So, yours truly and two good friends spent Saturday at Disneyland Resort. I thought about creating a thread with this but figured I’d just drop it here (being we went FOR Avengers Campus).
With that being said, ALRIGHTY, how is the resort handling these interesting times? What are my thoughts on Avengers Campus? Grab an Infinity Gauntlet of Shawarma but be sure to have done so 5 hours ago, lets visit the Disneyland Resort!
We awoke at a brisk 6:50am to open our phones and get our boarding passes for Web Slingers. 3 of us on 4 phones. As of 7:00:02 we were grumpy and disappointed. From the beginning of virtual queues, even when I get a boarding pass… I’ve thought it was an absolutely horrible system. It leads to much more disappointment for guests, and causes crowding issues as the people who would be in line for an exciting new ride are instead now walking around being they can’t do what they wanted to do that day… Anyways, my friends had decided that even if we didn’t get passes, they wanted to put in the time to see the new area. We were going for the reason of seeing it, so we were going to see it gol darnit!
We headed to the resort and had the thought to park at Gardenwalk and enter on the east side of the esplanade. Upon driving past on Ball, there was a billion people all corralled in the entire bus loading area and heading down the backlot area on the east side of California Adventure. We quickly decided that entering from the East was a BAD idea, and decided to hope the structure was open. We arrive at the structure around… ~8ish or so. They cut off the entrance to the structure from the road in front of us and guided us toward DTD. We entered the Pixar structure from the south side… I never knew there were ticket booths down there, but we got in and parked rather quickly. Security and the walk down the tramway was a breeze and we were in DCA by 8:40a (they had opened a bit early).
Upon entering DCA, we proceeded directly to the line for Avengers Campus. We proceeded all the way to Paradise Pier Park and did not entre the land until 11:45a (a 3 hour wait). While in line, we watched the food mobile ordering slowly creep up across both parks… we saw Pym come and go and continue to increase… we saw some of the popular places in both parks already up past noon at 10a… and I noted the Corn Dog wagon in particular… at 11:15a, the earliest pick up window was 4:45p. We were near the cappuccino cart in DCA for a while and saw multiple people walk up to what looked like an open cart, try to order a drink, just to be told they had to mobile order and come back. Frustrated people were increasingly common throughout the day. The line stopped for a while we were near the entrance to Carsland and we chatted up a CM… during our 15 minute convo, she was constantly being asked about visiting the new Avengers land and the new spiderman ride… just to sadly have to tell them it was a 5 hour wait to get into the land and the ride was sold out at 7am. She had to say this to multiple families during our time with her.
We finally got into the land… I’ll segment topics-
Avengers Campus- The land is… what it needs to be. I think they did OK with it. It is fairly segmented though with the ‘spiderman area’, then the ‘Doctor strange area’, then the ‘Avengers area’, then the ‘Pym area’, then the ‘Gaurdians area’. Almost reminds me of the neighborhood concept they did with Pixar Pier… which personally I think is a lazy excuse to not create a sensical cohesive land… BUT, over all, the land is just fine. Nothing life changing, lacks the cute charm of Bug’s Land, but it does what it needs to do. I personally did not ride Web Slingers but I like how the spiderbots around the land tie into the ride, that’s pretty cool.
Spiderman Stuntronic- This thing is really cool. The show based around it… I think does a disservice to the main feature. Spiderman’s preshow of… somersaulting over a ‘box’ and jumping to the left etc. is pretty cheesy. That being said, I’m sure the kids like it. One thing we noted… when the stuntronic does its thing and does the spiderman pose or any other kind of pose, it is REALLY cool… but the ‘funny’ launches where spiderman ‘messes up’ is just stupid. It’s a waste of the stuntronic. I was upset because I tried to film it twice, and both times was the mess up launch and looks stupid… which is sad because when it actually does the poses it is awesome. I wonder how many people it takes to run it… and I wonder how long it takes to set it up again… I thought the stuntronic would just be ongoing every ~10 minutes or so with just some audio cues… it runs anywhere from every 20 minutes to 2 hours throughout the day… having the live action component to it worries me it will slowly but surely head to yesteryear as with all of Disney’s entertainment.
Doctor Strange’s Magic Show- IT GETS HOT IN HERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY. It was an OVEN! That being said… it’s a meh show. Some magic tricks here and there… Though, the funniest thing I saw all day was here. When Thor was summoned, Dr. Strange told him to head to Pyms and grab anything he wanted on his tab. Thor kinda smiled and said “I’m going to go get one of those really expensive sandhwiches”. I chuckled. A lot of elements of this area and the show look to be only noticeable at night and from the few photos I’ve seen, definitely save this one until nighttime. During the day it’s a bit bland.
Pym’s- This restaurant has TOO small of an eating area (and Disney knows it). How they built a restaurant of this size, with such little seating, I do not know. There’s no room for seating inside (unless they put it in the entrance/ordering room… so what we see is what we get. Also of note, the tables aren’t really spread out right now… so they can’t pack in many more tables, if any, once distancing is over. Themeing is fun, straightforward, and humorous. The food-
- Chicken Sandwich- Not too shabby, cutlet wasn’t too bad and the breading was a-ok. I’d get it again.
- PBnJnBnB Sandiwch- The bread is pretty bad (maybe mine was stale?) but the sandwich was tasty… flavors all worked well, I’d get it again. The little milkshake shot though, was melted, watered down, and utterly pointless.
- The vegan meatball thing- Not bad, flavor is good, the pasta though was a miss as the sauce is just bleh. We did note though that once the meatball cooled off and was ‘cold’, the flavor got kind of nasty. I don’t know if that’s an impossible meat thing? Maybe related to the texture as it seized up while losing heat?). All I know is a cold ACTUAL meatball tastes just fine cold…
- Pingo Doce Soda- Kinda like a Mountain Dew with a touch of soda vanilla flavoring… I’m not a Mtn Dew guy, but it was refreshing, and I wouldn’t really seek it out again, but would drink it if someone had it.
- The Choco Bar- You’ve all seen my glorious photo… it was hot and as much as we tried to shade it and keep it cool… it just turned into a runny gloopy mess that we had to extract from the paper wrapper in a very un-table manner like manner. It is EXTREME. Very rich, very dense. I liked it, but could only eat a few bites. I honestly think I would have liked it more if it were solid and not liquified… if I could chew it instead of pour liquified nougat into my mouth, it would have been better. It’s for sharing with 2+ people I’d say.
- Drinks from the bar- We had the stout milkshake, the honey drink, a beer, and the seltzer with the pimple balls. All were tasty.
Task Master fight- It’s kinda cool how the Avengers building is a stage for shows like this… I PRAY they keep it going through the years as it really makes the place. Black Panther climbing up the side of the building is cool, some of the fights up on the area of the building that had an angle to it is pretty neat.
Dora Milaje- They look AWESOME when they’re heading out to the stage area. The intense eyes and choreographed spear work is great. They have an awesome presence and it made me excited for the little show… but the show… is bland and it is obvious as the crowd was barely involved at all with what was going on. I watched it twice and both times the crowd stood there staring at them and barely partaking in the activities (which aren’t much anyways). Once at the stage area their presence is a bit diminished as the leader does most of the movement while the other 2 sit there and just bump their shoulders a bit. The show needs tweaking as the crowd simply isn’t ‘getting it’. Whether that’s due to covid exhaustion and not knowing they’re supposed to have ‘fun’ or if it’s actually just boring, the crowd for the most part just watched, filmed, and moved on when it was done.
Phew… alrighty. Overall, I like the place, it’s neat, lets people have some Marvel fun, and while people complain about the lack of shade, there was more than I was thinking going in… and I think the trees will fill in nicely in coming years. We spent the rest of our day at Disneyland and rode some rides and enjoyed ourselves. After closing we had some gumbo and those fruity pebble beignets for dinner... quite tasty. That being said…. Lets get into the fun stuff… THE COMPLAINING!
Virtual Queue- We tried again at 12 noon… and failed again. Guy next to me got it… I wished death upon him and his smiling friends. I recall a statement from Disney when they introduced it saying “Well, if you have 6 hour lines, that’s a failure”… and I’ve always thought that’s a pompous way of making a percentage of your guests miserable. IF a new ride is WORTH the wait, people will WAIT for it. They are going to experience something new, and WANT to see it… creating a system that denies them even the chance of waiting for it, just makes people miserable. Sure, it works out sometimes, but for everyone else, they can’t even choose to wait for it. What it does is lower ridership (overall since they close earlier), and create anger amongst guests. I’m obviously bitter because I didn’t get to ride it, but yet I would have gladly waited in line a certain amount of time to experience it and had been happy. Back in the day, people waited 6 hours to go on Indy… and told others “IT IS WORTH THE WAIT”. Spiderman could formulate a natural length queue but instead is placed on a pedestal that only a few are allowed to reach.
Mobile Ordering- Oh my god, what on EARTH is Disney doing? This has been mentioned by others and is a major serious problem all across the resort right now. This system DOES NOT WORK for the majority source of food for all the guests. People are having to order HOURS beforehand, then wait 45m to an hour once they’ve arrived, and THEN another 30 minutes to actually get food. We witnessed countless people in the land around Pym’s that were visibly angry and defeated by the process. We personally had to order good 2 hours beforehand, then encounter a complete cluster of no CM knowing what was going on for 45 minutes, until we could then walk up to the counter, which then our food was THEN prepared for us anyways. WHAT does Disney think they area achieving with this? Diminishing lines? No, they’re simply moving them away to a different area, all while infuriating guests and overcomplicating a system that works fine NATURALLY. They’re certainly not making things easier for guests… and I can’t see this being too different with the kitchen procedures as they’re not making food anyways until you get to the counter ~1.5hrs after your dining window opened. This is as serious issue…
Toys- BUY AN $80 SPIDER TOY! BUY A $60 WRIST BAND WITH BALLS! We noted that very few people were walking around with the wrist bands… and very few walking around with the spider toys. What we did see was a fair amount of the infinity gauntlet cup holders… and very full shelves in the Spiderman store that people glanced at as they passed through. I think Disney has a problem…
End Result- While Disney (as we all are) is in a very odd position right now full of uncertainty and confusion… I can’t help but think that they have created their own problems. Making most food mobile order only, they’re not achieving anything, this is evidenced by countless trip reports, comments, and public opinions that the system is simply not working. What good does it do? Keep crowds out of a restaurant? As I mentioned, all it does is move the crowd ~20ft outside of the restaurant footprint… people still gather, nothing is achieved other than them being ****ed off.
The problem with the food situattion is it keeps people in the land… and it cascades… since people ‘can’t’ order until they’re in the land, they get in, then they order, the pick up window is several hours… they hang out, then the food pick up itself is at least another hour… and they stay in the land several hours more than they would have just because they want to eat. This then causes the land capacity to sit capped even longer and thus increasing the line time to get in…
Virtual queue- A topic I haven’t seen or perhaps missed… is why does Web Slingers have it? What is its hourly capacity? It seems to be practically a carbon copy of Midway Mania concerning functionality. They’re keeping people out of a 5 hour line? All they’re doing is shifting people from a 5 hour line for the ride to a 5 hour line for the land, and the only difference is guests are ****ed off they can’t ride the ride.
Tidbits- Observations I made around the land concerning operations were they are clueless and it's downright laughable. Our line for Pym’s bar stretched well up to ToT… and a manager who was trying to help out (who was very visibly clueless) had no idea the line was that long and had bypassed it while people were still being told to go to the back of it and wait for their order to be called… the bar employees have no clue what they’re doing and while the CM was really nice and helped us out, she had no clue what things were or how to pour them. That’s not her fault, management is utterly failing all over the place. People wanted shawarma, the shawarma cart was out… people wanted seating, there’s not enough… CM’s are telling people to just go to the back of lines to push them away because the system they’re working with is an utter failure. Also of note, it’s not just the new area/Pym’s, reports have been in from all over both parks that this is the situation.
I will say… I visited WDW during equal covid restrictions as what DL is operating under this past Saturday… and had NO issues at any of the parks at WDW. Nowhere near. The end result from yesterday of me and my friends is- we overall had fun, but Disney seems to be wanting to make visiting painful... we're debating about getting passes once they start up again... and that is the FIRST time I've ever heard my HARDCORE Disney friends even mention anything other than of course they'd get APs. We all agreed though, we're looking forward to our next visit to WDW more. A trip there is worth the price compared to a pass to DL...
Alrighty folks, that ought to do it for today… thanks for reading and please check out our Al Lutz tank top shirts in the link below and be sure to buy a 10 pack for 5% off!
I also got to see a few of the Fab Five characters in Hollywood Land in their Marvel bounds before I went into the Campus. I've had a decade of happy memories in Hollywood Land and I'm going to miss my time there a lot. The Campus is bigger and themed but it's also so busy and bustling - it's a real change from our scrappy little back corner where few people ventured. lol But as time passes and I build new memories here, it, too, will become my happy place. Because ultimately, where my characters are, I'm home. 
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