TouringPlans Travel Beat 3-9-2025

At Travel Beat we have all the “other” news from the last week or so—the stuff that wasn’t big enough to stop the presses for. What did the newsroom bring us this week? (Sneak peek: quite a few items that would have been headline news except they just dropped on Saturday!) Bullets are just ahead if you’re in a hurry, and more details follow below. Don’t forget to check out the Headline News Recap, in case there was something you missed!

• Season of the Force Food & Drink
• Updates on Dinoland Closing Timeline
• New Restaurant at Disneyland Paris
• Aulani Refurbishment at Menehune Bridge
• Flower & Garden Festival Begins
• Avengers Campus Updates at Disneyland Resort
• New Details for Cars Ride at Magic Kingdom
• Monsters Inc. Door Coaster Will Have a Vertical Lift
• Mando & Grogu’s Millennium Falcon Mission Details
• Fantastic Four Will Meet at Disneyland Park this Summer
• BDX Droids Coming to Galaxy’s Edge Everywhere!
• Headline News Recap

Can you guess which story inspired this week’s cover image? Leave your guesses in the comments!

Season of the Force Food & Drink

Season of the Force starts at Disneyland on March 28, and just in time we have the food & drink lineup. There are plenty of yummy Star Wars inspired treats throughout the park, from the Milk Stand’s Toydaria Swirl (Green milk with chile-lime seasoning and mango popping spheres) shown below to the Wookiee Whoopie Pie that will be offered at Disneyland After Dark: Star Wars Nite. You can read the full foodie guide, including sippers and popcorn buckets, here.

Updates on Dinoland Closing Timeline

Earlier this year, the first closings occurred as Dinoland U.S.A. began its reimagining into Tropical Americas. Construction has been proceeding, and you may wonder how long you have to enjoy the rest of Dinoland. This week, some clarity.

• DINOSAUR is closing in 2026, and will remain open through the remainder of 2025.
• The Boneyard: there’s still time to visit “throughout 2025”, which we take to mean a closing sometime in 2026.
• Restaurantosaurus: “you’ve still got time in 2025” – reads like it could be 2026 and Disney’s just trying not to use the exact same words. But it could be that Restaurantosaurus is closing later this year – if so, we’d guess toward the end of it.

New Restaurant at Disneyland Paris

At Walt Disney World you’ll find Victoria & Albert’s with a Michelin star, but if you’re heading to Paris you’ll have a different opportunity. For the first time, a Michelin-starred chef has put his stamp on the food; guests at La Forêt Secrète can dine on the Disney-inspired menus developed by Jean Imbert. The whole menu has hints of Disney, but perhaps the most overtly influenced dish on the menu can be recognized below: La Ratatouille de Rémy. As you might guess, advance booking is recommended.

Aulani Refurbishment at Menehune Bridge

If you’re heading to Aulani in late April and early May, you’ll want to be aware of some refurbishment work. The Menehune Bridge water play area will be unavailable from April 21 – May 16, 2025. You may see or hear construction work during the day, but not between the hours of dusk and 8 am.

Flower & Garden Festival Begins

The 30th EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival has begun! Look for updates to our Festival Guide with all the new stuff from this year’s event later this week. In the meantime, you can read what we thought about the dishes on this year’s Garden Graze, or just enjoy our picture of the new Moana topiary below. The Festival runs through June 2.

Avengers Campus Updates at Disneyland Resort

The South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas highlights creative arts and technology, and this year Disney brought an entire panel session to the event. In The Future of World Building at Disney, Disney Experiences Chairman Josh D’Amaro and Disney Entertainment Co-Chairman Alan Bergman hosted an extensive discussion about several upcoming projects that were previously announced last August at D23.

During one segment, President of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, and President and Chief Creative Officer for Walt Disney Imagineering Bruce Vaughn discussed the upcoming attractions for Avengers Campus at Disneyland. Do all those titles and names sound a bit technical and stuffy? Never fear, Robert Downey Jr. made a surprise appearance to let the audience in on what’s in store at Stark Flight Lab.

On the attraction, the ride vehicles will be “gyro-kinetic pods” that roll along a track before stopping in front of a robot arm. The arm will “hoist you into the air where you’ll make several high-speed maneuvers inspired by Iron Man and some other Avengers.” Imagineers explained that the technical aspects of transferring from the track to arm and back again are pretty novel, and you can check out a sizzle reel of ride testing that Disney put up on Instagram.

New Details for Cars Ride at Magic Kingdom

Also at SXSW, Disney Imagineers talked about the process of developing the ride vehicles for the new Cars road rally attraction being built at Magic Kingdom.

The vehicles will be a custom build, and to prep the Imagineers followed a trip off-roading in the Arizona desert with a custom-created dirt track. Data from a sensor-equipped car is collected using that track to help the team understand how ride vehicles should respond to different terrains on the ride. And Disney also shared some early concept art of what the vehicles might look like, below.

Monsters Inc. Door Coaster Will Have a Vertical Lift

If you search vertical lift roller coaster, you’ll get some hits. But none of them are a vertical lift like the one that’s coming for the Monsters Inc. Door Coaster. Disney’s announcements at SXSW included a couple of technical details for the coaster, which still doesn’t have a name. First, it will be the first-ever suspended coaster at a Disney Park, with the cars hanging below the track instead of riding on it. The other news is a piece of Disney innovation. All those hits you’ll find for vertical lift roller coaster are using shorthand to refer to a vertical lift hill, where the cars move at a 90 degree angle to the ground. The Door Coaster vertical lift is different – your entire car will be lifted vertically into the air as part of ride loading, as shown in the concept art below.

Not seeing it from the picture? Check out Disney’s Instagram Reel that shows it in motion.

Mando & Grogu’s Millennium Falcon Mission Details

We know that there’s an upcoming Mandalorian movie, and Disney has previously announced that there will be a new Mandalorian-themed mission coming to Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run. As part of the SXSW announcements, Disney revealed that this new Millennium Falcon mission will be tied in to the movie. Per Jon Favreau: “This isn’t going to retell what happens in the movie – it’s more like participating in something that’s happening just off-camera from what you see in the film.”

But it’s going to look very much like the film because Imagineers have been capturing scenes for the attraction on the set of the movie. Other classic locations such as Cloud City are also being teased for the ride. Both the movie and the new ride content will be released on May 22, 2026.

Fantastic Four Will Meet at Disneyland Park this Summer

The new Fantastic Four movie (“The Fantastic Four: First Steps”) hits theaters on July 25 this year, and guests at Disneyland Resort can look forward to an opportunity to meet Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben in the parks. The Fantastic Four will make appearances in Tomorrowland beginning this summer.

BDX Droids Coming to Galaxy’s Edge at Disney World!

It’s a win for Be Fair to Florida! Disney has been testing the BDX Droids at Disneyland for what seems like forever, including an extended appearance during all of 2024’s Season of the Force event. Now it’s official: they’re coming to Disney World, along with Disneyland Paris and Tokyo Disneyland. If you haven’t spent hours of your life watching them on social media then trust me: they’re the cutest thing ever and you’re gonna love ’em.

Details on timing are a bit skimpy – the official word from Disney was “soon,” which was later narrowed to “later in 2025.” And it appears it’s one set of droids making a world tour, so for now they won’t be a permanent part of the land. But the willingness to expand location shows increasing confidence on Disney’s part about the ability of the droids to withstand daily operations, so we hope to see additional droids and permanent installations in not-too-distant future.

Headline News Recap

Just a couple of headline articles this week for Disneyland’s upcoming 70th Anniversary. New details were released for its a small world, and some previously announced headlines got a few details. We updated our coverage: Disneyland’s 70th Anniversary in 2025 – What’s on Tap! Alongside the news was an offer announcement: these offers don’t become available until March 11 (and there are no details on the Room Offer until then), so we’ll be updating pronto on Tuesday. Disneyland 70th Anniversary Room and Ticket Offers

That’s it for this week’s Travel Beat. What news are you most excited about? Let us know in the comments!