Why is Disney World Opening Two Lounges…and No Restaurants…in 2025?

There’s a lot coming to Disney World in 2025!

Magic Kingdom

We’ve got construction beginning on the Villains land and Cars-themed land coming to Magic Kingdom, construction on a Monsters Inc. land beginning in Hollywood Studios, an updated Test Track ride with a new theme coming to EPCOT, and construction begins to turn DinoLand U.S.A. into Tropical Americas. And that’s not even all of it! There is an interesting trend though that we’re noticing with some of these announcements — why have no restaurants been announced but two new lounges are on their way?

Currently, there are two new lounges set to arrive in Disney World in 2025. The first is a new Pirates Tavern Lounge coming to Magic Kingdom in Adventureland. We don’t have a set opening date or solid timeline for it just yet, but we do know it’ll be in early to mid 2025.

An all-new lounge themed to Pirates of the Caribbean will open at Magic Kingdom in 2025.
©Disney

Then, we have the Spaceship Earth Lounge coming to EPCOT. Again, no specific timeline for this yet, but we do know that it’s set to arrive in 2025. This one we know will be set somewhere close to the existing attraction, but we aren’t sure exactly where just yet.

©Disney

So two lounges, that’s great…but no restaurants? While lounges are great and we think many more people would enjoy them if they stopped by, restaurants are certainly more popular for families, couples, and other guests. Will we really not see any new restaurants in 2025?

©Disney

The truth is that yes, we may not see any new restaurants OPEN in 2025, but it’s highly possible that Disney will be putting new restaurants inside these new lands they’re building — we’ve already seen some new dining locations in the concept art for the new Monsters Inc. land and know it’s a high probability a lot of the existing dining buildings in DinoLand U.S.A. will be reused with the new theming. Disney wouldn’t announce these just yet because they’re still working on the lands as a whole!

©Disney

It would also be highly unusual to NOT see restaurants in the new Cars-themed land and Villains land. Villains land will be an entirely new section of the park that will majorly benefit from having dining locations themed to the area. While the existing area the Cars-themed land is going in doesn’t have any restaurants (aside from the mostly-always-closed Aunt Polly’s location on Tom Sawyer Island), this is another area that would likely benefit from at least a themed snack stand or quick service restaurant.

Coming Coming to Frontierland at Magic Kingdom, a new area themed to Pixar Animation Studios’ “Cars” will leave Radiator Springs and head to the wilderness with two new attractions including an off-road race.

Bottom line? We’re almost sure we’ll be getting some new restaurant announcements but likely not until closer to the end of 2025 at the earliest. While construction is beginning on these lands next year, construction takes a long time (as we’ve seen many times before), and Disney won’t reveal everything they have planned at the start. We’re looking forward to hearing about what new spots we’ll be able to try in the coming years, and you know we’ll keep you updated on them all, so be sure to stay tuned to DFB for all the latest Disney dining news!