D23 Park Announcements!

There were lots of exciting announcements made at D23 this year for future plans for the parks around the world. Lets start with the big news at Walt Disney World!

Magic Kingdom

Let’s start with the biggest announcement of the night:

Villains Land coming to Magic Kingdom!!! This land will include 2 new attractions along with new dining and shopping experiences. We don’t have a timeline for this land but we did learn that ground had already been broken so that is exciting!

Another big expansion for Magic Kingdom was announced as an expansion to Frontierland:

Cars Land! This will be a reimagined land, rather than a copy of the one in California Adventure. Two attractions were discussed, including one where guests will be racing over different types of rugged terrain and another that will be fun for the whole family, including the smallest members. 

Between Villains Land and Cars Land, this will be the largest expansion on Magic Kingdom ever!

Plus, a new nighttime parade was announced: Disney Starlight! This parade will debut in summer of 2025 and will feature the Blue Fairy, Peter Pan, Encanto, Frozen, and more!

At a previous D23 a Pirates of the Caribbean Lounge was announced with no timeline. We now know this will be coming in 2025.

Epcot

After this park just finished it’s multi year upgrade it is understandable that not much was announced for Epcot. We did get a peak at a new lounge coming in 2025 and confirmation that the retheming of Test Track would be completed in 2025.

Hollywood Studios

Monsters Inc Land! A big surprise of the night was the announcement of the coming addition of Monstropolis. We don’t yet know where this land will be, but they did announce a new attraction where guests will zoom through the door vault alongside Sully, Mike Wasoski, and Boo! 

We will also be getting a new adventure on Mellinnium Falcon: Smugglers Run featuring Mando and Grogu from the Mandalorian!

Animal Kingdom

Zootopia Show. This was speculated last year during D23 with “Blue Sky” but this year it was confirmed that we will be getting a replacement to the It’s Tough to be a Bug show under the Tree of Life with a Zootopia show. This will open Winter of 2025.

Tropical Americas will be replacing DinoLand USA. This was another thing thrown out during “Blue Sky” at a previous D23 but was confirmed and more details were given this year. Tropical Americas will have a central village, Pueblo Esperanza - meaning Village of Hope, with classic spanish style architecture. The whole land will debut in 2027 but the construction will be staged so DINOSAUR will remain open for a bit longer even though ground will break later this year. There will be three new attractions:

Indiana Jones - this attraction will be replacing DINOSAUR and the concept art looks like it will keep the same ride vehicle. However, it will be an all new attraction (rather than a copy of the one in Disneyland) where guests will follow Indy into an ancient Mayan temple where a mythical creature is rumored to be.

Carousel - there will be a central carousel featuring lots of different animals.

Encanto - We will get the first Encanto ride inside Casita itself! Casita will bring furniture to life to tour guests through it’s rooms ending in Antonios room on his big night when he got his gift. The ride will feature familiar characters such as Mirabel and Bruno (even if we don’t walk about Bruno).

Disneyland

Jumping over to the OG park on the west coast, the 70th anniversary is quickly approaching for this original park. The anniversary celebration was announced but no details were given.

Walt Disney animatronic - The main man himself will be getting his own animatronic and show coming to the Main Street Opera House. The show will be Walt reflecting on his life and discussing the great big beautiful tomorrow. After some time this show will be moved to, and alternating with, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.

Tiana’s Bayou Adventure will be opening to guests on November 15th 2024!

California Adventure

Avatar Land! While this land had been previously announced no details were given. We learned that it will not be a copy of the land in Animal Kingdom, rather a whole new land reimagined to a different area of Pandora, including lands seen in Pandora The Way of Water and area that will be in new film, Pandora Fire and Ash. 

The land will include an innovative new attraction that will be an excursion to see the natural wonders of Pandora. 

Coco will also get it’s first attraction! Guests will journey with Miguel to the land of the dead. This attraction will feature the latest audio animatronic technology. Ground will be breaking on this attraction in 2026.

Expansion of Avengers Campus was announced! This includes two new attractions:

Avengers Infinity Defense - we knew about this attraction but only that it would feature all of the Avengers as they take on King Thanos. Now we know the ride will take guests alongside the Avengers as they defend this world, and others from King Thanos who stole portal jumping tech and is wreaking havoc across the universe. Guests will get to visit familiar locations like Asgard, Wakanda, and New York City for the final showdown with King Thanos. Construction on this ride will begin next year.

Stark Flight Lab - we also got a look at an all new attraction where guests will get to test flight technology at the Stark workshop. There will be multiple flight paths so not every ride will be the same. Also, as a fun added bonus, Robert Downy Jr. will be reprising his role as Iron Man for the attraction! Construction is slated to start soon.

Additional Annoucements

At the International Parks the most exciting news was for Paris Disneyland where two new nighttimes shows were announced, one in Disneyland Paris and one in the newly renamed Disney Adventure World. Also in Disney Adventure World will be a new Frozen land, set to open in 2026, and a Lion King land.

Then in the Asian parks, Tokyo Disney is getting a new nighttime show, Reach for the Stars, debuting September 20th of this year, and both Hong Kong and Shangahi are getting Spider Man attractions, though the types of attractions will be quite different with one being a thrill ride and the other appears to be more virtual based.

There were also a couple announcements for Disney Cruise Line, the most exciting was that they will be expanding the fleet by four more ships between 2027 and 2030.

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