In this edition of Theme Park Bits:

  • Space Mountain is losing its Star Wars theming.
  • Bid farewell to Disneyland Express.
  • Learn what it’s like to make candy canes at Disney World.
  • And more!

Star Wars - Hyperspace Mountain

Since May of 2019, Space Mountain over in Disneyland has been themed to a little franchise you might have heard of: Star Wars. Its Hyperspace Mountain theming, though, is finally being taken away. On January 7, 2020, the ride will close for a brief refurbishment, after which time it’ll be back to its normal design. In 2019, unlike in previous years, Space Mountain didn’t get a Halloween-focused overlay, which led some to wonder if it was always going to be Star Wars-themed. That’s clearly not the case.

Disneyland Express shuttle

If you’ve ever traveled to Walt Disney World by flight, you know that one of the most wonderful aspects of a trip to the Happiest Place on Earth is a free Disney-offered shuttle from the airport to your hotel, called Disney’s Magical Express. Disneyland has also offered such a shuttle, but this one is going the way of the dodo. Yes, starting January 7, the Disneyland Express is going away. Granted, this shuttle was never free, but for those flying into LAX or the John Wayne Airport in Orange County, it was a nice option to pursue. Now, though, you’ll just have to Uber your way into Anaheim.

Mobile Ordering

Whether you’re at Disneyland or Walt Disney World, one of the best ways to streamline your daily experience can be through the park’s official smartphone app. At both resorts, you can do mobile ordering for many counter-service restaurants. But if you want to maximize your time, you might want to pick your food and hightail it to the next ride. Good news, because you can now mobile order items to go. Check out this article to learn how you can use the app to tell Cast Members you’re boxing your items instead of sitting down to eat – you might get some valuable time back.

Disneyland candy canes

Even though Christmas is now behind us, you can still enjoy just a little bit of the holiday spirit if you’d like to learn about how the sausage is made. Or, rather, how the candy cane is pulled. Over at Delish, they recently interviewed Chris Thompson, one of the people working hard every December to hand-pull candy canes at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure. Chris has been working the candy-cane beat for 30 years, and has a lot of fun insight into what it’s like to work on such a physically taxing job.

For our last story today, we’ll spend it at Disneyland. There are thousands of Cast Members who work at the resort to make sure each guest’s day is magical, but that also means there are lots of jobs you might not think of when you think of working at a theme park. One such job? Diver. There are a number of attractions based in water, like the Jungle Cruise or the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, and it sometimes requires divers to fetch lost items, check systems, and more. With the video here, part of the One Day at Disney docuseries on Disney+, you can watch a little bit of the life of a Disneyland diver and think about what they’ll be doing the next time you drop something in the waters of the Jungle Cruise.

The post Theme Park Bits: Space Mountain Refurbishment, The End of Disneyland Express, and More appeared first on /Film.