Disneyland Reveals Rideshare, Bus, Parking Shuttle & Security Changes for Eastern Gateway Construction
Following last month’s groundbreaking ceremony, Disney has begun laying the groundwork for sweeping security, transportation, and rideshare changes ahead of Eastern Gateway construction kicking into high gear. Here’s your routine update on the current Disneyland Resort construction project about which we are most excited.
Late last month, Disneyland started on what it called “enabling work” in the Esplanade in preparation for the new arrival experience. With this, they filed 4 construction permits to demolish the ticket booths in the East Esplanade of Disneyland Resort. Construction walls went up around the ticket booths, and demolition began.
As of mid-September 2026, the ticket booths on the Disneyland side of the East Esplanade have now been completely demolished. Photos and video from the monorail reveal that they’re completely gone, with the next stage likely to be repaving work. Once that’s finished, the walls will presumably come down and the same process will play out with the ticket booths on the Disney California Adventure side of the East Esplanade. Now, we have our latest update from Disneyland on what’s next…
We previously reported on our assumption that removing these ticket booths was the next piece of the puzzle that involves moving the East Esplanade security checkpoint closer to the turnstiles, as well as relocating the rideshare and bus drop-offs to the far side of the resort. Disneyland has now confirmed this, mostly.
In a slew of new updates to their “Enhancements at the Disneyland Resort” page (which previously hadn’t been updated in a long time), Disney has provided a road map of what’s to come.
This also includes a couple of Coco-related updates, most notably that select seating areas in the Paradise Gardens dining area may be impacted, and restrooms may be intermittently unavailable (and likely expanded to accommodate increased demand). On the topic of toilets, the walkway between Avengers Campus and Cars Land has reopened, now with a new Take-a Brake restroom facility.
Here are some key points to help you plan ahead for upcoming changes near the theme park main entrances:
- Disability Accessibility Services (DAS) Update: Accessibility Services are now available at Ticket Booth 6 in the Esplanade, the open area between Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Park.
- Construction in the Esplanade: Construction is taking place in the eastern portion of the Esplanade, which may temporarily impact how Guests move through the theme park entrance area.
- Starting in Fall 2026, ticket booths in the East Esplanade will be removed. (As noted above, this one is already a work in progress.)
- The East Esplanade Security screening area will temporarily shift into that location in Fall 2026.
- Construction walls may result in temporary walkway adjustments to and from the theme park main entrances.
Along with this, there are transportation changes that concern shuttle and rideshare locations:
- Downtown Disney District rideshare area was refreshed and selected transportation pick-up and drop-off locations were relocated nearby.
- Toy Story Lot shuttle drop-off will remain in the East Esplanade area and will move slightly north and closer to Harbor Blvd.
Although unstated, this would seem to suggest that many of the third party buses that are not the Toy Story Parking Lot shuttle will be relocated to Downtown Disney. There are a bunch of public transportation options, along with hotel shuttles for Candy Cane Inn, Anaheim Majestic Garden, and other properties.
While it’s conceivable that some of these buses will share the new drop-off area with the Toy Story shuttle, it’s unlikely that all of them will. The space slightly to the north is much smaller than the current drop-off area. Something’s gotta give.
Separately, a permit Disneyland filed as confidential back in 2025 was revealed (hat tip to ThemeParkIQ on uncovering this). The permit details a new rideshare pick-up and drop-off area behind Disney California Adventure: “Gate 10/BOH – Area Development: Modify drive aisles, pedestrian pathway and install (12) new light poles at new rideshare location.”
This location is at the Harbor and Disney Way intersection (the crosswalk that’s pretty much exclusively used by Toy Story buses), right behind Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout and the Hyperion Theater. Rideshare moving here would mean it’s about an additional 2-3 minutes walk away from the Esplanade.
My original expectation was that all rideshare would move back to the Downtown Disney entrance, as that rideshare area was recently redone. Disney confirmed that this will not be happening, and that drop-off and pick-up would be maintained on both sides of the resort. (We’d add “for now” as a caveat to that.)
It’s also interesting that the Toy Story buses are moving slightly to the north, as opposed to slightly to the south. I would’ve expected those to shift into the current rideshare area, with work first starting on the north side. Both sides will almost certainly be touched over the course of the project, so this isn’t really a surprise.
It just means that the buses will move north first and then, presumably, shift south after work is completed on that side since work will also need to be completed on the north side (it’s also possible Disney does some construction on the north side before moving the Toy Story shuttles there in the first place). That also means (again, presumably) that the north side with the flyover with be the second and final phase of the project.
Although Disney hasn’t stated as much, the construction of the new arrival area on the Esplanade side of Harbor will happen in phases. That is necessarily the case, as the project needs to allow for guest ingress and egress through here. They can’t just wall-off the entirety of the East Esplanade to do the work. The new rideshare and bus drop-off locations on the east side would be pretty pointless if that were the case!
Disneyland has also released ‘refreshed’ concept art of the Eastern Gateway. Above is the new Fall 2026 art, below is what was released last summer.
The thing that should grab your eye is that the stylized, colorful lighting and trees on the old bridge are gone. (There are also far fewer people on the street, for reasons beyond me.) You might be inclined to view this as a negative, with the new bridge looking plain and drab.
However, it’s now a covered bridge. As someone who has done that long walk from Mickey & Friends and Pixar Pals many times, the brief bit of covered bridge is a welcome reprieve on the way back to the car. This strikes me as a material improvement from a guest experience perspective. The trees and colorful lighting would’ve made it look neat at night, but I’ll happily trade that for shade. This also opens the door for moving walkways, although I would bet against those.
With the latest and upcoming arrival experience updates out of the way, let’s turn to a recap on the latest Eastern Gateway developments…
Eastern Gateway Groundbreaking
On August 24, 2026, Disney broke ground on Eastern Gateway. Disneyland Resort President Jill Estorino gathered alongside Walt Disney Imagineering, including
“Today’s groundbreaking marks an exciting milestone for Disneyland Resort and the City of Anaheim,” said Disneyland Resort President Jill Estorino. “This new parking structure and transportation hub will transform how guests arrive, creating a more seamless experience from the start of their day, while improving traffic flow throughout the resort area. We’re proud to continue investing in Anaheim, supporting local jobs and working alongside valued community and construction partners to bring this vision to life.”
The new Eastern Gateway transportation hub at Disneyland Resort will be built on a portion of what’s currently the Manchester Cast Member parking lot. This new area will provide approximately 6,000 parking spaces, shuttle and rideshare areas, security screening and dedicated access for traffic off of Disney Way, improving parking and traffic flow throughout the resort area.
The new Eastern Gateway parking & transportation hub will also feature a pedestrian bridge over Harbor Boulevard, leading to an all-new Esplanade arrival. This pedestrian flyover will also provide convenient public access to and from Harbor Boulevard.
These enhanced parking, transit, and arrival offerings are the first step in Disneyland Resort’s next phase of construction, creating the infrastructure necessary to prepare for future growth and to welcome more guests as new experiences are added.
The pedestrian flyover and parking structure connector will be built over the former Carousel Inn parcel. This is between the Camelot Inn and Tropicana Inn, meaning our #1 hotel in Anaheim will get even closer to the Esplanade! Meanwhile, some of our favorite hotels behind Eastern Gateway, including the Element and Suncoast, should now benefit from an almost entirely “onsite” walk to the parks!
This means that the entrance to the Esplanade will shift about 75 feet to the north. It also means that the existing East Esplanade entrance will remain open during construction, albeit likely as a maze of construction walls and a phased closures and relocations along the way.
As a result of this shift, Eastern Gateway will free up a significant amount of space backstage behind the Hollywood Backlot in Disney California Adventure. While it might sound like a boring infrastructure project, Eastern Gateway is the first piece of the puzzle that’s actually quite critical to unlocking future development. It’s a necessary prerequisite to Pandora – World of Avatar, or whatever Disney chooses to build in the Hollywood Backlot.
There are a couple of significant changes as contrasted with the failed 2016 plans for Eastern Gateway (above and below). First, the USCIS building in the middle of the previous plans is now the aforementioned Team Disney Anaheim East building, which closed earlier this summer and will be demolished.
Second, there will still be street access to the Esplanade from Harbor Boulevard based on both Disney’s statement and the concept art. One of the big sticking points previously was that the new gateway would force guests staying on Harbor to backtrack to enter via the pedestrian connector. Our best guess is that there will be another security checkpoint at the canopy under the big ‘Disneyland’ marquee.
The Eastern Gateway Project has been part of Disneyland’s Master Plan since before Disney California Adventure. That was first adopted in 1993, back when the second gate was to be WESTCOT and PeopleMovers were planned to transport guests from the parking structures to the Esplanade.
You could easily draw a straight line between the cancellation of the 2016 Eastern Gateway project and the rise of DisneylandForward. That proposal wasn’t about any particular project, but rather, about paving the way for future developments by giving Disney more autonomy over land use by relaxing the Disneyland Resort Specific Plan No. 92-1 (“DRSP”).
It would not be an exaggeration to call the cancellation of Eastern Gateway (and a proposed luxury hotel where Lululemon and Din Tai Fung now stand) the origin story of DisneylandForward. That massive campaign was basically a glorified trojan horse for this parking structure–and not about Avatar or park expansion or Disney Springs on the Toy Story Lot.
There’s obviously more to DisneylandForward than the Eastern Gateway. Disney got a lot of things it wanted while giving up very little that it wasn’t already going to do, regardless. Still, I doubt DisneylandForward happens but for the cancellation of the Eastern Gateway. That was the impetus and this is the primary fruits of the zoning campaign for the next decade.
So the next time someone tells you that DisneylandForward is a plan to build [insert expensive wishful thinking land over by Pixar Place Hotel], you can tell them: actually, it was driven primarily by parking!
Ultimately, it’s exciting to see Eastern Gateway kicking into high gear, especially as someone who comes from south Orange County and detests the current arrival experience at both Toy Story and Mickey & Friends. There will certainly be growing pains and musical chairs for rideshare and bus drop-off over the next couple of years, but it should all be worth it in 2028 once Eastern Gateway finally opens and reinvents the arrival experience at Disneyland.
Whether viewing it as the realization of DisneylandForward or personally benefitting from an improved arrival experience or freeing up the space for future expansion of the Hollywood Backlot or all of the above, Eastern Gateway is a monumental infrastructure endeavor that “unlocks” a lot. There’s a reason why this project has been in the pipeline since 1993!
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Your Thoughts
Thoughts on the changes to rideshare, Toy Story shuttles, security, or anything else that’ll be necessitated by construction around the East Esplanade? Excited for Eastern Gateway? 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!
This may sound strange but I have some nostalgia for ticket booths (like the ones that were knocked down). It was only a little over a decade ago that I came back to DL for the first time as an adult, with my wife and 3- and 5-year-old kids. Well after dark, we checked into one of the hotels across Harbor Blvd. I remember getting the family settled and then, after dark walking over with my son to buy 2-day tickets — to avoid having to do this the morning of our first park day. And for whatever reason the ticket attendant said she’d give me the discounted CA resident rate, which was a big win.
Today that experience seems so quaint and old-fashioned (they probably sold tickets online then too, but I don’t think the process was as seamless — this was just before mobile ticketing/entry became a thing). But while one might say “isn’t it great that you can do everything on your phone now” it was actually really fun and exciting to have to run an errand to the Esplanade and get to feel the energy and excitement — “Can’t believe we get to coming back here for REAL tomorrow morning!”
Not that I’m against the Eastern Gateway project! But it’s interesting that even mundane, nondescript things and places can have meaning and sentimental value in the Disney universe.
This seems to be a similar overall design to Universal Florida’s parking, bus, ride share, security set-up. I hope they will look to put in moving walkways. The trek from either park in Florida back to the bus or car is extensive (in both # of steps and time). But since it wouldn’t be needed to park hop (as it is for Epic) there is that.
I’m equally (strangely?) excited about this project. I have not liked the East Esplanade arrival experience since it was first built (and dubbed the “Christmas Tree Lot” online). As a southern arrival person as well, I’m looking forward to the easier access.
One thing I’m curious about is the freeway transition and other surface street traffic to get to the new structure. I vaguely remember pre-DCA plans for this structure to also have a freeway bypass/exit, similar to what we see on the Mickey and Friends side. That doesn’t appear to be a part of the plan anymore (and less likely given the amount of hotels added to the area).
I thought it was strange at first, but after our last Eastern Gateway article, I’ve heard from countless other fans who also say this is their most-anticipated project. That’s really quite the indictment of the current arrival experience and, arguably, enthusiasm for Avengers Campus and doubt that Pandora will ever happen.
As for the freeway flyover, you’re right that it doesn’t appear to be part of the plan. I am curious as to what traffic flow ends up looking like, though, as that’s a lot of traffic on surface streets.