Disney's Avengers Campus: The Complete Guide

When Disney acquired Marvel Entertainment in 2009, it was inevitable that the brand’s iconic superheroes would find homes at the company’s theme parks. Opened in 2021, Avengers Campus at Disney California Adventure (Disneyland’s sister park) gives visitors a chance to hang with Thor, Iron Man, and other musclebound defenders of the planet. Guests are invited to train with the Avengers, test out new gizmos, sample food and beverages from the Pym Testing Lab, and (of course) scoop up some Marvel merch to take home. Let’s run down the rides, attractions, shows (including one featuring Spider-Man actually soaring through the air), and other experiences available in the land and offer tips to make your visit, well, super.

The Layout of Avengers Campus

As with Cars Land at Disney California Adventure and Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, Avengers Campus continues the trend of theme park lands devoted to a single intellectual property. Although, instead of focusing on just the Avengers, the land encompasses the entire Marvel universe—make that multiverse. Rather than locking into a specific timeframe, as is the case at Galaxy’s Edge, the multiverse conceit enables pesky details that have occurred in the movies and comic books to be overlooked. Black Widow bit the dust? Fuhgeddaboudit. Characters from different eras and galaxies commingling with one another? Not to worry, just go with the multiverse flow.

The idea is that visitors are recruits, and the campus is where they have the chance to earn their superhero GED. A former secret lair of Tony Stark and Stark Industries, the now-declassified complex is open to all Avengers wannabes.

Built on the site of A Bug’s Land, the compact area is abuzz with activity and visual treats. Whoa! Is that the Quinjet, nonchalantly berthed atop the Avengers Headquarters? And hey, there’s the WEB Workshop, where Peter Parker and his crew are hard at work developing cutting-edge (if sometimes glitchy) tech. The futuristic Pym Test Kitchen beckons with its chic, industrial lab that’s been converted into an eatery. It’s all very sleek and compelling.

Avengers Campus Rides

There are three ride attractions in Avengers Campus: one that opened with the land, one that pre-dates it, and one that is on the way.

WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure

Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man has digs on the East Coast as well as at Disneyland. Before Disney purchased Marvel, Universal Orlando already had The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man ride at its Marvel Superhero Island. Under a preexisting licensing agreement, Universal is still operating the land and the attraction, one of the best in all of parkdom.

Disney’s interactive Spidey ride is completely different. Passengers don 3D glasses, board WEB Slinger vehicles and sling webs using nothing but hand gestures. Riders don’t necessarily have to contort their hands exactly like the hero (although most do), because any old movement will work.

The reason for all of the hand flinging and web slinging? It seems that Peter Parker’s Spider-Bots have been multiplying like crazy, and recruits are needed to capture the little devils. The gameplay is very intuitive, and the virtual webs that riders conjure have magical properties that extend beyond mere bot baiting. The action is frenzied, and like Disney’s Toy Story Mania! and other rider-participation attractions, it’s more about racking up points and becoming video game warriors than getting transported into a richly themed story.

Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout

This is the attraction that existed before Avengers Campus. Housed in the same building as the now-defunt Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and using its faster-than-freefall drop tower ride system, Mission: Breakout is a real hoot. Visitors are lured to the Collector’s fortress to see some of his prized, intergalactic possessions. Once there, Rocket Raccoon enlists them to help bust his imprisoned Guardians buddies out of their holding cells. With airtime-filled drops and shots back up the tower along with hilarious scenes filled with the franchise’s characteristic humor and retro music, the attraction is simultaneously gut-wrenching (literally) and hilarious.

The Tower of Terror and Mission: Breakout used to be located in the park’s Hollywood Land. When Disney reconfigured the park to accommodate Avengers Campus, it co-opted the area and merged it with the new Marvel land.

Quinjet to Wakanda

The land’s third attraction will open in phase two (at a time yet to be announced) of Avengers Campus. Disney is promising that this will be an E-Ticket ride in which visitors will board a Quinjet and accompany the Avengers on an adventure to Wakanda to save the universe.

Avengers Campus Shows and Characters

Look! Up in the air! It’s Spider-Man! One of the highlights of the land is the action that periodically takes place on the rooftops of campus buildings. Spider-Man literally flies and gyrates through the air (thanks to an impressive Imagineering development known as “Stuntronics”). There is also a stunt show featuring Black Widow, Captain America, Taskmaster, and Black Panther. Back on the ground, guests can meet Spider-Man as well as Iron Man. Other characters, such as Captain Marvel, Ant-Man, and The Wasp, roam the land and interact with visitors.

If you want to take it to the next superhero level, you could train with the Dora Milaje, the Black Panther’s Wakandan bodyguards. You could also head to the Ancient Sanctum where Doctor Strange shares secrets of the mystic arts.

Food and Dining

The Pym Test Kitchen is the land’s main eatery. The cool quick-service concept is that Ant-Man and the Wasp are creating ridiculously over- and undersized dishes using Pym Particles. The Not So Little Chicken Sandwich, for example, features a generous piece of fried chicken breast, slathered with teriyaki and spicy red chili sauces and topped with red cabbage slaw on an itty-bitty bun. It looks absurd, and is something of a messy chore to eat, but it certainly makes for a unique dining experience.

Then there is the PYM-ini, a humungous panini with salami, ham, and other goodies that costs a colossal $99.99. But here's the thing: the crazy-big dish serves at least six, and maybe as many as eight people, so it’s not all that insane once you do the math. For $7.99 you can top off your Pym meal with a “celestial-sized” Choco-Smash Candy Bar. It’s a dark chocolate bar with nuts and caramel served atop a brownie and sealed in a way-too-small wrapper. The restaurant serves breakfast as well with dishes such as Ever-expanding Cinna-Pym Toast.

The Shawarma Palace is a food cart serving favorites such as a chicken shawarma wrap. There is also a vegetarian option, Impossible Victory Falafel, which mixes the plant-based burger substitute with cauliflower. It wouldn’t be a Disney land without a churro option, and Terran Treats serves a pineapple-infused version coiled into a spiral.

At the Pym Testing Lab, visitors can sample drinks such as Molecular Meltdown, a beer cocktail with ice cream and marshmallows, or Particle Fizz, a hard seltzer with fruit juices and cherry-flavored boba.

Avengers Campus Merchandise

Once you've tried your darnedest to rid the campus of Spider-Bots on the WEB-SLINGERS attraction, you could head to WEB Suppliers and purchase your own Spider-Bot. (Just be responsible and don’t let your mechanical arachnid replicate.) There are other Spider-Man tchotchkes such as special Spider-Bot backpacks (for owners to display the bots, not for the bots themselves), spider light goggles, and web making kits as well as the usual assortment of branded clothing, refrigerator magnets, and the like.

The Campus Supply Pod kiosk offers Avengers-themed gear such as hoodies and water bottles, while The Collector’s Warehouse, a shop inside Mission: Breakout, has Guardians of the Galaxy clothing, toys, and other stuff along with items specifically tied to the attraction.

Tips and Tricks

• Join the Virtual Queue: The only way you can get in line for WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure is by joining the Virtual Queue. To join, get the Disneyland Mobile app, and use it to check for available boarding groups starting at 7 a.m. on the day of your visit. You can do this from anywhere but you want to join the queue as close to 7 a.m. as possible. The park makes a second batch of boarding groups available starting at noon each day.Also, as with the rest of the attractions throughout the Disneyland resort, no FastPasses or MaxPasses are available for WEB SLINGERS. (Disneyland halted the programs when it reopened in 2021; it has not announced when, or whether, FastPass or MaxPass will resume.)
• Make sure you have a valid theme park reservation: In order to visit Avengers Campus (or any other land at Disney California Adventure), you will need to make a park reservation. This can be done on Disneyland’s website. The resort introduced park reservations in 2021 to help control capacity.
• Use the Mobile Food Ordering feature on the Disneyland app: That would enable you to skip the lines at Pym Test Kitchen and Pym Testing Lab and prepay for your food and beverages. You can only order in advance on the day you are visiting and while you are in the park. Mobile Order is also available at a number of other quick-service restaurants throughout the Disneyland Resort.
• Check the times for the shows: The Avengers Campus presentations—The Amazing Spider-Man!, Avengers Assemble!, Dr. Strange: Mysteries of the Mystic Arts, and Warriors of Wakanda: The Disciplines of the Dora Milaje—are offered multiple times daily. Check the resort’s schedule for the day you plan to visit to make sure you don’t miss the shows you and your gang want to see.