Disneyland is currently undergoing a major expansion to bring new rides and experiences to the resort. Work is underway to add in four new rides to Disney California Adventure. Now, we just hit another milestone for two of the new rides that we have been waiting a long time for.
Walt Disney Imagineering just shared a big update for this project as construction flies along. Keep reading for all of the details! At Mickey Visit we bring you the latest Disney news, including news of a milestone for Disney’s new Coco ride and updates on all the new rides coming to Disney Parks around the world. Here are also details on a new Costco special details on changes at Disney World in December.
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Disney Hits Milestone on New Rides in Disney California Adventure
The Avengers Campus project is one of the bigger expansions happening at the resort, introducing two new Disneyland rides. This is the project with the most active construction happening right now, with the new Coco ride and Avatar land in the wings.
This expansion has been quite a long time coming. We first heard about a new Marvel addition that would feature the Avengers and Spider-Man in 2017.
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Disney opened the new land in two phases. The first phase, which opened in 2021, included new offerings like WEB-SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure and Pym Test Kitchen, and the second phase would introduce the opening of an E-ticket Avengers ride. This addition was really the next phase of big expansion added on to Disney California Adventure after the relaunch with Cars Land and Buena Vista Street that you can see represented in the concept artwork from Disney above.
Unfortunately, the pandemic hit right in the middle of all of the work to add in Avengers Campus, and after that setback, Disney shifted the development timelines for the additions to this new land. They largely put a pause on the second phase of Avengers Campus. This pause was extended when the designs for the additional attraction shifted somewhat during this period. It was also during the period when Disney CEO Bob Chapek was in charge just before Bob Iger returned. All of these factors may have been a factor in the delay of the continued construction and addition of the new attraction.
In the meantime, the land has felt kind of awkward and incomplete in the years since its opening, which is why there was so much excitement when Disney finally solidified the details for the E-ticket ride. Disney also surprised fans with the announcement of an additional ride coming.
The two rides will be called “Avengers Infinity Defense” and “Stark Flight Lab,” and they are currently being built towards the back of the land within a backstage area that partially wraps around behind Cars Land. This Avengers Campus expansion will double the size of the land.
The E-ticket ride, Avengers Infinity Defense, is described as a “multi-world adventure” where guests will help the Avengers fight “King Thanos,” who has stolen the technology that allows the Avengers to jump between worlds. During the ride, you’ll see locations like Asgard, Wakanda, and New York City. The experience will feature “physical worlds” and “a blend of large-scale built environments and immersive media.”
The second ride, Stark Flight Lab, is a unique ride format. Guests will sit in “gyro-kinetic pods” and deploy to a test station, where a robot arm will pick them up and whirl them around in simulated flight. On the ride, you’ll make “several high-speed maneuvers inspired by Iron Man and some other Avengers.”
Construction on the two new Avengers Campus rides has been flying along since it first went vertical. Since then, we have been blown away by the visible progress made each time we see it. Now, Disney has reached another big milestone for the project!
Walt Disney Imagineering just shared an update on its Instagram, sharing that “the canopy connecting the two new attractions, Avengers Infinity Defense and Stark Flight Lab, is being assembled!”
Take a look at the incredible progress of the construction! It has only been a few months since it went vertical. It seems that Disney is really kicking it into high gear to make up for lost time.
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In our bigger discussion of when Disneyland’s new rides will open, we talked about how these will almost certainly be the first of the new rides currently in progress to debut.
In that article, we theorized, “The only new Disneyland ride that could open in 2026 would be the Iron Man Stark Flight Lab ride with the arm mechanism. This is the simpler of the two new Avengers Campus rides coming soon. They could pull a Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, with the simpler of the two new rides opening first and then the more complex one following later. Or, they could decide that they want to open them together to prevent anyone from being underwhelmed and hold this ride until the major ride opens.”
As for the more complex Avengers attraction, we anticipate this will be ready to open by 2027 or 2028. Hopefully 2027. Given the quick progress on the construction, we may be leaning towards the earlier end of that prediction.
Disney will also be pushing to get these attractions ready to open tied to the upcoming new Avengers movies, which are slated to be in theaters in December 2026 and December 2027. I would not be surprised to have the two new rides open sometime in 2027 due to this.
We will continue to keep you updated on the latest progress on these new ride additions here at Mickey Visit.
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Can we ask the Disney imagineers to close Tiana’s Bayou Adventure ride and redo it with additional features including spoonbill birds and lady butterfly animatronics dancing and greeting us log flume guests? I also want other cute Bayou critters including a little bluebird from the little golden book, squirrels, skunks, snakes, crocodiles etc. I also want a riverboat brought back on the ride that splash mountain used to have. The current Tiana’s Bayou Adventure ride is barebones with dark spaces. I also want the song almost there playing at dropoff. Also can we ask Disney imagineers to change jungle cruise ride to tell us the story of the Lion King instead of confusing dad jokes? Also will Pinocchio’s daring journey get updated to remove the tobacco reference and native American statue stereotypes, and the Asian doll stereotype in cage since this is supposed to be a family friendly theme park.