The first time that artist and filmmaker James Spooner heard Patti Smith’s song “Rock n Roll N—,” he cringed and reflected on the years of racism, microaggressions and abuse he dealt with as a young Black punk rocker in California’s high desert and later, New York.
According to Spooner’s new book, “It Starts With Anger,” this moment of reflection is a catalyst that prompts him to pursue a closer examination of the experiences and challenges Black people face in punk rock and alternative music scenes that are predominantly white.
“If there was such a thing as a ‘Rock n Roll N—’ Patti Smith wasn’t going to be the one to define it. Right then, I decided I was going to make a movie,” Spooner writes in his book.
In 2003, Spooner started working on a documentary called “Afro-Punk,” which took him across the country as he interviewed Black artists, musicians and fans to talk about their experiences in punk rock. “Afro-Punk” starts by calling out Smith’s controversial song before diving into what it means to be Black in a music scene intended to welcome outsiders, but which nonetheless alienates and projects harmful values toward people who are not white.
“I don’t think she’s a bad person, I think she’s a white person who was trying to be edgy and then just like doubled down her whole career,” Spooner told The Times. “I’m all for and have always been understanding of people who make mistakes, people should have an opportunity to correct themselves.”
The punk rock documentary is being rereleased this month after Spooner launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to remaster the film. The rerelease coincides with the publication of Spooner’s new book, “It Starts With Anger,” which covers the author’s personal history, the creation of the documentary, the larger Afropunk brand (it does not use a hyphen like the film), and the eventual demise of his brainchild at the hands of corporate ventures. “Afro-Punk” will premiere in Los Angeles and New York, with a special screening and book talk on Sunday at the Skirball Cultural Center with former S.O.A. and Black Flag vocalist Henry Rollins.
“Young people at the time needed it,” Spooner says about his documentary “Afropunk.” They needed that connection to see that there were other young Black punk rockers, they needed to hear from them and know that they had common experiences.”
(Lisa Nola )
“Before there was anything negative attached to it and before there was any corporate interest attached to it, people saw the movie and were like, ‘Oh, that’s my story, I guess I’m an Afropunk and didn’t even know it,’ and then they started calling themselves that,” Spooner said. “I helped define an experience for a group of people in the underground, I inadvertently helped to define an experience for a lot of people who feel othered and ostracized.”
Spooner, who upheld punk’s DIY ethos by shooting, producing, directing and editing the entire project himself, recently regained the rights to his film after a contentious years-long legal battle against his former business partner, Matthew Morgan, and Essence Ventures, the current owners of the Afropunk brand.
“The way that it all turned out in the end, it’s like, not everybody gets to see the long arc of justice in their lifetime, but to be so hurt and slighted and then watch karma do its thing is like, why waste time with being pissed off anymore? There are still things that I wished wouldn’t have happened, but I’m lucky in the end,” the Afropunk founder said.
After Spooner made his documentary, he realized how much the film resonated with Black punks who yearned for community and acceptance. Damon Locks, a visual artist and musician who was featured in the documentary and later worked as a publicist for the Afropunk festival, said he was “really impressed” with the film when it first came out, and that “James’ instincts were correct” when it came to the vision and execution.
“Young people at the time needed it, they needed that connection to see that there were other young Black punk rockers, they needed to hear from them and know that they had common experiences,” he said.
Eager to extend the reach of “Afro-Punk” beyond the documentary, Spooner began organizing a series of DIY underground punk shows known as “The Liberation Sessions,” with the goal of developing this concept into a major festival. He also decided to enter a business relationship with Morgan, who offered to manage Spooner’s creative affairs and help him take “Afro-Punk” to the next level.
According to Spooner, Morgan wanted to bring in corporate sponsors and feature music genres outside of punk to generate more interest and maximize profits. Spooner said he reluctantly compromised, yet after several years of working with Morgan, Spooner grew disillusioned with what Afropunk the festival became.
Maurice “Moe” Mitchell, vocalist for hardcore band Cipher and national director of the Working Families Party, was featured in the documentary and performed at several Afropunk shows and festivals. He said what happened with Afropunk is “a tale as old as time” and Morgan being outside of the movement led to “moneyed interests” altering what Spooner had created.
“At some point, those interests figure out how to co-opt, how to monetize, how to profit, how to take over this thing and it becomes a shell of itself, no longer owned or operated by the original originators, just a product or a marketing scheme for some company,” Mitchell said. “And that is rinse and repeat what happens to really good art and really good movements, and it’s what happened with Afropunk.”
By 2008, Spooner decided he wanted to walk away. He moved to Los Angeles and signed over the Afropunk rights and trademark to Morgan.
“My priority was to the kids … and I didn’t want for them to not have Afropunk just because I was over it, just because I moved on to the other side of the country, I could have just been like, ‘F— you, everything’s in my name, if you want it, sue me,’ I could have done that and I probably would have won because everything is in my name,” the punk filmmaker said. “I also was incredibly broke, I was not only broke when I moved to L.A., I was like $20,000 in debt on credit cards, so it was not like I was in a good place to continue this thing.”
As “Afro-Punk” returns to screens in Los Angeles and New York, Spooner leans into punk’s rebellious ethos, reclaiming his work and spotlighting Black liberation in loud, uncompromising ways.
(Lisa Nola )
In 2020, Spooner sued Morgan for failing to make contractual annual payments and failing to observe a clause in their 2010 agreement that mandated that if more than 50% of the company was sold, Spooner was entitled to a share of the profit. In 2020, Essence Ventures acquired the Afropunk LLC, but Spooner was not made aware of the sale. After a complicated legal battle against both Morgan and Essence Ventures, Spooner settled, successfully recovering the rights to the film in 2025, which he says was more important to him than financial compensation.
Representatives for Essence Ventures did not immediately return requests for comment.
“I didn’t start ‘Afro-Punk’ with money in mind, I wanted people to see my film,” Spooner said. “I wanted people to see my film, and then people saw the film, and then I wanted those people to stay in the room together and become friends, and all of that happened.”
Mitchell, who ended up becoming friends with Spooner after participating in the documentary, said he is “very happy” that Spooner “came out vindicated” in the legal struggle. The Cipher frontman believes “Afro-Punk” is an important documentary that shows “what it means to be a person of color in America,” and which makes visible the identity issues Black people experience beyond the punk rock community.
“That’s also the story of Black people when we lean into our liberation, right?” Mitchell said. “Like we are expressing ourselves in very loud and uncompromising ways that challenge the status quo and so I’m really happy that this film is coming out because this is a moment where we need as many people, as many Black people, to lean into who we are in loud and uncompromising ways, because we have a whole political structure that is demanding our compromise.”
As Spooner celebrates the release of his new book and the premiere of his remastered film — which he says still needs distribution — he hopes that he can continue shedding light on the Black experience and sharing the legacy of what he created as a young Black punk rocker.
“It’s wild to me that I made something when I was 25 that people still care about, and I hope that it keeps reaching another generation and proves itself to be valuable in some kind of way,” he said.
The Disney theme parks are entering their fan feedback era.
This past weekend’s all-things-Disney fan event at the Anaheim Convention Center was the first with Josh D’Amaro installed as CEO. And D’Amaro’s message to fans was clear: We’ve heard you, we know what you want and we’re working on it.
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That means Disneyland Park is at long last getting its Tomorrowland makeover, a top fan request for much of the last decade-plus. Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom is fixing its broken yeti, the star of thrilling roller coaster Expedition Everest that has been busted for about 20 years. Epcot’s fan favorite purple dragon Figment will soon be starring in a brand new attraction that resurrects his bearded creator, Dreamfinder, saving fans from suffering through its current half-hearted iteration in which “Monty Python’s” Eric Idle essentially treats the beloved character as a pest. (I ride it because I adore Figment, but I cringe throughout, and not just because at one point we’re annoyingly blasted with the smell of a skunk.)
And Disneyland Paris is yanking the marketing-driven “Star Wars” overlay Hyperspace Mountain from Space Mountain to return the coaster to its superior Jules Verne-inspired original. Disneyland officials take note: We don’t want Hyperspace Mountain here, either, but at least ours isn’t semi-permanent.
The long-broken yeti on Walt Disney World’s Expedition Everest will eventually be fixed. The above is an artist rendering of the attraction released by Disney Experiences.
(Disney)
It’s a sharp move, and may seem like a no-brainer, but following fan feedback doesn’t come without some risks. Fans, after all, rarely know best, often prioritizing nostalgia and lore over evolution. And Walt Disney Imagineering has remained one of the most respected corporate creative institutions for a reason. In short, fans, don’t let this go to your head.
But D’Amaro is also showing that he understands something not all Disney leaders have appeared to be well-versed in. And that’s the fact that the best IP of the Disney theme parks are the parks themselves.
Disneyland Park’s biggest selling point is not “Star Wars,” “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “The Princess and the Frog” or “Peter Pan.” It’s Disneyland itself, a temple dedicated to our narrative myths and communal play.
For too long Disney parks seemed to be, if not led, steered by its marketing teams. A franchise here, a franchise there. That thinking led to lesser designs such as a misguided remake of Paradise Pier into Pixar Pier at California Adventure, in which Pixar characters are basically treated as decals. It’s led me to argue in the past that Disney’s IP was squeezing the theme out of its theme parks.
Tomorrowland in its current state is a mess of ideas with a number of underutilized buildings.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Disneyland last attempted to revamp Tomorrowland in 1998, and while the concept was on point — a retro-futuristic, Verne-inspired look of sci-fi fantasy — the company didn’t fully commit to it and the land has largely been a mess of ideas since. Space Mountain remains a symbol of optimism dedicated to the joy and unpredictability of galactic exploration. But the rest of the land, save for the monorail, one of Disneyland’s most recognizable monuments, should be considered fair game.
Tomorrowland has become such an eyesore that even Disneyland President Jill Estorino recognized its negative press at a pre-D23 media event. “Painful to read,” she said to the assembled media as she rattled off stories observing the “little tomorrow in Tomorrowland” and describing the land as “tired.” Estorino conceded it was “all true.”
That made this past weekend’s announcement even more of a surprise. The reimagining, as Disneyland is calling it, is in good hands. Imagineer Emily “Emo” O’Brien, the creative producer overseeing the Disneyland Resort, recently worked on Fantasy Springs at Tokyo Disneyland, a highly acclaimed modern take on a Fantasyland-like area home to fresh takes on “Frozen,” “Tangled” and “Peter Pan.” O’Brien has been with Imagineering for about 30 years, and one of her first projects was hand-shaping the armrests of the approximately 2,000 seats of Disney California Adventure’s Hyperion Theater. The little details at a Disney park matter.
Promotional art for a reimagined Tomorrowland released by Disney. The project, according to Imagineers, is in its infancy.
(Disney)
“I grew up in my career with this legacy,” O’Brien said. “I understand the kind of gravitas and the responsibility that I have with our team to guide us through this journey of reimagining the only Tomorrowland that Walt [Disney] actually envisioned, designed and walked in.”
A remade Tomorrowland, to be clear, is years away. No questions were answered on Tomorrowland at D23, so fans will have to wait to hear what this means for the long out-of-work PeopleMover. And as previously reported, Estorino said the reworking of the original Disneyland area will come after California Adventure opens its “Avengers” and “Coco” attractions. The former two were given a 2028 date, while “Coco” still does not have an opening window. After Tomorrowland, the resort intends to tackle “Avatar.”
The fan favorite purple dragon known as Figment at Walt Disney World’s Epcot. The attraction Journey Into Imagination With Figment has been earmarked for renovations.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
At a Disney parks presentation Saturday evening, the Tomorrowland announcement received arguably the largest applause. But it was closely followed by the reveal of a reworking of what is currently known as Journey Into Imagination With Figment at Epcot. That ride has been a shadow of its former, glorious self since the late ’90s, even as the squeaky-voiced Figment has remained a popular mascot for the park. That’s no real surprise, but I, of course, am biased, as I have a Figment tattoo and the character was my childhood favorite.
Figment is a dreamer, his very existence the result of a dreamer. While I don’t necessarily trust the memory of my 10-year-old self, I remember Figment becoming an astronaut one moment and pretending to be a ship’s captain in the next. Visions of that ride are burned into my brain. Figment was a reminder to a video-game-obsessed kid that while you can’t do everything, you can at least envision anything.
And Imagineering appears to be doing just that at the moment. The projects, of course, will have to be conceptualized, designed and built, and there’s still time to make mistakes, such as attaching a known IP to the reimagined Imagination (don’t do it).
Concept art for the Maleficent attraction coming to Villains Land.
(Disney)
Tomorrowland has been flawed since the early 2000s and Disney can survive without touching it. Its attractions — Star Tours, Autopia, Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters — still, after all, draw crowds. The commitment to redesign it may be a crowd-pleasing one, but it’s also a reminder, a symbol of understanding.
If something’s broke, you correct it. You don’t let it sit in a derelict state simply because the financial math doesn’t justify new guest spending or increased crowds. The Disney parks are a home away from home for many a visitor, and they should be treated as such.
D’Amaro, of course, as CEO will be evaluated on much more than simply how he leads the parks. But he and and his partner Thomas Mazloum, the chairman of Disney Experiences, came to this D23 with one message: We’re one of you. Expect the Disney die-hards to hold them to it.
One more D23 thought
An Imagineering research and development project in which Grogu and the character of Hugo are represented as robotic figures serving guests.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
The Imagineering booth on the convention floor was full of delights and wonders, especially in its research and development section. I tend not to devote a ton of newsletter space to R&D, only because I’d rather focus on what guests can or will be seeing in the future, but the two “Star Wars” attractions shown not only deserve their props, but belong in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.
One is a no-brainer, and it’s a snack stand featuring Grogu and Hugo from “The Mandalorian and Grogu.” The latter, voiced by Martin Scorsese in the film, is largely asleep and snoring in the food truck-like stand, while Grogu uses the Force to whisk orders across the counter. Fan were transfixed. And this seems like the perfect mix of corporate and creative desires, as no doubt many a Disney guest would order an extra soda if it came with a show featuring “Baby Yoda.”
An Imagineering research and development project featuring robotic Anzellan mechanics that can interact with guests.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
The other was an Anzellan work bench. Anzellans are tiny creatures introduced in “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” known for their engineering skills, and here they were seen working on droid parts. But they also interact with guests.
Get close enough, and they’ll stop what they’re doing to quizzically look at you, ask you a question or maybe even repeat what you said to them. They’re as lifelike a robotic as Disney ever created, and the 14-acre Galaxy’s Edge is never not in need of more activity. Here’s hoping these little guys find a destination in the parks soon.
This week in SoCal theme parks
The vibrant, dance-focused “Magic Happens” parade will return to Disneyland in 2027.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Halloween is here! While the temperature may not feel like it, the fall Halloween season has arrived, and the Disneyland Resort’s Oogie Boogie Bash begins Tuesday evening. Additionally, the resort-wide Halloween Time launches Friday. There are still tickets available for many an Oogie date, and new this year is a Haunted Mansion-inspired street festival as well as the arrival of Yzma, the villain from “The Emperor’s New Groove.” Oogie is a good time, especially if you haven’t done it before.
Looking ahead to Disneyland in 2027. With the new Avengers Campus not opening until 2028, the Disneyland Resort in 2027 will rely heavily on entertainment to lure locals back to the park. That means the fantastic “Magic Happens” parade is returning before next summer season. While it has the requisite mix of Disney characters, it’s also notable for its use of contemporary dance. Also returning is the original “World of Color” to Disney California Adventure and a refreshed version of the fireworks show “Remember… Dreams Come True” at Disneyland Park. Both are expected in February, shortly after the holiday season concludes.
A blow to the in-park games of Disneyland. Reports surfaced Monday that the Walt Disney Co. was killing the Play Disney Parks app, which is home to the enjoyable Star Wars: Datapad game Batuu Bounty Hounters. The app was largely designed to give fans activities while they waited in lines, and was also meant to turn Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge into a live-in video game. The app will go offline Sept. 16, according to Disneyland officials.
A new window on Main Street. Former Disney CEO and future Los Angeles Lakers co-owner Bob Iger has received a window on Disneyland’s Main Street, U.S.A. The honor is reserved for those who have heavily impacted the Disney parks, and Iger certainly qualifies, as his many acquisitions — Marvel, Pixar, Lucasfilm — changed the tenor of Disneyland and beyond. Look for Iger’s window above the Emporium gift shop, where he is heralded as a “new century builder.”
Good news for Disneyland’s ‘Monsters, Inc.’ fans. With the announcement that Disney California Adventure’s “Avatar” experience won’t arrive until after Tomorrowland’s redo, the attraction Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue! will get to remain open a little longer. Previously, the attraction was supposed to close in early 2027, but Disneyland officials now say the dark ride will remain open for the foreseeable future. A closing window will be announced at a later date.
Tell us your stories. Ask us your questions.
Have a theme park tale to share? Whether it was a good day or less-than-perfect day, I would love to hear about it. Have a question? A tip? A fun photo from the parks to share? Email me at todd.martens@latimes.com. I may feature your note in an upcoming newsletter.
Ride on,
Todd Martens
P.S.
A still from the Smugglers Gambit game in Fortnite.
(Image from Disney)
The Disney theme parks this past weekend deepened its connection to “Fortnite” as part of a partnership with Epic Games. The latter’s Unreal Engine already fuels Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, as well as a new Pirates of the Caribbean audio-animatrionic. And now guests who utilize the Disneyland app and connect it to their Epic Games account can receive in-game rewards for experiencing the Millennium Falcon attraction, including the recovery of a unique crate on the ride.
I had a chance to play the “Fortnite” experience inspired by the ride, “Smugglers Gambit,” and appreciate the way park worlds are being used to fuel connection to them at home. “Fortnite,” admittedly, is not my game of choice, but “Smuggler’s Gambit” was more robust than I expected, and I’m happy see aspects of the fictional planet of Batuu represented in the digital space. Business writer Samantha Masunaga has more on Disney’s relationship with Epic Games.
On what should have been a fun-packed summer holiday turned into a ‘nightmare’ after a family of six were ‘abandoned on the streets’ and told ‘we have no rooms for you’
09:40, 18 Aug 2026Updated 14:56, 18 Aug 2026
Yasmin has visited Turkey on numerous occassions(Image: Handout)
A mum-of-four has been left ‘devastated’ after what was meant to be a cherished family holiday turned into a ‘nightmare’, after they felt “abandoned on the streets”.
Yasmin Kauser, who hails from Stratford-upon-Avon, had been looking forward to spending some quality time with her four children, aged 4, 12, 14 and 18, and her husband during their annual trip abroad in August. For the occasion, she booked a 10-night package holiday to Turkey through Loveholidays for £4,863, and was set to stay at a four-star hotel.
Following a lengthy journey from the UK, the family of six arrived at their pre-booked hotel in Alanya, Turkey, at around 2am. “We were knackered, we just wanted to go to bed, and the children were sleeping everywhere,” Yasmin exclusively told the Mirror.
But there was an unexpected issue with their hotel reservation. “We were told there were no rooms available for us.”
She outlined: “We remained at the hotel until around 5:30am, when, after I became increasingly frustrated and distressed, they eventually provided just one room for six people instead of the two rooms that had been booked.”
Yasmin says she repeatedly contacted Loveholidays, before the family was “given arrangements to move to a five-star resort”. The family made their way to the resort on the second day of their holiday, around half an hour’s drive away. “I hadn’t slept the night before, and I was exhausted. I’m only human, and I was breaking down because I was that tired, and the kids were very tired.”
‘There are no rooms’
However, when they turned up at the next resort, there was another issue. “At the resort, we waited for around an hour, only to be told that they had no rooms for us,” Yasmin alleged. “I said to them, ‘But we’ve got a reservation from Loveholidays, and they said, ‘There are no rooms’, so you’ve got to leave the hotel’.
She continued: “At around 3pm, I was left with my children on the road with our luggage and without access to suitable toilet facilities or accommodation. We were sitting outside the hotel; everybody was walking out, and we were like homeless people – we were abandoned.”
Yasmin was in touch with Loveholidays to explain the situation, and in an email, the company advised the family to “wait inside the hotel lobby for their safety and the safety of their children”, and said they were working on the issue as a “matter of urgency”.
The mum of four recalled: “I wasn’t panicking as it was around 3pm, the weather was nice, we had some water and snacks from the shop, so we just sat out there.” Although Yasmin added that it was around 40C, and when it got to 9pm, that’s when things became worrying.
“As it started to get dark, I started to panic, thinking, what are we going to do. We’ve got the children, and it was peak season.”
She claimed: “We remained without accommodation until around 11pm. My sister in the UK eventually contacted the emergency number on our behalf. After a further wait of around two hours, Loveholidays arranged emergency accommodation at a three-star hotel.”
Yasmin said that when her sister reached out to Loveholidays, they said they had emailed Yasmin earlier in the day, but the mum claims she never received it. She had told the firm that she was switching between a standard SIM and an eSIM, and the travel company said they tried to rectify the situation promptly.
Yet, they went to the third hotel in the hope of securing a room for their holiday.
“Not knowing what the hotel was like, but being so long on the street, I was just thinking we just need to get into some accommodation and have a roof over our heads”, Yasmin said. “We had to take another taxi to this hotel and eventually received two rooms at around 1am.”
‘Strong smell of urine and mould’
While they successfully obtained rooms, Yasmin was left disheartened. “One of the rooms was effectively a small box room with no windows and was in a condition that I found extremely distressing. There was a strong smell of urine and mould, and I struggled to breathe comfortably in the room,” she said.
Yasmin said she struggled to sleep “in the mess” and, early the next morning, got back in touch with Loveholidays about their accommodation. She claimed: “During the conversation, I was told that they had provided me with ‘shelter’. I was subsequently left in the emergency accommodation for the remainder of the holiday, despite repeatedly raising my concerns.” The family were later moved to another room during their stay at the hotel.
After hearing that Yasmin was dissatisfied with the alternative accommodation, Love Holidays offered her £1,015.99 in compensation for the inconvenience. In addition, they offered the family the option to relocate to an upgraded five-star hotel on an all-inclusive basis, but despite ongoing attempts to reach Yasmin on multiple platforms, they never received a response.
Yasmin said: “I don’t know if I was more tired before I left the UK or after the trip. I was in survival mode all the way through. We should have just stayed at home. This has been the worst experience in my life.”
A Loveholidays spokesperson told the Mirror: “We are very sorry that Ms Kauser’s experience fell below our usual high standards, and are investigating the issues she faced with the relevant hotel suppliers as a matter of urgency.“Our On Holiday Support team worked hard to put things right for Ms Kauser during her holiday, including an offer of cash compensation and a relocation to an upgraded five-star property. Despite several attempts to contact Ms Kauser, we did not receive a response to either of these offers or our subsequent communications and, as a result, we were unfortunately unable to put these solutions in place during her holiday.“We are contacting Ms Kauser to apologise for the stress and inconvenience caused and offer a full refund of her holiday.”
Do you have a travel story to share? Email webtravel@reachplc.com
The Malm Whale at the Gothenburg Natural History Museum is the only stuffed blue whale in the world, and it’s also once of Europe’s strangest tourist attractions
The whale is open to visitors on special occasions
Roughly 100 years ago, a young Swedish couple ruined it for the rest of us.
They were caught, trousers down, in the belly of the world’s only stuffed blue whale. Not quite the sex-positive Scandinavia it is today, the scandal led officials to snap its vast, gaping jaw shut, bringing an end to the days of ready access to the 16m long sea mammal.
“We must be content with the fact that it was two citizens of our own city that enjoyed this privilege,” the director of Gothenburg’s Natural History Museum said at the time, finding a silver lining in the moral outrage.
Although my efforts to track down the descendants of a couple that, I’d wager, are history’s only to have sex in a cetacean have so far failed, on a recent trip to Gothenburg, I fulfilled a long-held ambition to get inside a magnificent exhibit that remains the only real blue whale on display anywhere in the world.
“We only open it on special occasions, such as election days, because the Swedish word for vote (val) is the same for the word for whale (val),” explained Stefen Örgårdm the museum’s current director, as we walked up wooden steps into the whale’s mouth.
On special occasions such as Christmas, when Santa hands out presents from inside the tum, the top jaw is cranked open in an unnatural but convenient way, allowing tall Nordic visitors to enter without bumping their heads, then move on into the belly.
It’s more of a local village hall than Jonah in there, the organs having long been stripped and placed in barrels of ethanol kept in the museum’s cellar. Two wooden benches running beneath simple drapery have taken their place. We looked out through the baleen-trimmed jaws of the leviathan as Stefen told me of the coming autumn’s new exhibition on unloved city animals and why we should reappraise them.
Today, blue whales are among the most beloved of all animals. Mysterious, elegant and massive.
“The biggest animal that has ever lived on our planet: a blue whale. … It’s far bigger than even the biggest dinosaur. Its tongue weighs as much as an elephant. Its heart is the size of a car. And some of its blood vessels are so wide that you could swim down them,” Sir David Attenborough said in Blue Planet. They are the ultimate Guinness World Record animal.
Their population has bounced back from 5,000 to 25,000, after decades of commercial hunting brought it down from a pre-whaling 300,000 peak.
Back in October 1865, when fisherman brothers Olof and Carl Larsson discovered the whale helplessly beached just off the Swedish west coast, the animals were reviled.
Charitably, it was fear of this vast, mysterious beast that caused the Larssons to do what they did next. I will not repeat the details of the two days of barbarity here. Suffice it to say the whale was killed. And then transported by three steamships and two coal barges into Gothenburg, where the naturalist Augustus Malm purchased the body.
“I will stuff everything,” he declared, leaping onto the collapsing carcase to deliver a speech to the assembled masses. And so he did.
Dozens of butchers, plied with as much beer as needed to withstand the violent smell, hacked it into parts, scooped the organs out and removed the skeleton.
There is something about whales that sends people a little mad. In Nobel Prize winner László Krasznahorkai’s book The Melancholy of Resistance, the arrival of a huge whale on a circus truck sparks a riot. Famously, Ishmael is driven loopy by Moby Dick. And so with the Gothenburg whale.
After days of feverish work, Malm was forced to rest as nausea hit. Realising the whale’s owner had gone, a horde of locals rushed in and snatched blubbery souvenirs. Thankfully, enough remained for the whale to be reconstructed.
Its skin and baleen was cured with arsenic, mercuric chloride and a top coat of colourless copal varnish before being placed onto a wooden frame, 30,000 zinc and copper pins holding it in place. The structure was built in four separable sections, making it easier to transport the whale on trucks to its later resting place in the museum’s great hall. A magnificent photo shows the whale’s head being rolled through a hole in the outer wall.
The whale, still pungent all these years later, remains the museum’s prized exhibit, only competing for the title with a magnificent stuffed elephant.
When in Gothenburg, the museum is the must-visit. But there is much else in Sweden’s second city that is also worth exploring.
Head to Haga, Gothenburg’s oldest neighbourhood, and wander down the cobbled streets. They’re packed with excellent homeware, furniture, book and clothing shops, as well as Café Husaren, a cosy wood-paneled spot known for its massive hagabullar cinnamon buns. These seem to be the Swedish version of the stupidly big croissants everyone photographed for their Instagram last year.
The neighbourhood is now pedestrianised, having been saved from mass demolition in the 1980s and built up from a rough, rundown area into the lovely spot it is today.
From there, hop on a tram or bus and head for the city’s Art Museum. A long day wouldn’t quite be enough to get around all six of its floors, so if in a rush, I recommend the Nordic Fin-de-Siècle section to take in the stunning nature paintings of late 19th-century Swedes, before giving the collection of Carl Larssons their dues.
If not defeated by the earlier hagabullar, consider filling up on Sweden’s (much superior) answer to McDonald’s, Max Burger, or picking up one of the country’s famously weird pizzas and heading home.
Like many second cities, Gothenburg is famous for its friendliness. But also for its terrible weather. There is a good chance you’ll be rained on.
With a sliced banana, pineapple, curry powder and peanut pizza under my arm, I retreated from the deluge to my Airbnb on the outskirts of town. Like Stockholm, you’re never more than ten minutes from the natural world in Gothenburg, or more than 20 from a lake or pretty serious forest. Robert’s place in Ugglum was but a short ride from the centre, but could’ve been deep in the woods of remote Sweden, such was the green surroundings and calm of the place.
This was no corporate holiday let landlord spinning multiple properties, but a family home costing around £200 a night where kids’ paintings decorated the walls and a Barbie Dream House stood proudly in the bedroom.
Getting to Gothenburg from the UK is quick and is easy. Direct flights from the UK to Gothenburg-Landvetter Airport are operated by British Airways from London Heathrow, Ryanair from London Stansted, Manchester, and seasonally from Edinburgh, and Norwegian from London Gatwick. Return flights are regularly available for around £30.
Longtime Disneyland fans are finally getting one of their top theme park wishes. The aging Tomorrowland will soon undergo a large-scale overhaul, one that will include brand new attractions.
Walt Disney Imagineering, the arm of the company devoted to theme park experiences, announced the intent to reconceptualize the original Disneyland area at its all-things-Disney fan convention D23, which kicked off Friday in Anaheim. Many details — and questions — remain, and Imagineering stressed that the project is in its infancy, but it’s one the Disneyland faithful have clamored for.
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“We are going to reimagine Tomorrowland,” said newly installed Disneyland President Jill Estorino at a pre-D23 media event. “It is coming. We are finally committing to it and doing it.”
Tomorrowland has long vexed Disney designers. Park founder Walt Disney led a major overhaul before his death in 1966, and the land again went under scaffolding in the late ‘90s. The problem: Theme parks are built to last, and the future moves fast. As Disney himself once said, “Tomorrow is a heck of a thing to keep up with.”
Promotional art for a reimagined Tomorrowland released by Disney. The project, according to Imagineers, is in its infancy.
(Disney)
Today, Tomorrowland is home to a number of popular attractions — Space Mountain, Star Tours and Autopia among them — but is also littered with underutilized buildings and a dead PeopleMover track. The latter closed soon after Tomorrowland’s 1998 refresh as the Rocket Rods, one of the shortest-lived rides in Disneyland history.
The reimagined Tomorrowland, said Imagineer Emily “Emo” O’Brien, won’t ignore its history, noting the team has been researching Disney’s original thesis. “We were inspired by his vision of Tomorrowland being a vista into wondrous worlds, and we really garnered the sense of optimism that was at the core of everything he was thinking about.”
And yet the future Tomorrowland will have “new attractions for sure,” said O’Brien, as well as more open, breathable spaces for guests. “We really want to keep the heritage and the responsibility to honoring that legacy at the center, but we have to evolve it for our new generations,” O’Brien said.
Tomorrowland is home to popular attractions such as Autopia.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
The Disneyland Resort is on the verge of a major transformation over the next decade or so, of which Tomorrowland is just one project. Estorino said the reworking of the original Disneyland area will come after the completion of “Avengers” and “Coco” experiences currently under construction in Disney California Adventure, but before that park’s addition of an “Avatar” experience.
In fact, many of Disney’s North American theme parks are targeted for changes in the coming years. Here are some highlights of this year’s D23.
Rides announced for Walt Disney World’s Villains Land
Concept art for the Maleficent attraction coming to Villains Land.
(Disney)
Disney pulled back the curtain on its Villains Land — yes, that’s its official name — coming to Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. And Disney is going dark, creating a mysterious, cursed environment that Imagineer Caroline May says will take inspiration from the woodlands of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” There’s a backstory, involving a wishing well that was corrupted by a stranger’s evil desires that have caused poisoned magic to envelop the forest.
But let’s talk about the rides. There are two, and Disney is thinking big. The centerpiece attraction is a roller coaster that will include an encounter with Maleficent atop her mountaintop fortress. The second is a dark ride into the catacombs of the Evil Queen’s palace, where the Magic Mirror will conjure visions of many a Disney villain.
The villains, said May, a self-described “art school emo indie Goth girl,” are also stylish. So expect the non-forest parts of the land to feel a bit refined. “The villains have high standards,” May said. “They have impeccable taste.”
Orlando’s version of Cars Land gets its close-up
A model of Piston Peak, Walt Disney World’s answer to Cars Land, was revealed at D23.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
Walt Disney World’s answer to Anaheim’s Cars Land began with doubts from fans, largely because it was replacing the Magic Kingdom’s Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island, two historic park attractions. Here in SoCal, those spaces represent the soul of Disneyland, but the Magic Kingdom is a different beast and has sorely needed new attractions. What Imagineers showed at D23 should, if built to the level of detail revealed in a model, calm many nerves.
Piston Peak, as the land is to be called, looks fantastic. Imagineer Jason Grandt says the area was heavily inspired by Rocky Mountain National Park as well as the painterly vistas of plein air artists and the murals of Thomas Hart Benton. Realistic, but also vibrant, animated and colorful. It will feature transitions through lush forests, majestic red rocks and even snow capped mountains.
The showcase ride has been known. It’s a sort of high-speed run in an all-terrain vehicle around the landscape — over bridges, through tunnels and around colorful geysers. It will frame the entire land, also home to a small family attraction with dancing, spinning cars in a demolition derby setting.
Avengers Campus expansion opens at Disney California Adventure in 2028
Avengers Infinity Defense and Stark Flight Lab, the two new attractions coming to Disney California Adventure that will essentially double the size of Avengers Campus, will open in 2028, according to Imagineer Brent Strong. The new attractions will complete the land.
Infinity Defense is pitched as a centerpiece of the land, and will feature Marvel actors such as Robert Downey Jr., Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie and Chris Hemsworth. The ride is expected to rely heavily on 3D effects and high-definition screens, but Strong made clear that there will indeed be large-scale physical sets on the ride. It is a dark ride through the multiverse to take on a battle with King Thanos, and guests will be placed in the role of assembling the Avengers.
Stark Flight Lab was shown at D23 as sitting next to Infinity Defense. The ride is more of an amusement park-like thrill attraction, in which guests will sit in two-person pods and then attach to a mechanical arm that will lift them into the air and attempt to simulate sensations of flight.
A “Coco” boat ride for all
While Disney didn’t reveal a release window for the upcoming “Coco” boat ride at Disney California Adventure, Imagineers did note it would be a family attraction without a height requirement, which will be especially needed after the park closes its “Monsters, Inc.”-inspired ride next year to make way for “Avatar.” The ride will be set about one year after the original film.
The narrative of the attraction will center on Miguel and his great great grandfather, musician Héctor Rivera. Guests will enter a museum dedicated to Rivera and then explore the Land of the Dead via Miguel’s memories. Expect a vibrant, colorful attraction that Imagineers said will nod to classics such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion in its reliance on audio-animatronics and open-to-interpretation dioramas.
Tell us your stories. Ask us your questions.
Have a theme park tale to share? Whether it was a good day or less-than-perfect day, I would love to hear about it. Have a question? A tip? A fun photo from the parks to share? Email me at todd.martens@latimes.com. I may feature your note in an upcoming newsletter.
Ride on,
Todd Martens
P.S.
Mr. Todd’s Wild Ride comes out every Tuesday, but we occasionally publish special editions (like this one!) when we have breaking theme park news. Make sure you’ve signed up to be the first to know.
In his first address to the Disney faithful as chief executive, Josh D’Amaro pledged that Walt Disney Co. would create new stories and experiences at the D23 fan event Wednesday night in Anaheim.
D’Amaro was greeted like a rock star during the Burbank media giant’s film and TV presentation as the assembled crowd of more than 12,000 Disney super fans at the Honda Center gave him a rousing round of applause and cheers. He beamed at the audience, while clasping his hands together in front of him.
“I believe that in order to lead this company, you have to understand what it actually feels like to be a fan,” he said onstage. “And, I do. ”
D’Amaro is no stranger to the D23 stage; in his past role as parks chief, he would give updates on the latest news for the experiences division.
But now, as CEO, he said the company would deepen its connection with fans by continuing to develop fresh stories and new experiences.
“We are not here waiting for the future,” he said. “We’re building it … we’re actually building it right now.”
While Disney unveiled several upcoming original stories, including an animated supernatural flick from Pixar called “Ghost Market” set for release in spring 2028 and “Clay,” a Disney Animation film coming later that year about a mentor-mentee relationship, many of its projects are related to existing franchises.
The company unveiled details about Pixar’s “Coco 2” and “Incredibles 3,” both of which got huge applause from the audience, as well as a live-action “Lilo & Stitch 2.” Fans cheered for the return of the Jonas Brothers reprising their original Disney roles in “Camp Rock 3.” Even a teaser from “The Bluey Movie” elicited screams from the largely adult audience.
Earlier in the day, Disney executives revealed additional plans about its streaming strategy during a series of panels.
The company plans to lean more on creators with its new Verts vertical video feed on Disney+, a new feature designed to increase engagement. So far, it has grown in popularity among users, said Erin Teague, executive vice president of product management at Disney Entertainment and ESPN.
“What we’re seeing is as users are engaging with their vertical video experience, they are actually engaging in the overall product experience, double the amount of time,” she said onstage. “That means that we’re meeting users where we are.”
The company also plans to invest more in local international content to help grow the Disney+ service around the world. Disney has seen its local Korean shows perform well in Asia, as well as Brazil, executives said. And shows that do well in one country can often be remade in other regions.
Over the next three years, Disney plans to roughly triple the number of local original series on Disney+.
Disney California Adventure is on the verge of a transformation. The 25-year-old next-door neighbor to the Disneyland Resort will be doubling the size of its Avengers Campus in the coming months.
Farther down the road will be the arrival of an “Avatar”-inspired area in the current Hollywood Land corner of the park. Walt Disney Imagineering, the arm of the company dedicated to theme park experiences, revealed a detailed model an “Avatar” water ride destined for the park at its all-things-Disney convention D23.
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The miniature shows the ride snaking around the Disneyland Monorail, and reveals a landscape that will fully transform the look and tone of California Adventure. It’s green, it’s lush, it’s a little rustic and it looks as if a mini rainforest will be slotted into the park.
A model of the forthcoming “Avatar”-inspired area includes a monorail in a lush forest.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times )
The “Avatar” model is just one part of expansive booth dedicated to what’s currently in development at Disney’s global parks. The centerpiece of the D23 area is no doubt a model of Piston Peak, a “Cars”-inspired land coming to Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, which, in contrast to Anaheim’s Cars Land, takes on the feel of a woody town nestled next to a national park.
Elsewhere, Imagineering has revealed a look at the soon-to-be remodeled Avengers Campus, which is deep in development on two new attractions that will effectively double the size of the area. The two attractions will different drastically in style.
One is a previously announced ride featuring the Avengers in battle across the multiverse with King Thanos. At a media preview on Thursday, Disney didn’t show off much of the attraction, Avengers Infinity Defense, but expect a dark ride that will emphasize 3D screens in a battle across quickly changing locales.
A look at the expanded Avengers Campus Disney California Adventure shown at D23. Two additional rides are currently under construction.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times )
The other, Stark Flight Lab, is pitched as a testing of new Avengers technology. It’s an amusement-park-like thrill ride, in which guests will sit in two-person pods and then attach to a mechanical arm that will lift them into the air and attempt to simulate sensations of flight.
“It’s going to be definitely thrilling,” said Emily “Emo” O’Brien, an Imagineer who helps lead creative direction of the Disneyland Resort.
Timetables for the completed Avengers Campus and the “Avatar” expansion were not yet detailed, although the Marvel additions are widely seen as not far off. Disney is expected to reveal more info on both projects, as well as a “Coco”-inspired boat ride coming to the park, at a Saturday evening presentation.
Concept art of an “Avatar”-inspired attraction coming to Disney California Adventure.
(20th Century / Disneyland Resort)
The addition of “Avatar” is especially notable as it veers the park, one that began with a mission to reflect our Golden State, into further realms of fantasy. Cars Land, for instance, could be read, in part, as an exploration of Southern California car culture and an ode to Route 66.
An especially noteworthy aspect of the “Avatar” model was the appearance of the ride to be visible outside of its grand show building, as guests walking through the park will be able to glimpse its boats gliding past them. A model of the ride vehicles appears to show six rows that can accommodate five or six guests per row.
The boats are flanked by cascading waterfalls, and mountains that appear to curve in on themselves. An assortment of mystical critters dot the landscape. Speculation is the attraction will be utilize an updated version of the ride system found in Shanghai Disneyland’s rousing Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
“Over its 25 years it has significantly changed, especially at the time we brought in Cars Land and reimagined Buena Vista Street,” O’Brien said of California Adventure. “I think it’s a park that stands on its own now. It’s grown up.”
Tell us your stories. Ask us your questions.
Have a theme park tale to share? Whether it was a good day or less-than-perfect day, I would love to hear about it. Have a question? A tip? A fun photo from the parks to share? Email me at todd.martens@latimes.com. I may feature your note in an upcoming newsletter.
Ride on,
Todd Martens
P.S.
Mr. Todd’s Wild Ride comes out every Tuesday, but we occasionally publish special editions (like this one!) when we have breaking theme park news. Make sure you’ve signed up to be the first to know.
These quirky tours offer visitors the chance to explore everything from London’s historic pubs and its tasty food scene to the city’s street art, music, and medieval history
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The London Small Group Tour of Historical Pubs is one of the most popular options(Image: Viator)
As a city home to nearly 2,000 years of fascinating history alongside one of the most vibrant and diverse arts and culture scenes in the world, it’s little wonder that London attracts more than 20 million visitors every single year. And if you’re one of those people, it can be hard to know exactly where to start.
Littered with landmarks from Big Ben and Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London, most tourists come to the UK capital with a sightseeing checklist. But in visiting the most famous spots, it can be all too easy to miss out on some of London’s must-see hidden gems and the stories that accompany them.
This is why many opt for a walking tour during their trip, which can be a great way to see a city’s highlights while getting insider knowledge from an expert guide. London has many unusual and quirky options, from tours delving into different periods of the city’s history to walks exploring the capital’s art scene or its famous food and drink.
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One place to find walking tour inspiration is Viator, where there are more than 4,000 options listed for London alone. Our travel experts have scoured the most popular and highly rated walks to pick out seven tours that offer up the opportunity to explore a different side of the city beyond the landmarks that everyone knows.
From a tour exploring how the city inspired rock ‘n’ roll music to sites of ghostly tales and grizzly murders, here are some tour ideas with a twist available to book in London.
These quirky tours offer visitors the chance to explore everything from London’s historic pubs and its tasty food scene to the city’s street art, music, and medieval history.
London pub tour
The award-winning London Small Group Tour of Historical Pubs by Liquid History Tours is one of the most frequently booked tours of London offered on the Viator website, and takes participants to four traditional London pubs while learning insider stories. Walking via landmarks such as St Paul’s Cathedral, Fleet Street and Covent Garden, this tour offers a unique twist on delving into the history and culture of the city.
Priced from £29pp and earning a five-star rating from more than 98% of people, one participant of the Historical Pubs tour said in their review: “This was a great experience. Loved all the history Freddie provided during the tour. We enjoyed the entire tour and enjoyed conversation with others on the tour and with our guide, Freddie, while in the bars. We highly recommend this pub crawl and would do it again when we return to London.”
Another said: “Absolutely incredible tour! Mike was knowledgeable and hilarious! Had a great night out with co-workers and made a few new friends too. I’d recommend this to anyone travelling in London! Great brews and a great time!”
And a third praised: “Fabulous pub tour with Adam. Loved the pubs he chose, giving us the history of the pub and the surrounding area. His sense of humour was superb, making the whole evening so enjoyable!”
However, one person fed back: “The pubs were cool, but the information was shared on noisy streets where it was difficult to hear.”
And someone else commented: “Pubs were extremely busy as it was Saturday, so I’d recommend going on another day.” The tour operator responded, suggesting that those looking for a quieter time are advised to book between Sunday and Wednesday.
Beer lovers can also book The Bermondsey Beer Mile Tour (from £79pp), which stops off at six taprooms and has beer included at every stop. Or mix tipples with a bit of famous London history with the Jack the Ripper Tour with Historic Pub Stops (from £31pp), including a pub with ties to two of the serial killer’s victims and an inn near the site of a notorious murder.
London music tour
A must for music lovers, The Great British Rock and Roll Walking Tour by Experience Local Ltd is another quirky way to discover London, led by a local musician. With a route running through the likes of Soho and Mayfair, participants will learn about the London roots of some of the biggest names in rock ‘n’ roll, from Led Zeppelin to David Bowie.
Priced from £27pp, and another tour that has earned five-star reviews almost exclusively from its participants, one person praised the Rock and Roll walk: “This was the best tour of my week in London! Calum, our tour guide was great! Both entertaining and full of rock and roll information. Definitely would recommend!”
Another echoed: “Really enjoyed the tour with Danny. Learned a lot about what happened to rock and roll music in London and visited parts of the city we would not normally see.”
And a third said: “Our guide Tom was extremely informative and extremely friendly. We really felt we were transported back in rock and roll time!”
While someone else remarked: “A little Beatles heavy for my taste but really interesting.”
Those who can’t get enough of John, Paul, George and Ringo can check out a Beatles Walking Tour of Marylebone and Abbey Road via Brit Music Tours (from £17pp for adults), with the chance to recreate the iconic Abbey Road album front cover. And there’s plenty more pop culture secrets to uncover in London, including TV icons like James Bond and Doctor Who.
London medieval history tour
One of the most fascinating aspects of London is undoubtedly the rich history to be discovered on every street – and the Medieval History Walking Tour from The Tower of London delves into some of the city’s most ancient secrets. This guided walk stops at a selection of the city’s famed cathedrals, theatres, palaces and bridges to be transported back to centuries past.
With this tour priced from £18pp and also earning a five-star score, one impressed participant said: “The guide was fantastic! He had so much interesting information to share along the entire route including a folder with pictures of all the characters from this historical walking tour. Engaging, interesting and absolutely brilliant!”
A second reviewer agreed: “Our tour guide Mick was an absolute delight. The depth of his knowledge was impressive and it was very clear he was passionate about medieval history. He was very entertaining and I would highly recommend this tour.”
And a third echoed: “Mick was absolutely amazing! He was an expert on so many facets of medieval history! His enthusiasm and knowledge were engaging; I found myself hanging on his every word. His use of props and images was helpful in bringing the past to life!”
Meanwhile, someone else advised: “I recommend, if you’re doing this when it’s hot, to load up on water. It is no shortage of steps and strolls with little rest.”
There is, of course, plenty more history to be uncovered across London. Visitors can travel to the 20th century and get a taste of the city in wartime with a Winston Churchill and London in WWII Walking Tour from £29pp, or explore more of London’s hidden history with a Secret Old London Walking Tour from £20pp, which stops off at a medieval churchyard, one of the city’s principal execution sites, and a hidden memorial.
London food tour
The London food scene is world-renowned, bringing together dishes and flavours from all over the world, and the London Foodie Adventure Tour with Sherpa Food Tours offers the chance to sample plenty of the highlights. Travelling via Soho and Covent Garden, participants will follow a food-loving guide to taste more than 10 dishes and drinks at hidden gem spots, from bao buns to hard cider.
Priced from £83.26pp and impressing participants with a five-star rating based on more than 1,000 reviews, one person praised following their tour: “A wonderfully delicious way to spend an afternoon under the guidance and kindness of Sam. Each food stop was so thoughtful and a very nice variety of dishes to enjoy!”
Another echoed: “Great experience on this food tour. The food was fantastic and the tour guide, Ella, was amazing. Would highly recommend if you are in London and want to try great food in the Soho neighbourhood.”
And a third said: “Our guide was very personable and gave great recommendations of places to eat and drink when not on the tour. As for the tour, he took us to a great variety of places and gave us a lot of history along the way. The food and beverages were excellent. This was a great experience and highly recommended.”
A few reviewers were less impressed with the food, however, with one writing: “Our tour guide Luca was absolutely amazing, 10 stars to him. However, for the price – the food portions were small.”
For more foodie adventures across the city, another quirky option is a London Cheese Walking Tour with Tastings from £35pp, which includes sampling a range from London’s cheesemongers and seeing the cheesemonger where Winston Churchill bought his cheese. For sweet-tooths, meanwhile, there’s the London Chocolate Tour For Two, currently £35 instead of £100, visiting the city’s chocolate supplies and tucking into samples.
London ghost tour
Every old city has its fair share of ghostly tales, and Wicked Westminster: The Original London Ghost Walk by See Your City offers the chance to hear some of London’s most spine-chilling stories. This night time tour stops off at the city’s so-called most haunted house, and includes a cruise on the Thames to sail past landmarks full of macabre tales.
Priced from £20pp and earning an average rating of 4.6 out of five stars with more than 3,000 reviews on Viator, one Wicked Westminster participant said of the tour: “Our guide was very entertaining! I good storyteller is vital to a good ghost tour! The stories shared contained just the right amount of history, spookiness, and entertainment.”
A second praised: “Tom was a ton of fun and had great ghost stories! Along the way, you hit amazing sites with Easter eggs of history that are very off the beaten path.”
And a third agreed: “Tour was interesting, the tour guide did a great job. Went with two adult kids and one teenage son, they were all very engaged.”
But not everyone was as big a fan of the experience, with one person feeding back: “The idea of the haunted walk about Wicked Westminster was very exciting, but the tour lacked a bit. Jack was a good guide but a few more places or ghost stories would have improved the tour.”
There are plenty of ghost tours on offer across London – to put a twist on the tradition, one more unconventional option is the London Comedy Horror Ghost Tour on a Bus, usually from £28pp but currently from £14pp , which will see participants board the Ghost Bus where actors and technical trickery will add to the spooky sightseeing show. Another spine-tingling tour that combines history with magic is the London Witches & History Walking Tour, £37 for two people, delving into the city’s witches and the injustices that befell them.
The darker side of London tour
The Cloak and Dagger Tour in London promises to uncover “the darker side of London” with a guided tour of the South Bank at night, where participants will be treated to lesser-known stories of the city’s grisly past. Then, it’s time for steel nerves as the tour settles down at a 17th century pub in Southwark and watches a recreation of a true story of murder and revenge – told in the very room in which it happened.
Priced from £20pp and averaging a rating of 4.9 out of five stars, one review of the Cloak and Dagger tour of London reads: “As a history buff I thoroughly enjoyed this walking tour. Learned a few things on the way. A perfect combo of history and comedic jokes.”
Another participant praised: “This tour was FANTASTIC! The history is perfectly dark, and a great way to discover a different side of the city. We highly recommend this one. It will leave you talking about the tales well beyond your trip.”
And a third agreed: “Exceptional tour experience where you learn the gritty aspects of London history. Highly recommend for anyone curious about how bad things might have been for people in the early days of this city.”
However, one person complained that the tour felt “quite drawn out” and “a little too theatrical”, suggesting: “Better for a younger audience.”
Lovers of grisly tales have no shortage of adventures to have in London, with tours themed around everything from Serial Killers to Sweeney Todd. They can wander the streets of Whitechapel in the dark to hear the tales of the city’s most infamous murderer with the Jack the Ripper Night Walking Tour, from £16pp, or hear about London’s criminal underworld and the lives of the Kray twins through the Gangster London Walking Tour from £30pp.
London street art tour
London is renowned for its world-class museums and galleries – but for art lovers looking to discover a different side of the city’s creative heart, there’s The Original London Street Art Tour by Alternative London. With a local artist as a guide, this tour takes a journey through London’s ever-changing murals and street art, learning more about their meanings and the artists behind them along the way.
Priced from £20pp with an average rating of 4.9 out of five stars, one participant said of the Street Art Tour: “Learning about this London neighbourhood is fascinating, an important cultural experience, and alternative way to think about art.”
Another reviewer praised: “We really liked the tour; Eva was very knowledgeable about the art, the area and even nuances between the artists. Fully recommend for those who like street art or have an open mind to know more.”
And a third echoed: “I took this street art tour and it was absolutely fantastic. The guide was extremely knowledgeable, and I learned a lot about both the art itself and the culture and history of Brick Lane. Highly recommended.”
While most reviews to date are positive, one person commented: “It’s a long walk over uneven walkway. Older folks may want to think twice.”
To soak up more of London’s art scene, The National Gallery offers private tours led by experts including out-of-hours options, and the National Portrait Gallery also does free tours on a daily basis.
We’re two years removed from the passage of DisneylandForward by the Anaheim City Council, the ambitious multibillion-dollar plan to reimagine and expand the world’s most famous theme park, and questions are now swirling on what’s to come.
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Hints can likely be found by looking at what’s already been built, at least at Disney’s international parks. Documentarian Leslie Iwerks did just that with her new film “Disney Worldbuilders,” which will have its premiere this weekend at the all-things-Disney convention D23 at the Anaheim Convention Center and then stream on Disney+ starting Aug. 20.
Iwerks, the director of the recent, and terrific, “Disneyland Handcrafted,” comes from Disney royalty. Her grandfather, Ub Iwerks, was a legendary animator instrumental in the development of Mickey Mouse. Her father, Don, was a cinematic and special effects wizard who worked on numerous Disney attractions, including the Michael Jackson-starring film “Captain EO.” As a documentarian, Iwerks has explored Disney before as the director of “The Imagineering Story” and has a long career of films that touch on not just Hollywood but also politics and environmental issues.
Leslie Iwerks has dedicated a significant portion of her career to analyzing the Disney theme parks.
(Iwerks & Co. / Disney+)
If I had any concerns about the future of Disneyland, watching ‘Worldbuilders” helped ease them. That’s in part because the film makes it clear that the Disneyland template was pretty firmly set in place 70 years ago by park patriarch Walt Disney.
While it’s entirely possible for theme park spaces to jump the shark, so to speak, especially when they focus too much on marketing or re-creating familiar film and television moments (see, say, San Fransokyo Square at Disney California Adventure), “Worldbuilders” zeroes in on the parks’ enduring mission of being places of play. The film features interviews with the likes of Pixar chief Pete Docter, “Frozen” mastermind Jennifer Lee, Marvel maestro Kevin Feige and “Avatar” creator James Cameron, who collaborated with Walt Disney Imagineering to turn their cinematic universes into physical spaces for fans to interact with.
“I’m always blown away at the audacity of Walt saying, ‘I’m going to create the happiest place on Earth,’ and thinking that could actually be a business model,” Iwerks tells me.
“And what I learned about these filmmakers is that they were all inspired by the Disney parks,” she continues. “Unbeknownst to me, they had a spark going to a Disney theme park. It excited their imagination.”
“Frozen” co-director Jennifer Lee poses with a robotic Olaf at Disneyland Paris in a scene from Leslie Iwerks’ new film “Worldbuilders.”
(Roger Do Minh / Disney+ / Iwerks & Co.)
You see it in Shanghai’s “Zootopia”-inspired land, with its oversize benches that hide parking spaces for critter vehicles beneath. It’s an area full of movement, with puppets and animatronics gracing nearly every structure, aiming to capture wonder and silliness as much as it is the world of the film, which Iwerks notes was unexpectedly inspired by the original Disneyland. It’s present, too, in the “Frozen” area of Disneyland Paris, which seeks to reference and modernize the Disney fairy tale, using imagery of castles and magic not to symbolize happily ever after but familial and friendship bonds.
“All these lands allow you to explore, and allow yourself to be free, to play, to be whimsical,” Iwerks says. “They allow yourself to get out of your own ‘daily frets,’ as Walt called them. There are a lot of technologies vying for attention today, such as cellphones and gaming and lots of things, but there is something tangible about walking through a Disney park that is irreplaceable. That is that tangible sense of play that you can see, you can touch and you can smell. These are visceral memories that stay with us as human beings throughout our entire lifetime.”
Could either “Zootopia” or “Frozen” make its way to Disneyland? Neither, I believe, would be out of place, but there’s a special delicacy when adding to Walt’s original park. Even with the passage of DisneylandForward, land isn’t limitless. Expansion should be thought about not just for the next decade, but the next 50, leaving space for new stories yet untold. To place “Avatar” in Disney California Adventure is a definitive statement that the audiences of 2060 will want to hang with the Na’vi as much as those of 2030.
Thus, a wide-angle approach is best. When Pandora — the World of Avatar was built in Animal Kingdom at Florida’s Walt Disney World, it was done so with a thesis on themes of conservation and environmentalism more so than a focus on any of the film’s characters. Disney California Adventure’s own Cars Land is a love letter to Route 66 and roadside Americana as it much as it is an ode to the Disney/Pixar films.
At D23 in 2024, Disney released concept art of an “Avatar”-inspired attraction said to be coming to Disney California Adventure.
(20th Century / Disneyland Resort)
“Worldbuilders” makes it clear that as much as Disney’s parks have stayed the same, how we build themed lands has changed. Gone, for instance, are the big tent ideas of Frontierland, Adventureland and Fantasyland. Theme park designers today take a more targeted approach, bringing to life fully realized cinematic worlds such as Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge or the aforementioned Cars Land. That’s not necessarily a negative. Galaxy’s Edge, for instance, succeeds because it’s a not a point-by-point re-creation of any locale seen in the films. Instead, it’s a place we can visit, and create our own tales.
It’s a reminder, for instance, that Disneyland, despite the prices, the crowds, the marketing or whatever hang-up one may find, endures because it allows us to, well, play. To be a little silly. And that was the lesson of Iwerks’ “Worldbuilders.”
“It’s about original thinking,” Iwerks says, when asked whether she believes it’s important to continually document the Disney theme parks. “So much of Imagineering is focused on original thinking. People can be really smart, but it doesn’t mean they’re an original thinker. One of the greatest things in the world is to create something out of nothing.”
We may arrive at a “Frozen” land wanting to see Anna, Elsa or, especially, the robotic Olaf, but we remember it because it gave us permission to imagine an alternate, more fanciful reality. Thus, it’s a treatise that it is not the intellectual property that makes Disneyland unique; it’s the belief in a more communal, playful world.
Speaking of D23 …
Theme park fans should get ready for some news this weekend.
Expect updates and details on previously announced — and well into development projects — such as Disney California Adventure’s “Coco” boat ride and two Marvel attractions, which will effectively double that park’s Avengers Campus. The centerpiece of the latter is a ride featuring many of the Avengers in battle across the multiverse with King Thanos.
The attraction, first announced in 2019, was given a name at 2024’s D23, Avengers Infinity Defense, and it will feature locations such as the Black Panther nation of Wakanda, Asgard and New York City. Early looks have it leaning heavily on visual effects interspersed with physical sets, but expect a deeper unveiling this weekend.
A recent photo of construction at Disney California Adventure’s Avengers Campus, where two attractions are under development.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
Longer-term, fans are eager for word on what’s planned with the “Avatar” franchise, previously announced to take over part of the Hollywood-themed section of the park currently home to a “Monsters, Inc.” family dark ride. That attraction, Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!, is slated to close in 2027 to make way for the Cameron-created franchise. There’s been some chatter, most of it online-driven and unsubstantiated, that Disney would pivot from “Avatar” to instead center “Zootopia,” but I’m not convinced. Clarity will arrive in the coming days.
I’ll refrain from diving too heavily into rumors, but expect at least one longer-term hint at a bigger swing, hopefully, for instance, the reimagined plans for what is currently the Toy Story Lot, as well as nearer-term updates on Disneyland’s post-70th entertainment. Fans, of course, will forever be hoping for Walt Disney Imagineering, the division of the company responsible for theme park experiences, to unveil that it is remaking Tomorrowland, which, while home to many a popular attraction, is also stuck with a number of underutilized buildings. While I encourage optimism and dreaming as much as any Disney parks fan, I’ll believe it when I see it.
Disneyland fans, however, may have to come to grips with the fact that some of the most exciting updates will be centered on Florida’s Walt Disney World. Imagineering is expected to at long last detail the attractions coming to the Magic Kingdom’s hotly-anticipated Villain’s Land. Also of note, a reveal of the “Encanto” attraction plotted soon for Animal Kingdom.
This week in SoCal theme parks
Key issues remain in union contract talks between the Walt Disney Co. and its parade, show and costumed characters.
(Jae C. Hong / Associated Press)
A dispute in contract talks. Disneyland employees behind its parade, show and costumed characters have been negotiating their first union contract with the Walt Disney Co. since October 2024. The two sides remain apart on a number of key issues. Disney’s proposal to the roughly 1,700 workers represented by Actors’ Equity omits paid parental leave and cuts paid holidays from 12 to 11, according to an April 6 email reviewed by The Times. Disney says no benefits are being cut because the unit organized in 2024 and the talks are setting first-contract terms rather than modifying an existing agreement. Times Business writers Wendy Lee and Samantha Masunaga have more on the negotiations.
New sound barriers coming to Hollywood Drift, says councilmember. Universal Studios Hollywood appears to be taking steps to address noise complaints regarding its new high-speed, outdoor roller coaster. The office of L.A. City Councilmember Adrin Nazarian stated the theme park will install two additional sound barriers to mitigate the sound of rider screams on its new ride Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift, which have been described by nearby residents as “disturbing” and “untenable.” Nazarian’s office made the announcement Monday evening on social media. A Universal Studios Hollywood spokesperson has not yet responded to a request for comment.
Montezooma’s is now open! Knott’s Berry Farm’s four-year overhaul of Montezooma’s Revenge into Montezooma: The Forbidden Fortress has reached its conclusion. The historic ride began welcoming guests late last week. Look for a report on the remodeled attraction here soon.
Attendance at Disney parks is up. The Walt Disney Co. noted in its recent earnings call that attendance at its domestic parks for the three-month period that ended June 27 is up 3% over the comparable period last year. International visits remain a challenge, but the company noted that summer promotions helped fuel the increase, especially at Florida’s Walt Disney World.
Cheap! A full year of Knott’s! At a time when it seems like everything is getting more expensive, Knott’s Berry Farm is currently running a heavy sale on 2027 season passes. Through Sept. 7, a base level pass is just $99, down from its non-sale price of $215. A “gold pass,” which also includes admission to Six Flags Magic Mountain, is currently $129, down from $240. while a “prestige pass,” which includes parking and a number of other perks, is $329, down from $399.
Slash is back at Halloween Horror Nights. Guns ‘N Roses guitar slinger Slash is a staple at Universal Studios Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights, and is returning to create a soundtrack for a haunted house this year. Slash is providing music for a house titled ‘“Killceañera: Music by Slash,” an original maze that flips the script on a teenage rite of passage. Here, a 15-year-old girl seeks revenge on those who have wronged her. Halloween Horror Nights begins Sept. 3.
The best thing I ate at the parks this week
The fish and chips from Gordon Ramsay at the Carnaby at Downtown Disney.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
I admit, Downtown Disney’s Gordon Ramsay at the Carnaby is growing on me, especially if one can get seated on the outdoor bar patio, which is far more welcoming than the pub’s indoor bar. I found the latter a little cold and unwelcoming, but the back patio is more lively, especially with pennant race baseball on its big screen TV. I finished a recent Disneyland day with the Carnaby’s fish and chips, which is essentially one giant piece of cod with fries and “mushy peas.” It’s pricey, at $33, but it’s also incredibly hefty and filling. It’s certainly the strongest fish and chips on Disneyland property, and sea salt-infused batter was so crisp and rich that it almost felt wrong to slather the fish in tartar sauce. I couldn’t quite place my finger on the flavor — I’ve read that Ramsay’s fish and chips recipe includes custard powder — but there was a burnt buttery tone that was far from dry. I’ll be back.
Tell us your stories. Ask us your questions.
Have a theme park tale to share? Whether it was a good day or less-than-perfect day, I would love to hear about it. Have a question? A tip? A fun photo from the parks to share? Email me at todd.martens@latimes.com. I may feature your note in an upcoming newsletter.
Ride on,
Todd Martens
P.S.
Stay tuned to Mr. Todd’s Wild Ride this week for all the big Disney parks news from D23. Saturday evening Disney will be hosting a panel at the Honda Center to reveal new details on attractions coming to its theme parks around the world, and I’ll be there delivering breaking coverage straight to your inbox.
Also, say hi if you see me wandering the Anaheim Convention Center. I’ll have Mr. Todd’s Wild Ride stickers to share.
MANY of the UK’s top breaks this summer are afloat – and you can climb aboard all of these boats with zero experience.
Jacob Lewis picks seven of the best experiences on the water.
Many of the UK’s top breaks this summer are afloat – and you can climb aboard all of these boats with zero experienceTurn up at Wroxham, get a simple, five-minute briefing, and you are ready to set off, steering your own boat down the River BureCredit: Getty
TURN up at Wroxham, get a simple, five-minute briefing, and you are ready to set off, steering your own boat down the River Bure.
Aim for Horning or Salhouse Broad, moor up at a riverside pub, and enjoy a leisurely lunch before heading back down the waterway.
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Wroxham Boat Hire charges £40 for an hour, £70 for two, £100 for three and £130 for four. See wroxhamboathire.co.uk.
Broads Tours, also in Wroxham, start at £20 an hour if you want to keep it cheaper. See broadstours.co.uk.
Hire a little electric motorboat or a traditional wooden rowing boat straight off the pier at WindermereCredit: Getty
THIS is the cheap, no-planning option, perfect for spur of the moment sailors.
Hire a little electric motorboat or a traditional wooden rowing boat straight off the pier then go in search of the quiet bays the big day-trip boats sail straight past.
The motorboats take up to six, have roll-back hoods for when the weather hits, and need no expertise, from £46.
The four-seater rowing boats are a clinker design barely changed since the 1800s, and come with full training and buoyancy aids, from £28.
Thomas Telford’s aqueduct carries the Llangollen Canal 126ft above the River Dee in an iron trough and, yes, you pilot your own boat across itCredit: Getty
THOMAS TELFORD’S aqueduct carries the Llangollen Canal 126ft above the River Dee in an iron trough and, yes, you pilot your own boat across it.
A full day’s cruise will give you the chance to spot white-beaked dolphins, basking sharks and the wonderfully odd sunfish – which lolls about on its side at the surface like it’s sunbathing.
Tea and coffee are included but you need to bring your own lunch.
From £135pp with Naturetrek, on Sept 16. Details at naturetrek.co.uk.
Cruiser on Lough Erne, Fermanagh
Lough Erne is 800sqkm of island-studded water, dotted with castles and ruins, and you can spend a day pottering about in your own boatCredit: Getty
LOUGH Erne is 800sqkm of island-studded water, dotted with castles and ruins, and you can spend a day pottering about in your own boat.
No experience is needed, as tuition, charts, buoyancy aids and fuel are all included, and every boat has a front cabin with inside steering so you’re not stuck in the rain.
Manor House Marine at Killadeas charges £80 for a half-day or £110 for a full day on a boat taking six, and £110 or £150 for one with room for eight.
Skiffs are rowing boats around 26ft long, and at night a canvas cover turns the whole thing into a snug tent sleeping threeCredit: Getty
STRAIGHT out of classic novel Three Men In A Boat, skiffs are rowing boats around 26ft long, and at night a canvas cover turns the whole thing into a snug tent sleeping three.
You’ll cover 12 to 20 miles a day and you don’t need to have rowed before.
Moor up along the towpath and you’re never far from a riverside pub.
Thames Skiff Hire’s boats are over a century old and have appeared in hit films, including Harry Potter.
Four days for two costs from £320 on a Walton round trip, £440 one-way from Henley to Walton, or £570 for the prettiest run, Lechlade to Oxford. Details at skiffhire.com.
Learn to crew a racing yacht, The Solent
Enjoy two days out of Mercury Yacht Harbour on the Hamble aboard a 33ft racing yachtCredit: Sailties.net
THIS is for anyone who’s messed about in boats a bit and now wants to take it to a whole new level.
Two days out of Mercury Yacht Harbour on the Hamble aboard a 33ft racing yacht, with a professional coach teaching you every job on board, from steering the thing to hauling up the big billowing sail at the front.
You sleep on board and come off it ready to crew in a real club race.
It costs £385pp via SailTies Adventures, with dates from now until October. See sailties.net/adventures.
Four years ago, Knott’s Berry Farm was faced with a decision.
Its 1978 ride Montezooma’s Revenge was the first-ever coaster built with a flywheel launch system — a large, highly visible, circular drum-like mechanism with a cable attached to it — and an important piece of the theme park’s history.
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But the coaster was in need of refurbishment and they don’t make things like they used to. The flywheel design, once an advanced piece of machinery that allowed Montezooma’s to go from zero to 55 mph in less than five seconds, was no longer in vogue. Replacement parts weren’t going to be easy to come by, if possible at all.
So would they attempt to reimagine Montezooma’s Revenge, or use its footprint for another attraction?
“Nobody else really attempted a full-speed, ground-level launch until later in the ‘90s,” says Jeremy Thompson, who writes coaster analysis on his website Roller Coaster Philosophy and worked for a decade at theme park design firm Thinkwell. “It was way ahead of its time.”
It would have been a shame, roller coaster historians argue, to lose Montezooma’s Revenge. Thankfully, Knott’s Berry Farm agreed, and after four years and a $20-million investment, Montezooma’s, now rebranded as Montezooma: The Forbidden Fortress, is set to soft open in the coming days. A grand opening media event, postponed from last month, is slated for Aug. 14.
The entrance to the newly remodeled Montezooma: The Forbidden Fortress.
(Jess Boyer / Knott’s Berry Farm)
“We thought quite a bit about, ‘If we take this out, what would we put in there?’” says Knott’s Berry Farm Park President Raffi Kaprelyan. “But the answer we always came back to was, ‘Why would you do that?’ This is a perfectly unique ride.”
He adds: “An iconic ride like this, you want to maintain as long as possible.”
The coaster was planned to be named Loco Motion, but it was rebranded as Montezooma’s Revenge after a popular band with the same name that would regularly perform at the park, says Nicholas Laschkewitsch, a coaster historian and documentary producer with nonprofit American Coaster Enthusiasts. At the time of its opening, it was the tallest roller coaster in the world, thanks to 148-foot spikes. It’s also the oldest looping shuttle coaster in its original location, a shuttle coaster being a ride without a complete circuit, meaning here guests are propelled out of the launch station in a linear path through a loop and then backward through the whole course.
The loop on Montezooma: The Forbidden Fortress.
(Jess Boyer / Knott’s Berry Farm)
”A shuttle coaster is certainly not as novel as it once was,” says Laschkewitsch, who also works as a designer at experiential art firm Meow Wolf. “But I think it’s very much a part of the DNA of Knott’s Berry Farm. It’s most people’s first looping coaster who grew up in Southern California. They deserve a lot of credit for investing in [a type of] ride a lot of other parks have thrown out.”
Designed by coaster mastermind Anton Schwarzkopf, Laschkewitsch says there’s only one remaining Schwarzkopf-created flywheel coaster using its original launch system in existence, and it’s in Japan at Nagashima Spa Land. Schwarzkopf was also behind the Great American Revolution at Six Flags Magic Mountain, which opened in 1976 as the world’s first modern vertical looping roller coaster.
“He was a genius as far as how to bank track, and how to physically manufacture track,” Laschkewitsch says. “His rides were as smooth as glass. The fact that he was able to do this without computer technology is incredible.”
The Knott family rides Montezooma’s Revenge on its opening day in 1978.
(Knott’s Berry Farm)
So what’s changed in the refurbishment? Montezooma’s has been remade with new cars, enhanced thematic touches lightly inspired by Maya designs, and boasts both a brand new track as well as a refreshed launch system. It now blasts out of the station with electromagnetic propulsion, technology, says Thompson, that is found on virtually all modern launch coasters (see Disney California Adventure’s IncrediCoaster, which also jolts from zero to 55 mph in five seconds).
That means there will be a difference in “feel” at the launch. Thompson compares it to riding in a modern electric vehicle versus, say, a 1970s hot rod. “You’re losing something there,” he says.
Namely the instantaneous tension, says Laschkewitsch, which will now be smoothed out. “There’s just something special about how that flywheel launch really kicked you in the face,” he says.
A look at the reimaged Montezooma: The Forbidden Fortress.
(Jess Boyer / Knott’s Berry Farm)
The coaster in its initial form lasted just 38 seconds. That won’t necessarily change with Montezooma: The Forbidden Fortress, but Kaprelyan says the new ride system will allow the park to offer different ride profiles. The electromagnetic track, for instance, can jolt guests forward, and then tease them by reversing course, lending a linear coaster a sense of surprise.
Those changes are coming down the road, but probably not until the ride has been open for about a year. “The ride will maybe take you up to the front a little bit, and then shoot you back up the hill, and then shoot you forward again,” Kaprelyan says. “There will be different sequences.”
And overall just a different tone. When all is working properly, the coaster will launch through a haze of fog effects. And it’s blessedly no longer associated with an unsavory name that potentially had some negative cultural implications. Understandable, and the right call says Thompson, but “it kind of loses that zany ‘70s humor.” Prepare to hear fewer potty jokes at Knott’s Berry Farm.
This week in SoCal theme parks
A dementor puppet moves through the train in “Harry Potter: A Hogwarts Express Adventure.”
(David Fouts / For The Times )
‘Fast & Furious’ coaster watch, 2026. The big theme park story last week was the unexpected soft launch of Universal Studios Hollywood’s Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift. The ride is operating in “technical rehearsals,” meaning it doesn’t yet have a formal opening date. Think of it as a final testing phase. Wait times have often stretched beyond two and a half hours, with some reporting lines closer to four hours. Heads-up, though, if you’re thinking of heading to the park this week, as according to notices given to park neighbors in Toluca Lake, the coaster is not expected to be welcoming guests Tuesday through Friday.
Take a magical train ride. The Southern California Railway Museum in Riverside County is now allowing guests to experience history with a bit of mysticism, as it has temporarily turned into Platform 9 3⁄4 to host “Harry Potter: A Hogwarts Express Adventure.” A one-hour theatrical experience, expect wands, house sorting and, instead of a drink cart, a larger-than-life demonic puppet. Like all things Potter in 2026, the event has attracted some detractors due to J.K. Rowling’s anti-trans rhetoric and political funding. The Times’ Emily Tarinelli has the details.
Changes afoot at Knott’s Soak City. The Orange County water park is welcoming two brand new attractions next year that will be replacing the current Shore Break slide complex. Look out for Coral Craze, a saucer-like attraction that boasts five riders per slide and is designed to mimic a ski course. Joining it will be Kelp Kraze, also a five-person experience, but this one more of a raft-like slide.
The ‘Prince of Darkness,’ resurrected. Universal Studios Hollywood has rounded out its haunted house lineup for Halloween Horror Nights with a maze dedicated to the late Ozzy Osbourne. Dubbed Ozzy Osbourne: Prince of Darkness, the haunt will focus on bringing to life imagery from Osbourne’s solo career. The park has previously created a house inspired by the work of Osbourne’s Black Sabbath. Halloween Horror Nights begins Sept. 3.
‘It,’ reimagined. Inglewood’s Cosm is embracing horror for its next all-encompassing, wrap-around production. The venue, which boasts a high-definition spherical screen that stretches above, below and ever-so-slightly behind viewers, will on Aug. 28 begin showing 2017’s “It,” the Andrés Muschietti film based on the novel by Stephen King. Like past Cosm screenings, the venue will create CGI imagery to complement the core film.
Tell us your stories. Ask us your questions.
Have a theme park tale to share? Whether it was a good day or less-than-perfect day, I would love to hear about it. Have a question? A tip? A fun photo from the parks to share? Email me at todd.martens@latimes.com. I may feature your note in an upcoming newsletter.
Ride on,
Todd Martens
P.S.
My least favorite theme park topic to cover is price increases, as parks are already an investment to visit. Yet the Disneyland Resort keeps making affordability a story. Even more food price hikes have hit the resort, after an earlier round just a couple weeks ago. I’m sad to say they’re increasingly egregious, including, as Disney Food Blog noticed, a $3 increase to $31 on a so-so cheeseburger at Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar. Sigh.
There’s head-scratching high prices throughout the resort, including a bump on a relatively small square of churro toffee, which now sells for nearly $10. It’s tasty, but I’m here to tell you it’s not worth it. I stopped buying the delectable when it topped $8, as it was no longer a respectable value at that price point. Instead, support a local bakery.
Phil Collins faced death two years ago, and has lived to tell the tale.
The Grammy-winning singer recalled to the Times of London how his “kidneys were packing up, my organs were just seizing” when he was was hospitalized in Switzerland in April 2024 because of alcohol abuse. At the time, Collins’ five children — including “Emily in Paris” star Lily Collins — were called to his bedside for what they thought could be his final moments.
“There were some decisions to be made about ‘Do we keep Phil on life support?’” he recalled for the profile, published Monday. He added: “People were coming to say goodbye. But I don’t remember them coming, I didn’t have no idea this was going on. They were all worried that they wouldn’t see me again. It could all have gone so terribly wrong.”
Collins reflected on his brush with death to the news outlet months before he is set to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in November. His fellow inductees include Billy Idol, Iron Maiden, Joy Division/New Order, Oasis, Sade, Luther Vandross and Wu-Tang Clan.
The profile about the “In the Air Tonight” and “You’ll Be in My Heart” singer recalled the extent of his struggles with alcohol, including after his divorce from Orianne Cevey. Collins, 75, said when he was drinking, “the calendar [went] out the window” and that he opted for wine for breakfast. The Times of London reported that Collins was hospitalized in November 2023 and swiftly discharged, only to return to the intensive care unit and stay hospitalized for seven months.
“I was very lucky to have come out of that. Needless to say, I haven’t had a drink since,” he said. According to the outlet, Collins has permanent scarring on his pancreas, and his kidneys “barely” function.
Collins spoke about his alcohol abuse earlier this year in a five-episode podcast series with Zoe Ball. He revealed in April that he has a live-in nurse and that it’s an “ongoing” effort to manage his health. He said “everything that could go wrong with me did go wrong.”
“I got COVID in hospital, my kidneys started to back up, you know, everything that could, all seemed to sort of converge at the same time,” he said, adding that he had undergone five operations on his knee.
Collins also admitted in April he’d “probably been drinking too much” and that he recently celebrated two years of sobriety.
Collins spoke in his most recent interview about his desire “to be in love again,” revisited his controversial love life and spoke about mending his relationships with Piers Morgan, Paul McCartney and daughter Lily Collins after various rifts that played out in the media.
“I don’t like people going around thinking I hate them,” he said.
TOURISTS are set to be given the chance to see Stonehenge up close and free of charge for the first time in over a century.
A select number of visitors will win the opportunity to get VIP access to the iconic UK tourist attraction.
Some people are set to be given rare access to one of the UK’s most iconic sightsCredit: AlamyMost people only ever see Stonehenge from behind a barrierCredit: Alamy
A select few visitors to Stonehenge will be able to experience a once-in-a-lifetime private viewing of the epic spectacle.
The prehistoric site in Wiltshire sees around 1.4 million tourists every year – but the stones are usually viewed from afar and behind a barrier.
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Now, English Heritage has confirmed that a lucky number of people will be able to win special access every day in August for nothing.
Since a fee to see Stonehenge was introduced back in 1901, free entry to the inner circle of stones is usually reserved for VIPs like high profile celebrities or political figures.
As part of the special competition, one booking will be selected at random every day to be given private access free of charge.
The chosen groups will have the privilege of seeing the stones’ “delicate carvings” and coatings of rare algae and fungi coating known as “lichen”.
Georgia Butters, English Heritage’s head of operations for Stonehenge, said: “Stonehenge is one of the world’s most recognisable landmarks and a bucket-list destination for millions of people across the globe – but very few people have ever experienced the monument in complete peace and quiet.
“This is genuinely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stand within the ancient stones with no one else around, soaking up the atmosphere and spirituality of this remarkable place,” she added.
“There’s a certain stillness and tranquility about that space. It’s sort of mind-blowing and puts you right back in touch with our ancestors.”
To be in with a chance of nabbing the daily tour, visitors must make their booking on the official English Heritage website at least 72 hours in advance, so that winners can be contacted 24 hours before the visit.
The winning booking groups will be given the private half an hour tour at 9am, before any other tourists arrive.
They will then be treated to a breakfast roll and a hot drink, before being able to go off and enjoy the attraction in their own time.
The Hogwarts Express has arrived in Perris, Calif.
The Southern California Railway Museum has temporarily turned into Platform 9 3⁄4 to host “Harry Potter: A Hogwarts Express Adventure.” The one-hour theater performance takes place on a moving train and features singalongs, spellcasting and House cheers. Tickets cost between $72.25 and $93.25 per passenger.
The experience is the first of its kind in the United States, said Jarrette Ireland, vice president and general manager of Colorado-based Rail Events Inc., and Kathleen Wallis, vice president of global themed entertainment at New York-based Warner Bros. Discovery.
As of July 23, the experience sold just under 11,000 tickets in pre-sales.
The train event commences as the Harry Potter franchise’s author, J.K. Rowling, continues to draw criticism for her opposition toward transgender women. She has long been criticized for transphobic commentary on X and for funding organizations that fight to exclude trans women from public life.
1.The cast performs with magic wands in “Harry Potter: A Hogwarts Express Adventure.”2.A passenger holds a Platform 9 3/4 ticket.3.The Hogwarts Express conductor performs in “Harry Potter: A Hogwarts Express Adventure.”(David Fouts / For The Times)
“What’s really terrifying is that influence. It’s already being felt in the United States,” Williamson said. “There’s a trans genocide happening. It’s very serious.”
Williamson, who is nonbinary and identifies under the trans umbrella, said it is “already very scary being openly queer in Perris,” where the Harry Potter experience is hosted. She, her children and other queer and trans folks in their circle have experienced hateful slurs, home vandalism and other queerphobic prejudice.
Asking the public not to purchase anything Harry Potter related, they said, is “the most we feel that we can do for our community.”
Responding to general concerns about Rowling, Wallis said, “We feel privileged to create these experiences for the fans who love the stories, and there’s a very deep fandom out there. A lot of these kids, my own included, grew up with these movies and stories, and they love to experience them in new ways.”
Warner Bros. Discovery did not respond to a request for comment about local advocacy at the time of publication.
Ireland said Rail Events “is really proud to welcome all guests to a great experience” and later clarified that it doesn’t have “a personal connection” to Rowling.
But Warner does. For instance, its new Harry Potter television series will air this Christmas.
There was no mention of Rowling during a recent preview of the train experience, which is geared toward children. Passengers travel through “Platform 9¾” and board the train, where four Hogwarts students belonging to each House greet them.
A cast member carries Fred Weasley’s Basic Blaze Box.
Passengers watch the performance in “Harry Potter: A Hogwarts Express Adventure.”
“Are you a Hufflepuff?” one of the Hogwarts students asked a visitor.
For those unfamiliar with the Harry Potter universe, each House embodies a trait: courage for Gryffindor, loyalty for Hufflepuff, wisdom for Ravenclaw and ambition for Slytherin.
When the train takes off, the students make these personality differences known. The Gryffindor and Slytherin maintain a traditional rivalry, the Ravenclaw nerds out about magical history and the Hufflepuff attempts to mediate them all.
To successfully complete their journey, each student must embody a virtue that belongs to a different House. The Gryffindor must hone wisdom, the Hufflepuff courage, the Ravenclaw ambition and the Slytherin loyalty.
Throughout the ride, the students put their new traits to the test: confronting a hippogriff blocking the tracks, capturing runaway chocolate frogs and facing off a soul-sucking dementor. By the end of the journey, they overcome their House stereotypes and learn they aren’t so different from one another after all.
A dementor puppet moves through the train in “Harry Potter: A Hogwarts Express Adventure.”
According to the experience’s website, the train travels along a route through the neighborhoods of Perris and starts and ends at the same place. When visitors disembark the train, they head to an area inspired by Hogsmeade, a village that sits outside Hogwarts. Here, they can purchase themed drinks, food and merchandise.
Navigating the logistics of “putting theater tech into a train” was a “real adventure,” Ireland said. Inside, TV screens replaced the overhead luggage compartments, and a strip of lights lined the carriages’ walls from front to back. Gray shades embellished with a circular “Hogwarts Express” logo covered all the windows, so visitors can’t see outside.
These elements aided the storytelling. The TVs played scenes from the Harry Potter films and helped suspend disbelief where magical creatures were involved, and the lighting system aided in spellcasting.
Streaks of light fly down the carriage in one dueling scene, and in the show’s climax, the lights go dark when a dementor — played by a hooded actor puppeteering the creature strapped to their torso — floats down the aisle.
It was the Hufflepuff who, with the help of passengers, vanquished the dementor.
1
2
1.The cast showcases floating feathers after performing a levitation spell.2.A cast member carries a box of chocolate frogs through the train.
“Everyone, repeat after me!” the Hufflepuff called, wand pointed at the creature. “Expecto Patronum!”
As passengers chanted the incantation together, white light flashed through the carriage, and music swelled from the speakers. Defeated, the dementor drifted down the aisle and out of sight.
The experience will run at the Southern California Railway Museum through Sept. 27.
Ireland said future stops will be announced in the fall, with plans to expand throughout North America and, ultimately, to the United Kingdom.
If you go
‘Harry Potter: A Hogwarts Express Adventure’
Where: Southern California Railway Museum, 2201 S A St., Perris, Calif., 92570 When: Through Sept. 27 Tickets: $72.25-$93.25 per passenger Additional information: harrypottertrainadventure.com
Halfway through a ride on Universal Studio Hollywood’s new coaster, I didn’t know whether to laugh or scream.
The track turned, angled so my car was completely vertical to the ground, a cliff below me. And then my ride vehicle ever so slightly started to twist, to drift as if banking around a tight curve in a video game. Straight down from me was rocky terrain, but if I looked up and beyond the tracks, I had perhaps the best view of the Valley I’ve ever seen.
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Todd Martens’ newsletter delivers news and commentary on the past, present and future of theme parks, right from the theme park capital of the world — Southern California.
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Granted, it was fleeting. But I was alternately in awe and fearful of what Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift was presenting before me. I held onto my lap bar, gripping it tighter as I lifted out of my seat, and I couldn’t help but smile at my predicament. I was in a mini, expertly re-created Toyota Supra, hanging over a bluff. I was soaring, the sensation of a car careening off a canyon, only here, my life, thankfully, wasn’t at risk. And I didn’t want it to end.
Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift is intense, yes, but more important, it’s a delight. It’s a roller coaster not just full of thrills but of surprises, of wondering where and when a coaster vehicle will be spin, careen or accelerate. Every turn, twist, flip will leave you guessing. And it’s the smoothest coaster I’ve ever been on, a feeling that lends it a sense of approachability not typically found in rides of this speed and unpredictability.
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It is also a ride that will forever change the tone and tenor of Universal Studios Hollywood, a destination that just two decades ago was largely a behind-the-scenes showcase dedicated to movie-making magic. No more. Universal Studios Hollywood is one of the foremost theme parks in the nation, home to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Super Nintendo World and now one of the strongest thrill rides in Southern California, changes that haven’t always been met with approval by the park’s neighboring Toluca Lake residents.
Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift surprise-opened to guests Monday afternoon. The ride is in technical rehearsals, a soft opening, more or less. That means it’s still in a testing phase and may not always be running. If getting on the coaster is a priority for you, it’s best to wait until Universal gives it a grand opening.
A look at Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift careening over the park’s escalators.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
The coaster — designed by Universal, manufactured by Intamin — has long been circled as the most important theme park attraction of 2026, a feat of engineering nestled on a steep hill between the park’s upper and lower lots that was 10 years in the making. Boasting 4,100 feet of track, two towering inverted loops as well as a pretzel loop and the ability to reach 72 mph through four individual launches, Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift is full of unique attributes, including its ability to go above and under the park’s famed escalators.
But those not attuned to coaster speak need not be overwhelmed. Know only that at times you’re upside down, at times you’re on your side, some moments you’re facing the ground, others you’re glancing at the horizon, and then you may suddenly be flipped backward. And before you have time to worry about it, you’ll be rocketing forward.
The four cars, all expertly themed to storied vehicles from the film franchise in which the coaster takes its name, can rotate 360 degrees. The choreography is sudden, but not jolting and never gratuitous. I’ve gotten motion-sick on other coasters that can rotate, ones specifically in which designers have opted to move the vehicles in time to a soundtrack, but here, the movement is cleverly attuned to the track. If we spike upward at an angle, the cars twirl as if taking off in flight. A dive downward, and we may hear braking noises as the cars lock in a side-facing position. In short, the vehicles feel forever aligned with the designed course. I rode Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift twice with no issues.
Unversal Studios’ Hollywood’s Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift features expertly created mini cars.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
And those cars! They are not small. I’m 6-foot-2 and more than 200 pounds and I had ample leg room. And I know those bigger than I am have had no issues riding this new coaster, which seats four per vehicle. Modern coasters aren’t always known for their accessibility, but Universal has created a ride that should be accommodating for many. The ampleness of the cars, coupled with the smoothness of the track, allows Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift, I believe, to alternately appease those seeking high thrills while not freaking out those who may be more coaster cautious. The goal here is fun, not to terrify.
Universal has crafted some spectacular coasters in recent years: Florida’s Jurassic World VelociCoaster, Stardust Racers and Hiccup’s Wing Gliders, among them. Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift is not just a worthy addition to that portfolio, but a ride that many, I bet, will declare their favorite. Universal Creative, the division of the company responsible for theme park experiences, and especially the Universal Studios Hollywood team led by Jon Corfino, have accomplished what, just 10 years ago, would have been unthinkable. A high-speed outdoor coaster, in a landlocked studio tour park? Far-fetched, at best.
But instead, it’s a reminder that theme parks are where we go to imagine the impossible.
Tell us your stories. Ask us your questions.
Have a theme park tale to share? Whether it was a good day or less-than-perfect day, I would love to hear about it. Have a question? A tip? A fun photo from the parks to share? Email me at todd.martens@latimes.com. I may feature your note in an upcoming newsletter.
Ride on,
Todd Martens
P.S.
Mr. Todd’s Wild Ride typically comes out every Tuesday, but we occasionally publish special editions (like this one!) when we have breaking theme park news. Make sure you’ve signed up to be the first to know.
Universal Studios Hollywood surprise-opened its flashy new high-speed roller coaster Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift on Monday. After much hype and anticipation — and even some unfounded rumors that the coaster would not hit its promised summer launch — Hollywood Drift is at last ready for its close-up.
Billed as one of the most intense roller coasters in Universal Studios’ global ride portfolio, Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift can reach speeds of 72 mph while taking guests through multiple inversions in vehicles that can rotate 360 degrees. It is the fastest coaster that Universal Creative, the division of the company responsible for theme park experiences, has designed.
There is some fine print.
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Todd Martens’ newsletter delivers news and commentary on the past, present and future of theme parks, right from the theme park capital of the world — Southern California.
By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy such as personalizing your experience and ads.
Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift has still not announced its official grand opening. The ride is operating in what Universal is calling “technical rehearsals.” Think of this as a soft opening.
What that means: Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift is not guaranteed to be running if you visit the park. It’s still, for all intents and purposes, in a testing phase, and can be closed down at any time. If you’re thinking about rushing to the park to be one of its first riders, proceed with caution. Until Universal gives the coaster a proper opening — and expect some sort of gala to go with it — Hollywood Drift may not be fully operational.
Technical rehearsals help ensure that when a ride does receive a formal opening, it can operate, in theory, without any issues or prolonged downtime. My advice: Visiting a theme park is an investment, and if experiencing Hollywood Drift is vital to your day at Universal Studios, it would be safest to wait until the coaster gets its date. At this point, it should be a matter of weeks, if not days.
A view of Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift when it was still in testing mode.
(Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)
But I certainly understand that theme park FOMO.
Hollywood Drift has long been circled as the most important theme park attraction opening in North America in 2026. The ride has been about 10 years in the making, and has many unique attributes. Not the least of which is its location, as the coaster is built on a steep hill between the park’s upper and lower lots, meaning at times it will go over and under its famed escalators.
“It wouldn’t be your first choice,” says Jon Corfino, Universal Studios Hollywood’s lead creative, of the topography. “But in a way, it makes it more dynamic that we were able to do it.”
Meanwhile, the ride has also raised eyebrows among the community surrounding Universal Studios Hollywood. The park’s neighbors in the adjacent Toluca Lake neighborhood have been none too pleased with some of the rider screams that emanated from the coaster on a day of testing earlier this summer. I talked to several residents as well as Universal and representatives from Los Angeles County for a story published last week, “Fast & Furious’ coaster screams rattle quiet neighborhood: ‘Like someone is getting murdered.” Whether those concerns fade, or how that issue is ultimately resolved, will be but one of the storylines that will follow the attraction.
Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift on a test-run. The coaster has been the most anticipated theme park opening of 2026.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
Yet most guests will simply be concerned with how it rides. While other coasters can rotate 360 degrees, they don’t do it at this speed and through this many twists, turns and loops. And then there’s the design. Hollywood Drift puts riders in mini cars, each one heavily detailed and with unique engine and breaking noises. Of course, the ride may simply move too fast to pay attention to all that.
“It’s a high level of intensity, absolutely, for sure,” Corfino says.
Stay tuned to Mr. Todd’s Wild Ride for detailed impressions of Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift.
This week in SoCal theme parks
A glass slide from the Medusa portrait in Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion is going up for auction.
(Matt Roppolo / HA.com)
Bid on a piece of Disneyland history. I have mixed feelings on auctions involving Disneyland artifacts. And by mixed, I mean mostly negative, as they tend to inflate prices for the fans who care about the items most, and many of these treasures belong in a museum rather than someone’s private collection. But if you’ve ever wanted a mummy prop from Indiana Jones Adventure, or — gasp — an original glass slide from the Haunted Mansion’s changing Medusa portrait, now’s your chance. The Disney Experiences Auction — Rare and Remarkable Finds is part of next month’s all-things Disney fan convention D23, and is hosted by Heritage Auctions. The live auction is Aug. 16, but online bidding is open.
A Halloween Horror Nights original. Spooky season is now just a few weeks away, and Universal Studios Hollywood’s lineup for Halloween Horror Nights is mostly set. The latest addition to the event, which begins Sept. 3, is an exciting one, as it’s a brand new haunted house not based on any existing film or television properties. The maze, Dead, Deader, Deadest, is set in a funeral home, based on a plot involving a “miracle drug” that can restore the features of the deceased without embalming. Halloween Horror Nights mastermind John Murdy revealed on socials that it connects to past original haunted houses at the park, for those deep into Halloween Horror Nights lore.
Hope you like Kraft Mac & Cheese, Disney fans. Times Business writer Samantha Masunaga reports on a deal between the Walt Disney Co. and Kraft Heinz. As part of the agreement, more Kraft Heinz products will be available in Walt Disney Co.’s U.S.-based theme parks and on cruise ships, including Heinz, Philadelphia cream cheese and Kraft Mac & Cheese.
Tell us your stories. Ask us your questions.
Have a theme park tale to share? Whether it was a good day or less-than-perfect day, I would love to hear about it. Have a question? A tip? A fun photo from the parks to share? Email me at todd.martens@latimes.com. I may feature your note in an upcoming newsletter.
The Rams, as is seemingly their custom with a Super Bowl scheduled to be played at SoFi Stadium, made blockbuster trades to improve an already star-studded roster.
Players will report to training camp Saturday at Loyola Marymount as favorites to win Super Bowl LXI in their home stadium in February.
Much, however, can go awry on the way to the NFL’s biggest showcase.
Injuries, subpar performances by Rams players and coaches, and outstanding clutch play by opponents — see the 2025 Super Bowl-champion Seattle Seahawks — could derail the Rams’ presumptive date with destiny.
On Sunday, they will hold the first of 11 training-camp practices before preseason games against the Kansas City Chiefs, New Orleans Saints and the Chargers.
Here are six things to watch in training camp:
Quarterback Matthew Stafford’s workload
Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford speaks with coach Sean McVay during an organized team activities workout in May.
(Kevin Terrell / Getty Images)
In 2025, because of a back issue, Matthew Stafford did not take a single training-camp snap.
The lack of on-field preparation did not appear to adversely affect him: Stafford eventually tested his fitness after training camp ended — and he went on to win the league’s most valuable player award for the first time.
So the Rams learned from the experience. Preseason inactivity is not necessarily a bad thing for a 17-year veteran who has thrown more than 9,000 passes in regular-season and playoff games and thousands more in practices.
McVay is expected to limit the 38-year-old Stafford’s participation in full-team drills.
Without the luxury of veteran Jimmy Garoppolo running the offense, rookie Ty Simpson, the 13th pick of the NFL draft, and fourth-year pro Stetson Bennett will get plenty of snaps with the starters and with backups during preseason games.
The Myles Garrett effect
Rams defensive end Myles Garrett, left, speaks during a news conference while sitting next to coach Sean McVay on June 2.
(Ric Tapia / For The Times)
The Rams in June made the biggest and boldest move of the offseason when they traded for defensive end Myles Garrett, a two-time NFL defensive player of the year who amassed an NFL record 23 sacks last season for the Cleveland Browns.
Garrett joins a front that includes outside linebacker Byron Young and interior linemen Kobie Turner, Braden Fiske, Poona Ford and ….
Donald?
The Rams, at least publicly, are still waiting on a decision from the three-time NFL defensive player of the year who retired after the 2023 season. If Donald does not make his plans known before report day, it will not stop speculation about a return before or during the season.
Who will be the third receiver?
Rams wide receiver Xavier Smith catches a pass in practice in May.
(Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Associated Press)
Puka Nacua spent part of the offseason in rehab and is the defendant in a civil lawsuit. During organized-team activities, he appeared fit and sounded determined to build on an All-Pro resume that could eventually earn him a record-setting contract.
After discussing trading Davante Adams for A.J. Brown, McVay and general manager Les Snead ultimately chose to stick with the 13th-year pro and future Hall of Famer, who last season led the NFL with 14 touchdown catches.
During the draft, the Rams passed on the opportunity to select former USC receiver Makai Lemon and opted instead to pick Simpson, Stafford’s heir apparent.
With much-loved but seldom-used Tutu Atwell now playing for the Miami Dolphins, Xavier Smith, Jordan Whittington, Konata Mumpfield and rookie CJ Daniels will compete for the opportunity to be a third receiver.
Secondary as primary strength
Rams cornerback Trent McDuffie participates in drills during practice in May.
Both played in three Super Bowls for the Kansas City Chiefs, winning two.
They join safeties Quentin Lake and Kam Curl — both of whom received extensions — to give the Rams one of the strongest units in the league.
Cornerback Emmanuel Forbes Jr. and safeties Kamren Kinchens and Jaylen McCollough provide depth and experience.
Jimmy Lake replaced Aubrey Pleasant as defensive backs coach.
Offensive line depth
Rams guard Steve Avila, right, blocks defensive tackle Poona Ford in practice in May.
(Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Associated Press)
Left tackle Alaric Jackson will not face criminal charges for a domestic incident that resulted in his arrest in June. But the NFL could still suspend Jackson, who in 2024 was forced to sit out two games for violating the league’s personal-conduct policy.
Warren McClendon Jr., the starting right tackle, has experience playing on the left side. Rookie Keagan Trost and veteran David Quessenberry could compete to back up Jackson.
McClendon, guards Kevin Dotson and Steve Avila and center Coleman Shelton are in the final year of their contracts. Jackson is signed through 2027, though his salary is not guaranteed, according to Overthecap.com.
Special teams
Bubba Ventrone will be tasked with helping the Rams turn around their special teams unit in 2026.
(Brevin Townsell / Los Angeles Rams via the Associated Press)
Last season, the Rams lost several games that featured major special teams breakdowns.
More Kraft Heinz products will be available in Walt Disney Co.’s U.S.-based theme parks and on cruise ships after the two companies recently inked a multiyear partnership.
Ten Kraft Heinz brands will be part of the deal, including Heinz, Philadelphia cream cheese and Kraft Mac & Cheese, the companies said in a statement Tuesday.
Both Disney and Heinz declined to comment on the financial terms of the deal, but a Heinz spokesperson said it is Disney’s “highest level of partnership” and designed to be an ongoing effort.
The partnership, which begins this summer, will result in new menu items, experiences and product offerings at Anaheim’s Disneyland Resort, Orlando’s Walt Disney World and on Disney cruise ships sailing out of ports in North America.
In the short term, new Heinz condiment stations and custom-designed equipment will be installed throughout the parks, the companies said.
Beyond the use of Kraft Heinz brands at Disney parks and on cruise ships, the partnership also allows for “integrated marketing campaigns” and digital content across Disney’s media platforms.
“Together we will build creative experiences for our consumers across our destinations, platforms, and fan touchpoints,” Becca Vodnoy, Walt Disney Co. senior vice president of corporate alliances, said in the statement.
My theme park day begins with gunfire. A jailbreak! But shortly after, I‘m attending a wedding. Next I’m on a mission, helping the local postmaster justify his uncontrollable desire to open everyone’s packages, and trying to find a way to do so without telling a lie.
This is just another Sunday morning at Knott’s Berry Farm’s “Ghost Town Alive!,” a now-10-year-old interactive show — live-action role-playing game is more accurate — that has become the best summer offering at any theme park, and not just in SoCal but in America. There’s a daily story, including three editions of a single-page newsletter that are updated every day. There’s also lots of improv. Over the years, I’ve found myself on the prowl for mysterious elixirs, playing matchmaker, collaborating on group stories in a schoolhouse, doing police work, participating in a mustache contest or flashing a press badge.
“Ghost Town Alive!” ultimately is the promise of theme parks fulfilled, that is that we can enter a fantasy world and play as cartoonish, or maybe even idealized, versions of ourselves.
You’re reading Mr. Todd’s Wild Ride newsletter
Todd Martens’ newsletter delivers news and commentary on the past, present and future of theme parks, right from the theme park capital of the world — Southern California.
By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy such as personalizing your experience and ads.
It’s a rarity, an event with 46 actors — about 30 of whom appear each afternoon — who lead guests through scavenger hunts, puzzles or just conversations about life in Calico, the fictional town of Knott’s Berry Farm’s Ghost Town area. The cast ranges from those just out of college to those in their mid-70s, and no character is ever played by more than one actor. This gives Calico a sense of life, an illusion that it’s actually populated, but also allows actors to fully develop a personality and let their characters evolve.
Before creative director Andy Crocker was working on “Ghost Town Alive!,” she was visiting it as a fan. Crocker, an experiential designer who has worked on projects for companies as wide-ranging as the Los Angeles Public Library and Walt Disney Imagineering, specializes in particular on guest-to-actor interactions.
“Ghost Town Alive!” unfolds like a live-action role-playing game. But expect plenty of silliness.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
“I will never forget the first time I saw it as a guest,” Crocker tells me. “I came with my husband, and we did not bring our kid. We walked in, and I saw a little girl in a pink cowboy hat with a painted-on mustache following an outlaw off to jail. That outlaw was giving a gritty HBO performance. Wasn’t patronizing. Wasn’t talking down. He was giving her a hero moment, and I burst into tears. I didn’t know this was possible to do on this scale with such an institution. The empowerment that performer gave to that guest, I will never forget.”
To make a theme park feel personal is no easy feat. In fact, designers have long been trying to solve this problem, whether by creating interactive attractions that feel responsive to the guest, or short-lived experiments such as the late but great Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, colloquially known as the Star Wars hotel.
Crocker says others have asked for the “secret sauce” to “Ghost Town Alive!” They’ve tried — and are trying — but she’s not so sure the magic can be replicated. One, Knott’s is blessed with a real, 100-year-old Ghost Town. That allowed for the investment to be solely in the cast and performance rather than infrastructure. And yet actors, of course, aren’t cheap.
A single-page newspaper is printed three times a day during “Ghost Town Alive!”
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
“The amount of people that we have, that’s tough for a lot of places,” Crocker says. “They try to do it with less, and it doesn’t quite work.”
Speaking on a panel hosted by trade group the Themed Entertainment Assn., Jeff Tucker, Knott’s Berry Farm’s show writer, says one early mistake Knott’s made was thinking everyone who works in Ghost Town could partake. That meant, for instance, taping dialogue cues to cash registers in the saloon in the hopes that bartenders could become a character. The concept failed. “It’s a logistical nightmare,” he says. The lesson: Hire actors to perform. Let bartenders be bartenders and retail staff be retail staff.
Another reason Crocker tells me “Ghost Town Alive!” is so rare, and will remain so: It doesn’t rely on intellectual property, or a known franchise, which has become the lifeblood of modern theme parks. “With things that are heavy IP, it’s very tricky to control your IP and to allow for real play, guest agency, and, honestly, artist agency,” she says.
Evan Battle, center, who plays Deputy Chester Davenport, at Knott’s Berry Farm’s “Ghost Town Alive!” in 2024. The interactive theatrical experience allows guests to mingle with about 30 actors.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
That’s important, as “Ghost Town Alive!” can shift with the whims of the guest. There’s a core storyline this year. A rich, Beverly Hills-like family is revealed to be the true owners of Calico, and how the residents respond is the key narrative of the day. But there are multiple tales to uncover, including hidden factions (check out the Calico Historical Society) and who is taking who to the 4 p.m. hoedown, which ends each daily game of “Ghost Town Alive!”
But Crocker has also seen it get rather heartwarming.
“My mom came to see it,” she says. “She has some health concerns. There was a character who was in a crazy mix-’em-up and said he would not make it to the hoedown and that this would be his last day on Earth. This character and my mom ended up having this conversation about how if you know you don’t have a lot of time left, what would you do with your time? I was surprised by that pivot.”
It helps, Crocker says, that she’s noticed one commonality among the “Ghost Town Alive!” staff. They play — or were weaned on — tabletop role-playing games such as “Dungeons & Dragons,” which at their best allow for an anything-goes approach designed to follow the direction of the players rather than a strict script.
Tucker on the panel said there was one rule the crew lives by that defines the success of “Ghost Town Alive!”: “It’s not real,” he said. “We can do whatever we want.”
This week in SoCal theme parks
Not yet ready for prime time, Knott’s Berry Farm has delayed the opening of Montezooma: The Forbidden Fortress.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
Montezooma is not yet zooming. Knott’s Berry Farm initially intended to launch its reimagined Montezooma’s Revenge, now known as Montezooma: The Forbidden Fortress, this week. Late Thursday, the park delayed its public unveiling, with a spokesperson citing additional fine-tuning that surfaced during its final days of testing. The delay is not expected to be a prolonged one. “We appreciate everyone’s understanding and look forward to welcoming media and guests in the coming days when we can showcase the attraction exactly as intended,” read a statement from the park.
A monthlong Lego celebration. Carlsbad’s Legoland likes to describe its Lego Festival, which started Monday and runs through Aug. 30, as a child’s first fest. Expect lots of characters and an assortment of play-focused areas. One is dedicated to music, another is a free-run creative zone and a third is a Lego garden designed to soothe. New this year is a game-heavy center dedicated to the Pokémon franchise, as well as a challenge-filled F1 installation.
It’s now more expensive to eat at Disneyland. Price hikes, unfortunately, are a yearly-occurrence at the Disneyland Resort, and this summer, like every summer, hundreds of food items have ever-so-slightly increased in cost. Most are in the range of a dollar or so — give or take a quarter or two — but expect to pay $7, up from $6.50, for a scoop of popcorn. I admittedly do not keep a database of Disneyland food prices, but sites like Mickey Visit or Theme Park IQ have tracked the most egregious price bumps. Looking at their data, you may want to think twice about dining at Disneyland’s Rancho del Zocalo Restaurante, where prices have been increasing even as portions over the years have been declining.
Where is Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift? We’re now in midsummer, and Universal Studios Hollywood’s Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift still does not have an official opening date. While sources familiar with the coaster’s operations point to routine mechanical issues that have arisen during its test and adjustment phase, one thing is certain: It’s not delayed due to noise complaints from neighbors, as rumors suggested last week. A Universal spokesperson pushed back on the notion that the coaster is delayed, stating it would still open this summer, which lasts into late September.
The best thing I ate at the parks
The hearty cottage pie from Downtown Disney’s Gordon Ramsay at the Carnaby.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
I’ve been eagerly anticipating the opening of Gordon Ramsay at the Carnaby at the Disneyland Resort’s Downtown Disney, the latest concept in which the celebrity chef has agreed to lend his name. This one is an upscale gastropub, and while I’ll leave the full cuisine analysis to the professional food writers, as a parkgoer I do believe it fills a void in Disneyland’s shopping and entertainment district, bringing the area an adult-focused space with upscale (read: expensive) twists on old favorites like fish and chips ($33) and cottage pie ($38). And after reading breathless press release-like articles and posts from my theme park peers (“utter perfection,” proclaimed one) I couldn’t have been more excited to dine there this weekend.
Let’s start with the vibe, which I found to be rather confused. I was seated in the tiny, uncomfortable indoor bar, a place that felt like an afterthought and leaned airport terminal drinking hole, as it’s situated at the top of a stairwell and serves primarily as a thoroughfare into the dining hall. That a pub, especially one with an extensive cocktail menu (I did love my $22 cotton candy-infused Old Fashioned) would treat its introductory bar as a throwaway rather than a centerpiece of the experience was disappointing (an outdoor bar is significantly more enticing). The core dining space leans contemporary more than a traditional, wood-infused pub, feeling cafe-like with its ‘60s rock posters and framed portraits of those in mod outfits. More theme-ing would have been welcome, as I read it as slightly cold and corporate rather than homey and intimate. Instead of, say Pasadena’s Lucky Baldwins, this felt like a nice break room at a major record label.
But my dish was delightful. I had my heart set on the cottage pie, this one infused with a hearty portion of short rib. I probably should have taken leftovers, because it’s heavy, but in the best way possible. The potato-rich top felt creamy and buttery, while the meat was equally soft. The whole thing felt invitingly plush. I walked away mixed. No complaints on my entrée, and I’m eager to come back and try the fish and chips, and yes, that viral sticky toffee pudding dessert, but longing for a more welcoming atmosphere, especially at this price point.
Tell us your stories. Ask us your questions.
Have a theme park tale to share? Whether it was a good day or less-than-perfect day, I would love to hear about it. Have a question? A tip? A fun photo from the parks to share? Email me at todd.martens@latimes.com. I may feature your note in an upcoming newsletter.
Ride on,
Todd Martens
P.S.
Drowned Out Productions’ “The Shoebox Museum” explores love and loss.
(Drowned Out Productions. )
There’s a show running Saturday and Sunday in Los Angeles that I believe theme park fans should make time for. “The Shoebox Museum,” at North Hollywood’s After Hours theater, is a walk-through immersive experience at its most thoughtful. It’s short, at around 30 minutes, but it stayed with me for hours after it concluded.
“The Shoebox Museum,” from Drowned Out Productions’ Jackson Mancuso, who does theme park design by day, is a mediation on heartbreak, asking what we want to leave behind, and take with us, as we explore our grief. It’s meticulously designed, as we follow light cues through byzantine rooms filled with everyday ephemera — the type of stuff that only holds meaning to those who were in love. It’s a show about how an once broken heart, even mended, still finds ways to haunt us.
FORGET racing round the sights – the best Spanish holidays begin the second you stop asking what happens next.
That’s the idea behind San Miguel’s Spanish Summer – less a checklist, more a state of mind: warm, curious and always ready for a “shall we?” that turns into the best bit of the trip.
You know the signs – your phone disappears into the beach bag, lunch drifts gloriously late and nobody remembers who ordered the extra plate, but everyone is reaching for it.
Start with a small rebellion against routine.
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In Benidorm, swap the pool for a barefoot morning on Poniente beach, then wander into the Old Town without checking a single review.
Take the street that looks busy. Take the one that doesn’t.
In Majorca, drive the road that curls away from the coast – it may lead to a pine-framed cove, a village square or a bakery window stacked with warm ensaimadapastries.
The point is not to get lost but to give up needing to know exactly where you are the whole time.
Remember: “si” opens doors, whether you’re saying yes to a volcanic rock pool in the Canary Islands or an Ibizan stallholder who insists that patterned shirt is totally you.
Even just agreeing to join your friend in Malaga who’s become “captain” of a boat trip booked 20 minutes ago.
New experiences don’t have to be huge.
Sometimes discovery is ordering the thing you cannot pronounce, taking the table with the wobble but the view, or walking one more street because there is music around the corner.
In Malaga, follow the smoke to a beach chiringuito and order espetos – sardines skewered and cooked by the fire until they taste of salt, sea and, yes, summer.
In Majorca, share pa amb oli, the island’s simple genius of bread, tomato and olive oil.
And in the Canaries, pass round papas arrugadas con mojo while everyone claims they are “not that hungry” as they keep going back in.
Nobody has their own plate for long – that shared-table feeling is where Spanish summer comes alive: sunglasses pushed into hair, sandy feet under the chair, a cold San Miguel on the table and three conversations happening at once.
Then the light begins to soften.
Benidorm turns gold as the beach crowd spills on to the promenade.
Ibiza gets that famous hum as sunseekers gather by the water and the first beat slips into the evening.
Stay salty. Keep the flip-flops on. Let sunset become dinner and dinner become whatever happens next.
Ibiza may tempt you from a hippy market to a cove and then into a night of music.
Malaga can carry you from sea air to rooftop lights without making the day feel over.
In Majorca, a village fiesta can pull you in before you know what is being celebrated.
The best local traditions are often the simplest ones: join the evening paseo, and watch families reclaim the streets when the heat drops.
Notice how every generation seems to fit around the same table.
In the Canary Islands, linger over one more story.
In Benidorm, follow the laughter.
That is why the memories that last are rarely the ones you scheduled – they are the accidental swim; the sunset nobody spoke through.
The song that became the holiday anthem or the waiter who remembered your name.
The stranger who took the group photo who “must have been a professional”.
San Miguel’s Spanish Summer guide offers the spark: places to eat, swim, listen, wander and wonder across five Spanish escapes.
But leave gaps in the plan because that is where summer gets really interesting.
Spanish Summer is not about seeing everything – it is about being open to anything.
The shy 9-year-old Nathan Negrete doesn’t naturally gravitate toward the spotlight, but as Negrete stood with Weston McKennie in front of the roaring 74,904 fans at SoFi Stadium, he smiled.
Looking back nearly a month later, the Pico Rivera resident doesn’t remember much of the U.S. men’s national team win over Paraguay, getting overwhelmed by the experience. But he remembers what McKennie told him — something Negrete decided should be kept secret despite a large smile on his face.
“The best day ever,” he said of the experience. “Because I went to the World Cup.”
Quaker and Common Goal partnered with FIFA to select children and young adults to escort teams out onto the pitch before kickoff. Negrete, who attends Rio Vista Elementary, was one of the lucky few who joined the U.S. team before its 4-1 win over Paraguay. It was a joyous start to a tournament run that would eventually end in the Round of 16.
A fan of both the U.S. and Mexico, Negrete started playing soccer at 4. His mother, Monica Ocampo, and his father, Jonathan Negrete, were both soccer fans, and they encouraged him to play as a striker. After his practices, though, Negrete would step into the goal and block his teammates’ shots. And once he strapped on the gloves officially, his parents couldn’t convince him to leave the net.
But there wasn’t anything quite like the experience of stepping out in front of the roaring crowd. Even as the city prepared to host the World Cup, as nearby restaurants hung banners to attract pedestrians and watch party notifications flooded social media, Ocampo said she wasn’t prepared for the impact of watching her child take the field with the national team.
The family held a 15-person watch party, just not for the actual game — for her son. The Telemundo broadcast zoomed in on Negrete and McKennie. For a couple of moments, Negrete scanned the stadium seriously, but then he looked up to see himself and McKennie on the SoFi Stadium video boards. So, he smiled.
“I cried,” Ocampo said. “His dad looked like he wanted to cry when he saw him.”
Messages from friends and family flooded her phone as the rest of the people who knew Negrete realized he was on the broadcast. Was that Nathan? Was that your son? Negrete took on a new nickname after his appearance: “Famous Nathan.”
As Nathan drove home with his mom, he still couldn’t believe what had happened. It took a few days for him to take it all in, and once he started talking about it, not a lot could stop him. The one priceless memory he kept with him was simple:
“‘I really want to be a professional soccer player now,’” Ocampo remembers her son saying in the car ride home. “Actually being there, seeing the field, actually living it, that’s one thing he told me that night: I really want to be a professional.”
He wouldn’t be the first. Graham Zusi, who played for the U.S. men’s national team between 2012 and 2017, participated in the 1994 World Cup opening ceremony as a 7-year-old. And even now, Negrete is using his experience to fuel his dreams of playing professionally, revisiting the YouTube video of the experience again and again.
“Hopefully one day he gets there, but wherever his life takes him, just for him to see that experience, it’s something he’s never going to forget,” Ocampo said. “Even now, sometimes we talk about him like I can’t believe he actually did that.”
Todd Martens’ newsletter delivers news and commentary on the past, present and future of theme parks, right from the theme park capital of the world — Southern California.
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So when I had the opportunity to talk to Chris Mortensen, one of the Disneyland Resort’s longest-tenured vacation planners, I wanted to know his.
Mortensen recently celebrated his 40th year with the company, and has spent more than 20 of them in his current role as director of West Coast Travel Operations. That means a significant part of his job is talking on the phone with those who want advice on how to plan their Disneyland days.
He comes from a Disney family. His wife has spent about 30 years with the resort, and one of their children is also a cast member. If anyone should know how to plan a special day at Disneyland, it’s Mortensen.
One of his key pieces of advice: Decide what’s most important to you as a guest. “Is it a thrill ride? Is it entertainment? Is it food?” Mortensen asks. “One of the things that I like to tell people is that you’re going to have a really busy day, but take time for yourself.”
Here are some of Mortensen’s other favorite park tips. We steered the conversation to Southern California locals, and those who may want a little glimpse of what makes Disneyland so special.
Get around the park by train
Here’s one hint, off the bat, that Mortensen says he gives most everyone: “Use the Disneyland Railroad as a form of transportation. Yes, it’s a great little attraction. Seeing the dinosaurs is one of my favorites. But it’s also a great way to get from one place to another. If you’re on Main Street and don’t want to walk all the way back to see ‘Bluey,’ jump on the railway. It’s a great way to get a little rest, and experience the park.”
Decompress at Disneyland’s most tranquil spot
Disneyland’s Snow White Grotto is a tranquil spot overlooked by many guests.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
Mortensen notes that it’s impossible to see all Disneyland has to offer in a single day, but rather than stressing about rushing from attraction to attraction, prioritize those that are important to you, and then take a breather at some overlooked park elements, especially those that add to its beauty and tranquility. I couldn’t agree more, and was pleased when Mortensen singled out one of my favorite places in the park: the Snow White Grotto, which is on a path on the eastern side of Sleeping Beauty Castle.
Sculpted by Leonida Parma from Carrara marble, the initial figures have, according to Disney’s fan club D23, been since replaced by fiberglass ones built from the original molds. The eight figures are still a sight, and Disney legendary designer John Hench constructed the fountain that holds them in 1960. The character figures, in the midst of a collection of jutting rocks and log bridges surrounding a peaceful waterfall, are all the same height, so Hench used forced perspective illusions to make it seem like Snow White was towering over the dwarf sculpts.
“The Snow White wishing well — you won’t find that anywhere [else],” Mortensen says. “Bring a quarter and toss it in, experience that.”
Take time for the Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough, a lesser-known attraction
Don’t sleep on the Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough at Disneyland.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
“People don’t know about it,” Mortensen says of the self-guided mini-tour that tells the tale of Princess Aurora.
Indeed, I had the Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough to myself one late Sunday morning. The attraction, best experienced with patience in mind, is largely inspired by the artwork of Eyvind Earle. Earle’s approach, after all, is designed to transport us, to place us in lush, fairy-tale-like environments that contain an ever-so-slightly foreboding atmosphere.
Think of this as a mini-art gallery where illuminated dioramas spring to life and transform before us. The walk-through was updated with new effects and artwork in 2008 but dates to 1957.
It’s Disneyland. Order the iconic turkey leg.
Mortensen and I clearly have different palates. If I’m recommending a must-try Disney snack, it’s not the churro. It’s the corn dog. Mortensen, however, is voting for the turkey leg. A brave choice, I believe, as it’s a hefty item and, well, a lot of tough meat. Mortensen, however, made his case.
“It’s unique,” he says. “Yes, you can get a churro, but where else can you walk around and just literally bite out of a turkey leg? It’s about trying to create memories. Every time we have conversations with someone, it’s about, ‘What’s going to make a memory for you?’ You’re always going to remember walking around Disneyland as a 5- or 6-year-old little boy or girl with a turkey leg.”
Turn It’s a Small World into a scavenger hunt
Cinderella is one of the many Disney characters that was added to It’s a Small World in the late 2000s.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
Mortensen had my attention when he declared It’s a Small World a must-do attraction at the park. After all, the Mary Blair-styled boat excursion is my favorite Disneyland ride.
Mortensen highlights a once controversial but now beloved late 2000s renovation that added more than two dozen Disney and Pixar characters to the attraction. When riding It’s a Small World, he says, try to spot as many as possible. Disneyland even recently placed Miguel from “Coco” in the ride. Focusing on the scavenger hunt, says Mortensen, helps turn a familiar attraction into one that feels fresh.
“There’s more to it than just riding the attraction,” he says.
Spot details in the windows of Main Street
Enjoying a horse-drawn trip around Main Street, U.S.A., is a relaxing start to a Disneyland day.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
Disneyland’s introductory land is a joy. Often, I start my day with a ride on one of Disneyland’s horse-drawn carriages, which venture from the foot of Main Street, U.S.A., to the Sleeping Beauty Castle and back. It’s a relaxing way to settle into the theme park and take a look at the exquisite designs of the Main Street buildings, which many guests rush past on their way to one of the park’s many rides.
Mortensen wanted to call specific attention to Main Street’s windows, which celebrate those who were integral to the development of the park. Many are nods to famed Disneyland designers. Most recently, the park awarded a window to the just-retired Kim Irvine and her mother, Leota Toombs. Irvine and Toombs were longtime creatives with Walt Disney Imagineering vital to the development of the park.
“I love to point out the windows on Main Street,” Mortensen says. “If you and I were walking in, that’s what I would do. I’d grab a box of popcorn, and just point out two or three of the names. Some people you may recognize. Some people you may not.”
And I certainly won’t argue with popcorn for breakfast.
This week in SoCal theme parks
Disney legend Don Iwerks died last week at 96.
(Lori Shepler / Los Angeles Times)
A legend was lost. Don Iwerks, whose inventiveness helped transform Disney’s theme parks, died July 9 at the age of 96, reported the Walt Disney Co. For Disney and his own studio, Iwerks Entertainment, Iwerks helped develop technologies and techniques like Circle-Vision, the 360-degree camera behind “America the Beautiful” and other early Disney attractions, and the 3D effects used in attractions like Captain EO and Star Tours. He also had major contributions to the world of cinema, instrumental, particularly, in the effects sequences of “Mary Poppins.” Read more about Iwerks in The Times’ obituary by Corinne Purtill.
Fiesta Village is no more. The Inland Empire amusement park, which stood for more than 50 years, closed for good last weekend. A center for mini golf, roller skating and go-karting, Fiesta Village announced the closure last week, citing rising operation costs and declining attendance.
Montezooma’s Revenge is back. The reimagined coaster, now known as Montezooma: The Forbidden Fortress, is set to return to Knott’s Berry Farm on Monday. Shuttered for the last four years, the ride has essentially been rebuilt, now featuring enhanced Aztec theming, new trains and a modern launch system. Look for a report on the remade coaster next week.
It’s almost Halloween season. Disneyland in mid-August will launch its Oogie Boogie Bash, Universal will follow in early September with Halloween Horror Nights and Knott’s Berry Farm isn’t far behind with its Knott’s Scary Farm. The latter is the longest-running Halloween event in the Southland, and defined the maze-focused haunt formula. Tickets are now on sale for all three happenings.
Happy 71st anniversary, Disneyland! On Friday, Disneyland will turn 71. While the occasion won’t be as grand as the 70th anniversary, which has been celebrated for the past year and will essentially continue up until the start of the park’s Halloween activities, the Anaheim theme park typically recognizes the birthday with some light festivities for guests. Think, perhaps, a character cavalcade or some specialty treats.
Tell us your stories. Ask us your questions.
Have a theme park tale to share? Whether it was a good day or less-than-perfect day, I would love to hear about it. Have a question? A tip? A fun photo from the parks to share? Email me at todd.martens@latimes.com. I may feature your note in an upcoming newsletter.
Ride on,
Todd Martens
P.S.
The initial news for those who purchased Disneyland’s specially priced $59 nighttime ticket is good. While now sold-out, Disneyland launched the promotional evenings this past Sunday, and the park didn’t appear flooded with twilight guests. Attendance was continuing a summer trend of being relatively light, and though wait times increased in the evening, nothing was headache-inducing.
At times, even showcase attraction Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance stood at about 40 minutes, with Space Mountain often showing a similar wait time. Most rides, however, were even more approachable, topping off at around 25 minutes throughout the night. Since the evening ticket only gives guests a taste of Disneyland — five hours worth — it’s a positive sign that the event’s opening night kept things manageable, providing those who bought in at a budget price a prime experience.
