NEWS: Close-Up Look At NEW Rides Coming to Disney's Avatar Land

BIG changes are coming to the Disneyland Resort and Disney California Adventure in particular!

Disney California Adventure

Over the summer, Disney held the D23 2024: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event where the company announced several expansions and changes coming to the Disney Parks and experiences. One major expansion announced was an Avatar-themed land coming to Disney California Adventure! While there’s still a ton we don’t know about regarding this new land, certain announcements and the concept art have given us some insight, especially about new attractions.

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So what exactly do we know about this brand-new Avatar expansion? Disney has confirmed that although Pandora — The World of AVATAR in Disney World’s Animal Kingdom already exists, Disney California Adventure’s dip into the Avatar IP will be different. According to Disney, this new land will “bring Pandora to life in a brand-new way” and will take heavy inspiration from Avatar: The Way of Water, Avatar: Fire and Ash, and future Avatar films.

©Disney

While much has yet to be discovered about the new expansion, we do know that this new area of Pandora will feature a unique-to-Disney California Adventure boat ride.

Avatar Boat Ride

Per Disney, this new ride will be a “thrilling excursion that will bring all the action, excitement, and wonder of Avatar, taking guests all the way to the wide-open seas of Pandora.”

©Disney

How thrilling this ride will be has yet to be determined (i.e. drops and special effects), but we do know it is meant to be an epic adventure that features “the beauty — and danger — that come along with the journey.”

©Disney

In concept art, we’ve seen some scenes of danger mixed in with beauty, so it appears that the ride will have tonal shifts, not all that dissimilar from another classic Disneyland boat ride, Pirates of the Caribbean. It’ll be interesting, especially, to see how the ride plays with the water themes and vibrant landscapes.

©Disney

We’ve been following the development of this new Avatar experience for quite some time, and have had only speculation to play with before the official announcement.

The Disneyland Resort is about to undergo a massive expansion thanks to the approval of Disneyland Forward, but it doesn’t have the same amount of space as Disney World, so attractions and lands may need to be removed in order to make way for this new Avatar Land. Specifically, Hollywood Land and the Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue! could be the causality here. Of course, this is still speculative and nothing official has been announced.

Additionally, it’s possible that the land gets more than one ride. Pandora at Animal Kingdom features Avatar Flight of Passage as well as Na’vi River Journey, so we’ll see if that’s something California Adventure adopts. It appears as though this new Avatar ride is a spiritual successor to Na’vi River Journey, so maybe we’ll see something similar to Flight of Passage in the future at the Anaheim theme park!