Future WDW Additions/Expansion

[Nick]

I couldn't find what seemed to find a thread this seemed to belong in so created this. With TRON opening, the only thing left is Moana/Center hub at Epcot and Tiana's Bayou Adventure next year. With nothing officially announced at D23, it begs the question, what's next and when?

D'amaro talked to the Orlando Business Journal and gave this quote:

Our Imagineers, our entire team, are incredibly ambitious about the experience here and how it will continue to grow and evolve. You’ve seen it come to life with the 50th anniversary coming out of the pandemic and how we stood right back up and brought back all the things people love and added new things. You have seen it at Epcot — it’s totally transforming — and that will continue to transform.

TRON is spectacular, and adding something of this size and scope to the most visited theme park in the world is pretty ambitious and incredible. You see the guests walking off that experience … the look on their faces — and it adds to the whole experience we offer here. But there’s no end … TRON is the tip of the iceberg of what’s coming.

We are just getting started.

So taking out the part where he said TRON is "ambitious", the more noteworthy thing is that he said it's the "tip of the iceberg of what's coming". I assume he's including PATF in there, but i'd say it's likely one of the D23 "maybe it will, maybe it won't" projects got their funding approved if he's making statements like there's a bunch of stuff on the way. No matter what, DAK HAS to be getting some love here. Hopefully DHS too. Let's replace some of those ancient shows finally at the very least.

https://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/news/2023/03/06/florida-disney-damaro-parks-magic-kingdom-tron.html?csrc=6398&taid=64065edf27e6b0000147b8f4&utm_campaign=trueAnthemTrendingContent&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

 

[Parkscope Joe]

Thank you using for begging the question correctly.

The ONLY project I know of that's unannounced is the Harmonious replacement. Obviously the easiest thing is restarting the Play Pavilion project. After that... I genuinely think that if Chapek wasn't ousted in November we were looking at a company that let their full theme park creative staff go and WDI would be full of people licensing toys.

 

[Jerroddragon]

I'd assume they would want to do something with the Dinosaur Land in AK. But yeah, kinda interested to see what the next project is, they have redone so many area's in the area over the past ten years not much left...unless tomorrowland finally gets redone?

 

[Nick]

Thank you using for begging the question correctly.

The ONLY project I know of that's unannounced is the Harmonious replacement. Obviously the easiest thing is restarting the Play Pavilion project. After that... I genuinely think that if Chapek wasn't ousted in November we were looking at a company that let their full theme park creative staff go and WDI would be full of people licensing toys.

Iger is being very bullish at least to Wall Street on the parks so I guess we'll see where that leads. I'm sure they know they are going to need additions lined up to counter Epic in the ensuing years. Obviously there's no directly countering Epic and at the pace of construction they move at, there's nothing they have that will be opening in 2025 either. In the years following Epic will be key for Disney to make sure they have projects lined up much like 2016-2024 where we will have seen Disney open something new every year in that span.

 

[Parkscope Joe]

Iger is being very bullish at least to Wall Street on the parks so I guess we'll see where that leads. I'm sure they know they are going to need additions lined up to counter Epic in the ensuing years. Obviously there's no directly countering Epic and at the pace of construction they move at, there's nothing they have that will be opening in 2025 either. In the years following Epic will be key for Disney to make sure they have projects lined up much like 2016-2024 where we will have seen Disney open something new every year in that span.

People claimed Disney "woke up" after 2013 and 2014 and yet their first big projects from then didn't open till 2018. If even Iger green lights stuff now it's not opening till 2028 with how WDI operates.

 

[Nick]

People claimed Disney "woke up" after 2013 and 2014 and yet their first big projects from then didn't open till 2018. If even Iger green lights stuff now it's not opening till 2028 with how WDI operates.

2017 (Pandora was much bigger than TSL), but I’m splitting hairs here.

Disney’s real downfall was going pretty much the entirety of the 2000’s while only opening about two major rides. It allowed Universal the opportunity to creep in on their territory. In the end we should probably be thankful because had Universal gone under (which let’s be honest, they weren’t far from before Potter), what fun would this all be?

 

[TheUniC6]

Once EU opens, Disney will likely move forward with Moana and Zootopia in DAK, and the villains land at MK. I say it will only be villains because I though I read somewhere that Disney put out three options (Coco, Encanto, and Villains) and judged it based on applause. And the one that got the biggest applause they would turn into a land. Villains got the biggest applause. After those DHS will get a new land, maybe a copy of what is going to replace Hollywoodland at DCA. I think that will be a land around Disney Animation Studios proper. A DAS land proper would balance out DCA and DHS as they have areas around Pixar but not DAS proper.

 

[Tobias]

Something that's going to be very key in all of this is whether or not anything new is going to be a replacement...or an addition. It's been said time and time again by many others, but what WDW needs the most is additions to add capacity. DAK needs additions above all else, but I have a feeling we're getting a Zootopia overlay of Dinosaur which isn't an addition. As for Moana, they convert Triceratop Spin into a Kakamora theme which still isn't an addition and that leaves us with a possible boat ride which is just ONE possible addition, assuming they don't take out anything else to build that. By the time they're done with all that, they need even MORE additions than what they need now.

That's another factor, due to their stagnant period and glacial construction pace, you have scenarios like DHS which had a lot of money pumped into it for Galaxy's Edge and Toy Story...but the past holiday period has shown firsthand it wasn't enough and the park still needs a lot of work. Thing is, when is that work gonna' happen? Disney seems pretty content on occasionally doing a few things here and there at some of the parks before focusing more on MK.

All in all, it's a tricky situation. With their pace, the time for them to act was...years ago.

 

[Jamesh22]

What WDW really needs is a DCA 2.0 style investment in DAK and DHS and a 10 year plan for the other 2 parks.
Star wars/TSL was a good start at DHS IMO but they only did half a job.

The concepts shared at D23 seemed a VERY long way off being something realised and ready to go. Even a clone of Zootopia wouldn't be open until 2028 at Disneys pace.

I know this isn't necessarily the thread for this but IAJA at Disneyland is one of the top 3 attractions at the park, I could see a Shanghi Pirates tech version of this being the same at DHS (I know I'm a broken record on this). While on this subject I just don't get how they haven't brought the Shanghi Pirates tech to the US yet in some form or another.

 

[GAcoaster]

I have a feeling we'll see a lot of smaller stuff-- rethemes and minor attractions like the Moana Dinoland

 

[UniversalRBLX]

I have a feeling we'll see a lot of smaller stuff-- rethemes and minor attractions like the Moana Dinoland

I think expansions/investments like SWGE will be avoided for a while, and stuff like Frozen Ever After/shoehorned projects will occur over the next few years. I hate being pessimistic, but I don't see a major expansion at any of the WDW parks opening until 2030 at the earliest (unless Disney literally changes their mindset).

MK - something at Stitch
EP - Imagination Pavilion, I think the rumored Epcot hotel will convince them to finally work on this
DHS -Theater Show replacements with more relevant IPs and maybe an attraction taking over Launch Bay
DAK - other than Dinoland's reimagining, the only other project I see happening before 2030 is a nighttime show.

 

[GAcoaster]

Yep-- cheap and quick (by Disney standards).

 

[tankart150]

I think expansions/investments like SWGE will be avoided for a while, and stuff like Frozen Ever After/shoehorned projects will occur over the next few years. I hate being pessimistic, but I don't see a major expansion at any of the WDW parks opening until 2030 at the earliest (unless Disney literally changes their mindset).

MK - something at Stitch
EP - Imagination Pavilion, I think the rumored Epcot hotel will convince them to finally work on this
DHS -Theater Show replacements with more relevant IPs and maybe an attraction taking over Launch Bay
DAK - other than Dinoland's reimagining, the only other project I see happening before 2030 is a nighttime show.

Instead of Moana and Zootopia in DAK, how about keeping Dinosaur and Dinoland and building an Ice Age environment/habitat where DinoRama is plus retheming Triceratops. In addition, a non-linear trackless Ice Age dark ride. Has Disney considered that? Also it would be awesome to bring back Alien Encounter since Disney wants to controls crowds rather than increase the price of admission. Tomorrowland looks even worse now, though TRON is an awesome additions, the area’s theming around Astro Orbiter really needs to be restored to the 1995 levels.

 

[Nick]

Instead of Moana and Zootopia in DAK, how about keeping Dinosaur and Dinoland and building an Ice Age environment/habitat where DinoRama is plus retheming Triceratops. In addition, a non-linear trackless Ice Age dark ride. Has Disney considered that? Also it would be awesome to bring back Alien Encounter since Disney wants to controls crowds rather than increase the price of admission. Tomorrowland looks even worse now, though TRON is an awesome additions, the area’s theming around Astro Orbiter really needs to be restored to the 1995 levels.

I've never gotten the idea that anything Ice Age was on the table, which tbh, as far as IPs in DAK go, that's one that makes a lot of sense. The IP has sort of fallen off in popularity in recent years with the most recent movie being simply a Disney+ movie that came and went with almost no one noticing. The prior theatrical releases were all seeing diminishing returns as well. I think Disney is just more inclined to invest in their hot franchises right now which is why something like Ice Age isn't even seeing any rumors about it (and quite frankly there's probably a lot of people at imagineering that just don't even consider Ice Age Disney).

 

[UniversalRBLX]

Speaking of Disney changing their mindset on expansions... looks like they might of just a few minutes ago. The Imagineering changes happening just now indicate, hopefully, a positive change.

 

[Nico]

Speaking of Disney changing their mindset on expansions... looks like they might of just a few minutes ago. The Imagineering changes happening just now indicate, hopefully, a positive change.

….a few minutes ago?

 

[UniversalRBLX]

….a few minutes ago?

They just announced Bruce Vaughn is taking reign as Chief Creative Officer of Imagineering, and that pretty much will shift priorities around now for any new projects.

 

[Nick]

….a few minutes ago?

Bruce Vaughn Returning to Walt Disney Imagineering as Chief Creative Officer

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blogmickey.com

 

[fryoj]

Unfortunately, increasing capacity decreases the value of upcharge fastpasses. Retheming current rides, increases demand for those upcharge fastpasses.

 

[Nick]

Unfortunately, increasing capacity decreases the value of upcharge fastpasses. Retheming current rides, increases demand for those upcharge fastpasses.

“very, very bullish on the theme parks” is a phrase Iger used recently and he also said he saw value in expansion due to the "extraordinary" demand for a Disney vacation. I'm not going to take him at his word since he was talking to Wall Street on an earnings call so it was all about trying to get the stock up, but this combined with the proposals for expanding Magic Kingdom could lead to more expansion should that get funding. Of course it would be a crime if MK got TRON, a PatF overlay of Splash AND an expansion of Frontierland before getting anything new in DAK or DHS, but alas, I wouldn't be surprised.

I also disagree with your thesis that increasing capacity decreases the value of Genie+/LL. Disneyland has a ton of rides and a ton of capacity, yet when I was in Anaheim last year, I didn't feel like I needed Genie+ in DCA at all, but absolutely felt like I needed it in DL. More to do in the busiest parks in the world still mean busy rides. The more rides, the harder it is to fit them all in, especially if you are doing a shorter trip or splitting between Disney and Universal. I find it super easy to get things done at DHS, DAK and Epcot without Genie+. The only hassle is GotG since there's the VQ. MK is where if I was on vacation, i'd get Genie+ for a day since it can be so busy there and there's a lot to do.