Future WDW Additions/Expansion

[TheUniC6]

If some of this 17 billion is going into the parks, I wonder if some of the new additions will be cloned to DLR as well. Disney loves to clone attractions/lands to maximize return on investment. For example maybe some of the additions at DHS can be cloned to DCA as a replacement for Hollywoodland. And let's not forget about DL Forward. This is key to how Hollywoodland will be put out of it's misery. I would also think it would be good if the new Villains land got cloned to Disneyland park as well.

 

[Mad Dog]

Guaranteed hit attraction, low budget . Dunking a Chapek dummy into a pit of hot tar. Potential E ticket demand.

 

[HandsomePete]

Rise reportedly cost a cool $1bn in 2020

That’s not anywhere close to accurate.

The devil is in the details, but it's good news?

It’s not bad news but the number doesn’t seem too impressive to me, especially when you consider that placeholders in the 5-10 year range are completely made up. I’d wager that 2-2.5B alone is DVC resort placeholders.

 

[wutisgood]

Yes. They need much more capacity at the existing parks, not a fifth park.

Disney previously added animal kingdom as a half day park when mgm was already considered a half day park. They continue to monetize lack of capacity instead of investing in capacity. They had over a decade to actually invest in capacity and chose not to with many rides being replacements. Anyone who thinks Disney gives a shite about investing in the current parks before they build a 5th is fooling themselves. Part of the reason they did not invest in capacity is they have the resorts to extend stays which they did invest in over that time.. When people can't get onto rides they reward Disney by staying extra days and eating at more restaurants and paying for premium services. Given current demand I assure you people will probably be more likely to extend thair vacation at disney for a new park vs more rides in the current ones regardless of if Disney deserves it.

At Disneyland the lack of land area forces Disney's hand that the only way to make more money is to invest in capacity and extend par hours. Anyone who blames people for crowding Disney world when magic kingdom is at best sometimes open until 11 while more expensive to live in cali is somehow open almost every day until midnight needs to address why the are corporate bootlicking for Disney over wanting them to do right. Don't tell me is it harder to staff the parks because workers are hard to find.

Magic kingdom has way less rides than Disneyland Cali yet Disneyland built star wars and mickeys runaway railroad as true expansions while Hollywood studios got replacements to just minor expansion. From working in parks if you are limited on space you actually need more rides to increase the legal capacity of the parks. A big reason why parks love Halloween events is that those added attractions contribute to a significant increase on their legal limit for guests. The reason we see a place like Disney shanghai being built so large with less rides compared to area is Disney absolutely does not want to be forced to build rides to expand capacity.

 

[SkiBum]

Rise reportedly cost a cool $1bn in 2020, so assuming WDW around half of that in new attractions it would be two Rise level attractions per park. Or, what I hope happens, we get lots of various tiers of attractions.


Hey, fool me once I get it. But this is some of the most positive parks news for FL in a long long time.

If Disney could control their costs and have each ride around $150M, that is 113 new rides. Now, let's figure $5B for hotels and infrastructure and that still creates a lot of rides. If we blow that number up to $300M per ride and only allocate $10B for rides and the remainder to other stuff, that is 33 rides. Disney should probably worry about bloat in those budgets and I don't see that much money being invested in Disney World unless they are saying 17.5B over the next 100 years.

 

[Parkscope Joe]

That’s not anywhere close to accurate.


It’s not bad news but the number doesn’t seem too impressive to me, especially when you consider that placeholders in the 5-10 year range are completely made up. I’d wager that 2-2.5B alone is DVC resort placeholders.

I got that Rise figure from someone reliable so if it’s inaccurate I’ll stop sharing. Maybe it’s the final cost at DLR including all the fixes.

$17bn does seem like a lot but as you point out $2bn is probably DVC, then add in all the refurbs the hotels need, maybe a new sky liner, etc.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

$1B for Rise is not accurate (unless you are counting both coasts together, doubt even Disney would inflate costs that much)

I think this $17B is pretty wild to announce randomly at a shareholder meeting, sounds like a similar tactic to the Disneyland Forward project. Announce to the world that Disney is being held back by the government, blah blah.

 

[Jake S]

the reports I've seen refer to galaxy's edge as a "$1 billion investment." I'd be curious to know what disney invested into walt disney World the previous 10 years (or even 2010-19) to get a better sense of the scope of this investment. I'm always happy to see reinvestment into the parks, but my sense is that this is business as usual — even if the dollar amount is (slightly) higher than in previous decades. happy to be wrong, though!

 

[SkiBum]

I got that Rise figure from someone reliable so if it’s inaccurate I’ll stop sharing. Maybe it’s the final cost at DLR including all the fixes.

$17bn does seem like a lot but as you point out $2bn is probably DVC, then add in all the refurbs the hotels need, maybe a new sky liner, etc.

I don't really know but I thought that $1.0B was for Galaxy's Edge as a whole. I had figured that Rise cost in the neighborhood of $500M, the $200-300M for Smuggler's Run and the remainder on the land. I have no basis for that aside from just what others have said.

 

[GAcoaster]

I'm sure there'll be no money to replace the aging fleet of monorails, no money to add more boats, no money to fix the TTC, no money to fix so many things that are aging and need to be replaced/upgraded. Magic Kingdom has been adding attendance every year, the hotels have been adding capacity every year, but the infrastructure that supports all that has not been updated or upgraded to keep up with it.

 

[OrlLover]

That’s a huge number regardless how people try to spin it. He also announced job creation as well so it clearly wasn’t a random number pulled out his ass. Insiders have been saying for months on WDWMagic that huge expansions are planned for WDW for awhile.

People are forgetting that they are doing massive layoffs to a lot of departments so I expect WDI and TDO to be shaken up in the midst of all that.

They could add up to 10 new attractions with this money in my opinion. I don’t think a fifth gate is even on the table at this point but it’s fun to speculate about. We will have to wait and see what they actually have planned and announce before I truly get overly enthusiastic.

 

[tielo]

I think he's right.

 

[PerceptiveCoot]

I think he's right.

I'm so confused about this guy's trajectory from actual Imagineer to rumor monger. Like, you don't see Joe Rhode or even Kevin Lively speculating on where a WDW expansion will go or whether Avatar will go into Hollywoodland at DCA.

 

[Jake S]

some posters are made, others are born. Jim Shull is a born poster.

 

[Parkscope Joe]

some posters are made, others are born. Jim Shull is a born poster.

Is Jim just dril????????

 

[Jake S]

Is Jim just dril????????

I'm not saying.... I'm just saying

 

[wutisgood]

I will be super interested to see what the end budget of epic universe will be. If Disney has 17 billion in expansion allocation and can't even build a 5th park with that money universal is deff going to have incentive to expand even more if they have their budgets in control.

I think the reports I saw saying epic universe was between 1-2 billion is really low. Disney can hardly build a major ride for under 300 million these days.

 

[Nick]

I will be super interested to see what the end budget of epic universe will be. If Disney has 17 billion in expansion allocation and can't even build a 5th park with that money universal is deff going to have incentive to expand even more if they have their budgets in control.

I think the reports I saw saying epic universe was between 1-2 billion is really low. Disney can hardly build a major ride for under 300 million these days.

Dude, a fifth park should not be a priority with the current state of the parks. You first have to assume half of that budget is simply going to operating the parks, maintenance, etc and a portion is almost definitely for DVC. So if we're lucky, we get about $8.5B in actual expansion maybe. The current parks need that and more (hell, you could spend it all on DHS and DAK and still need more money) before you even consider something so far down the line like a fifth gate.

 

[TheUniC6]

Dude, a fifth park should not be a priority with the current state of the parks. You first have to assume half of that budget is simply going to operating the parks, maintenance, etc and a portion is almost definitely for DVC. So if we're lucky, we get about $8.5B in actual expansion. The current parks need that and more (hell, you could spend it all on DHS and DAK and still need more money) before you even consider something so far down the line like a fifth gate.

8.5 Billion is almost 9 billion. That is a considerable amount of dough regardless. My guess that it is divided up and covers the Villains land in MK, Zootopia or Moana is AK, and something we don't know about in DHS. Maybe an area to replace the Animation Courtyard, Grand Aveune, or both.

 

[Nick]

8.5 Billion is almost 9 billion. That is a considerable amount of dough regardless. My guess that it is divided up and covers the Villains land in MK, Zootopia or Moana is AK, and something we don't know about in DHS. Maybe an area to replace the Animation Courtyard, Grand Aveune, or both.

Of course it's considerable amount of money, but all four parks need expansion, but specifically DHS and DAK. Epcot maybe gets a refreshed Imagination? Although I think that seems less likely than the beyond Thunder Mountain proposals.

$8.5-$9B won't go as far as you think it will with how much help some of the parks need even after just receiving billions of dollars.