove obstructions or make way for stroller parking. One thing the park is experimenting with is planting trees in the ground, rather than in planters which take up more room.
Built-in seating was removed around the Peoplemover tracks in Tomorrowland, freeing up a tight walkway.
Gardens and seating planters were reconfigured in Frontierland.
Adventureland scaled back many planters in an area that was easily gridlocked before.
Additional Seating
With seating removed from walkways, an equal or greater amount of seating is being added elsewhere.
The major example of this is in Adventureland, where shops gave way to seating and stroller parking and the under-used Aladdin’s Oasis was converted into a rest and refreshment area called the Tropical Hideaway. 
New story elements tie the establishment into the lore of the land, inckuding the iconic Enchanted Tiki Room and Jungle Cruise attractions. Have you ever wondered what happened to Rosita? Well, she’s now part of the show of the Tropical Hideaway.
What used to be shops are now air-conditioned seating, with the best selling elements of the old shops consolidated into the remaining merchandise location. Think about that for a moment, Disneyland giving up revenue space for the purpose of guest comfort. Project Stardust has a lot of weight and influence behind it.
Strolling Parking Changes
Create dedicated areas just for Stroller parking that remove congestion. This is one of the biggest challenges for Disneyland. Strollers are more commonly used these days and are much larger than in 1955 when the park was built. Finding spaces to park all those strollers is a growing challenge.
In Adventureland, for example, the old Tropical Imports beverage stand was cleared out to make way for strollers.
Strollers were previously parked right in the middle of the main walkway through the land. It was a traffic nightmare.
Today, most of those strollers are tucked out of the way of guest flow, which makes it possible to actually walk through Adventureland again.
Adventureland was lucky to have the space to make way for strollers. Elsewhere, the park is having to shave back or remove planters. Can you think of spots which might make for a better compromise on stroller parking? It’s truly one of the most difficult guest flow issues to resolve. As a result, it’s very likely we’ll see the park take additional steps to address the size and type of strollers allowed in the park.
More Stardust On The Way
More changes are still on the way before Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opens, and beyond.
The bridge into Adventureland and the sign above it will be reworked to remove a pinch point between the Dole Whip stand and a strange little shade structure which places a post in the middle of a busy walkway.
More planter reshaping is on the way to the Buzz Lightyear side of Tomorrowland as well as to the exit area for Autopia.
There are also projects still on the drawing board which haven’t happened yet but will need to be addressed at some point, such as the Tomorrowland entry rocks and PeopleMover tracks.
It’s also quite clear that these changes aren’t being made without a great deal of consideration and debate. Removing the seating platform in front of Casey Jr., for example, almost happed late last year, but it was decided that the area was an important rest area, offered a unique view, and had some much-needed shade, so the decision was made to keep it. Also, nothing is set in stone. Disneyland Park VP Kris Theiler mentioned, during a recent park walk-through, that the Stardust projects were being done thoughtfully and in small batches so the team can judge what’s working well and fix what isn’t. These aren’t broad strokes which can’t be refined later. We observed executives debating Tropical Hideaway signage just the other day. These sorts of projects are fluid, require backing from multiple points of view, and are often compromises between need, history, and aesthetics.
I’d like to conclude this section of today’s update with an observation of one of our nerdy staff members. “Project Stardust” was also the code name that the Galatic Empire used for the super-weapon known as the Death Star.
Let’s hope that Disneyland’s Project Stardust ends up more pixie dust than Death Star in the eyes of the public.
A Mini Disneyland Update
Right now there are some Valentines Day enhancements being added for 2019. After years of practically no Valentines Day decorations, a Valentine Hunt, decorations, and treats have popped up at Disneyland.
Even the Main Street vehicles are getting into the act.
Mark Twain
The Mark Twain dock is under refurbishment.
While the dock is closed, and the Columbia is readying for some major refurbishment, you’ll still be able to board the Mark Twain from the left side of the dock.
Current Castle Refurbishment Progress
A large scrim is going up over the castle now. It will eventually feature printed artwork, as mentioned above. It will be a tall one, it needs to cover the highest spire of the castle.
The Lunar New Year Celebration at California Adventure kicks off tomorrow, as well as the return of the Soundsational Parade with its Get Your Ears On enhancements. Keep an eye on MiceChat social media as the weekend unfolds for more information!
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