Adventure at the Avengers Campus in Anaheim!

I was able to make it to the newly opened Avenger’s Campus in California Adventure at the Disney Parks in Anaheim this past weekend. The Avenger’s Campus is situated where the Bug’s Land was at previously for years in California Adventure. You can enter from the main walkway through California Adventure or by the Guardians of the Galaxy Mission: Breakout (Tower of Terror) attraction. So the entire area isn’t that large, which does effect the amount of attractions that are available.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

In reality there is only one new ride within the new area of the Campus, the Web Slingers Spider-Man ride. There is a small merchandise store located right by Web Slingers where you can buy Spider-Man gadgets that you see from this new ride. The store itself is very small and only has a few items.

Next to the that, there is a Dr. Strange based attraction that is called the Ancient Sanctum, and it has decorations of symbols and shapes that we saw in the Dr. Strange movie and will probably see more of in the upcoming Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness movie. This area is basically a character meet and greet, but due to COVID protocols at Disneyland, you can’t actually meet the characters right now, you can only view them from a distance. We didn’t see Dr. Strange or any characters while we were at the Ancient Sanctum. We did see the Orb of Cagliostro which is the centerpiece of the small area, and the app says that the Orb is especially active at night. I’m guessing it lights up and does some interesting things with light, but were weren’t around for that.

Across from that is the eatery, Pym’s Test Kitchen, which has food of various sizes as it uses the shrinking and enlarging concepts from the Ant-Man movies. We didn’t eat there this time, but the foods look fun due to the different sizes presented.

Next the Ancient Sanctum and across from Pym’s Test Kitchen is the Avenger’s Headquarters, but it’s not a building you can go in to. While it’s a really cool looking building with a Quinjet parked on top, it’s just a backdrop for characters to come out and wave to the crowd (again, because of COVID protocols at Disney Parks). When we were there, we saw Loki come out and wave to the crowd.

After that, you exit the area to the Guardian’s of the Galaxy Mission: Breakout ride which was formerly the Tower of Terror ride and which has been available to ride for some time now.

The main attraction is the Web Slinger’s ride and it is a lot of fun and very high tech as it’s a 3D interactive ride. You start off with a presentation with Tom Holland’s Peter Parker about a new creation he’s come up with, called the Spider-Bot. The Spider-Bot is able to self replicate and of course while he’s giving the presentation, the Spider-Bots malfunction and end up going on a rampage destroying everything and it’s up to us, the riders, to stop them.

A call is made to Spider-Man and as Peter Parker exits to get help, Spider-Man appears to help us destroy the Spider-Bots.

After leaving the demonstration room, you head to the ride and get into these vehicles that swivel as they go along and will stop in front of a 3D screen to shoot the Spider-Bots. It’s similar to the Toy Story ride where you are shooting targets to rack up points. But in this ride you are shooting webs that destroy the Spider-Bots. The cool thing is that you use your own arms and hands to shoot webs at the Spider-Bots. You motion your hands and pretend you are shooting webs at the Spider-Bots on the screen and the webs appear on the screen in front of you! You have to aim at the Spider-Bots in order to hit them, so there is a technique to the web shooting.

All in all it’s a fun ride, a little short as there are only three screens to interact with, but still a good time.

OVERALL THOUGHTS:

While the ideas and presentation of the Avengers Campus are fun and great to see and interact with, there just isn’t very much to do there. The store is small and limited in Marvel Avengers merch and is mainly focused on the Spider-Man Web Slingers ride. While the Web Slingers ride is the focal point of the Campus, the ride itself is short, but still fun and worth going on. The other ride for the Campus is the Mission: Breakout ride, but that is nothing new and in my mind is still the Tower of Terror ride, and in some Park goers minds, a down grade from the Tower of Terror.

I find it interesting that the centerpiece of the Disney Avenger’s Campus is a ride featuring Spider-Man, one of the few Marvel characters not actually owned by Disney. Plus, there is also a Spider-Man ride at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida. It’s an odd choice for a Disney ride when they have so many characters to choose from. Plus, if you’re visiting the Avenger’s Campus - why isn’t there a ride featuring, oh I don’t know…..The Avengers?!

I’m glad that Disney Parks is upgrading and adding new attractions to the Parks, but it seems with an IP as big as the Avengers, that the Avengers Park attraction would be bigger, not only in overall park space but in the number of attractions as well. I’m curious to see how big the Avengers Campus in Disney World ends up being and if there ends up being more rides and attractions there in Florida.

Overall, it is worth going to the Avengers Campus and enjoying what they have built, and enjoying it for what it is.

*Sidenote: it appears that the events of this ride take place pre-Avengers: Infinity War and post-Captain America: Civil War. As Peter Parker has the ability to directly contact Tony Stark/Iron Man.