Landmark California diner closes after 8 decades

A little over a year ago, the Anaheim City Council unanimously approved Disneyland’s biggest expansion since opening California Adventure in 2001. The expansion, dubbed Disneyland Forward, will add new lands, hotels, shopping and dining, plus revamped transportation infrastructure, to the resort’s footprint.

It’s an ambitious and protracted plan — according to Disney’s estimates, the first $1.9 billion in projects will roll out over the course of the next decade. It’s also not the only major project in the works for the Disney theme parks division: a future park in Abu Dhabi and several new rides in Disney World have also been announced.

Although the announcement was made with great fanfare, little has visibly changed at the Disneyland Resort. One year into Disneyland Forward, here’s where the resort stands:

What’s under construction at Disneyland now?

Not a ton, at least from what guests can see in the parks. The biggest impact is in Disney California Adventure, where a walkway that connects Avengers Campus and Cars Land is closed. The convenient shortcut is walled off while construction occurs on the expansion coming to Avengers Campus; as of early July, the steel frame of a small building is visible behind the walls.

Much of the other work is being done “backstage,” which is Disney’s terminology for parts of the property accessible to staff but not the public. Earlier this year, the red trolley attraction stopped operating in DCA to accommodate construction backstage for the Avengers Campus expansion.

In Disneyland Park itself, there is no visible construction related to Disneyland Forward. On July 17, the new Walt Disney animatronic will be unveiled in the Main Street Opera House. That is the last new attraction in Disneyland for the time being; no new rides have been announced for the original Disney park as part of Disneyland Forward.

When does construction on new rides start?

Four new rides are confirmed for California Adventure, two of which are coming to Avengers Campus. Avengers Infinity Defense will take guests on a ride through Marvel’s New York City, Wakanda and Asgard as they battle King Thanos. The ride concept has had several iterations; a similar ride was announced as part of the original Avengers Campus project, but it wasn’t ready in time for the opening in 2021. Since then, the Marvel movies have moved past the initial concept, and the storyline appears to be still in progress.

The second ride, Stark Flight Lab, puts guests into “two-person pods” that “deploy to a test station.” The flight simulator ride is expected to be secondary to Avengers Infinity Defense in scope and popularity. There is no timeline for the opening of either ride.

Near what is currently Paradise Gardens Park, construction on a new “Coco” ride will be underway in the fall. Most of that construction is going to occur in “areas that are predominantly backstage today,” Disney said in a statement.

Early next year, Monsters, Inc.: Mike & Sulley to the Rescue! in Hollywood Land will close permanently to make way for an “Avatar”-themed ride. Along with the ride, the land currently houses a performance stage that often hosts youth dance teams and the like, a few small food spots and a warehouse that used to serve as a store for Marvel merchandise. Disney hasn’t made an official announcement about the fate of these locations, but with the ride space switching from Pixar to “Avatar,” it stands to reason the rest of the land will be rethemed as well.

“This project is still in the early stages of development,” Disney said in a statement, which also stated there was no timeline for the “Avatar” ride opening.

Finally, Disney will be revamping the esplanade and parking. What is currently an employee parking lot at 1585 S. Manchester Ave. will be turned into a multi-story parking structure with 6,000 spots, its own security area, rideshare pickup zone and a shuttle. A pedestrian bridge is also being added over Harbor Boulevard into what will be “an all-new esplanade arrival experience” at the main park gates. This construction won’t start until the fall of 2026.

Should I wait to visit Disneyland?

If you love new experiences, it might be the time to wait on your next Disneyland vacation. The last new attraction in Disneyland for the foreseeable future is the animatronic “Walt Disney – A Magical Life” show. If you’re looking at the last actual ride, that distinction belongs to the Splash Mountain retheme to Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, which reopened in Nov. 2024. For the next few years — unless Disney surprises with a very quick bit of construction work — there won’t be any new attractions (with the exception of some new scenes in Smugglers’ Run). In addition, the popular RunDisney races will go on hiatus starting in early 2026 to accommodate construction.

In addition, once construction begins in earnest in 2026, there will likely be many more construction walls around the resort to contend with. Considering Disney has teased more hotels and shopping, this isn’t the end of announcements — other projects in development will likely start entering the pipeline soon too. With no new rides and a whole bunch of cranes, if you’re waiting on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Disneyland — or even just once in a decade — you might want to sit tight until the new rides open.