Dateline Disneyland: Redevelopments, Major Changes & Possible Strike!

Disneyland entered its second week of the holiday season with a bang, announcing a major re-imagining of Mickey’s Toon Town that would bring large new green spaces for relaxation and play.  The announcement was a little unexpected and the fan community dug in, looking over concept art and speculating on what features would survive and which would head to Yesterland.  But that wasn’t all — from there the news kept coming in, from ongoing union troubles that may lead to a strike, to the opening of the new Pelican’s Landing dining area, and into a weekend of announcements that included news for both parks, Downtown Disney, and the Disneyland Hotel.  

The week wrapped up proving to be anything but an average holiday week in November and we’ve got it all covered here for you in today’s update!

Welcome to Disneyland!

Despite warm temperatures over the weekend, the holidays are in full swing across the Disneyland Resort.  The parks, hotels, and even Downtown Disney (finally!) are all decked out for the season.

The first signs of the Candlelight processional have appeared at Main Street Station.  A lot more lighting, equipment, and staging will show up in the coming days as Disneyland prepares to host the long-running holiday tradition. 

Buena Vista Street’s holiday decorations are always delightful.

In Hollywood Land, the vintage-style Los Angeles decorations have been put up after not making it quite in time for the kick off of the holiday season last week.

It’s great to see more than just the Festival of Holiday banners up.  Love these vintage signs.

Santa and his reindeer are back at the end of Hollywood Blvd.

But it’s not all Christmas at the resort.  Big changes are underway…

Disney announces major redevelopments and returning favorites at the Disneyland Resort

Last week brought several big announcements for Disneyland including reimaginings of two major areas and the return of favorite nighttime entertainment offerings.

Reimagining Mickey’s Toon Town

The big and fairly unexpected news last week was the announcement that Mickey’s Toon Town will close early 2022 while the land gets a pretty significant reimagining before opening Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway opens.  With the land closing in 2022, Mickey’s Toon Town will be off limits completely until Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway opens in 2023. 

The reimagining of Toon Town will dramatically alter the landscape, taking out a lot of asphalt and installing (presumably fake) grass through much of it.  The small and often overlooked “Toon Park” area will be transformed and expanded into the lush CenTOONial Park, which will eat into the existing berm between Fantasyland and Toon Town.  Reclaiming some of the berm and turning it into guest space is a smart move, as Toon Town is set to get a lot more popular once Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway opens in 2023.  With that major new attraction coming, more space for guests to relax and spread out in is crucial for this small land. 

Below, the current, easily-missed Toon Park.

The new CenTOONial Park will feature a new “Dreaming Tree” with sculpted roots for climbing and play.  A new interactive fountain featuring Mickey and Minnie will be added here as well.

Expect to see a lot of that lush hillside behind Toon Park to be cleared to create space for the new CenTOONial Park.

Goofy’s backyard may be absorbed into the new CenTOONial Park as well.

One thing is certainly going away — the Jolly Trolley station will be glowing away to make space for the new park, which will extend pretty far into what is now existing Toon Town walkway.  A new pathway will wrap around the park’s new border.  The Jolly Trolley station, the trolley itself, and the trolley tracks have all been sitting dormant for years.  The station was most recently repurposed as a Disney Vacation Club sales kiosk and with that said, removing all of the trolley remnant is a bummer but long overdue.  The Jolly Trolley was never able to live up to its full potential due to crowds in the land which made it difficult to run on busy days. 

All of the tracks will likely be removed, finally. 

Mickey’s fountain will be removed for additional green space.  With the land moving toward the Mickey and friends that appear in the current animated shorts, all depictions of them as they were known in the 1990s when Toon Town was built must go, including this classic fountain. 

At the far corner of Toon Town, Chip and Dale’s Treehouse could be another casualty of the Toon Town project.  The Treehouse’s slides and ball pit have been closed for years and now the treehouse is simply a pretty small and underwhelming walk-through that really only small children can easily get in and out of.  With Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge next door and Toon Town a complete dead end, we could see Chip and Dale’s home removed to make way for a new walkway that would connect Galaxy’s Edge with Toon Town.

The long-abandoned ball pit sits closed off and unused.

With the black spires of Batuu towering just behind the treehouse, connecting the two lands here would make a lot of sense and help with crowd flow once Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway opens.  

The concept art also shows the removal of the Roger Rabbit fountain, which is really a bummer since he won’t be present in the new Mickey and Minnie ride anyway.  Seems a waste to remove this great fountain… but for better or worse, the Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin marquee is also missing from concept art.  Disney hasn’t confirmed one way or the other yet if the Roger Rabbit attraction will remain, or if the recent planned changes to Jessica Rabbit are being scrapped in favor of removing the ride altogether.

Roger Rabbit is a great little dark ride and it would be a shame to lose it.  Sure, kids these days might not be too familiar with Roger, but many aren’t very familiar with Mr. Toad either, and that ride is still as great and entertaining as ever.  Sometimes if an attraction is just really good, the IP isn’t all that important.  A good ride is a good ride.

Meanwhile, construction on the massive new Mickey and Minnie’s Runway Railway ride continues as it heads toward its 2023 opening.  Toon Town as a whole will close early 2022 to begin its transformation.

 

Glowing back…again.

Destination D23 was held in Orlando over the weekend to celebrate Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary.  As part of that event, Disney Parks Chairman Josh D’Amaro led a special presentation on what’s new and next at Disney parks around the world.  The presentation included a lot of updates on projects underway at Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, and beyond.  At Disneyland, D’Amaro had a few announcements, including the return of fan favorite nighttime entertainment in early 2022 at both theme parks.  The return of nighttime entertainment will being the trifecta of classics back to the parks: World of Color in Disney California Adventure, Fantasmic! at Disneyland, and the iconic Main Street Electrical Parade will return in time to celebrate its 50th anniversary.  

In Disneyland, the Fantasmic! pit has been closed up after it had been open for refurbishment work.

 

Magic Bands are coming to Disneyland

In an unexpected twist, D’Amaro announced MagicBand+ would be coming to Disneyland.  The wearable tech that links your park admission, hotel key, Genie+ reservations, and payment option all in one wristband has been offered at Walt Disney World for years.  After mobile phones caught up, Magic Bands quickly became a bit technologically obsolete but continued being offered in Florida. But expectations that they would make their way to California withered over the years as WDW began to pull away from the technology and Disneyland began pushing guests into more and more mobile-based technologies.  Well, not anymore — seems like Disney is hoping MagicBands will be a success out west and the wearable tech will debut next year.  Joining Magic Bands, the “Hey Disney” digital voice assistant that’s now in Walt Disney World resort hotel rooms will also be debuting at Disneyland in 2022.

Consider this part of the attempt to merge the way Disney World and Disneyland are operated. 

Fixing Downtown Disney

D’Amaro’s D23 presentation also included news that Downtown Disney will begin work on a major transformation and evolution of its west side.  

The entire west end of Downtown Disney has been a problem area for Disney since they closed the AMC Theater, ESPN Zone, and Rainforest Cafe in 2018 when plans were in place to begin construction on a new 700-room luxury hotel.  That hotel was originally scheduled to open in 2021 but due to removal of a tax break and local politics, Disney canceled the hotel after shuttering three major Downtown Disney venues.  Disney has tried to revive the west end of Downtown Disney a few times with food trucks, live entertainment, popup experiences in ESPN Zone, and a Star Wars store in the the former Rainforest Cafe.  

4th Disneyland Hotel Officially Canceled

Nothing has really been enough, however, and that far end of the shopping district has languished since 2018.  The plans now call for a complete redevelopment of the area, with new retail and dining spaces along with large outdoor green spaces.  The vibe is distinctly mid-century modern in style, which is a pretty significant departure from the rest of Downtown Disney, which is California craftsman with an art deco-like style blended in, pictured below. 

Any consistency in aesthetic style has always sort of fallen apart by the time you reach the far west end anyway, though, with the Rainforest Cafe’s forest temple architecture, ESPN Zone’s big sporty box, and the large metal canopy of AMC. 

The former ESPN Zone is currently home to a temporary “Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge” virtual reality game experience (don’t get too excited, it’s just a video game that was released for home use over a year ago and is just being showed off for a few months in Downtown Disney).  

This project will mark the second time Disney will force Earl of Sandwich and the westside Starbucks to vacate their locations.  The relatively new Sugarboo shop will be forced out as well.  

If the finished product looks anything like the concept art, all of these styles will make way for one consistent mid-century modern aesthetic for the west end, which really seems like discarded ideas for a remodeled Tomorrowland rather than Downtown Disney.  And keep in mind that this project could potentially be laying some groundwork for big changes related to the DisneylandForward project, which will bring shopping and hopefully a 3rd park to this side of the resort.  Still, regardless of style, reimagining this stretch of Downtown Disney and giving it purpose again is long overdue and desperately needed.  Work on the project begins early 2022.

https://www.micechat.com/286075-breaking-news-disneyland-resort-future-expansion-details/

Disneyland Hotel expansion moves forward

Nearby, work is underway on the Disneyland Hotel’s new Disney Vacation Club tower, which D’Amaro reiterated is still in progress.  Note how different the style is to the 3 existing Disneyland Hotel towers. 

Cranes loom as construction continues.

Construction walls have been pushed out, blocking off the entire Frontier lawn from guests

According to Disney, Imagineers are “infusing the new resort property with elements that bring Disney storytelling to life, all inspired by characters and stories from Walt Disney Animation Studios’ classic films.”  This theme is a departure from the hotel’s existing theme: Walt Disney’s Disneyland. 

Even the hotel’s Christmas photo-op leans heavily into the mid-century style that was popular when Disneyland opened. 

The Frontier Tower features a stunning scale model of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Adventureland concept art and maquettes of Jungle Cruise animals are on display in the Adventure Tower lobby.

The theme departure is strange since the Hotel’s retro Disneyland look has been pretty successful, with its Tomorrowland-themed Monorail waterslides and the wildly popular Adventureland-themed Trader Sam’s and Tangaroa Terrace dining areas. The brand new tower could have easily been themed to classic Tomorrowland or even Main Street, but instead, Disney has opted for character tie-ins. Feels like something intended for Disney World rather than Disneyland. 

 

Disneyland Cast Members prepare to strike as union negotiations continue

We have received questions from some readers asking whether or not they should cancel vacations because they’re afraid a strike by Disneyland workers might ruin their vacations. While it’s a valid concern, a strike would be a last resort action. There’s still time for Disneyland and the union to come to a new agreement.

Disney had offered workers a $3 raise over 3 years, but that contract was resoundingly rejected by Disneyland workers (DCA narrowly accepted the contract). In the meanwhile, it’s possible that there may be some days with sick-outs or labor slowdowns as union members give Disney a taste of what it would feel like if they went out on mass strike.  

If you’re concerned, you should definitely purchase trip insurance. But things could come to a head as soon as December 3rd, when a vote on whether or not to strike is expected. Here’s a link to everything we know so far:

Disneyland Strike Update: Crisis Averted – Here’s What Cast Get

 

Pelicans land in New Orleans Square

While news was breaking left and right, Disneyland quietly opened up the new Pelican’s Landing seating/dining area along the Rivers of America.  The new tiered area is essentially an expanded dining area for the popular Harbor Galley restaurant, which serves up popular bread bowl options.  

The newly expanded patio adds a lot of seating with great views along the stretch of the Rivers of America between Fowler’s Harbor and the dock for the rafts to Tom Sawyer Island.

The lower deck of the dining area.

The area looks great with nautical details that fit the theme of the Rivers of America and Fowler’s Harbor very nicely.  The Pelican’s Landing name and theme comes through as well, with a large Pelican’s Landing sign and big props of nesting birds. 

The Pelicans work well enough, thematically, but are a bit over-the-top and I’m not so sure about needing a big marquee for an outdoor dining area… but for what it is, it’s nicely done. 

The real highlight for me here, however, was the addition of several new edutainment signs about the Sailing Ship Columbia, the Mark Twain, local flora and fauna, and nautical equipment.   These signs are placed every few feet along the upper portion of the dining area and are beautifully done.  They really feel like vintage Disneyland edutainment — an unexpected but very welcome addition! 

Lovely detail.

Elsewhere in the area, great waterside and nautical theming is evident throughout.  

And callbacks to names seen on doors and buildings further back in Fowler’s Harbor are referenced on the condiment bars, which are themed to crates out for delivery.

Speaking of Fowler’s Harbor — that lovely little corner of Disneyland remains intact and open again for your enjoyment.

The dining tables hidden back here are still there and a great option if you’re looking for a bit of a quiet escape from the regular hustle and bustle of New Orleans Square.

Overall, Pelican’s Landing is a great little addition to the park.  We’re really happy to see a lot of really nice thematic enhancement for this bend of the Rivers of America while adding in a significant amount of new seating for guests, which this part of the park sorely needs after a lot of it was removed before Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge opened. 

This and That

In Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge, the wildly popular Rise of the Resistance attraction will begin testing a hybrid standby and virtual queues, starting today.  This is to help transition both guests and Cast Members to the new Genie+ system, which will offer Lightning Lane for guests who want to pay an individual upcharge to experience Rise of the Resistance without waiting in line for it.  

Note: That means Genie is likely coming VERY soon.  Here’s more about the new Genie, Genie+ and Lightning Lane service coming to Disneyland (and already operating at Walt Disney World): 

Your Essential Guide to Genie in the Disney Parks (Disneyland & WDW)

 

In Adventureland, Tarzan’s Treehouse’s refurbishment continues…

 

In New Orleans Square, the former Le Bat en Rouge shop remains closed… no word yet on what’s going into the space but signs in the window still promise something new…

In Tomorrowland, work continues on the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage refurbishment.

And over in Fantasyland, work continues on draining and repairing “it’s a small world,” which suffered damage the night before it was supposed to open for guests.  

Good News: Disneyland’s Small World Holiday Almost Ready to Return

Nearby, the walkway repaving project leading to Toon Town continues… Hopefully it will wrap up soon. Seems like it has taken longer to repave this walkway than it took to build all of Pelican Landing.  

Over in Disney California Adventure, the “Kirby Crackle” in front of Guardians of the Galaxy is having some issues.  

The colorful pavement that looks like melted ice cream is shrinking a bit, making it look like its sinking into the pavement.  In addition, some portions have begun cracking and small pieces are simply coming undone and popping out.

Note the missing pieces in the small circles…

It’ll be interesting to see if this is fixed or if the Kirby Crackle just gets removed altogether.  Thematically, it can be difficult to understand what it’s supposed to be, and practically, if it continues to break and chip out, then it could eventually become a hazard.  

Let’s Hear From You

Alright, that wraps up this week’s edition of Dateline Disneyland!  With all of the news and announcements, what are you most looking forward to… or not?  A reimagined Toon Town?  A revitalized Downtown Disney?  Yet another return of the Main Street Electrical Parade?  Or are you just looking to enjoy a breadbowl at the new Pelican’s Landing?  Share your thoughts in the comments section below. 

A special thanks to Mike Kindrich for his extra help with photos in this week’s update.

See you at Disneyland!