Disneyland’s Next Likely Big Construction Transformation & What Closures it Could Cause

There is a lot of construction getting ready to ramp up at the Disneyland Resort. We have finally recovered from the pandemic-era slowdown of project planning and construction is just about to pick up across the resort. Many new Disneyland rides are coming, specifically as part of big changes to Disney California Adventure that will close some rides.

Downtown Disney is also getting tons of new shops and dining that will be coming online in the coming months and years. A big swath of these Downtown Disney changes have now opened. Maybe we'll even soon see progress on Porto's at Disneyland which was first announced back in August 2022.

The most relevant of these recent projects to the big project we're sharing today is the recent Haunted Mansion changes that took place in Disneyland Park. Those changes appear to have just been the first phase of a bigger plan to improve the flow of the entire New Orleans Square area.

Disneyland's Next Big Construction Improvement

Ahead of the opening of Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge in 2019, Disneyland made lots of efforts to improve crowd flow in Disneyland Park via all sorts of small improvements meant to allow for more people to easily flow back to the new Star Wars section of the park. Disneyland remains locked to the original 1955 walkway widths and pathways. We're blessed with these because they make the park far more charming than anything built since, save perhaps Disneyland Paris, but they can be a curse on crowded park days. Many improvements in recent years have reduced this strain across plenty of existing park bottlenecks.

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The motivation for the recent Haunted Mansion improvements was partially due to the fact that the queue line for the Haunted Mansion would frequently spill out into the walkway and eventually be roped off into the New Orleans Square garden area. The changes made there pushed the queue walls out into the garden in an attempt to minimize the lines spilling out. They also moved the Lightning Lane scanners into the queue area to prevent that line from spilling out into the walkway. Both of these were largely a success.

As part of the expansion they also created the new Haunted Mansion gift shop at the exit of the attraction. I've already passed my judgment on the eyesore nature of the exterior of the new store in our other coverage so I won't repeat that. However, the key part of this is that they created a store here at all. There was already an existing cart here and another store that sold Haunted Mansion merchandise closer to the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction. I don't think they just added more merchandise room just to add it.

That let's us transition to the idea/rumor/news that I am sharing today. We now anticipate that the Pirates of the Caribbean line area will be the next place to undergo a large-scale transformation as part of further efforts to improve crowd flow in the parks.

The Pirates line today spills out into the walkway on even moderately crowded Disneyland days and overtakes the entire walking area with roped off zig-zagging lanes across the walkways into New Orleans Square. This line has long gotten more unruly with the “temporary” Lightning Lane that was added to the attraction almost a year ago for the period that Splash Mountain and Haunted Mansion were closed. I say “temporary” because it doesn't seem like this Lightning Lane is going anywhere.

Disneyland has added Lightning Lane Multi Pass to a few different rides at the resort that didn't offer FastPass. We believe they largely did this in order to increase the perceived value of the service. These additions create almost immediate return time availability for users of the service while pushing the standby line out far longer. It's a big issue on Pirates and on the Little Mermaid attraction in Disney California Adventure.

Regardless of if they keep the Lightning Lane Multi Pass on the ride or not, the lines here have continued to get out of control. Interestingly there's a history of needs for improvement on crowd control in this area. The exterior area of the ride today is completely different than it was when the ride first opened. The change happened when Disney Legend and Imagineer Tony Baxter brought a creative solution to the problem of crowds.

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Previously, there was no pit for the line like there is today. There was just flat ground leading up to the entrance of the ride and plenty of stanchions with chains zig zagging. One Cast Member described the crowd control situation. “It was a maze of stanchions, chain dividers, ropes and the like as the line eventually spilled into Adventureland alongside the JC”.

Then, when Baxter came to the problem he went beyond the requests to just remove landscaping and instead came up with the footbridge over an underpass. This is what exists today. He fought to preserve the charm of the area and in doing so allowed for even more greenery to be planted.

Where We'll These Big Disneyland Improvements

Now, even Baxter's flyover bridge isn't cutting it and it seems like Disney is poised to make these changes to the New Orleans Square area. Please note that this isn't a news report but instead something I expect to happen in the coming year based on a number of conversations and observations.

To create a new queue space they'll pull the line into the existing footprint of the restaurant and stores in New Orleans Square just off of the right part of the ride queue. As I understand it, they would get rid of the Royal Street Veranda Restaurant, Port Royal Curios and Curiosities, and Pieces of Eight. This would also impact the 21 Royal Courtyard though that luxury dinner experience uses the front stairs for access as seen in the photo at the top.

This would likely then become some version of a themed pirates queue that gives the existing queue space more capacity out of the walkway area. We would gain an opened-up walkway and lose some of the merchandise square footage here. That's why I referenced the new Haunted Mansion store being a telling sign. That new shop helps to maintain the same amount of retail space when/if they get rid of these storefronts.

The closure of the Royal Street Veranda Restaurant would be the biggest loss here but I would imagine that they could push some of those favorite food items out to Tiana's Palace or down to the Golden Horseshoe. Perhaps we could also see a version of this where only the Royal Street Veranda and the first closest shop are sacrificed and the courtyard and pirates shop remain untouched.

Here's a look at the current spaces today where you could see the queue added in. First, the Royal Street Veranda.

Next through those doors you can see how that would connect into the next shop space. Here's that Port Royal Curios and Curiosities space.

Next this connects into the 21 Royal courtyard space.

Finally, the Pirates-themed Pieces of Eight store.

Unlike the Haunted Mansion project, I don't anticipate that the Pirates of the Caribbean ride would actually have to have an extended closure during these improvements. During the Haunted Mansion construction, they added a new handicap elevator. No structural change like that is needed here. That may also be why we don't see these changes completed for awhile.

There have been a handful of placemaking projects in recent years including the changes to the Haunted Mansion, the creation of Tiana's Palace, and the creation of the new San Fransokyo area. These were all priorities of outgoing Disneyland President, Ken Potrock. Now that we have a new Disneyland President announced, it will be interesting to see if this potential Pirates project and others that were being planned will move forward. Now that we are so close to the Disneyland 70th anniversary, we could also not see them start this project until after that celebration is completed.

I am also quite curious what a themed version of the Pirates of the Caribbean queue would look like at Disneyland. I love the Magic Kingdom version at Walt Disney World but that has a completely different outside theming meant to look like a Spanish fort. Here we would likely just see more ornate New Orleans decorations. We'll see.

The key question that Disneyland will be asking when considering these changes is will guest satisfaction and associated in-park spending and intent to return increase if there are less people in the walkways in New Orleans Square. What do you think? Does the Pirates traffic bother you? Would you prefer to keep these shops and this dining spot? Also, what would you want to see this area themed as?

We'll be watching closely to see if Disneyland starts to make any moves in the direction of rolling out these changes to Pirates of the Caribbean.

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