California Dreamin' - Part 4: Disneyland and DCA

July 1, 2026, 6:26 PM

Our last 2 theme park days would be at the Disneyland Resort, and we knew the parks would be crowded. Our first day would feature a separately ticketed event at Disneyland (“Pride Night”) that would result in the park closing early and our second day was a federal holiday, so we felt that purchasing Lightning Lane Multipass would be necessary. For those unaware, the system works very similar to the similarly named system at WDW and almost identical to the old MaxxPass system in that it includes PhotoPass. Because of the early park closure, we also felt that having the ability to hop between DCA and Disneyland would be necessary, especially since Disneyland’s nighttime shows would only be available to us on the second day. Our plan of attack was to start our first day at Disneyland and then hop to DCA in the early evening and then do the opposite the following day. That strategy ended up working well for us as we were able to see almost everything we wanted to over the course of 2 thoroughly exhausting days.

There have been a few changes in the parks since our last visit. On of the most notable is Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, which was one of the first attractions we rode on our first day. I was hoping that experiencing this attraction firsthand would change my opinion on this overlay, but it simply isn’t that good. Yes, it still has that fun drop, and surprising splash in what was the “Happy Place” on Splash Mountain, but there are too many broken animatronics and a flow to the story that doesn’t make much sense. The “shrinking” portion of the ride just doesn’t make much sense in the context of the attraction, and it’s maddening that all of the tension that should be created as you go up the final lift hill is nonexistent. I simply don’t understand why they couldn’t use Dr. Facilier or some new villain to give the lift some “bite”, because it almost makes the drop anticlimactic. I love the idea of utilizing the setting of New Orleans Square as a backdrop for this ride, and I have no issue leverage the Princess and the Frog IP, but this ride is a shell of what it was not because of the IP, but because the narrative choice employed is completely wrong.

Galaxy’s Edge has seen quite a few changes since our last visit, when the land was brand new. RotR is the same as what we’ve experienced at WDW, but it was refreshing to experience this attraction in full “A mode” with all of the effects and features working. We also ran into a few of the new characters that have been introduced since WDI abandoned to original timeline for Batuu. We still saw Rey but also came across Mando and Grogu as well as Han and Leia. I don’t mind Mando and Grogu walking around Batuu, but seeing a young Han Solo and Leia Organa felt strange even though they have a mythology that traces to the Starcruiser that visited Batuu (east). MFSR has a new story that we really enjoyed, and while Zach and I were pilots both times we rode, but it’s nice that engineers get to pick the destination for the second half of the mission. I don’t think they necessarily needed to tie the attraction to Mando and Grogu (could have been across the entire canon like Star Tours), but having something new here was refreshing. What’s also refreshing is the implementation of a “double rider” line for guests who don’t mind sitting in the back of the bus with a shorter wait (though waits for MFSR were rarely over 30 minutes).

While we have ridden MMRR, this would be our first time experiencing the attraction at Disneyland. While the Chinese Theater façade used in Florida is iconic, this queue here is far more interesting with tons of Easter eggs and callbacks for Disney nerds. The attraction itself is identical to DHS, but Disneyland’s queue is far superior. The other new experience for us at Disneyland would be Paint the Night, the park’s nighttime parade. We scoped out a spot near Small World to watch this parade and had a great vantage point to see all technicolor wizardry. What I enjoyed most were the callbacks to the original Main Street Electrical Parade. This parade lives up to its reputation as “can’t miss”.

Over at DCA, most of the new experiences were in Avengers CAMPUS. We skipped eating at Pym Test Kitchen (the menu seemed trimmed down from what I remember reading when it opened) in favor of eating in San Fransokyo. However, we did find time to meet some characters (I still love how characters in California just come out and meet in the open unlike at WDW) and see the Spider-man show with the acrobatic robot – the timing seemed a bit off, but maybe that was because I knew what was coming having seen videos of it before. More new attractions are on the way (construction crews were briskly assembling the building that will contain the Kuka-arm Stark-theme ride), but on this visit, WEB Slingers would be the only new ride for us. There were a lot of things I really liked about this ride. First, the interior portion of the queue is really well done, and the load area is very convincing as an exterior space in an alley. I also though the design on the ride vehicles to make seats wider was smart to give guests a little extra space to sling webs, and also makes using the single rider line less awkward since everyone has a good amount of personal space in the vehicle. Also, the motions to sling webs are very intuitive, which is more than I can say for Ninjago, which takes a bit of practice to truly master. I didn’t see anyone use the gauntlets over the half-dozen or so times we rode, so I guess it’s good that this “pay to win” option has not caught on. However, it does seem that getting a truly high score takes some serious practice and knowledge. We could have probably rode this another dozen times if we spent a 3rd day in the parks, though I can understand why some feel this attraction is extraneous with TSMM in the same park and Buzz next door in Disneyland.

We ended up missing Soarin’ Across America by a couple of weeks, but I was more than happy to experience the original Soarin’ movie that was playing – I do feel like they should alternate the films more frequently. We also made sure to see World of Color Happiness, and while this version of the show is not well regarded, I enjoyed the use of the characters from Inside Out to drive the narrative. I do think the clips skewed far too heavily towards more recent Disney/Pixar films, but I guess that just means I’m getting old.

Even with 2 full days, park hopping, and LL, we still weren’t able to experience everything Disneyland and DCA have to offer. However, we didn’t miss anything we hadn’t experienced before. There’s just so much to see and do in Disneyland in particular, which is why it is still atop my list as the best theme park in the world.

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