I’m a Disney Adult. There I said it. Let’s be honest, we all knew that, didn’t we? I’ve still got a few precious days left on my Disneyland Paris annual pass. My walls are adorned in attraction posters, and I’m currently sitting opposite every Walt Disney Animation Studios movie in chronological order… you get the idea. Thus, when there’s a panel announcing the future of the Disney Parks, that’s kinda a huge deal for me. My favourite places are getting new stuff? Amazing! Of course, these panels have been… a little less impressive of date. Whilst, unlike many on the internet, you won’t find me tearing Disney to shreds every day, it’s fair to say the company’s direction hasn’t really had me inspired in a while. With corporate cynicysm seeing to be the overarching theme across their parks, were the announcements from this year’s Destination D23 any better? In this post, I’m going to run through my thoughts on all of the new announcements. I’m not going to comment on opening dates of known attractions or anything like that (I just dont really have anything to say), but as for the rest? Let’s get going!
Star Tours Gets Ahsoka!
Ahsoka is coming to Star Tours! Hooray! I’ve not actually seen Ahsoka. As much as the character seems very cool, and I enjoyed her appearances in previous shows, I’ve not seen any of the animated Star Wars, and combined with mixed reviews, this has made me pretty relaxed about watching it. But, I adore the addition of new content to Star Tours. It’s one of the many things that makes this attraction a firm favourite of mine. There are few attractions out there as re-ridable as this classic, and the continued attention it receives only makes this more true! New scenes are always cause for celebration in my book!
The Hatbox Ghost Really is Coming!
I said I wouldn’t comment on opening dates, and that was essentially what the Hatbox Ghost announcement boiled down to, but I need to comment on this announcement for one reason. If, like me, you’re a nerd, and let’s face it, you’re reading a theme park blog so the odds are high, you might care about the animatronic’s placement in the attraction. After all, the Hatbox Ghost is due to appear in the endless corridor, long before the first appearance of ghosts within the attraction. In The Haunted Mansion, we see no ‘happy haunts’ until after they are summoned in Leota’s seance. So the Hatbox Ghost’s prior appearance would seem to ruin this story beat. How do you get around this mishap? Never fear, Disney Parks have the answer! You see, the Hatbox Ghost is not a happy haunt. In fact, he’s very unhappy. Thus, he can appear wherever he should please. And that, my friends, is it. That’s the explanation. This actually made me laugh out loud. It’s just so silly. Surely they could’ve found somewhere else? Or simply not brought the Hatbox Ghost over at all? After all, isn’t it better to have more reasons to visit the other parks?
The Avengers E-Ticket is Still A Thing!
Potentially the largest upcoming attraction that I routinely forget about, the Avengers E-Ticket, is still coming! Avengers Campus opened at Disney’s California Adventure in June 2021, and its major expansion is still on the drawing board. But, it seems to be popping up with more and more frequency. This time, we got to see the rear end of the ride vehicle! From reading the thoughts of people who are far more clued up than me over on Twitter (death to X), it seems as though we can expect the attraction to have a similar ride vehicle to the upcoming Peter Pan attraction at Tokyo DisneySea, which in turn is similar to the vehicles used in attractions such as The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man. The exception seems to be that these vehicles will be able to alternate between gliding and flying, something I’m very interested to see in action! Whilst Marvel is down there with my least favourite of the Disney properties, I’m always excited for a new dark ride and can’t wait to see more information on this attraction. When? Who knows. It feels like this one has been lurking around for an eternity already.
The Country Bears Go Pop (Country)!
I cannot believe the Country Bears have survived this long at Magic Kingdom. However, I’m so, so glad that they have. Bizarre, animatronic-centric attractions are one of my great loves in life, and it was love at first sight on finally experiencing The Country Bears last Christmas. Surrounded by utterly bemused kids, I felt like I was living the Lester’s Possum Park scene in A Goofy Movie, which is perhaps not the vibe that Magic Kingdom would like their attractions to create, but was a joy nonetheless. Still, that bemusement amongst modern audiences is undoubtedly how we ended up here with a new version of The Country Bears on the horizon. In this new version, they will, of course, be singing Disney songs! For me, this feels like an acceptable compromise. Sure, I’d love some more original parks music that could become the ‘Disney Songs’ of the future, but I get to keep my weird, horrifying animatronics, and also get to see them perform covers of Disney songs in varying country styles? Yeah, I ain’t mad. In fact, I can’t wait.
Oga’s Barker Bird’s Cantina!
Oh NOW we are talking. Is it the mark of getting older than the announcement of a bar can make you feel this excited? A unique new experience is coming to Magic Kingdom which will see the Barker Bird take centre stage! For me, my first thought was of Oga’s Cantina, except with the Barker Bird in place of DJ R3X. Given that Oga’s is one of my favourite places at the parks, this is huge! Looking at the concept art, could we perhaps be getting characters too for the resort’s first ‘character drinking’ experience? If they can translate the mood of that concept art, and combine it with characters, animatronics, and signature cocktails… oh boy, this is going to be a treat!
Harmonious 2.0: The Symphony of Us!
I wrote a whole post about Harmonious and my love for this ridiculous, beautiful show, and how heartbroken I was at its untimely demise. But from the first concept art released of it’s successor, it’s always seemed as though the spirit of Harmonious might live on, and with the announcement of the new show’s title this feels more likely than ever. Luminous The Symphony of Us will open in December of this year, and I will be watching eagle-eyed, hoping that it’s essentially Harmonious, but barge-free. Wouldn’t that be a dream?
Test Track is Going Retro!
Out of all the announcements, I really didn’t see this one coming! Test Track is getting a third iteration, this time inspired by World of Motion, the ride’s predecessor. Whilst I never got to experience World of Motion, the ride is highly regarded by fans for it’s expansive ride experience, optimism and enormous array of animatronics – over 185! With Test Track currently being, let’s be honest, somewhat of a soulless corporate mess, albeit one with a nice speedy finale, this is a fantastic announcement! How the ride will remain ‘Test Track’ with the sort of themed environments we can see in that concept art is anyone’s guess, but I’m here for it!
Magic Kingdom is Definitely Expanding!
There’s not an awful lot to say about this one, as the panel didn’t say an awful lot about it, but what they did that is this: Magic Kingdom is expanding, and it’s ‘bigger than New Fantasyland’ and ‘on the scale of Galaxy’s Edge and Pandora’. Now that’s exciting! After the frankly ludicrous segment at last year’s D23 where, devoid of any concrete development, the hosts ran through vague concepts that were being considered, it’s exhausting to see the same thing crop up at this year’s presentation, but at least it feels a little more solid this time. We’ve got a guaranteed something! Whether it will be one of the previously discussed concepts (Encanto, Coco and Villains, come on Villains!), we’ll have to wait and see. And let’s be honest, Magic Kingdom needs all the capacity it can get. (Not as much as Hollywood Studios does, of course.) But for once, it’s fantastic to see WDW using an expansion plot. It seems these days that all we get are re-themes and replacements in a resort famed for its endless land. But finally, we see the leadership looking at Magic Kingdom’s land and saying ‘hey, let’s build a massive expansion over there’ – finally!
It’s Tough to be a Bunny Cop!
Oh boy. Here we are. Zootopia.
Cards on the table, I’m firmly in team ‘get Zootopia the hell away from Animal Kingdom’. It’s not an animal story. It’s a story about humans, who happen to be animal shaped. It’s about a fictional city, about cops, about racism. Sure, it’s a decent film with some memorable characters, a great message and an absolute bop (Try Everything goes so hard), but it’s not Animal Kingdom. So, like many in the crowd (honestly, go and listen to the crowd during this announcement, it’s definitely the worst response in the whole panel) the announcement that Zootopia was coming to the park was a confirmation of what I’d been fearing for a while. But, as a replacement for It’s Tough to be a Bug? Did anyone see that one coming? Much like Dinoland U.S.A. It’s Tough to be a Bug has felt like an attraction on borrowed time for a while. I have mixed feelings about the attraction myself. I adore the show posters in the queue area, the animatronics, and the overall film. I’m a huge fan of A Bugs Life and having it represented in Animal Kingdom just feels right to me. But this attraction is scary. I have minor spine problems and that ‘wasp sting’ had me in pain for the rest of the day, and don’t get me started on the spiders! Gradually, Walt Disney World has been cleansing the parks of all the attractions that unwittingly terrify kids, with Snow White’s Scary Adventures and Honey I Shrunk the Audience (two of my childhood traumas) long gone. It makes sense for It’s Tough to be a Bug to follow. As for the Zootopia film? Well, I’ll hold my judgement as best I can. I just hope it has animatronics.
Animal – and Archelogy – Kingdom?
It’s the big one! The much-anticipated re-theme of Dinoland U.S.A.. Except, I don’t think any of us saw this one coming. A whole new biome is coming to Disney’s Animal Kingdom: The Tropical Americas! Encompassing some of the most biodiverse areas of the planet, this region is notably home to the Amazon rainforest as well as… Indiana Jones?
Whilst the theme of the tropics seems guaranteed, the presentation also mentioned some of the idea being ‘considered’, which included Encanto and Indiana Jones.
I’m going to say right off the bat, if Dinosaur is being replaced by Indiana Jones, I think that is one of the laziest things that Walt Disney Imagineering have ever done. To replace a unique ride, using an identical ride layout to another attraction, with that attraction? Where is the appeal? I know that Indiana Jones Adventure is a fantastic attraction. I finally experienced it last year, and it blew me away. But we really need to stop homogenizing the parks. I agree that the castle parks should have a core shared group of attractions, given their generational cultural impact, but outside of that, surely we should be striving for theme parks to be as unique as possible? I can’t even think what link Indiana Jones has to the animal kingdom, outside of his hatred of snakes? I’m not a fan of this at all.
As for Encanto, meh. I’m glad to see such a popular film be considered for theme park additions so soon after it’s release, and it could fit? It’s set in the region at least. I guess I can’t really get too excited about this one until I know what sort of ‘experiences’ are being considered. I’ve seen some discussion around it just being a themed meet and greet space, in which case it’s a massive no from me. Replacing Dinorama with a meet and greet? The park has already lost a roller coaster, it can’t lose it’s spinner too with no gain in attractions. This needs to be multiple rides. But we’ll see. After all, it’s only ‘being considered’.
One Little Spark (is all that can fit inside this tiny head oh god why does he look like this?)
Figment, what did they do to you?! Why is your jumper drowning your neck? Why is your head so teeny tiny?
The return of a Figment meet to EPCOT is long overdue, so it’s great to see the fan favourite character finally back in the Imagination Pavilion. But I just wish they’d make his head a tiny bit bigger and maybe do something to those wrists while we’re at it.
You know I’ll still be lining up for a photo next time I’m there!
Disneyland Paris’ Obligatory Brief Mention!
And finally, let’s talk about the brief mention of my beloved Disneyland Paris. Now, I’m not mad about this. D23 always plays to the home crowd, and many attendees simply do not care about the international parks. If there’s ever a large announcement for Disneyland Paris on the horizon, your best bet is just to keep your ears to the ground and your eyes on social media as they tend to run their own press conferences, instead of using these large fan gatherings. So what did we get? Well, a status report on the WDSP expansion: the lake is waterproof, rockwork is underway, the foundations are in for the table service restaurant, and ground will be broken soon on the Tangled teacups!
Also, Inventions is getting re-themed to Disney royalty, and featuring stories such as ‘Princess and the Frog, Robin Hood and Emperor’s New Groove’. Okay, I’m obsessed with the IP selections here. Robin Hood?! Emperor’s New Groove?! These are not movies that I expected to see represented in the Disneyland Hotel of all places. But, the concept art has me a little concerned. All it had to show was framed pictures of these characters on the wall. I really hope that the signature restaurant of the signature hotel at Disneyland Paris has more to offer theming-wise than that.
But, the main announcement for Paris, and something that wasn’t even mentioned, but simply shown, was the animatronics for Frozen Ever After. We’re getting faces! No projected faces for us! Honestly, with the laziness of replicating the retrofit Orlando attraction, I was sure they’d simply lump us with the same poor animatronics, but no! We’re getting the real deal. I’m so, so, so happy, and my excitement for this attraction has just increased ten-fold!
So that’s everything, or at least everything I even slightly care about from the Destination D23 panel. (There was cruise news too!) Honestly, considering the scale of announcement we usually get at a Destination D23, this wasn’t a bad set! Sure, we’ve yet to see what Walt Disney World will do to truly compete with the upcoming Epic Universe, but we’re getting our first hints that there really is something in the works. It’ll obviously be years too late, but what else are we expecting from the mouse at this point? Should we have something solid by now? Of course! It feels ridiculous for Imagineering to be presenting us with such vague concepts of what could be coming, but all of a sudden it seems to be their style. When all you’ve got to show is blue sky concept art, it’s time to question whether you’re doing enough, surely?
Even with the announcements from this event, we are looking at a pretty bleak few years for the US Disney Parks. With no major additions announced, it will be the tail end of the decade before we guest are able to actually experience any meaningful development. If you’re looking for that, you’ll need to head down to Epic Boulevard.
Speak again soon,
Claire
X
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