This Disney California Adventure and Disneyland ride refurbishment calendar for 2025 & 2026 lists temporary attraction closures so you know what won’t be open before planning your vacation. Additionally, info about reimagining projects underway to enhance experiences around the parks.
While no one wants attraction closures during their visit, they are a necessary part of keeping Disneyland and Disney California Adventure in good condition, as routine maintenance, safety upgrades, and attraction improvements are all done during scheduled ride closures. Usually, there are only a handful of simultaneous closed rides, plus new attractions being built.
This is once again true as of late October! Towards the end of last month, several fairly high profile refurbishments wrapped up, the most notable of which was the multi-month closure of Radiator Springs Racers. That Cars Land headliner has since reopened, as have a few other attractions. There are still more refurbishments than normal during the heart of Halloween season, but not nearly as many as over the summer.
Having an idea of which attractions are closed at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure is important, but we recommend consulting our 2025-2026 Disneyland Vacation Planning Guide for more comprehensive info. That covers everything from saving money on park tickets and hotels to where to eat, when to visit, and more.
In addition to scheduled attraction refurbs, unscheduled downtime can also occur during a visit. This usually only occurs for a few hours at a time, so if you find an attraction is closed during your visit to Disneyland Resort and it’s not listed below, it’s likely a temporary closure that will last a few hours. Check with nearby Cast Members to confirm.
Below is a schedule of Disneyland and Disney California Adventure refurbishments, when the closure starts, and when the refurbishment will conclude. To the extent that specific dates are not yet listed, those will be updated once Disneyland Resort provides precise start and/or end dates. The following day will be when the attraction is scheduled to reopen.
Here are the closure schedules for Disney California Adventure and Disneyland…
Disney California Adventure
- Better Together: A Pixar Pals Celebration! – Temporarily paused for Halloween season
- Disney Jr. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Live! – Temporarily paused Halloween season
- Mickey’s PhilharMagic – Closed through October 30, 2025
- Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue! – Permanently closes in early 2026
- Red Car Trolley – Permanently closed
- Redwood Creek Challenge Trail – Closed November 1-13, 2025
The closure of Mickey’s PhilharMagic lasts a few weeks, ending just in time for Halloween and the holiday season. Permits were recently filed for PhilharMagic that suggest it’s receiving a range of A/V upgrades.
Redwood Creek Challenge Trail is also closing for a couple of weeks in early November. This coincides with the removal of the Halloween overlay during Oogie Boogie Bash and the installation of Christmas decorations and another overlay for the Santa Claus meet & greet.
Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue will permanently close in early 2026. It’s likely this closure will occur shortly after the holiday season ends, potentially as early as January 5, 2026.
Monsters will make way for an all-new Avatar area at Disney California Adventure. This new Pandora destination is expected to feature a boat ride utilizing the ride system from Shanghai Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure.
It will also take up much more space than the Monsters, Inc. ride, taking over the entirety of the Hollywood Backlot and expanding into the current bus loop. We don’t expect the Avatar area to open until the early 2030s.
Next, let’s take a look at the 2025-2026 Disneyland attraction closure calendar…
Disneyland
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad – Surprise early reopening!
- Casey Jr. Circus Train – Closed through at least December 10, 2025 (Reopening TBD)
- Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln – Reopening in the Future
- Indiana Jones Adventure – Closed December 1-3, 2025
- “it’s a small world” – Closed October 30 through November 13, 2025
- Magic Happens Parade – Not returning until 2026
- Paint the Night Parade – Pausing temporarily for Christmas (Resumes in 2026)
- Storybook Land Canal Boats – Closed through at least December 10, 2025 (Reopening TBD)
Note that the calendar currently runs through December 10, 2025, which is why there are a couple closures of unknown durations that last until (at least) that date. The actual reopening dates are to be determined.
The latest update is that Indiana Jones Adventure has a brief closure scheduled for December 1-3, 2025. Note that this is subject to change. The refurbishment has not been officially announced, but rather, a closure has been added to the calendar. This type of refurbishment often changes, and in fact, the dates here already have once. We highly recommend checking back closer to your visit dates if they’re in the vicinity of the current closure dates.
The wildest ride on the refurbishment list has been Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
The latest update is that Big Thunder Mountain Railroad quietly reopened on November 2, 2025 after a two-month refurbishment! Like a runaway mine train rounding a turn in a darkened cavern, this came out of nowhere. No announcement was made and hours were not published in advance, the ride just opened unexpected with the park today after a couple days of trains cycling.
Actually, we shouldn’t say that no hours were posted in advance. Twice in the last month, Disneyland posted hours for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad via a calendar update on the attraction page, only to subsequently remove them. This is often how we learn of reopening dates, but it’s less credible than an official announcement and ends up being wrong about 15% of the time.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad has now been among that 15% that was wrong twice for this same refurbishment. Disney posted (incorrect) reopening dates of November 23rd and October 25th for the attraction. In both cases, the date was quietly removed. Previously, Disneyland indicated that the project team wanted more time in the final stages of the project for inspections and approvals. That a reopening date will be shared closer to completion.
The good news is that surprise reopening is 3 weeks before the previous November 23, 2025 reopening date. Note that this is not being treated as a soft opening. Hours have since been posted for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad for all dates as far out as the calendar goes (currently December 14, 2025). Although the ride could go down again due to technical difficulties or other issues, the intent is clearly for it to be operational going forward.
Another update is that “it’s a small world” is closing on October 30th and will reopen on November 14, 2025.
This is an annual closure that’s done to install the “it’s a small world” holiday overlay. The duration of this closure is pretty close to the historical average (although it hasn’t been consistent in the last few years due to routine refurbishments coinciding with the holiday overlay closure). It’s possible that “it’s a small world” holiday will soft open a day ahead of schedule; that happens about half the time.
What gets installed must get taken down (or so I’m told–Sarah won’t let me keep our decorations up all year), and “it’s a small world” will likely have a closure in mid to late January 2026 to remove the overlay. The timing of this also isn’t consistent in the last few years, but the historical norm is a ~10 day closure in mid or late January.
Disneyland often tries to stagger the removal of the Haunted Mansion Holiday and “it’s a small world” holiday overlays to avoid having both closed at the exact same time. Disneyland has implied that Haunted Mansion Holiday will close on January 8, 2026, so our expectation is that “it’s a small world” will close later in the month. (Ballpark estimates would be Haunted Mansion Holiday closed January 8-18, 2026 and “it’s a small world” closed January 20-30, 2026.)
On another positive note, Disney has confirmed that the Wondrous Journeys nighttime spectacular will return between the Halloween and Christmas seasons at Disneyland. It was previously unknown which, if any, fireworks would be show on these dates.
Halloween Time at Disneyland Resort officially runs through October 31, with a two-week gap before the Holiday Time at Disneyland Resort Christmas season kicks off from November 14, 2025 through January 7, 2026. Now we know that Wondrous Journeys will fill that two-week gap with pyro on select nights (mostly weekends) and just projections on other nights (weekdays).
Other than that, the other new addition is Paint the Night. This parade will pause for the Christmas season, with its last performances for the year occurring November 9, 2025. Paint the Night will be indirectly replaced by “A Christmas Fantasy” parade.
Finally, a few notes about the above refurbishments. Disneyland is notorious for changing its refurbishment schedules, adding or canceling planned downtimes weeks or days in advance. While this practice is still relatively uncommon in the grand scheme of things, it’s worth pointing out because it does happen.
What follows is our philosophy concerning refurbishments, with the specific example of the recent multi-year Disneyland Railroad refurbishment used to illustrate…
Thoughts on Refurbishments
Nobody likes a favorite attraction to be refurbished during their vacation. It means missing out and potentially not being able to experience the ride for another year or longer, depending upon the frequency of your visits to Disneyland. A couple of years ago, the Disneyland Railroad closed for an extended refurbishment due to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge construction.
At first, we were really disappointed. This might seem like an odd attraction to lament the closure of, but as Southern Californians with Disneyland Annual Passes, this was an absolute favorite of ours. We rode regularly when we wanted to rest our feet, or simply a break from the crowds. With the exception of maybe ‘it’s a small world’, we did Disneyland Railroad more than any other attraction.
However, that initial disappointment pretty quickly gave way to excitement. We began thinking about ways Disneyland Railroad could be plussed, improving the experience for years to come. Disney had already announced that some changes would be made (as the track needed to be re-routed), and we were excited for the prospect of new show scenes or other visuals.
From my perspective, investing in the long-term quality of an attraction is far more important than the temporary satisfaction I’ll get out of riding it on my next visit. This is why it always perplexes me when regulars contend that their vacation will be ruined because their favorite attraction will be closed.
If it’s your favorite attraction and you’re active in the Disney fan community, that means you’ve been to Disneyland before and probably will visit again. It would thus stand to reason that you would want something you love to get the TLC it deserves, and continue to improve.
Disneyland Railroad works as a good example here…in large part because it did receive significant changes and enhancements. (Arguably, the Rivers of America suffered due to being condensed, but that’s another topic for another day–we cover all aspects of this in our New-Look Grand Circle Tour of Disneyland post.)
The point extends to other attractions that have seen similar plussings, but also have more of a problem with effects breaking. Take Indiana Jones Adventure, for example. This is a ride that seems to get a refurbishment about every other year (sometimes more frequently) and we’d argue that it could probably use more regular maintenance than that.
If you are a long-term fan, would you rather experience Indiana Jones Adventure every single visit with 75% of the effects working, or every single visit minus one or two with 95% of the effects working? For me, the answer to that is easy. I’ll take a superior long term experience every time.
Beyond that, there’s the much more compelling justification for regular refurbishments: they are essential for the safety of attractions. While we may think of these attractions as all fun and games that offer a safe sense of exhilaration, that’s when they are properly maintained.
It’s unpleasant to think about, but there have been several preventable deaths in the history of Disney’s parks. During a dark era of Disneyland history, improper maintenance was the cause of death on Big Thunder Mountain. Likewise, years of neglect at Disneyland Paris have led to incidents of injury that could be attributed to a lack of maintenance. In both cases, this has been addressed, and maintenance has improved considerably.
This is not meant to scare anyone or provoke an emotional reaction. Disney’s worldwide safety record is sterling as compared to other park operators. It’s still important to remember that these fun, ‘magical’ places also exist in the real world and use a lot of potentially dangerous elements if safety is not viewed as key.
When it comes to maintenance that is not essential to the safe operation of an attraction, we are left to contemplate what amount of show quality should be accepted. If following a strict Nunis-ian interpretation of the Four/Five Keys, show is an important consideration, and it should always be 100%. This is a nice goal to strive for, but the practical reality is that 100% show quality is an unworkably high threshold sometimes.
In my estimation, this is a good example of balancing guest interests with show quality. Get the effects working that are easily fixable, and find other ways to address effects that are frequently breaking. We’re not talking about safety here, just random effects. Indiana Jones Adventure has had a number of effects disabled or replaced over the years because they were unreliable.
Guests are understandably concerned when it appears an inordinate number of attractions are closing during their vacation, especially out of state visitors. Trips to California are not cheap and are often once in a lifetime experiences; first-timers certainly do not want to miss out on experiences about which they’ve read extensive hype.
With that said, Disneyland and Disney California Adventure ought to be publishing their routine refurbishment schedules several months in advance, allowing guests to plan around closures. Disney plans maintenance well in advance, and this info should be passed along to guests. For the most part, it is.
Obviously, unplanned maintenance can occur, which takes rides out of commission for hours or even days at the last minute. This is an unavoidable part of sophisticated theme park attractions, and there’s no real way to “plan around” this. It just is what it is.
However, the problem with a “not during my vacation” attitude like this is that it’s always going to be someone’s (or tens of thousands of someones) vacation. If Disneyland and Disney California Adventure attractions with show quality issues aren’t close for refurbishments for fear of some guests during a time-limited window missing out, all guests in perpetuity are going to have a lesser experience.
The end result of that thinking is a duct-tapped approach to attraction maintenance, with whatever work that can be done overnight accomplished, and two parks full of attractions with half their effects broken. First-timers would be left wondering why there was so much hype about Disneyland in the first place, as so many components of rides simply don’t work. If you’re reading this as a lifelong fan, well…maybe you wouldn’t have become a lifelong fan if this were actually Disneyland’s modus operandi.
Planning a Southern California vacation? For park admission deals, read Tips for Saving Money on Disneyland Tickets. Learn about on-site and off-site hotels in our Anaheim Hotel Reviews & Rankings. For where to eat, check out our Disneyland Restaurant Reviews. For unique ideas of things that’ll improve your trip, check out What to Pack for Disney. For comprehensive advice, consult our Disneyland Vacation Planning Guide. Finally, for guides beyond Disney, check out our Southern California Itineraries for day trips to Los Angeles, Laguna Beach, and tons of other places!
Your Thoughts…
Any questions about the current refurbishments at Disneyland Resort? What do you think about refurbishments at the Disney Parks? Are you more concerned about an improved long-term experience, or do you think “not during my vacation!”? Any other factors you think are worth considering? As mentioned, we think this is a conversation, so please share your ‘refurbishment philosophy’, or any other thoughts or questions you have, in the comments!