Disneyland Resort Update: Another Day in the Land of Wars of Stars... And Stuff

Disneyland Resort, Anaheim, CA

Another week, another update from Disneyland.  And for the first time in a while, I'm writing this with no particular gimmick in mind to guide things.  No fake rumors, no political satire, no anti-gimmick of intentionally making an update dry and banal.  It's just going to be whatever comes up in my brain matter, some explanation of things, and some bad jokes here and there.  Are you ready?  Lets do this.

"Star Wars" Land

This week's differences in Star Wars Land are not as drastic as last week's changes from the previous updates.  Construction continues at the home of Disneyland's biggest expansion ever.  Steel continues to go up for the first of two E-Tickets, and it's become very evident that this will be a very. Massive. Ride.  Work also continues along the Rivers of America edge so that the Disneyland Railroad and riverboats can reopen by this summer.  And over in the far corner, groundwork continues for the second "Star Wars" Land E-Ticket.

Lets begin with our usual panorama overview of the site.

There was actually sun when I stopped by yesterday!

The grayness of the previous updates were on par with the sentiment that it seems to have been raining forever.

Of course, it did rain (heavily) since the last weekend.  More on that in a moment.

The site is progressing.  There are little updates here and there.  And not so little ones also.

And puddles too.  Definitely puddles. (Not the clown.)

This being Sunday, the big crane was down for rest.

Mr. Crane has clearly been hard at work.

In wonderful news, earlier this week, Mr. Crane took time to give birth to a beautiful baby Mr. Crane!  Wonderful congratulations to the happy family!

That's right. Construction cranes are like seahorses.  The male gives birth.

Over at the show building for E-Ticket #1, more steel has gone up. 

The brace frames are complete, metal decking has gone on the second floor, and the roof framing is up as well.

The trench and pit to the west (to the right from this view) are still just those, though.

With two levels and a basement, it's going to be very interesting to see how this ride experience ends up.

The not-Project: Death Star III Trench Run.

For all of you formwork fetish fans, ain't that a thing of beauty?

That's going to make the most beautiful circular concrete retaining wall.  The sexiest wall.

"Tatooine" got a bit "Kamino"-y this weekend thanks to all the rains, and the grounds still haven't completely dried out.

Lets head over to the Critter Country corner of the construction site.

Little by little, work continues over here.

Eventually, there will be a walkway somewhere in this very general area connecting to "Star Wars" Land.  It will be a minor entry, sort of like A Bug's Land into Cars Land.

That's common sense and adherence with code, really.  Even with two entrances into "Star Wars" Land located over by where Big Thunder Ranch used to be, the land is so big that it would have to have another exit to avoid having a dead end that could trap crowds.

There's a bridge or walkway just to the left of the Hungry Bear work walls.  That's new.

Back here, just more shoring for retaining walls against the grade.  And also a concrete wall that looks to be for another building at the bottom right.

It runs along the perimeter of the site, adjacent to Disneyland Drive.

It doesn't look that large, until you look at the same wall from the opposite perspective (from Tarzan's Treehouse), and suddenly you realize: that's a big wall!

Speaking of walls, remember that wall that was going to Keep Rivers of America Great again?  Lets check that out.

In actuality, of course, it's the berm that will separate "Star Wars" Land from the Rivers of America and Frontierland.

You can see the backside of the plaster that is forming the rockwork that will blend into the American West rustic setting of the Rivers of America.

If you need a reminder of what the other side of this is supposed to look like, click here.

The Disneyland Railroad will pass along the river on the other side of those walls, chugging by waterfalls and a pretty elevated trestle.

It's going to be pretty nice. 

And now we come upon one of the entrances into "Star Wars" Land, plus the service road that will go over the tunnel entrance to link Fantasyland backstage to this area.

Now, I know that some of you might take all of this for granite, but I think it rocks, so I'm going to zoom in some more so you can understand my sediments.

I know this is a boulder move than usual.  Normally, I'd only pan across once.  But this is too gorge-ous of fake geology to dismiss so quickly.

If you notice that slate of numbers, that's for coding what part of what rock corresponds to what parts of the plans.  You might find the aggregate of all this boron, but I think it's pretty fascinating.

Continuing further along the berm, that hydroseed from last week is a lot less green.  It's either washed away from the exceedingly heavy Friday rainstorm, or it's soaked into the dirt and doing its job.

Trees scattering behind.  You can get a sense of what you're looking at when you compare these placements with that Disney rendering released several months ago.

So for anyone who might be concerned about how the existing lands transition into "Star Wars" land, it's looking like they'll be taking that wilderness feel of Critter Country and Frontierland and smoothly transitioning that into this new outpost planet that's never been explored before.

Glimpsing through the first E-Ticket building gives a little view of the area over by Mickey's Toontown, where the second E-Ticket is slated to be built.  Formwork for concrete and foundation prepping continues.

Glancing at this part of "Star Wars" Land from Tarzan's Treehouse is not too helpful.  Looks like some more future rockwork in gray in the back.

And dirt.

Also, they're doing some work for Disney Transportation on the north side of the Mickey and Friends Parking Structure.  This is on the Ball Road side.

And they're definitely constructing a new building here.  You can see the outlines of the footings.

Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission: Breakout! and Other California Adventure Things

Different parts of the facade of the new Guardians of the Galaxy Ride have been unveiled, as scaffolding has shifted around.  I made the comparison of this facade looking like the Pompidou Center in Paris, and the more I look at it, the more I'm going to stick with that reference.  I just need a more clever nickname... Pompidou West?  Tower of Pompidou?  Guardians of the Pompidou - Mission: Echapper?  Or I can just keep calling it Tower, like I imagine a lot of people still are...

In other news, this is not going away.

This week, it's revealing a slightly different area of itself.

What a naughty tower.

I actually think that the rendering looks better than this real life execution so far--and I wasn't exactly a fan of the rendering either!

But it is what it is.  At least the inside and the ride itself will be great.

But boy, does it loom!

Carthay Circle Restaurant's like, "It's behind me, isn't it?"

Grizzly River Run is still closed and dry.  I half expected it to be swollen from Friday's "Pacific Storm Lucifer" precipitation.

Also, you can get an extended sneak preview of the new, upcoming, live-action Beauty and the Beast movie at the old Muppetvision Theater in Hollywood Land, if you're so inclined.

Rivers of America

No real apparent progress on Tom Sawyer Island.  It looks done from the public side.  So here are brighter pictures than last time.  The S.S. Columbia is also continuing to be put back together.  And I've shifted photos of the rockwork behind the construction walls by Big Thunder Mountain Railroad over to this section, because technically, that's not part of "Star Wars" Land at all.  It's the Frontierland side of the "wall" that separates the two areas.

Also, AP Days continue, and a little follow-up to last week's It's A Small World mention, thanks to a note from a follower.

The front of Tom Sawyer's Island.

The Columbia and one of the dams of the Rivers of America.

The masts look mostly back together now.

The side of Tom Sawyer's Island.

The other side of Tom Sawyer's Island.

For whatever reason, they had a little barge parked on the side here.

Meanwhile, over by Big Thunder Mountain, a zoomed in glimpse over the walls reveals what looks an awful lot like roll-up garage doors, but is actually just corrugated metal siding.

And in that rendering I referenced before, did you spot that arched truss bridge on the top right corner?  Well, there's that.  Which gives you an idea of how the railroad will be routing in its new path connecting back to Toontown Station.

For the first time in history, the Disneyland Railroad will make a left turn (after this part, when it has to turn to avoid running right into the back of Fantasyland Theater).

Some more rockwork not yet painted.

Here you can see some of that mesh before the plaster gets applied onto it to form the finish rock texture.

It's quite interesting to see...

But in a world of Goofuses and Gallants, don't be like this Goofus.  Keep your feet firmly planted on the ground so that you don't look like a desperate idiot guest.

Around Disneyland

AP Days continues, and you can check out last week's update to see what that entails.  Also, one of our Facebook followers pointed out that It's A Small World actually got a new little wait time display that had to have come from Japan or something, because it's kawaii AF.

This week's AP pin is the Electrical Parade's Chesire Cat.  And now you can expect that all the AP pins for this year's AP Days will be Main Street Electrical Parade themed.

The recipe card for this week... available from Redd Rocket's Pizza Port, Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe, Refreshment Corner, and Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor.

You can also catch a special screening of a Main Street Electrical Parade documentary in the evenings at the Main Street Opera House.

I completely missed this last week.

But It's A Small World has a digital wait time display now.

It's very cute.

It blinks occasionally, and at night, it actually goes to sleep when the park closes!

Also, here's a reason not to go the parks on Presidents Day weekend.

Disneyland starts getting Tokyo-level wait times.  Nearly two and a half hours for Hyperspace Mountain?? No thanks.  And wait times were near an hour for numerous other rides yesterday too.

Downtown Disney

Finally, Curlsurf has opened, replacing the old Quiksilver shop that used to be there.  And, really, it seems to be selling the same sort of merchandise.  It's a surf fashion store with surf fashion things.  Definitely quite at home in Southern California!

The entrance to Curlsurf.

Just inside.

Plenty of beach apparel here!

It's pretty nice.

And I actually really like the sign!

That does it for this week at the Disneyland Resort.  I make no promises, but I'm going to try to have some more travel content for you the rest of this week.  How much or far I get on that depends on free time.  But hey, we all know the Disneyland Resort Updates are what you come here for.  Well, at least Facebook analytics knows that.  In any case, I do appreciate the readership and all the comments.  It's always nice to get the interaction.

Have a happy President's Day!

Gool bah!