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DISNEYLAND Resort
Anaheim, California
Walt Disney Theme Parks
---- THE LATEST BUZZ ----
(10/11/2024) Disneyland Raises Ticket Prices Over the $200 Price Mark
(10/5/2024) Discount Kids Tickets Returning to Disneyland Resort in Early 2025
(10/3/2024) Disneyland Resort To Renovate Entrance Gates To Both Theme Parks
(7/25/2024) Disneyland Resort Unions Come To A Tenative Agreement
(7/20/2024) Disneyland Resort Unions Vote To Approve Work Strike
General Resort News - (10/3/2024) Look for construction to begin at the entrance to Disneyland and Disney California Adventure starting on Monday. According to the OC Register, the theme park resort will begin to replace the turnstyles to get into both parks in phases, starting with the west side of the Disneyland entrance. The new gates being added are described as automatic entry gates, and will include some special gates at each park that are able to accommodate strollers and wheelchairs. The whole project should be complete sometime in early 2025.
(3/12/2023) Disney’s D23 website has now posted a big teaser, claiming that a new ‘Avatar Experience” will be coming to the Disneyland Resort. For all the hype, there is still a lot they aren’t saying. There is a lot of talk from the actors about how they love the version in Walt Disney World and are excited for an Avatar experience to come to Disneyland, but for all the talk about the land and attractions already built in Florida’s “PANDORA” land at Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park, Disney isn’t willing to call what they have planned for California anything more than an “Avatar Experience”.
After all, they haven’t even committed to if whatever this is will be going into one of the two theme parks, or if it will be something added to the Downtown Disney area. While it would be nice to see at least the Flight of Passage ride come to one of the California theme parks, for all we know this could be some early hype for a temporary walk-through “experience” attraction, not unlike the one currently being offered to guests at Shanghai Disneyland.
Given the massive success of both Avatar films, with more on the way, you would think that Disney would be ready to get behind this movement and build something large, impressive and long-term for one of the two theme parks. Stay tuned… hopefully we’ll know more before too long.
 Ticket Pricing - (10/11/2024) Just as they did this time last year, the Disneyland Resort has once again raised their ticket prices for guests this week. As before, Disney is sticking with a multi-tier system, where the price you pay will depend on the actual day you want to visit and how busy Disney thinks they will be on that particular day.
For the most part ticket prices increased between 5 to 6.5%, and as we’ve also seen before, Disney left the price of the lowest tier the same as before at $104. While this seems to be a nice gesture, the end result is that there are very few of these low tier dates on the calendar, and you might see less in 2025 than the year prior. So while $104 may seem like a good deal on a Disneyland ticket, good luck in getting that price. Instead at the other end of the spectrum, what I’m seeing for ticket prices is now topping out $206 for a one-park / one-day ticket… which means Disneyland just broke the $200 price barrier for the first time.
All said and done, Disneyland now seems to have 7 price tiers, which are current set at $104, $126, $142, $164, $180, $196 and $206, depending on which day you visit. Oh,. and if you want a Park Hopper ticket, so you can visit Disneyland and California Adventure on the same day, add another $75 bucks on to those previous prices.
From what I’m told the prices for annual passes, and other extras like Lightning Lane passes, have also increased as well. For a fun read on the topic of Disney price increases, back in 2019 I wrote an article for Blooloop that created a matrix based on Disney’s previous ticket prices and increases over the years, which showed a frighteningly aggressive and ever increasing curve. Based on those previous projections from early 2019, the price of admission to Disneyland was not expected to cross the $200 price barrier until 2026, but here we are 2 years early. Of course, as the price already hit $198 last year, you might say that they essentially crossed that mark 3 years early.
(10/5/2024) In response to what seems to be declining attendance at the Disneyland Resort, Disney has announced the return of discounted kids tickets once again. Starting on Oct 22 online Disney will offer Children’s tickets offered for as low as $50 valid to visit on select dates between Jan. 7 through March 20, 2025.
Just a reminder, but Disney’s Children tickets are only good for kids between the ages of 3 and 9 years old at the time of the visit. I mention this because just the other week a mother was actually arrested and escorted out of Disney California Adventure along with her two small children for sneaking them into the park as if they were under 3-years of age. Apparently Disney staff opted to just eject her for the day, but after refusing the leave, the Anaheim Police Department was called in to arrest her for trespassing, which resulted in more than a few social media posts showing the woman being escorted from the park in handcuffs and mouse-ears, with her two kids hanging onto her shirt with an officer following behind pushing her double-stroller. According to some reports, this was the 4th time she was caught doing this in the past two months, so following this latest, I’d expect some kind of full ban from the property.
(2/7/19) When it comes to the price of admission, how much is too much? Surprisingly, despite what your initial take is, when you get down to it, this really is more of an individual choice question. Doubly so when it comes to Disney fans and the price of admission into Disney theme parks which have steadily been on the rise each year for the past several decades. This week I decided to take a look at past price increase trends from Disney and even predict where the price is going between now and 2030, based on past increases, all in my latest article for BlooLoop.
DisneylandForward - (6/1/2024) According to a news report, the concept of adding an entire “Peter Pan’s Never Land” onto either Disneyland or Disney California Adventure has been teased as a possible part of the now-approved DisneyForward initiative for the theme park resort. As part of the plan, a small new land entirely themed around the Peter Pan property could be built, where the highlight attraction is expected to be a copy of the new “Peter Pan’s Never Land Adventure” dark ride that just opened at Tokyo DisneySea.
Based on the videos I’ve seen, you could best describe this cutting-edge new attraction as Disney Imagineering’s answer to the technology Universal first used to create their Adventures of Spider-Man (in Orlando) and Transformers: The Ride (Orlando, Hollywood, Singapore and China) themed dark rides. Up until now, perhaps the closest attempt Disney has come to trying to mimic this style of dark ride would perhaps be the Ratatouille dark ride in Paris and Orlando, but that is somewhat different.
Like Universal’s famous Spider-Man attraction, on this new Peter Pan ride guiests are asked to put on 3D glasses and go on an adventure ride through the world of Neverland that heavily features all the action on projection screens blended into the scenery. While both Spider-Man and Transformers use of screens ends with a large-scale virtually all-screen finale, Peter Pan’s use of all screen scenes gets very heavy handed by the mid-point of the journey and rarely lets up.
It is worth mentioning that the land in Tokyo also features a small open-air spinning-car ride through a Fairy Hollow themed landscape called Fair Tinker Bell’s Busy Buggies. I’m adding POV videos of both attractions from Tokyo below so you can better see just what might be possibly under consideration for the California resort.
(5/11/2024) Good news for the Disneyland Resort, as the Anaheim City Council has given their final and unanimous approval for the new “DisneylandForward” master plan. With the new plan allowed to go into effect starting in June, the OC Register wonders what may be the first project out of the gate. I have to agree with their assessment, that before we seen new lands themed to places like Avatar or Wakanda, Disneyland will likely resurrect their stalled plan to build a second massive parking structure across Harbor Blvd, which would connect with the existing resort properly via a pedestrian bridge that crosses Harbor.
The successful build of a new parking structure would allow for the current overflow lots on the other side of the resort property near the hotels to no longer be required, and allow those sites to used for future theme park expansion. As the land was purchased and cleared for this very project many years ago, before it was put on hold, it should be fairly easy to get this project active once again.
(4/17/2024) Things are pushing ahead as expected in Anaheim as the City Council has unanimously approved the Disneyland Resort’s new masterplan proposal, commonly known as “Disneyland Forward”. The $1.9 billion, multi-decade long plan of growth for the resort is now on track for one final vote by the City Council on May 7th.
In addition to granting permission for Disney to pursue the next phase of growth for the company’s original California theme park resort, Disney is also paying the city $40 million to purchase three roads within the resort zone: Magic Way, Hotel Way and a section of Clementine Street.
(3/16/2024) The Anaheim Planning Commission voted 5 to 1 in favor of approving the Disneyland Resort’s “DisneylandForward” master-plan initiative. If given final approval by the city based on the commission’s recommendation, the plan would see Disney spend at least $1.9 billion in improvements to the Anaheim resort complex over the next decade.
One other interesting fact about the DisneylandForward plan that has come to light is that it will allow the theme park resort to create up to four towering ‘icons’, standing up to 300 feet tall on the property. For comparison’s sake, this would be just over twice the height of Disneyland’s iconic Matterhorn mountain structure that is 147 feet tall.
(3/10/2024) According to the OC Register, Anaheim city planning officials are set to review and vote on the “DisneylandForward” future development plan for the Disneyland Resort on Monday, March 11th. The proposal would allow for some required zoning changes and the ability to allow both theme parks to expand into sites used as expansion parking lots on the west side of Disneyland Drive (like in the Toy Story lot), and more.
If approved here, the next step would be for the plans to go before the city council at an April 16th meeting, with the city planners recommendation of approval. The new plan would lay down an overall master-plan of growth for the Disneyland Resort to be followed over the next 40 years.
(10/4/2023) Disneyland has revealed more information about the resorts future theme park expansion plans. According to the reports, the plans mention up to 16 new rides to be located in both indoor and outdoor locations, a new outdoor show, and at least six of the projects will be based on Disney owned movie properties: Frozen, Tangled, Peter Pan, Zootopia,, Toy Story and Tron. Of course, no timeline was given, so consider this more of a general long-term plan kind of announcement, which is more of an indication of where management wants to invest in the parks and not an exact map just yet.
(9/22/2023) Remember how Disney apparently mentioned the possible use of new versions of the PeopleMover or a California version of the Disney Skyliner as future transportation methods for the Disneyland Resort? According to an update from the OC Register, tucked away within that same report was an idea of possibly expanding the Disneyland Monorail.
According to the report they mention how it moves guests from “the Hotel District to the Theme Park District” but it also states that “Future connections may also be provided to the Future Expansion Southeast District.” The Southeast District is what is currently known as the Toy Story parking lot, the furthest from the theme park, built just south-east of the intersection of Katella and Harbor, on a site previously used for decades as a large strawberry field before it was sold to Disney. The DisneylandForward plans would like to eventually see this property used for a possible third theme park experience (a small one of some kind) as well as new retail, restaurants and resort hotel concepts.
As the article points out, the most likely path a monorail could take to get here would be through the Anaheim GardenWalk retail property… which is actually not property that Disney currently owns, which would make that concept difficult. Of course, for a many years there have been rumors that Disney has been sniffing around at possibly bidding to purchase the property as it represents a significant piece of land that could easily be added to the rest of the property Disney owns on either side.
(9/16/2023) In an interesting development, would you believe that the Disneyland Resort mentioned possibly bringing back the Skyway and PeopleMover attractions as possible real-world transportation systems to move guests throughout the resort? Apparently the mention of “themed ride systems” can be found buried deep within a 17,000-page Environmental Impact Report from Disney that was released by the city of Anaheim regarding Disney’s “DisneylandForward” expansion proposal. Apparently the document shows pictures of Walt Disney World’s Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover attraction as well as the more recent addition of the Disney Skyliner aerial gondola tram system that links two of the Disney World theme parks to each other and several hotels. These are listed as possible supplemental or alternate concepts to the building of two pedestrian bridges over Disneyland Drive and three more over Harbor Boulevard that would connect to the long planned second structure. The DisneylandForward project is expected to go before the Anaheim council sometime in 2024.
Given the popularity of the new Disney Skyliner system in Florida, I can see various ways it could be put to use at the Disneyland Resort, especially as I believe systems like this can be installed at a less costly price point than solid rail systems like a PeopleMover or even a Monorail. This is especially true when you consider the ease in which the Skyliner can cross over roads and buildings with a minimal support system. The Florida installation of the Skyliner system also shows how these linear ropeway systems can even be designed to turn corners.
At the same time, I can also see how an entirely ground-based version of the PeopleMover could perhaps be used as an automated replacement for the parking lot trams that currency move guests from the base of the structure to the Downtown Disney area. Rather than wait for Cast Member driven trams, a continuous flow PeopleMover cars could easily flow back and forth between the two points instead.
(3/28/21) While the concept art Disney posted for the Disneyland Forward initiative is said to just be an example of the kind of upgrade plans that they might create in the future, one interesting item was noticed on the plans. The tweet itself shows off best what appears to possibly be a Blank Panther themed Wakanda area that looks like it would fit into the small parking lot behind the movie theater building at Downtown Disney, which would also be removed. The large panther carving sticks out quite well when you zoom into the overhead layout art.
Is this a guarantee it will get built? Nope, but it’s fun take this as something that Imagineering had in mind at one point, even if it doesn’t get built. But it would great if it did make it into the final design. Wakanda Forever!
(3/27/21) The Disneyland Resort surprised everyone with the announcement of a new future initiative and growth plan called Disneyland Forward. According to Disney, the last time they established the future growth plans of the Disneyland Resort was 25 years ago, back when there was only one theme park at the resort and Disney California Adventure was still just a dream.
Back then the plans they set with the City of Anaheim established various “districts” or zones if you will, that would only allow for the development of various things in specific places. Parking here, shopping there, new hotels way over there, and so on. 25 years later, Disney now feels that they have reached the limit of those plans, which are now restricting future concepts of growth now expected from more current and integrated theme park resort concepts. As such, Disney would like to explore new growth opportunities that could see mixed use concepts arise in all new locations going forward.
As Disney well put it, “Without broadening the uses allowed within each district or demolishing and replacing many beloved theme park attractions, further integrated development and theme park investment are not possible.”
While nothing is set in stone yet, the artwork examples Disney is showing explores the possibility of expanding both Disneyland and Disney California Adventure to plots of land on the other side of Disneyland Drive, to the north and south of the Disneyland hotels that are currently used only for parking. Much like how foot traffic crosses over Disneyland Drive via a massive and well landscaped foot bridge that makes it just look like a regular pathway to the guests. Similar connecting pathways could be constructed to link up the theme parks to these parking lots, likely branching off from the backside of Critter Country inside Disneyland, and from the west side Paradise Pier somewhere between Inside Out Emotional Whirl and Boardwalk Pizza inside California Adventure.
The former parking lots would be transformed into all new theme park lands for each park. Again, no formal plans have been made, but the Disneyland Forward website does mention concepts like adding lands and attractions themed to Frozen, Tangled and Peter Pan to Disneyland (similar to plans now under way at Tokyo Disneysea) and adding other attractions like the new Zootopia land (under construction at Disneyland Shanghai), the TRON coaster (Shanghai and under construction at Walt Disney World) and a Toy Story Land (like the one at Walt Disney World) to Disney California Adventure.
The future plans also include ideas like adding a mini Disney Springs style retail and dining area to the land Disney owns South of the theme parks on Harbor and Katella, but this version would also integrate a brand new Disney Resort hotel into the complex as well. It also looks like DIsneyland is ready to revive their previous plans they put on hold to build another parking structure on the other side of Harbor that would lead guests over Harbor via another large footbridge and directly into the esplanade between the entrances to the two theme parks.
Based on past Disney history, you might think that the Disneyland Resort would be seeking some kind of tax incentive deal from Anaheim for all this future growth, but actually the truth couldn’t be further. Just as we saw Disneyland tell Anaheim that they were requesting the city to cancel two of their existing Tax Subsidies (a 20-year 70% hotel tax rebate and a 45-year exemption to taxes on theme park tickets) because they felt the existing deals from a previous political climate had become increasingly “divisive” and had made for a “difficult working relationship” with the current city of Anaheim.
According to Disney’s own statement, “We are at the very beginning stages of the process. While the project will be refined over time, we hope to explore the creation of integrated experiences featuring new theme park attractions, dining, retail, hotel, and more. Right now, we don’t have any specific projects planned for the future. To be clear, Disney is not seeking any public funding for DisneylandForward, nor are we seeking additional square footage or hotel rooms beyond what is currently approved and allowed. Rather, we are simply asking to update our existing approvals to allow for integrated development to be located and built on Disney properties.”
The timing of this announcement is especially interesting, as the California resort is now preparing to finally reopen to guests at the end of April after being closed due to COVID-19 for just over a year’s time. The fact that Disney is coming forward with these huge growth plans is a great sign that they feel very confident in the future growth potential of their California property, to say nothing of the huge potential for job growth from the planning, construction and staffing of these expansions going forward.
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