Disney California Adventure Park’s Grand Reopening: Buena Vista Street, Cars Land, Mad T Party, Pixar Parade, and more!

The Dis­ney Cal­i­for­nia Adven­ture Park cel­e­brated its Grand Reopen­ing on Fri­day, June 15th, cap­ping off a major 5 year long over­haul & expan­sion! We were there for the Grand Reopen­ing week­end and I think the changes they’ve made to the park are all for the better.

Now, you’ll enter Dis­ney Cal­i­for­nia Adven­ture park along Buena Vista Street, a place that trans­ports you back to an era when Walt Dis­ney arrived in Cal­i­for­nia with new dreams: 1920s Los Ange­les. Keep your eyes out for some fun period-inspired street char­ac­ters and enter­tain­ers such as “Five & Dime”.

You also might find your­self run­ning into some of your favorite Dis­ney characters–all dressed up in their 1920s Hol­ly­wood best! Even though we didn’t get pic­tures with all of them, we saw Mickey and Min­nie Mouse, Don­ald and Daisy Duck, Goofy, Pluto, and Chip & Dale! So, there are def­i­nitely some great char­ac­ter meet­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties around!One of the main attrac­tions on Buena Vista Street that you won’t want to miss is the Red Car Trol­ley, based on Los Ange­les’ his­toric Pacific Elec­tric Red Car Line.  Two Red Car Trol­ley cars oper­ate daily, trav­el­ing from Buena Vista Street through Hol­ly­wood Land and on to the Twi­light Zone™ Tower of Ter­ror, mak­ing sev­eral stops along the way.

I think the trol­leys them­selves are fun, adding a great bit of nos­tal­gia & detail to Buena Vista Street. But, there is a lot of extra fun to be had when the “Red Car News Boys” show up!  They roll into town on one of the Red Car Trol­leys singing “Cal­i­for­nia Here I Come!” and other fun songs inspired by the spirit and style of Disney’s Broad­way show, “Newsies.” Even Mickey Mouse joins the show, which the boys espe­cially loved!

I love “Newsies”, so when they broke into “Seize the Day”, I got goose­bumps! It was soooooooo good! A fab­u­lous show –def­i­nitely worth a street side stop to take it all in!

At the end of Buena Vista Street, you’ll come to the Carthay Cir­cle The­atre. It’s actu­ally mod­eled after the site of the 1937 world pre­miere of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. Neat, huh?!

The Carthay Cir­cle The­atre also includes a lounge and ele­gant restau­rant, which is designed to be the pre­mier din­ing loca­tion in Dis­ney Cal­i­for­nia Adven­ture. We were so busy that we didn’t get a chance to go in, but it def­i­nitely looks amaz­ing in pictures!

(Photo Credit: Dis­ney­land News)

If you con­tinue up the path from the Carthay Cir­cle The­atre, you’ll come straight to the expan­sion por­tion of the Dis­ney Cal­i­for­nia Adven­ture park over­haul & the part that’s got­ten the most atten­tion: CARS LAND!!! And, it’s got­ten a lot of atten­tion for good rea­son– it’s amaz­ingly fan­tas­tic!

In fact, it’s so fan­tas­tic, that it’s got­ten mul­ti­ple posts. So, for full details on Cars Land, you can read all the related posts here:

• Cars Land Red Car­pet Pre­miere & Grand Opening
• Cars Land Review Part 1 (Rides/Attractions)
• Cars Land Review Part 2 (Restau­rants, shops, +more)

In addi­tion to all the fun of Cars Land, the kids will LOVE the return of the Pixar Play Parade! At about 20-minutes long, it’s filled with all kinds of Dis­ney·Pixar fun! It’s jam-packed with char­ac­ters from some of your favorite Dis­ney·Pixar films (like Mon­sters, Inc., The Incred­i­bles, Find­ing Nemo, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story), fun floats, per­form­ers, music, and more! You may even get a lit­tle wet! The boys loved every minute of this!! They were so cute wav­ing to all the characters!

Fun, new enter­tain­ment con­tin­ues at night in Hol­ly­wood Land, with the debut of “Mad T Party”. Inspired by Tim Burton’s “Alice in Won­der­land”, you’ll enter the party through a whim­si­cal, fog-filled Rab­bit Hole gate­way. True to “Won­der­land” form, a night­time expe­ri­ence like no other awaits you on the other side — a rather “mad” club, com­plete with with live music, danc­ing, unique enter­tain­ment, tasty treats, and games.Food can be pur­chased from a themed food truck, along with alco­holic and non-alcoholic bev­er­ages at sev­eral loca­tions includ­ing the “Drink Me” Bar and House of Cards Bar. On the spe­cial pre­miere night, we loved the fun Alice in Won­der­land eats–like the “eat me” rice krispie treats and var­i­ous card inspired treats! Emily (from Fam­ily and Life in Las Vegas) and I had fun try­ing out the over­sized chairs in the “Drink Me” lounge area too! So fun!

While you’re enjoy­ing your food and/or drink of choice, there’s plenty of music & enter­tain­ment to take in as well! For starters, there’s the Mad T Party band on the main stage. But, when they’re not per­form­ing the fun still goes on with the White Rab­bit DJ! Down from the main stage, is the House of Cards, com­plete with drinks, games, more enter­tain­ment & spe­cialty acts. The “Mad T Party” will con­tinue nightly (start­ing at dusk) through the end of sum­mer. Then, the off-kilter, “mad” fes­tiv­i­ties will con­tinue on week­end nights (Fri­day, Sat­ur­day and Sun­day) through­out the year in Hol­ly­wood Land.

World of Color is the other must-see night­time enter­tain­ment at Dis­ney Cal­i­for­nia Adven­ture. This water spec­tac­u­lar show actu­ally debuted in 2010 (and we had the plea­sure of see­ing it on our Dis­ney­land trip last sum­mer).

But, they’ve made a few changes to the show to add to the excite­ment around the park! First off, Merida (from the new Disney-Pixar film, BRAVE) joined the show! Her fiery red hair seems a per­fect addi­tion! And, per­haps the most fun new thing with World of Color is the new Glow with the Show con­cept! There are now “Glow with the Show” Mickey Ear hats for sale. These are actu­ally inter­ac­tive hats (using the lat­est, infra-red trig­ger tech­nol­ogy) that change col­ors in sync with shows like World of Color and Mad T Party. For an added bit of fun, when not acti­vated by the shows, the mag­i­cal ears glow with other set­tings around Dis­ney Cal­i­for­nia Adven­ture Park.

(Photo Credit: Dis­ney­land News)

Whew! That’s a lot of fan­tas­tic stuff! It is def­i­nitely clear that a lot went into this 5-year long trans­for­ma­tion of Dis­ney Cal­i­for­nia Adven­ture Park…and the results are fabulous!

Which of the new attrac­tions look most fun to YOU?!

Dis­clo­sure: In order to expe­ri­ence the new Dis­ney Cal­i­for­nia Adven­ture Park attrac­tions & cover the events, I received com­pli­men­tary items as a media mem­ber. How­ever, I was not asked nor com­pen­sated to write this post.  My love of Dis­ney, excite­ment, and opin­ions are entirely my own!