Avengers Campus Marvel Land Opening Date!
Disney has shared new details & info about Avengers Campus, including an official opening date for the Marvel Land at Disney California Adventure! (Updated April 8, 2021.)
In terms of basics, Avengers Campus will debut at DCA with Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure, a family-friendly 3D attraction as the centerpiece. Also opening at the same time will be an Ant-Man and the Wasp-inspired counter service restaurant, gift shops, variety of meet & greets, and the high-flying Stuntronics Spider-Man.
Originally, the Avengers Campus was scheduled to open last July, but that obviously was not possible due to the still-ongoing closure. Construction on Avengers Campus was halted for a few months, which alone would’ve delayed the opening of the land had Disneyland actually reopened as planned. However, construction long ago resumed and Avengers Campus is now nearly finished and could be ready to open at any point…
Note that this only applies to the current phase of the multi-year expansion. The first phase was the conversion of the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror into Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission Breakout. The second phase is the “Spider-Man Stuff,” various meet & greets, and counter service restaurant.
In a few years, the third phase will be completed with the Avengers Headquarters attraction. This is the flagship attraction of the entire attraction, expected to be an E-Ticket thrill ride with a larger budget than everything else in Avengers Campus combined.
During Disneyland Resort’s closure, a Quinjet from the Avengers was installed atop the Avengers Headquarters, which is a facade that will become the future entrance to a brand-new E-Ticket attraction.
Even before the closure, we repeatedly questioned whether this ride would ever actually be built. There’s a ton of past precedent for Disney quietly cancelling later phases of projects that are teased when the first phase goes over budget or fails to meet expectations. And that’s without parks being closed and losing tons of money in the process.
This isn’t a Smugglers Run and Rise of the Resistance situation where one ride is debuting 6 months before the other. Construction has not even started on the actual Avengers attraction—just the facade. The E-Ticket was previously looking at an opening date in the ballpark of 2023.
Now, that’s probably 2024 or 2025? A lot can change between now and then. Our suspicion is that work will not begin in earnest on the Avengers Headquarters until Disneyland and Disney California Adventure reopen and are able to operate at full capacity, and guest response to the rest of Avengers Campus can be gauged.
Disney recently announced that both Disneyland and Disney California Adventure will reopen on April 30, 2021. The state has further indicated plans to fully reopen and ditch the tiered plan that restricts capacity on June 15, 2021–meaning that’s the date Disneyland Resort can reopen at 100% (unless they self-restrict, which Walt Disney World has done).
Following this, Disneyland announced that the Avengers Campus Marvel Land will debut on June 4, 2021!
This is actually somewhat surprising to us–we expected Disneyland to follow Walt Disney World’s lead and wait until October 1, 2021 (when Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure is opening).
Nevertheless, this is great news, and the timing is about perfect. Disney California Adventure will open the new Marvel Land after the initial rush of pent-up demand, but before tourists can visit and while capacity caps are still in place. That should give a couple weeks to smooth things out before vacationers show up in full force and the parks are operating at higher capacity levels.
For those who need a refresher, the centerpiece attraction of the upcoming phase of Marvel Avengers Campus is Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure. This is a family-friendly interactive game that’s essentially an iteration on Toy Story Midway Mania. The attraction begins with guests entering Worldwide Engineering Brigade (WEB), Tony Stark’s lab that has assembled innovators like Peter Parker to invent new technologies and equip everyday people to experience superpowers.
Guests are invited into a WEB open house in order to see the latest technologies being developed. Cue “…and some goes terribly wrong” as the Spider-Bots–the creepy-crawling robotic sidekicks–go off the rails. Guests then board the WEB Slinger Vehicle, putting on 3D glasses and slinging webs by flailing arms about.
Most significantly, this is truly a family-friendly attraction–Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure will not have a height restriction. This is pretty significant for Disney California Adventure, which needs more for kids to do. (This attraction replaces several rides aimed at children in the ‘a bug’s land’ area of DCA.)
If Toy Story Midway Mania is like a Nintendo Wii game (and it literally is one), then Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure is like a Microsoft Kinect game. The interactivity here will be controlled via body movements and gestures rather than an in-vehicle shooter mechanism, which is at least an interesting twist.
Also unlike Toy Story Midway Mania, which is overtly premised as a carnival game, Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure will have a narrative arc that accompanies the gameplay. The conceit here is that Spider-Bots are out of control, flooding across the Avengers Campus, and Spider-Man needs your help to get them under control before they wreak havoc.
Near Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure is the WEB Suppliers store. This is where Spider-Bots will be sold, which are interactive companions that sound like what you’d find at Droid Depot in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Each Spider-Bot has a remote control, and all eight articulated legs move forward and backward. Spider-Bots can be customized with tactical upgrades with bling or something inspired by Iron Man, Black Panther, Black Widow, Ant-Man, and the Wasp.
A second gift shop is the Campus Supply Pod. Here you’ll find official Avengers Campus gear, including performance fleece hoodies and tees, headwear, drinkware, and other Marvel stuff. Other merchandise includes Spider-Man light goggles, a take-home spider web kit, and (of course) Funko Pop! vinyl figurines of Spider-Man and Iron Man.
The main dining option in Avengers Campus is Pym Test Kitchen, which is premised as a food science lab. Pym Technologies uses science to grow and shrink foods. Some menu options will include Impossible plant-based large and micro meatballs with pasta, the Pym-ini, plus pretzels and more. Adjacent to that is the Pym Tasting Lab, which is the spot for craft beer or cocktail experiments.
Next, there’s the Shawarma Palace food cart, which is inspired by the Avengers favorite shawarma joint in New York. Finally, there will be another food cart, Terran Treats, with a weird menu of intergalactic eats near Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission Breakout.
Throughout Avengers Campus, there will be a variety of “heroic encounters” meet and greets. These will feature Iron Man, Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Doctor Strange, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther, the Dora Milaje, Thor, Loki, and more.
Ant-Man and the Wasp will be making their first appearances in Disney California Adventure, and Iron Man will be debuting his new armor in Avengers Campus: the Mark 80. Finally, the villainous Taskmaster, who will have a role in the upcoming Marvel film “Black Widow,” will debut in Avengers Campus.
The design of Avengers Campus is inspired by nearby universities and Southern California locales, like Caltech or NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. (JPL is really cool, but not for the exterior design…it’s an industrial park.)
In other words, instead of being immersed in an exotic environment or transported to another time and place, like the outer frontier of Space Morocco in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, Avengers Campus will plunk you somewhere familiar like your office in Fullerton or UCI’s student housing quad. Pretty exciting stuff!!!
Overall, we’re pleasantly surprised that the Avengers Campus is opening on June 4, 2021–before our predicted Fall 2021 debut. When it does open, it’s likely the parks will be close to capacity, and we really don’t predict a huge impact on crowds. For one thing, Avengers Campus is just one ride, and Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure is intended to be more of a supporting attraction than the main draw.
For another thing, Disneyland cancelled all Annual Passes and suspended the AP program indefinitely. So that demographic is totally gone for the foreseeable future, and pent-up demand among locals will likely be exhausted by the time June 2021 rolls around (smart move on Disney’s part to create a second wave of attendance!). Then again, we predicted total chaos for the debut of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge last summer and ended up being very wrong about that. Perhaps we’ll be wrong once again and it’ll be bonkers when it debuts at DCA!
If you’re preparing for a Disneyland trip, check out our other planning posts, including how to save money on Disneyland tickets, our Disney packing tips, tips for booking a hotel (off-site or on-site), where to dine, and a number of other things, check out our comprehensive Disneyland Vacation Planning Guide!
Your Thoughts
When do you think Avengers Campus will open? Is October 1, 2021 a good prediction? Do you think this phase of the Marvel Land will debut sooner or later? Are you planning a visit to Disneyland Resort for the opening of Avengers Campus, or will you wait until later? Excited for this phase, or does it look underwhelming to you? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
Any news or even rumors on the Quinjet ride?
Just visited yesterday. Even with reduced capacity it was NUTS to even get into Avengers Campus! And Guardians of the Galaxy is now only accessible if you are in Avengers Campus so even though there is only 1 new ride, you still need to get in if you want to ride Guardians. Throughout the day it was about an hour wait just to get into Avengers Campus unless you had a boarding pass for Spider-man that was being called. The boarding passes for the virtual queue were gone right away but we used your same tips for getting boarding passes for Rise of the Resistance and scored group 40. We were able to get into Avengers Campus just before 11am. The ride was super cool and a lot of fun! Getting food was also crazy; 25 mins to get Schwarma, mobile order windows unavailable almost all day for Pym Kitchen and Tasting Lab… I only see all of this getting worse when the capacity goes up especially without the shows and parades to take away from the lines for Avengers and other rides.
I think it makes sense from a financial aspect to do these things in phases, as it gives some people multiple excuses to go to the park. Once the draw of Avengers Campus subsides, add a completely new experience to get the crowds back… â€â™‚ï¸
Hi just wanted to see if you happen to know if they are going to have a big opening day for Avengers Campus like have actors there or if it’s just going to be a normal opening? Seen people speculate that Tom Holland might be there for opening. Thanks
I think announcing the June 4 opening might also be an attempt to reduce demand right when the Parks reopen. No one will have an annual pass and thus will need to buy tickets. Some who planned to come as soon as they re-opened may decide to wait a few weeks instead until the Spidey stuff opens.
Probably update the bottom part of the article where it says “we don’t see Avengers campus opening before fall 2021” XD
Haha, good call!
Looks like I’ll be getting one ticket for May and one ticket for June instead of back-to-back days. Glad they announced this BEFORE they opened reservations. Lol can you imagine? It would be like if they started selling tickets to an event where you can’t ride any rides and then a week later they were like “Hey, if you had waited, you could’ve had a ticket to fully reopened parks instead.” Good thing they would never do that.
What are your thoughts on when Cosmic Rewind will open at DW? We are booked for January 2022. Have three boys who are all GOTG obsessed. As this will probably be a once in a childhood trip for them, I’m thinking we should wait until that is open. I’d be so sad to see them miss out of that attraction!
After watching the “D23 x Walt Disney Imagineering Magical Milestones — Disney California Adventure Park 20th Anniversary” virtual event last night, it certainly looks and sounds like this attraction and the Campus is essentially ready to go. But I certainly don’t question your estimated opening for the business reasons stated. With so much built up demand and limited capacity, why waste the draw of a new attraction until those supply/demand issues are reduced. Listening to the Imagineers during the virtual event it does sound like one benefit from the delay is they’ve been able to incorporate a ton of Marvel easter eggs throughout the project thanks to their “extra” time. They indicated it may take Marvel fans “years” to find them all – though they are probably discounting the collective power of this fanbase. They also showed brief new (I believe) footage of the flying Stuntronic Spider Man – which I think has the potential to have a bigger wow factor, especially on social media, than the attraction.
Maybe it’s because it sounds far more interesting to me than the Spider-Man ride, but I’m optimistic the Avengers attraction will actually be built. I imagine they’ve already spent a fair amount on R&D, and it would be a huge draw to get tourists to book a trip to Disneyland since it wouldn’t exist anywhere in the world. So I’m hopefully it will truly just be delayed and not scrapped.
Do you think it would be a mistake to open a fifth gate – Marvel World in Orlando? If so which of the BIG Four are best suited to an add on? My guess is landwise,AK would be but taking into consideration night time noise for the animals, a big NO. Does HS have available space around it? It feels wrong to add it to MK, at least to me. Do you have any idea what WDW plans are for something similar in FL?
They can’t do a Marvel world or land in Florida, as Universal has the rights to almost all Marvel characters east of the Mississippi except for Guardians of the Galaxy.
Thanks Scott,
Did not know that. When do those rights run out?
Tom, thank you for all of your amazing information and experienced insight! Your articles keep me going between Disney visits. We have two trips planned, March 2022 to WDW and hopefully, Disneyland this December.
I’m curious, do you have any Disneyland trips in the works?
You’re welcome!
Nothing official yet for travel, but we have refundable hotel reservations and tentative plans for mid-May 2021. We’re operating under the assumption that we’ll be fully vaccinated by then, and resuming a full travel schedule for the remainder of 2021.
Ugh; these new ride names are so CLUNKY!
No kidding. What ever happened to two word names or ones without any punctuation?
I’m still trying to learn the correct names of the Little Mermaid dark rides (not really–I’ve given up). On the plus side, at least I know Smugglers Run is not possessive, and there’s no “l” in Oga’s Cantina! 😉
Go figure, it’s opening on the last day of our anniversary trip. We might just stick to the Disneyland side all day that day, unless it really does look manageable.
Maybe it’ll pull people away from ROTR! (No, I don’t really think this.)
I also feel like they need to make SOME kind of “microbrew” joke in the Tasting Lab. If they don’t, what are they even doing over there?
“Maybe it’ll pull people away from ROTR! (No, I don’t really think this.)”
On opening day and that date only? I think there’s actually a decent chance of that happening.
Possibly, unless people just scan into DL, and then line up at DCA for Avengers Campus and try for the boarding passes from there. However, the fact that it seems like DCA gets the EMH on Fridays might be enough to offset that.
I’ll be interested to see how that pans out.
Do you happen to know if the pathway from Hollywood Land (by Guardians) to Cars Land (by the Cozy Cone) will reopen? Any word on whether that will open on July 18th or maybe even earlier? My only complaint about DCA lately is the fact that it’s a long and crowded walk from the two neighboring lands (especially during the Food & Wine Festival).
It should be able to reopen, but I’m not entirely sure. The Avengers E-Ticket will eventually be in that general vicinity, but its construction shouldn’t force the path to stay closed.
Interesting that even after Galaxy’s Edge they are still planning on opening this land in phases with the more ambitious attraction debuting second. That said, it’s not exactly apples to apples as Rise of the Resistance was being worked on with the rest of Galaxy’s Edge and it sounds like they haven’t really started construction on the big Avengers/Wakanda attraction yet.
Yeah, I think that’s the difference. If the Avengers ride were only a few months away, they’d probably wait. But it’s easily a few years away.
Which means we’re a few years away from this area being any kind of draw for me, and I like all the Marvel characters lol.
Hey Tom, thanks for this update. Assuming the park is open and things calm down with CoronaVirus, my wife and I were planning on going to Disneyland and DCA on July 17th for DL’s 65th anniversary.
We are staying that one night of the 17th at Park Vue Inn and I was going to treat her to the Princess Brunch at the Grand Californian for her B-Day on that Sunday morning the 18th (and possibly squeeze in a visit to one of the parks for a few hours in the AM) after our breakfast.
While I know it’s going to be a subjective personal call, would you recommend trying to rope drop DCA that morning to check out the campus for a couple of hours? I’m a huge Spidey fan and was hoping the ride and campus would be open on the 17th to experience, however now it looks like we would have to go on the morning of the 18th.
We try to do a trip to DL every 2 – 3 years (last was 2017) and wondering if maybe it’s just better to wait awhile longer until the entire campus opens.
Thanks again for an amazing blog!
I’m probably the wrong person to ask, as my enthusiasm level for this ride and first phase of the expansion is about zero. If you’re prepared for the chaos of an opening morning at DLR and willing to get up early, give it a shot. There’s a reasonable chance the park and attraction will quietly open before DCA’s official opening time, so maybe you’ll wait 60 minutes if you arrive really early? If you get there around official park opening time, the wait time will likely be over 2 hours.
Personally, I’d do the nice breakfast followed by a leisurely morning at Disneyland.
Thank you for the prompt reply and thoughts! The breakfast and stroll through DL Main Street was what I was originally planning on. (Our full day is the 17th) I was hoping to potentially book with one of the resorts so we could get that EMH at DL on Saturday morning (the 18th) and stroll Main Street before breakfast, but I’m guessing that may be chaotic still due to the Rise of the Resistance boarding process still being in place. Maybe breakfast first would be better.
Thank you so much again for your truly epic blog and useful tips!