Park hopping restriction are ending and California Adventure’s Monsters, Inc. ride is staying open until 2027! Two major announcements from Disneyland broke today as a few members of the media met with the resort president, Thomas Mazloun and other leadership. In full disclosure, we were not at this meeting but several outlets have reported on both pieces of information. In this post, we’ll share the news and add our commentary. We’ll start with the park hopping news!

All-Day Park Hopping

Disneyland Resort will be dropping the park hopping restriction hours. Previously, guests hadn’t been able to park hop between Disneyland and California Adventure until 11 AM. Now guests can do it at any time of the day. The change to 11 AM came about 3 years ago, shifting from a 1 PM park hopping time. At this time, details on how the all day park hopping will work are limited.

What we do know is that park reservations will remain. I’m sure that’s much to the chagrin of many Magic Key holders but it makes sense. Disneyland can get extremely busy and there are times when it feels like the parks genuinely don’t have anymore room. We felt this around the Christmas season and were both disappointed with the feeling and unsure of what could be done to remedy the situation.

Disney World has eased up on the reservation system but they don’t have the local base that Disneyland Resort does. Certain dates in the year would be suffocating without reservations, sadly. COVID accelerated reservations at Disneyland Resort but they were coming one way or another. I don’t see them ever totally going away at Disneyland Resort.

An all-day park hopper option might be as close as we get to the no reservations dream. I assume that the implementation will be similar to Walt Disney World’s where guests have to enter the gates at the park they reserved before hopping to the other one, at least until a certain time. That process remains to be seen and is just conjecture on my part.

Regardless of the details, this is overwhelmingly good news. The reward for buying a park hopper ticket (or Magic Key) is stronger now. This will make strategy easier for those who purchase Lightning Lane Multi Pass, as they will be able to rope drop in one park and reserve a ride in the other.

We’ll be sure to update when this change will take place. For now, it’s an unspecified date in 2026. I wouldn’t be surprised if this happens shortly after D’Amaro takes over as CEO on March 18th but, again, that’s conjecture. No matter when this takes place, it’s great news for guests going to Disneyland Resort.

Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue Not Closing Until 2027

In another bit of good news, Disneyland Resort announced that Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue will be staying open until 2027. Previously, it was announced that the ride would close in 2026 to make way for construction projects – most notably the Eastern Gateway and Avatar projects. Reports indicate that the construction projects are not delayed even though the DCA ride will stay open an extra year.

Even though I’m not the biggest fan of this Monsters, Inc. attraction, keeping it around for the duration of 2026 is good news. The park has multiple projects going on at the moment and can be a little tricky to navigate because of that. Having more to do inside of the park is certainly good news, especially in California Adventure where dark rides are in short supply.

As for the construction progress, there is plenty of space to work at before infringing on the Monsters, Inc. ride. I’m not sure I fully believe that the construction projects are on the same timeline as when they announced it but I don’t think it’s drastically delayed either. There are so many projects ongoing in DCA that they can afford to slow play this one a little bit. If that means keeping an existing ride open longer then all the better.

Here’s more conjecture from me (an alternate title to this post, by now), this is my guess on the upcoming project opening years for Disneyland Resort:

• Avengers Campus Expansion including new E-ticket attraction – 2027
• Coco Attraction – 2028
• Eastern Gateway Project – 2029
• Avatar Expansion – 2030

Obviously, the farther away we get from 2026 the harder it is to project what date things will open. The rate at which the Avengers Campus is progressing makes me hopeful for a 2027 opening, even if it’s in the back half of the year. Coco seems to be slotted for 2028. After that is anyone’s guess and who knows what projects might pop up in Disneyland. I think it’s fair to assume that the resort will want to open something major up every year. With the 75th anniversary hovering in 2030, that could be a big year of openings.

All that to say, it feels like California Adventure is treading water until 2027. If part of that treading is keeping a ride open for a little longer then that’s great, especially if it’s not delaying anything in the future.

It’s a day full of good news at Disneyland Resort. I expect more clarity on this and other projects throughout the year, specifically at D23 Expo in August. We remain hopeful that the CEO change will lead to several (relatively easy) guest satisfaction changes at Disneyland and Walt Disney World. Today’s news was a great start!

What do you think of this Disneyland Resort news? Let us know your thoughts, along with any questions you might have, in the comments below! Planning a trip to Disneyland? Check out our Trip Planning Guide to help you out. This site will have discount tickets to help you save a few bucks! If you enjoy what you are reading here on Wandering in Disney please share this post with your friends, as well as like our social media pages. You can also subscribe to the blog via WordPress or email. All of those links are on the right side of this page. Thank you for reading, we really appreciate it!