Avengers Campus Opens at Disney California Adventure on June 4

After almost a yearlong delay due to Covid, Disney California Adventure’s new Avengers Campus theme park expansion has an official opening date. Guests will be able to visit the Marvel-themed land starting on June 4, not quite one year after its originally scheduled opening in July 2020. Due to California state guidelines, Disneyland Resort and its two theme parks will still be exclusively open to California residents when the land opens, so any Marvel or Disney fans not in the Golden State will have to wait a bit before visiting the Avengers’ western HQ. Think of it as a special treat for the home state crowd, at least until enough people get vaccinated.

When Avengers Campus officially opens, it’ll feature both new attractions and ones that predate the land itself. Guardians of the Galaxy — Mission Breakout, a conversion of The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror that stars Marvel’s cosmic heroes, and which opened in 2017, will be part of the new land. So will a brand new ride based on Spider-Man; Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure is an interactive ride where guests target an invasion of Spider-Bots, in the style of Toy Story Midway Mania or Buzz Lightyear’s Astor Blasters. It features appearances from Tom Holland, just as the cast of Guardians play major roles in Mission Breakout. Avengers Campus will also open with the interactive Doctor Strange show Ancient Sanctum, where the Sorcerer Supreme does a bit of mystical training in a storyline involving the Orb of Cagliostro. You’ll also be able to tour the Avengers Headquarters, and wave to various Marvel heroes throughout the land; whenever meet and greets return, you’ll be able to get a photo with ‘em, too. There’s also one restaurant opening alongside the land; the Pym Test Kitchen researches the possible culinary applications for Ant-Man’s Pym Particles, meaning you’ll be able to order food that’s either bigger or smaller than it would normally be. I’m hoping for spaghetti as thick as a garden hose.

That’s just the initial lineup of attractions at Avengers Campus. In an already announced second phase, a ride known as the Avengers Quinjet Experience will eventually open; indications are that this is the major E-ticket attraction for the land, alongside the already-open Mission Breakout.

Avengers Campus will be injecting a serious dose of Marvel into Disney California Adventure at Disneyland Resort, but it’s not the only Marvel project coming to Disney theme parks around the world. Walt Disney Studios Park at Disneyland Paris is getting its own Avengers Campus, with Web Slingers and a renovation of the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster themed to Iron Man. Hong Kong Disneyland, meanwhile, is already home to the Stark Expo, which features the Iron Man Experience—a ride that uses an advanced version of the motion simulator used in Star Tours—and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Nano Battle, which sounds a little similar to Web Slingers, only with two different insect-themed superheroes and “Hydra swarm-bots” instead of Spider-bots. Finally, despite significant limitations in what Marvel characters can be used at Disney World in Florida (a result of the deal a pre-Disney Marvel made with Universal back in the ‘90s), Epcot will be getting a high-tech new roller coaster starring the Guardians of the Galaxy. Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind is a “storytelling coaster” that uses a special ride system to balance the fast-paced thrills of a coaster with the storytelling found in Disney’s most ambitious rides.

Avengers Campus will be the first major addition to either of Disney’s theme parks in Anaheim since Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opened at Disneyland in 2019. Obviously anything new at a Disney park will be in very high demand, but given the reduced park capacity during Covid and how long the California parks have been closed, there’s a good chance it’ll be even harder than it normally would be to make it into Disney California Adventure on June 4. If you live in California and want to be among the first to visit Avengers Campus, you’ll need to snatch up a reservation for June 4 as soon as that system goes live next week.