After visiting Galaxy’s Edge over the summer and absolutely loving it, I was more than ready to visit Avengers Campus at Disney California Adventure the next day. While I’m not a Star Wars fan, I am a Marvel fan. I had heard the theme park land was pretty disappointing, so I kept my expectations low. I loved Galaxy’s Edge despite its own negative feedback, so I was hoping Avengers Campus would be similarly surprising. Unfortunately, Avengers Campus ended up being even worse than my lowest expectations.
Avengers Campus is an empty concrete lot
Avengers Campus is best described as an empty concrete lot. There’s very little scenery or theming around the space and quite honestly, there’s nothing to do. The land itself is a barren wasteland that feels cheap and unfinished. The central building is reminiscent of the Avengers Compound seen in MCU movies, but it’s just an empty structure with nothing going on except a tiny gift shop. There’s small themed areas around the land, like the ancient ruins of a Sanctum with a small garden, but for the most part, Avengers Campus just feels like a giant Quinjet landing pad.
There’s one small gift shop, the Avengers Vault, attached to the main building, but it takes up very little space considering the building’s size. I’m not sure what was intended to go inside the main structure, but it seems like a huge missed opportunity for another ride or some kind of MCU-themed experience like a Stark lab. The Quinjet parked on top of the building is cool to see, but it would be even cooler if it was on the ground where you could take photos with it. Instead, you’ll only find some generic military Jeeps as an accessible photo op.
The Avengers Vault gift shop itself is sorely lacking in cool exclusive merchandise. There are some nice Infinity Stone replicas that I did purchase, but I was struck by how little I cared about being surrounded by MCU merch. I’m a collector who loves spending money on my hobbies, and I was so enamored by the Galaxy’s Edge merchandise that I almost bought stuff I didn’t need just because I was swept up in how cool all of it was, but the Marvel merchandise wasn’t anywhere near as interesting.
That feeling of excitement is nowhere to be found in Avengers Campus except maybe around Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout! The gift shop there was more unique, but the items available for sale still weren’t very appealing. The same goes for the Spider-Man WEB Suppliers shop, which is definitely more little-kid oriented than the other gift shops in Avengers Campus.
The best items for sale are Infinity Stone container replicas at the Avengers Vault shop, which feel much higher quality than similarly priced items elsewhere in the parks. I purchased the Tesseract, Aether, and Orb and was very happy with their swappable Infinity Stone functionality that allows each container to glow a different color associated with whatever stone you place inside. Putting the Power Stone inside the Tesseract makes you feel like you’re in your own episode of What If…?. Those purchases were the highlight of my time at Avengers Campus, but the gift shops there should’ve been able to squeeze a lot more money out of me than they managed to.
Characters at Avengers Campus
The characters at Avengers Campus were another letdown. I was struck by how genuinely engaged the actors were at Galaxy’s Edge, going out of their way to speak to my friend and I even though we were just hanging back and watching them have fun with the little kids. I did interact a little bit with Ms. Marvel, who was super sweet and totally into playing her role, but other character actors didn’t seem like they wanted to be there. I’m not sure what the point of having characters in a theme park land is if they don’t want to spend any time with visitors, but that’s what the Avengers Campus experience is like.
All of the characters appeared and disappeared fairly quickly, and there weren’t many of them around to begin with, making the land feel even emptier and more boring than it would be with a bunch of superheroes playing their part in entertaining little kids.
Stunt shows take place on a balcony in the main building where Black Widow and Iron Man fight villains like Taskmaster, but it’s difficult to see and even harder to hear what’s going on. None of those characters ever came down to interact with visitors, either. They were totally inaccessible, since they only appeared on the balcony.
With more genuine character interactions like the ones that litter Galaxy’s Edge, the lack of stuff to do in Avengers Campus wouldn’t be as glaring. Instead, after you’ve ridden on Mission: Breakout! and looked at the land for five minutes, you’ve truly gotten the complete Avengers Campus experience.
Food and rides at Avengers Campus
The food at Avengers Campus was nothing to write home about. Pym’s Test Kitchen is a cute idea, but as I mentioned in my Galaxy’s Edge review, the food at Disneyland is more expensive and worse in quality when compared to the food at Universal Studios Hollywood. The one exception is the shawarma stand in Avengers Campus. The shawarma there was genuinely delicious and the best thing I ate at either Disneyland park.
Avengers Campus is in desperate need of more rides. The only one included in the land itself is Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure, which is a basic shooting game intended for the littlest of kids. It’s not even a fun shooting game in the vein of Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. Instead of going through an interesting physical space, you’re loaded onto a cool-looking spider vehicle and plopped in front of huge screens to randomly fire at.
It’s a very underwhelming experience and not even worth waiting in line for. Little kids might have fun, but it isn’t up to the standard of similar rides at Disneyland. More physical scenery in the ride would’ve gone a very long way towards making it more entertaining.
On the other hand, Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout! was one of my favorite rides at either Disneyland park. The ride’s theme is super on-point, throwing you headfirst into the cosmic side of the MCU. It’s amazing to walk among The Collector’s museum before getting onto a fun thrill ride. I didn’t know what to expect from a tower ride, but the music and huge drops make for an unforgettable experience. I still prefer more traditional rides where you’re going through a track instead of just bouncing up and down, but the ride was even more fun the second time when we didn’t hold on to the handlebars on our seats as we free-fell through the air.
This Disney theme park land desperately needs more work
Overall, Avengers Campus is a very disappointing theme park land. It truly feels like something cheap and easy was rushed out to capitalize on the MCU brand without putting much effort into it. The character interactions are lacking, there’s barely anything to do, and you can’t even shop to your heart’s content. There used to be more live performances, including a Dora Milaje show and a Doctor Strange show, but both have been permanently cancelled as of summer 2024.
It’s baffling that Disney wouldn’t put more effort into a theme park land for their most popular franchise, but hopefully, we see more investment in the future. I actually had opposing opinions of Galaxy’s Edge and Disneyland versus Avengers Campus and Disney California Adventure. I didn’t like Disneyland yet loved Galaxy’s Edge, but I really liked California Adventure and disliked Avengers Campus. It was a weird feeling to have, but there are much better ways to spend your time in Disney California Adventure instead of being bored in the hot sun at Avengers Campus.
Visiting Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge
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