Spring is in full bloom at Disneyland as the Resort continues through its own season of renewal. Downtown Disney demolition continues as Imagineers clear the way for new development. Inside Disneyland, New Orleans Square’s waterfront continues its reimagining. But not everything is flowers and new life; Disney dining in both parks continues to be a frustratingly difficult experience for many guests. We take a look at all this and much more in today’s Disneyland news and photo update…
Welcome to Disneyland!
It was another beautiful spring weekend at Disneyland. But, as temperatures warmed up, crowds remained surprisingly mild for the spring break season.
Flags were at half staff over the weekend in honor of Madeline Albright, the first female U.S. Secretary of State. Albright passed away last week.
There’s only a short time left to enjoy the stunning pink bloom of Disneyland’s Pink Trumpet Flower trees. These pink blossoms help make springtime one of Disneyland’s most beautiful seasons.
Despite spring break and warm temperatures, crowds were quite manageable on Friday.
Downtown Disney Demolition
Springtime is always a time of renewal at Disneyland and this year is no different. What has really caught our eye this week was the rapid demolition of Downtown Disney’s AMC Theaters complex. The vacant cineplex is now officially Disneyland history, with the final bits of it removed over the weekend.
The only structure remaining on Friday was the steel entry canopy that once acted as the theater’s entrance. And even that canopy was only partially intact.
It’s wild to see just how much space has opened up here now. Downtown Disney has gained a lot of new space for shops and dining.
Take a video overview of the construction site, including views from the Monorail, with our video below.
Views from the Monorail really show how much space has been freed up for expansion.
Re-Imagining the New Orleans Square Waterfront
Back inside the berm, work continues on the major reworking of Disneyland’s New Orleans Square’s walkways. The project aims to remove the tiered viewing platforms that were added decades ago for Fantasmic. With park attendance and crowd patterns having changed so much over the years, the gardens and platforms have become crowd flow issues.
The work underway is to remove the platforms and gardens to free up the waterfront esplanade for easier crowd flow.
Views over the construction walls give a good look at the work in progress. Viewing platforms are going away while trees stay. The garden spaces may be shrinking a bit but it is nice to see that the trees are being retained. Shade in Disneyland is so important during hot summer months.
Pallets of bricks are in place to theme the new walls around the trees and garden spaces.
Hopefully elements like Lafitte’s Anchor will remain along the waterfront when the project is complete.
It’s little thematic touches like this that help make New Orleans Square feel authentic.
Not all trees have been saved, however. Over at Pirates of the Caribbean, the two large old-growth trees in the attraction’s outdoor queue have been cut back and will be removed. These trees were reportedly diseased and are expected to eventually be replaced.
A look over the construction wall shows the trees are cut back and will be removed. The queue will be repaved as part of the project. 
Out on the Rivers of America, the refurbishment of the Fantasmic fountain pits continues. The show is set to return at the end of May. 
And nearby, scaffolding and tarps are down from the Sailing Ship Columbia.
Disney Dining: An Ongoing Disaster
Since Disneyland reopened last April, we’ve talked about the various issues with dining around the Resort in this space several times. Just last week, we briefly touched on the Resort’s larger dining issues. From Mobile Order to reduced menu offerings; to a lack of reservations, and more — Disney dining has never been a more complicated or less delicious experience.
When Disneyland reopened last year, menus across the Resort were extremely limited. At the time, this made sense. After all, theme park capacity was very limited, there was no promise the Resort would be able to stay open, and Disney had the huge task of having to rehire and retrain the entire Resort.
Disney Dining: Options
Only select restaurants reopened with the parks and the ones that did reopened with very limited offerings. For example, the Plaza Inn only offered one entree — its fried chicken dinner. Thankfully, in the last year, most quick service dining locations have increased the number of offerings they serve. At Plaza Inn, options once again include pot roast, salmon, pasta dishes, and entree-sized cobb salad.
Unfortunately, the full breadth of options you could once find across the theme parks hasn’t quite returned and we’re still pretty far from where things were before the parks closed in 2020. Across the street from Plaza Inn, the Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe’s menu board has multiple blank spaces as options here have not yet returned to normal. Options, in general, are more limited now and more inflexible across the board. In the past, you could purchase a single piece of fried chicken or a side of mashed potatoes a la carte at Plaza Inn. That is no longer possible now; you either buy the entire chicken dinner at a whopping $18.99 or don’t get any chicken at all.
Similarly, Rancho del Zocalo in Frontierland is only serving about half the number of items it once offered and is only utilizing half of its serving stations.
Many table service restaurants are still struggling to catch up, as well. Until recently, menus at table service locations were still very limited (and some still are). And forget it if you have allergies or dietary restrictions. With reduced menus, chefs have fewer ingredients to make palatable alternatives and guests suffer with meals that are expensive and unappetizing. The buck gets passed to guests in this situation, meals to accommodate dietary restrictions are cobbled together and the pieces are priced a la carte and can add up to coast twice as much as a regular entree.
The once great Cafe Orleans, for example, is not even worth visiting for many guests these days with a primary fried and heavy menu. Yes, you can still get the Monte Cristo, but it is not as good as it once was and the overall menu lacks an appealing variety. Guests can’t even order the delicious garlic pommes frites on the side any more. They come with the Monte Cristo and that’s it (like a fried entree needs a fried side as well). Take it or leave it. Gone are the muffuletta sandwich, crepes, Lobster Cobb Salad, Bourbon Street Chicken, Steak and Potatoes, French onion soup, and other popular items. This table service location was once delightful and now an expensive disappointment.
Disney Dining: Mobile Waitlists
To make the situation worse, table service locations are often running with reduced capacity. This results in guests seeing a lot of empty tables. When guests ask if they can dine in, Cast Members are now trained to directed them to join the mobile waitlists on the Disneyland app. More often than not, no exceptions can be made and guests are left to the whims of the app. If the wait list opens, congrats! If not, you’re completely out of luck — even if there are empty tables. Forcing guests to figure out a complicated app when they are hungry isn’t the most brilliant of ideas Disney has cooked up… in the past, a Cast Member would simply seat the guest, put their name on a wait list, or let them know that no spots were available. A simple human interaction instead of digital frustration.
At this point in the game, it’s not entirely clear why table service locations continue to operate with such reduced offerings and capacity. The demand is clearly there, as reservations are almost always full and wait lists consistently fill up. While labor shortages are a real problem, Disney could very easily work around it with improved working conditions and increased wages for their Cast Members. Still, ask Cast Members at some of these locations and labor shortages aren’t as much of a problem as the mobile waitlists are. When bartenders and servers mention how slow it’s been but you’ve been struggling to get on the waitlist for the restaurant the better part of the afternoon, then clearly there are huge flaws in the system.
Hey @Disneyland when are you finally going to figure out the walk up situation at Trader Sam’s? This is like 10x too many I’ve seen most of bar empty yet it show no walk up or reservations available in app. It’s so unfair to the CMs. pic.twitter.com/6kPSCSPbOk
— Carly Caramanna (@CarlyCaramanna) March 10, 2022
The Mobile Waitlists are managed by location leads and the end result, for whatever reason, has been a loss of efficiency and drop in capacity. For the food service Cast Members, this is disastrous: fewer tables means they’re earning fewer tips that many of them rely on to subsidize the low wages Disney pays. For the guest, the entire process is frustrating to navigate. Asking Cast Members for help in getting seated at a restaurant should be the default option. Unfortunately, guests ask for help only be turned away and told to use the app. But when you turn to the app, you can only get on a waitlist if the waitlist is open and you’re nearby the restaurant.
So, for example, if you see multiple empty tables at Carthay Circle Lounge but the waitlist is full, you have to hang out nearby the restaurant until the waitlist opens up — and there’s no promise that it ever will open up. You can’t go ride the Incredicoaster and try to join the waitlist from Pixar Pier — you’ll be too far away. And if the waitlist opens while you’re away? Well, you better hope you can hustle back to Buena Vista Street before the waitlist closes again. Reducing capacity when servers want more tables, leaving tables in clear guest view completely empty, and refusing to seat guests at empty tables because the waitlist is closed are utterly confounding practices.
Meanwhile, as tables sit empty at Lamplight Lounge or Carthay Circle Lounge, Disneyland continues to operate the Blue Bayou during Pirates of the Caribbean’s refurbishment. That famous Blue Bayou ambiance? Disneyland show quality? Forget it! Guests get to enjoy their expensive Blue Bayou meal with the view of a construction wall. Not Disney dining at its finest!
A friend of mine sent me this. The current view from Blue Bayou during the Pirates of the Caribbean refurbishment 😆 pic.twitter.com/SeS7v2ffD6
— Guy Selga (@guyselga) March 27, 2022
Disney Dining: Mobile Ordering
The situation isn’t any better at many quick service locations. Most quick service restaurants now rely on the Disneyland app’s Mobile Order system. As we’ve reported before, most cash registers at quick service restaurants have been removed. Typically only one or two registers remain for stand-by ordering. On less busy days, this isn’t much of a problem — the one or two remaining cash registers manage well enough. However, on busy days, the single remaining cash register at Paradise Garden Grill, for example, just can’t keep up and the line can get excessively long.
Keep in mind that all of these long lines and frustration were created intentionally to force you to use the app. Because, that’s what guests want on vacation, hunger and confusion.
Disney Dining: Where’s the Disney Difference?
Disney’s effort to push the majority of quick service ordering to mobile order is just as unfriendly as the mobile waitlists for table service restaurants. In many of these dining situations, Cast Members are simply no longer allowed to actually help guests. The “Disney Difference” in customer service has been removed from the menu entirely. Is Disney trying to save labor dollars while they watch money fly out the window? Does customer satisfaction no longer matter to Disney? How does intentionally antagonizing customers benefit anybody?
With the theme parks approaching their first full year since reopening, it’s time for Disneyland’s dining problems to be properly addressed. The guest experience is suffering under the weight of the unneeded and unfriendly Mobile Order and Mobile Waitlist systems. For tourists, trying to get food requires waiting in long lines or trying to figure out Mobile Order or waitlists on the Disneyland app. For locals, going to Disneyland for a casual meal or a couple drinks is a massive gamble. Will mobile order slots be available? Will waitlists be open?
The guest experience has been eroded badly over the last year, but Disney can easily undo that damage and restore the Disney Difference in places where it’s sorely lacking. All Disney has to do is actually care about that famed Disney guest experience again.
Refurbishment Roundup
Let’s take a look at the ongoing refurbishments around the Disneyland Resort.
Main Street, U.S.A.
Work continues on the souvenir stand next to Disneyana on the edge of Town Square.
China Closet’s facade refurbishment wrapped last week but the shop’s sign had yet to be reinstalled. It’s now back on the storefront.
Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
In Tomorrowland, the very extended Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage refurbishment continues. It’s been almost a year since Disneyland reopened, and with ToonTown now closed, the park needs the extra ride capacity the Subs would offer.
Grizzly River Run
In Disney California Adventure, water is starting to flow back into Grizzly River Run.
Hollywood Land
Over in Hollywood Land, work on the sidewalk near Off the Page has wrapped up. Walls are still up across the street near Schmoozies, however.
Views of the old Hollywood and Dine facility shows that all of the Captain Marvel props have been removed and a lot of the building is getting fresh paint. No word yet on if Disney has any immediate plans for the venue.
World of Color
And over on Paradise Bay, work continues on the new World of Color lighting/projection towers.
Around the Parks
And to wrap up this week’s update, we’ll take a look at some views from around the Disneyland Resort. Because, even though we complain about the things that just don’t feel right, there’s a lot of magic still in the parks…
I popped in to check out the new Merlin’s Marvelous Miscellany shop in Fantasyland. It’s nice to have Merlin back in this space… and the sign paying tribute to the original Merlin’s Magic Shop is a nice touch!
The space doesn’t allow for a ton of theming but the props and nods to the the Sword in the Stone film are lovely and well done.
Moving on…
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Let’s Discuss!
Alright, that wraps up this week’s update! Are you surprised by how much space has been opened up in Downtown Disney? How have your recent experiences with Disney dining been? How would you like to see Disneyland fix the problems with dining across the resort (menus, waits, technology, staffing, etc.)? Let us know in the comments section below!
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