AntSol Travel

Vlog date January 8, 2024. It is the day after the holidays ended at the Disneyland Resort, and when kids should be back at school from winter break, giving an optimal time for Disneyland management to schedule refurbishments and, even permanent closure. To get to Disneyland, we are going to take the OC Bus to the parks.

If you are watching on YouTube, the background is the OC Bus ride to Disneyland. Instagram & TikTok won’t see it after the bus segment. The full bus ride will be posted on my YouTube/@antsoltransit channel when posted. 

As part of my destinations via transit commitment, we are going from the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center (ARTIC) via OC Bus 50 West to Disneyland Resort at the Katella & Disneyland Drive bus stop. The OC Bus is $2 per way or $4.50 for a day pass with the OC Bus app, or $2.50 at the fare box. You can also use the Anaheim Resort Transportation (ART) with their on-demand via their Away We Go app for $4 per way or a day pass for $6. Parking at the ARTIC is free. However, on event days at Honda Center, the main lot has parking fees of $20, otherwise, you can park at the lot next to the train platform. Taking the bus is much more economical than parking at Disneyland for $35, which I used the savings for lunch at Aunt Cass Cafe with a clam chowder bread bowl, and a really large chocolate chip Mickey head cookie & Starbucks coffee Frappuccino for snack time.

From the Katella/Disneyland Drive bus stop, we walk by the soon-to-be-fully open Pixar Place Hotel and Great Maple. The hotel’s full opening will be at the end of January, and Great Maple is already open. (The whole paragraph happens to paraphrase the latest MiceChat article. )Through security at Downtown Disney, Earl of Sandwich’s portable temporary location between Star Wars Outpost and ESPN Zone, will open soon. The current Earl’s location, the former La Brea Bakery location, will be demolished to be a Porto’s, a SoCal chain of Cuban sandwiches & pastries. Across the way at the former AMC Theater, they have the new stage & grass area. The surrounding buildings are still under construction for the new Earl of Sandwich, Din Tai Fung, Seoul Sister: Korean Rice Dishes, Sip & Sounder: a Los Angeles-based coffeehouse & coffee roaster, G.G.’s Chicken Shop, and an al fresco bar. Finally, the former Catal & UVA Bar renovations to Paseo & Centerico, managed by the Patina Group, are coming along as well.

However, announced by the Patina Group on January 10, an email was sent out that Tortilla Jo’s will close on March 31. The Taqueria will close on April 13. Replacements haven’t been announced. Below was the email sent out.

The new Disneyland Resort 2024 merchandise is available and I am not sure what to make of it. It’s like an 80s-ish vintage style of vacation mode? I am never a fan of the annual merchandise, but this is a huge pass for me. Please get more outdoor recreation/fitness style clothing like polar fleece jackets & moisture wicking t-shirts like North Face & Columbia, and prints that don’t make me feel like a total Disney adult dork wearing it, then I might consider buying the clothing merchandise.

At California Adventure, only a few attractions will go under refurbishment, and I used the guide refurbishment guide from the Undercover Tourist for attractions & dates. The Festival of Holidays just ended with plenty of work needed for the food carts, activities, and decorations will switch to Lunar New Year Celebration starting January 23 to February 18. In tandem with the refurbishment is the Paradise Grill from January 8 to 21. World of Color will go under refurbishment from January 8 to February 29, with the return of World of Color One, debuting last year.

Disney’s Imagination Campus tours for schools are now in session to learn about performing arts, leadership & innovation, science & technology, and the arts & humanities. According to the OC Register, to facilitate the tours, they will take over the Imagineering Blue Sky Cellar at California Adventure, and Star Wars Docking Bay in Tomorrowland. When I was at the parks, there was a school tour in secession.

Grizzly River Run will be refurbished from January 8 to mid-February since no one wants to get wet when the high temperature is only 62°F/16.7°C. The water is drained from the water flume to the San Fransokyo Square bays, as inspections can be done on the surface. The rapids of Grizzly River Rapids are formed by fins to agitate the water to simulate rapids, like how rocks do that in real river rapids. Now to Disneyland.

To note as well, January & February can get chilly & even near freezing, please make sure to wear in jacket layers. Highs would be in the low 60s with it being warm in the sun midday, and the lows would be in the high 30s with freeze warning and freeze watches like it was that night. This is what KTLA’s meteorologist, Henry DiCarlo calls “Cali Cold” since this is the coldest it gets for most of California.

Next stop, Disneyland & Main Street U.S.A. with the Main Street Cinema has six different cartoons projected there. You can watch the almost public domain of Mickey Mouse cartoons. Then there is Steam Boat Willie cartoon, which that specific version of Mickey & Minnie are now in the public domain, according to Fortune. Now you can freely rework this specific version of Mickey & Minnie to your work or even repost it to YouTube.

Plenty of changes are coming to New Orleans Square. Pirates of the Caribbean will be added to Lighting Lane on January 22. Blue Bayou will have a quick refurbishment from January 7 to 19.

Haunted Mansion Holiday will still be open until January 22. Then It will go under refurbishment to expand the outdoor queue area and add an indoor gift shop as the current one is an outdoor kiosk. The outdoor queue area has construction walls already built up and the line is shorted to the pet cemetery, loops back to the front of the veranda, weaved back, and back around. At the time, it took fourteen minutes. Haunted Mansion should reopen in the latter half of 2024, most likely to open in tandem with its neighbor, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. However, at that point, Haunted Mansion would probably be back in the holiday mode by then.

On the Rivers of America, the Mark Twain Riverboat will be back in service on February 3. Fantasmic is anticipated to return on May 24, just in time for the summer season. It was closed last year due to the maleficent dragon caught on fire.

At Frontierland, across the way from Westward Ho Trading Post pin store, there are designated pin trading tables with QR code for pin trading guidelines. This was due to the “pro” pin traders who would bring their whole collection and hog up benches to trade pins from their really large binders.

In Fantasyland, It’s a Small World will be closed from January 7 to 18 for holiday decoration removal. Then across the way at the Fantasyland Theater, Tale of the Lion King stage show closed and had their final curtain call on January 7. With the closure of Roger the Musical in August as well, there won’t be a major musical stage show for a while.  

In Tomorrowland, the only refurbishment currently happening is Astro Orbiter as some of the planets & stars were not fully rotating. It was disassembled last year and will probably be reassembled by February with no exact date of reopening. 

Thank you for coming along and watching! Time to take the OC Bus back to the ARTIC.