Disneyland in the Time of Coronavirus

In July, with COVID restrictions easing (at the time), my family and I took the plunge for a two-day trip to Anaheim to spend one day each at Disneyland and the adjacent California Adventure.*

Though COVID-19 restrictions had lessened, Disneyland still limited attendance. As a result, the park was nowhere near as crowded as we’ve experienced in the past—with a couple of exceptions (like Space Mountain and the Matterhorn), most waits for rides were reasonable, ranging from just a few to 40 minutes. (Until about five years ago, it was a family tradition to go to Disneyland during the holidays until the crowd size began giving us diminishing returns of enjoyment.)

It had been two years since our last visit and, since then, Galaxy’s Edge—the new “Star Wars-themed land”—and the Marvel’s Avengers Campus had respectively opened at Disneyland and California Adventure.

Galaxy’s Edge
While Star Tours has been a fixture at Disneyland since the late 1980s, the new Galaxy’s Edge offers a more immersive Star Wars universe experience. Set in a frontier town on a planet called Batuu, visitors interact with local denizens and Star Wars characters (including stormtroopers) and can explore the alleyways, shops and restaurants.

The centerpiece of Galaxy’s Edge is a full-size replica of the iconic Millennium Falcon and two rides: Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run and the Rise of the Resistance. To ride the latter, guests must obtain "boarding passes" through the Disney app on their mobile phones at two specified time windows: 7 a.m. and 12 noon. Tickets are limited, so a little after 7 a.m. the morning of our planned visit to Disneyland, I dutifully logged on and discovered that the ride was already sold out.

While waiting for the park to open, a Disneyland employee told us that the full allotment of tickets were usually taken in only 4 seconds! He said he heard people used their smartphone clocks—tied to international atomic clocks—to countdown to the ticket window. Though I dutifully tried this approach for the 12 noon window, I had no better luck, though it looks like I came close. So that ride will need to wait for another day.

That said, as soon as the park opened to guests, we headed straight for Galaxy’s Edge and happily discovered there was virtually no line for Smuggler’s Run. While Rise of the Resistance is a state-of-the-art ride, Smuggler’s Run, while simpler, is certainly no slouch, similar to Star Tours as a “magic motion,” multi-media ride, but interactive—plus, of course, you get to pilot the Millennium Falcon!

The immersive experience begins on lineas park guests enter a “space port” and are told of their “mission” by an animatronic-controlled smuggler named Hondo Ohnaka, who tells you that he has procured the Falcon to smuggle some spices and you are the crew. (Chewbacca makes an appearance during the presentation.)

Guests are then split into groups of six and assigned roles of two each: pilots, gunners and engineers. You’re then herded into the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. As a motion ride, it’s similar to Star Tours, but more interactive since you get to pilot the ship, fire guns or act as engineer. Everyone is prompted over the intercom when to engage—while no doubt the ride is controlled, the ride still responds to your actions. Our first time on the ride, my son and I both piloted and got a kick out of being able to “fly” the iconic Millennium Falcon and punch it into hyper space. I thought the ride was a blast and being able to walk through corridors that resembled the Star Wars movie set was a thrill.

California Adventure: Avengers Campus

On our second day, we visited California Adventure. The last few times we’d been to the park, the Avengers Campus—devoted to the successful Marvel universe films—had still been under construction.

Like the Galaxy’s Edge, the Avengers Campus is an immersive experience that allows you to interact with Marvel super-hero characters, including live shows, immersive facilities and rides. Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy ride has been a popular attraction at the park for a few years now (replacing the Tower of Terror ride, which uses the same skeleton of the original drop tower ride), and the Avengers Campus builds on the popularity of that ride and, of course, the Marvel films.

One of the centerpiece rides is Web-Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure. Like Rise of the Resistance, advance online reservations are required but are not as competitive, so I was able to score spaces.

Like Guardians of the Galaxy and Rise of the Resistance (and even the Haunted Mansion ride), guests enter an anteroom where the ride is set up with a story presentation that features actor Tom Holland as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in an effective multi-media production where Holland is convincingly integrated with live action/practical effects in the presentation

From there, you go into the heart of the ride, consisting of guided cars that take you through the  Tony Stark-funded research facility where you are recruited to use spidey-webs to destroy an out-of-control army of Spider-bots that have infested the building. Though at its heart a shoot ‘em up arcade game similar to Disneyland’s Buzz Lightyear Ride, what sets this game apart is that guests put on wristband shooters that allow you to fire digital webbing onto a live screen like Spider-Man to take out the Spider-bots. It’s an amazing bit of technology.

Of course, we also enjoyed many of the classic old school rides like Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Tours and Indiana Jones. Better yet, since Disneyland was not yet at full capacity since it had only re-opened a few months before, wait times for the most part were from only a few to 20-40 minutes at most.

I have to admit, spending two days at the parks was a bit exhausting, partly due to it being pretty hot on the second day when we were at California Adventure. That said, with things slowly re-opening after more than a year in lockdown, it was a nice family getaway.

Below are some additional pics—click here to see our full vacation gallery.

* We originally planned to visit my mother and siblings in Northern California but when it became clear we needed to remain vigilant in protecting my mom’s health, we decided on the trip to Disneyland.