Imagineering the future of Disney Parks - Pics and rundown

[Fishbulb]

Anticipation and speculation swelled as the large group of theme park fans were herded into the D23 Arena. Upon entry all visitors were handed 3-D Glasses. Would this be a hint of Captain EO preview with the announcement of it's return to Disneyland? We would fine out. Would they deny the blue prints that leaked onto the net about a Fantasyland Makeover in Florida? What about the new version of Star Tours?

Rasulo trotted to center stage

Jay Rasulo took the stage with gusto and let the audience know what to expect. Our first top would be Fantasyland.

"All those thing you read about and saw on the internet..." Rasulo announced, "Were true!" The crowd erupted.

WDW Fantasyland will be the biggest expansion in the history of MK and will expand on the structures already there. Where Dumbo is now there will be a pathway leading to four different Princess experiences, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and Little Mermaid. Each will be an immersive walk thru experience loaded with effects and, in the case of the Beauty and the Beast Pavilion, will have it's own restaurant.

Throw Sleeping Beauty a sweet 16 party in the cottage


Meet Cinderella for the ball


Visit beasts Castle


Be our guest 550 seat restaurant.

Princesses will open in 2012 and then 2013 with the pixies area the existing fantasyland will remain open during construction.

Dumbo will be moved over to where Mickey's house stands right now. Barnstormer will be re-themed to fit the Fantasyland aesthetic along with the new Fantasyland Train Station.

Dumbo interactive queue: guests will get a pager or feather caller, kids will play while parents sit in the bleachers and chill.

Casey Jr MAY come to WDW. If you look in the bottom right of the artwork for the Dumbo ride you see a train. When asked, the imagineers later said that they wanted to bring the Casey Jr. Circus Train but are not sure if it will be in the traditional, Disneyland for or another incarnation.

Casey Jr.?

Further down the line Tinkerbell will join the Princess Roster, (Is she really a Princess?) with her own area. WDW's version of Pixie Hollow.

The existing Barnstormer ride will remain but have a new theme perhaps with a new dumbo expansion. ToonTown will totally go away.

Major renovation planned for one mans dream as well although this was not mentioned during the main presentation.

We then moved to Adventure

Jay Rasulo went on to talk about Hong Kong's expansions and Adventures by Disney (Yawn). Again, no surprises here.

HKDL


Mystic Point

Next we went on to Tomorrowland and talking about the future of the Disneyland resort. Everyone got real excited.

Carsland. We were treated to art we could have seen in the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts exhibit outside the arena.

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The only new footage we were shown was an early animated concept of a ride through of the first two show scenes.

No mention of World of color, nor was there any mention of Little Mermaid or anything coming to Hollywood Pictures Backlot or anything on Buena Vista Street. Clearly they didn't want to bore us with things we were already aware of.

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Another Dream Suite Giveaway

Suddenly Storm Troopers marched onto the stage in red lighting and surrounded Rasulo. NOW I WAS INTERESTED! Rasulo then went on to announce Star Tours II. What will ST2 be like and invited the audience to take a look at some footage from the new ride being developed. We were all told to put on our glasses and we got to see a good 30-35 seconds of the ride movie in crystal clear, digital 3-D VERY IMPRESSIVE. The star tours ride will have new destinations. There will be big physical changes but the same simulators will be used.

No plans for other countries, no mention of Captain EO, nothing. And with that we were released. No real surprises and only a few interesting bits of footage.

[ni_teach]

Thank you so much for the pictures and update! Great information!

[imagineerthat]

I was disappointed that there no mention on the plans for Disneyland next year, I thought they would say something about the muppet filming, kind of sad I foudn out more about Disneystore's plans than Disneylands. Stars Tours II looks good so far, the 3-D was nice.

[Sorcerer Dan]

Originally Posted by Fishbulb

No mention of World of color, nor was there any mention of Little Mermaid or anything coming to Hollywood Pictures Backlot or anything on Buena Vista Street. Clearly they didn't want to bore us with things we were already aware of.

Actually, World of Color was mentioned, but there were definitely no surprises because of most of the information that we already know.

[Barbossa]

The troopers were from the 501st, mostly SoCal Garrison and a few from Neon City Garrison.

Thanks for the pics.

[LittleImagineer]

What about the cruises?!

[Explicit]

I would like to see video of the troopers all coming out on stage

[LittleImagineer]

Oh, by the way, thanks for the pics! :] I greatly appreciate them

[KEBSD]

It was sooo exciting to see the previews of the rides... definitely made the day worthwhile.

[Cheshire]

I do have to say it was a letdown.... I was expecting some grand announcements from this but it was all info we already knew (with just a little more details on a few items). Not only that but it was scheduled for an hour and lasted only about 30 minutes.... I expected more

[royaldisneyfan]

The princess experiences actually look pretty cool. It would be kinda neat to dine in the ballroom from B&TB.

[JamesDusenberry]

Way to go Disney, ruining another classic ride. Taking a perfectly good ride like Star Tours, which everyone loves and most people always make sure to ride it when gong to the park. And then completely get rid of the ride people love and replace it with... what..? Podraces?! Are you kidding me?!

Star Tours is a classic ride, featuring the classic Star Wars, it didn't break down all the time, it has never had a problem with low ridership ... so, please Disney.. tell me.. what is your reason for changing Star Tours?

Just because it's been a while since you've done anything with it? Because you haven't done anything new with Tomorrowland, don't have any immediate plans to do anything new, and you think this, the "house of the future", and the new planter boxes will make it seem like a new Tomorrowland? Please.

Change for the sake of change is just stupid and more often than not, it ruins something that is perfectly good.

[JamesDusenberry]

I mean, honestly people? How many more times do they have to get rid of rides like Country Bears for us to do something about it?

How many more times do they have to ruin a classic ride like Pirates and now Star Tours for us to do something about it?

If you honestly cannot stand the direction the Disney parks seem to be going in. If you DESPERATELY wish that they would get rid of Jack Sparrow from Pirates and return it to the classic ride, if you don't want them to get rid of Star Tours forever and replace it with podraces (at least Pirates was just new additions. Star Tours as we know and love it will be gone forever!) .... then we need to not just post on a message board, with the hopeless dreams that some high up Disney employee will see our posts and convince others to stop what they're doing.. and we need to take real action.

If you agree, then let's work together to do something about it. Get some petitions going, make a website like Roy did when he got kicked out. Try to get some press attention to it or something. See if we can't get Iger and others to pay attention to us and see if we can't do something about it.

Who's with me?

[AaronInCal]

Originally Posted by Cheshire

I do have to say it was a letdown.... I was expecting some grand announcements from this but it was all info we already knew (with just a little more details on a few items). Not only that but it was scheduled for an hour and lasted only about 30 minutes.... I expected more

Actually, it even started 15 minutes late (as all the shows started late!) and still ended before the scheduled time. I thought they could have filled in more stuff about Little Mermaid or something. Yes, everyone knows about it, but give some more details that aren't known yet. Something like that to make it a full hour at least..

[yoyoflamingo]

Thanks for the information, Fishy!

The One Man's Dream and Casey Jr. info are new to me, and I've been reading this all day about the Expo, so thank you for including those tidbits!