This past week, Disney made a HUGE announcement.
©Disney
They let fans know that they plan to DOUBLE their investments in Parks, Experiences, and Products (DPEP). This will mean spending $60 billion on expansions over the next 10 years. That’s a lot of money! But fans aren’t really sure what to think about this announcement. We asked our readers “What do you REALLY think about Disney’s $60 billion expansion plans?” We got quite a mix of opinions. Here’s what they said.
Disney’s Plans Change
We found that most of our readers said something to the extent that Disney has a lot of ideas and makes a lot of announcements, but we don’t always see them follow through on them. Gregory specifically mentioned, “Honestly, 3/4 of what Disney tells us never happens. It’s just hype to get people excited so I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Concept art of potential Magic Kingdom expansion
We’ve heard of the Blue Sky ideas from Disney. These are new ideas the Disney Imagineers come up with. Some of them make it into the parks, but many do not. We’ve heard about a lot of these Blue Sky ideas recently including the Magic Kingdom expansion. We had heard about this last year and that it could include Encanto, Disney Villains, and Coco Lands. But now it sounds like Animal Kingdom might get an Encanto land, so we’re guessing the idea could be scrapped for Magic Kingdom.
Bye-bye Dinoland U.S.A!
We just know, after following Disney for so long, that not everything they say or announce comes to fruition. (We’ve been waiting on that Mary Poppins attraction in EPCOT for YEARS now, for example, and we’ve seen no sign that it’s actually coming.) That worries fans and gives them doubts about this new announcement.
Price Increases
In the past few years, we’ve seen A LOT of price increases throughout Disney. Food, merchandise, and ticket prices seem to always be increasing or at least fluctuating.
Genie+ prices fluctuate daily! ©Disney
Many of our readers are worried that with bigger projects comes price increases for us guests. Connie said that this announcement “translates into further price increases for the guests!” Will this cause us to see more price increases? We’ll have to wait to find out.
Time Line
Another thing our readers are concerned about is the timeline of these new projects. Gerald added the quip, “It will take 60 years to finish.” We certainly hope not, but Disney doesn’t have the best track record for accomplishing projects quickly.
Journey of Water — Inspired by Moana Construction in late February
If you’ve followed along with the EPCOT transformation, you know it has been ongoing in some capacity for about four years. We’re a little worried about the Magic Kingdom expansion taking a long time because there’s no real plan as of now. Matthew echoed our concerns by saying, “I’m excited they’re putting more money into the parks. I would love to know more concrete plans.”
Magic Kingdom
With Disney’s habit of taking a long time on projects, we wonder how much they’ll actually get done in 10 years.
The Magic of Disney Still Exists
With a lot of skepticism from fans, we had a lot of readers voice their excitement, too! One reader, Karin, voiced her excitement with all emojis, “
“! Bryan said it, “can’t come soon enough!!!! LOVE IT”. So clearly many fans believe in the magic of Disney!
Walt’s Dream will continue
$60 billion is a lot of money. We can only imagine the possibilities of what could be accomplished with that. We want to trust and believe in the Walt Disney Company. It’s amazing what has been accomplished already in 100 years. We can’t wait to see what comes in the next ten!
Magic Kingdom
Whether you believe in the magic or not, we’re sure Disney has a plan. Kim added, “So let’s see what happens. I’m more comfortable now that Iger is at the helm.”
Until then, keep following the Disney Food Blog for all your Disney updates!
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Disney planning construction knows one speed and that seems to be slow. This wouldn’t be an issue if Imagineering had original ideas not tied to IP, but now it seems that by the time an attraction or land is built, the IP that it’s connected has become very dated. Think about how many years will pass from the release of Encanto until the day that a land might actually exist.
It would be nice if some of that money was put into services that haven’t come back from pre-pandemic. Things like ride maintenance (looking at you Squeaking Carpets of Aladdin) have been really scaled back to levels that wouldn’t be acceptable in years past.