Disney California Adventure Construction Update

Some may be disappointed with the current state of Disney’s California Adventure Park but for me all the construction invokes excitement for what’s to come. With so much work going on daily throughout California Adventures, its impossible not to notice, hear or witness its progress during your visit. It all begins when you walk through the security booths and into the Esplanade area.Walls decorated colorfully with some vintage Disney characters, block any view into the park. A Cast Member or two stands post in front of the wall where the CALIFORNIA letters once stood. Oh yeah did I mention those letters are no more? The cast members’ duty is to usher the confused looking park visitors directly to the south side of the wall to gain entry into the park itself. Navigating through the make shift entrance area almost prompts you to take off your shoes and remove metal objects from your pockets.There are about 6 turnstiles available to choose from and once you reach the front a CM (not a TSA agent) directs you to which turnstile you need to go to. This direction does help in keeping the congestion down and for the most part is effective in a speedier entry.

After hip checking the turnstile the first thing you have to do is get through the wall of CMs that want to take only a moment of your time to ask you a few questions about your visit to the park today. Phew, you’re now in the park and ready to play but what is right in front of you where the Sunshine Plaza use to be? Yep, another huge wall that wraps around the use to be plaza area. At this point your not sure why the photo pass photographer is even asking you if you wanna stop for a cool pic. I myself sometimes like to speed past that guy and go to the guest service booth and ask if this is where we pick up our hard hats. So what’s up with the wallage at entry? If you don’t already know, California Adventures is getting a complete facelift. The entry is to be re-themed and done up to replicate old Buena Vista Street from the 1920’s. The concept art for this remod is spectacular!

Playhouse House Disney is also getting ready for a change. Walls are up around the building promoting the new show, which will be taking its place. It’s still going to be a preschooler’s party but with a new theme called “Disney Junior-Live on Stage”.

Grizzly River rapids is still kind of grizzly looking but not so much rapids, in fact its drained and under refurbishment status. Apparently Disney park maintenance didn’t get the memo that winter for So Cal this year was going to be cancelled and we are just gonna skip right into summer. There have been a few days these last couple weeks that the rapids of wonderment have been missed.

So lets mosey on over to the Boardwalk area…. Little Mermaid is coming along beautifully. The exterior is now going up and a formation of an actual attraction building is finally visible. They are even extending the construction site all the way to the Goofys Sky School ride, then wrapping around to the Burger Invasion and Pizza Omm Mow Mow sites. At this time the trail back to the Swings ends there. You have to double back and go over the bridge by the Grotto to get to the other side. The Goofy Sky School ride is somewhat perplexing to decipher as far as its progression. All the old Mullholland Madness walls have been removed. Nothing really new here but there’s workers up on the tracks daily doing something.

Finally the biggest construction zone of them all, RADIATOR SPRINGS/CARS LAND!!! It doesn’t matter if I go every day to DCA because everyday there’s something new in Radiator Springs. The facade on the mountain is forming and some more decorative tress goes up every day. There is now a visible Gazebo and the biggest surprise is the very obvious startings of the Cozy Cone Motel. The Radiator cap, rock formation is up and only needs façade now. This site is massive and you can already tell Disney is about to wow us once more!

If you look past my sarcasm and snarky remarks, Im sure you can see that I’m overwhelmed with excitement about a newly done up Disney California Adventure. I can however understand how the clutter and maze of walls could really bum out a vacationer who spent the money to visit the park. If you think about it though, nothing has really been taken away from the park accept the ambience and free opened atmosphere. We still got Tower of Terror, Screaming and most importantly, booze! Well that’s all for now.

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