From restaurants to rides and shops to shows, Disney World is undergoing a massive transformation.

But if you ask us, that’s a good thing — at least when those lofty plans actually come to fruition. If you’ve been a Disney World fan for a while, you probably know that sometimes Disney announces projects that seem to *POOF* vanish into thin air. This begs the question: why did Disney World just scrap all these projects?

Disney is known for getting us hyped up for the future of theme parks — giving us big announcements that catch us off guard, sneak peeks into brand-new projects, and grand openings of new attractions that can be absolutely jaw-dropping. But Disney World isn’t immune to outside factors and decisions that sometimes lead to projects being put on hold or scrapped altogether — and we’re going to take a look at some of the recent ones that have plagued the parks and beyond.

EPCOT

CommuniCore Hall and Plaza

EPCOT has been in major transformation mode for multiple years now. We’ve been talking about CommuniCore Hall and Plaza for a good long while now — which will soon serve as the heart of the EPCOT festivals. But the plans for the festival hub look WAY different than they did originally.

This EPCOT “hub” was supposed to be a three-story building that would include a plaza level, a middle “expo” level, and a park in the sky with a great fireworks viewing spot. The concept art for this building was looking really cool and futuresque, but eventually, this area was rebranded in a Disney press release as strictly a “Festival Area,” which meant that the three-story building was, sadly, getting the boot.

Now, we know that CommuniCore Plaza will be an outdoor stage area, which will host all kinds of shows— from large-scale concerts to smaller performances. CommuniCore Hall will be the first fully-purpose-built structure in EPCOT’s Festival programming! This hall will be able to host a wide variety of experiences with food, art, live music, a demonstration kitchen, a mixology bar, and an exhibition gallery space.

So the hub idea hasn’t technically been “abandoned” per se — rather, it’s been reimagined before it ever even opened. We don’t yet know an exact kickoff date for CommuniCore Hall and Plaza, but we do know it’ll happen later this year.

Mary Poppins Attraction and Spaceship Earth Updates

A Mary Poppins attraction that would allow guests to “step in time down Cherry Tree Lane” was being hyped up at the 2019 D23 convention. But after the historic 2020 COVID closures, Disney released a statement about the project, saying, “As with most businesses during this period, we are further evaluating long-term project plans. The decision was made to postpone development of [the] ‘Mary Poppins’-inspired attraction.”

In the same press release, Disney also announced that their plans to reimagine Spaceship Earth and give it a new narration, story, and scenes would also be postponed — though you can still ride the current version with Dame Judy Dench during your next visit.

But, these have both only been “postponed” and not necessarily canceled altogether — though it’s been quite a while since we’ve heard anything about them. These projects could be picked back up in the future, but we wouldn’t go planning your trip around them.

Play! Pavilion and Wondrous China

And then there are the projects that Disney just won’t really talk much about anymore. The Play! Pavilion, which would’ve been a “digital metropolis” with all kinds of interactive experiences, games, entertainment, and hands-on activities with several Disney characters — was part of the 2020 construction delays.

But at the beginning of this year, the NEW EPCOT maps sneakily removed the Play Pavilion from the picture altogether — which could mean any number of things. Maybe it’s been totally scrapped, or plans have changed. It’s also possible that it’s just been postponed.

Meanwhile, the Wondrous China film was supposed to debut in the China Pavilion, but… we just haven’t heard ANYTHING about that in a while? It’s like Disney just kinda… forgot about it? Or maybe they were hoping WE’D forget about it? Either way, it’s still not a thing.

And while this project hasn’t exactly been canceled, we still don’t know what exactly is going on with it.

Galactic Starcruiser

Disney opened the Galactic Starcruiser in March of 2022. While many considered it to be the ultimate deluxe resort, what it really offered was a two-day, two-night itinerary that Disney themselves described as a “part live immersive theater, part themed environment, part culinary extravaganza, and part real-life role-playing game.”

In short, the experience really allows Star Wars fans to become part of their own Star Wars story, while also making decisions that’ll impact the way that their story plays out. But ultimately, the demand just wasn’t there.

While starting voyages for the Starcruiser sold out quickly, we started to see voyages sell out less and less often as time went on. Disney even reduced the number of voyages offered each week in response to the decrease in demand. They also started offering Starcruiser discounts for Annual Passholders and Disney Visa Cardmembers — and then it was announced that the experience would be closing altogether.

Reflections — A Disney Lakeside Lodge

Reflections — A Disney Lakeside Lodge was initially announced in 2019. This was going to be the newest Disney Vacation Club resort for Disney World, and would be an extended part of the Wilderness resort family (alongside Disney’s Wilderness Lodge and Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort and Campgrounds).

After the 2020 park closures, however, there were rumors and signs that the project may have been canceled.

Initially, the project was put on hold (which was the overall THEME when it came to those unprecedented times). But then, construction equipment started leaving the area and Disney was scrubbing mention of the resort in any of their latest updates. This is when we began to suspect that this project wasn’t “on hold” anymore but, rather, had been completely canceled.

Three years later, and we still haven’t heard any updates concerning this resort, and, at this point, signs still point to being canceled. But, slated to open in 2024, Disney Vacation Club announced a plan to redesign the cabins at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground. The proposal calls for more than 350 refreshed cabins to replace the existing cabins at the resort.

The cabins will sleep up to six adults and feature a bedroom, bathroom, living room, full kitchen, and private patio.

Lake Nona Project

Back in 2021, Disney purchased 60 acres of land in the Lake Nona area of Orlando to build a campus that would relocate thousands of Disney employees to Central Florida. But Disney announced back in June 2022 that this plan would be delayed for over 3 years.

After not hearing much about the Lake Nona campus after the big “three-year delay” announcement, Disney just recently went ahead and pulled the plug on the project altogether.

A big driving force in favor of the Lake Nona Project was the prospect of 2,000 jobs being brought to the Orlando area. But it also meant that more than 1,000 Disney employees — already working from the Southern California campus — would’ve had to have been uprooted and relocated from the west to the east coast.

However, upon the recent cancelation of the Lake Nona project, it was revealed that one of the big reasons Disney decided not to go forward with the Lake Nona Campus was because of Florida’s “changing business conditions.” Another big factor that led to the demise of Lake Nona campus — aside from Disney’s ongoing battle with the state — was a change in Disney leadership.

So, what’s going to happen with all that land? Folks in the Central Florida business community think Disney could eventually change its mind and decide to move forward with the relocation after all, depending on how the battle with Florida shakes out.

Brightline Train

Back in 2020, Brightline and Disney reached a deal on building a near-high-speed rail station at Disney Springs as part of Brightline’s newest Orlando expansion. This had the promise of connecting the Disney World property to not just the MCO airport, but to other destinations around Florida.

Originally, the deal held that the route would be complete in 2022 — but delays with construction and planning pushed that deadline back several times over. Then, in June 2022, we suddenly learned that Disney canceled their plans to work with Brightline.

A Disney spokesperson told the Orlando Business Journal that Disney was going to step away from the project because the updated plans for the train’s route didn’t actually include a stop on Disney property.

Instead, Brightline’s new train line — called the “Sunshine Corridor” — has the train going from the Orlando airport and through part of the tourism area (with a stop at the Orange County Convention Center and a path along I-Drive).

Now, just because you can’t ride the Brightline into Disney World doesn’t mean you can’t ride it period. Despite Disney and Brightline’s partnership falling through the cracks, the Brightline Train will still open its station at the MCO starting on September 1st. As far as traveling into Disney from the MCO is concerned, you can still book a ride aboard either the Sunshine Flyer or Mears Connect shuttles, Uber, or Lyft.

Beatrix

Beatrix was supposed to be a new Disney Springs addition, located on the west side of the shopping district, which would serve as a “neighborhood restaurant, coffeehouse, and grab-and-go market featuring healthy food options… and fresh-squeezed juice cocktails.”

We had originally seen construction walls and signs up around this proposed new space, but then construction was paused in — you guessed it — 2020. Initially, a representative from the brand that owns Beatrix confirmed that the project wasn’t canceled, just delayed.

However, NOW the area where Beatrix was supposed to be is transforming into a whole different restaurant called Summer House on the Lake! This will be a sit-down restaurant featuring a variety of options like pizzas, sandwiches, salads, pasta, wood-grilled dishes, and a weekend brunch.

Summer House and the Cookie Jar are currently projected to open by late 2023

NBA Experience

The 2020 Disney World closures hit the property hard. While some experiences returned after a few months (or, in SOME cases, a few YEARS), others — such as the NBA Experience in Disney Springs — never recovered. The goal of the NBA Experience was to make you truly feel as if you were an NBA star.

There were two stories of basketball experiences where you would… well… do basketball things. It was a nice facility and had only been open since August of 2019, when it suddenly had to close down for the global pandemic.

Unfortunately, when Disney was starting up their phased reopening, the NBA Experience did not reopen along with it. The fate of the facility remained up in the air until August of 2021, when Disney finally admitted it would not be reopening.

Disney World is a place that’s always expanding, creating, and pushing the boundaries — but, much like any type of company that’s willing to take risks — not every idea is going to be the success that the company had hoped for. In fact, Disney has had a history with projects that JUST didn’t take off like they thought they would.

But, progress is still happening nearly everywhere you look in Disney World. There’s still PLENTY of activity, construction, and mumblings of potential lands-to-be for the parks and we’ll be keeping up with it all — so stay tuned to DFB for more!

Every Single Disney Ride Opening in 2024

 

Are you looking forward to new projects at Disney World? Tell us in the comments.