Monday, July 9, 2018

WDW Parks Expansion Plans Recap and Wrap Up

Over the last half year, I posted here a series of expansion plans for the Walt Disney World Resort parks with my hypothetical takes at how I would grow and improve the parks. This was a big project for me with some really good results I think.

This post is a recap and wrap up, plus a closer look into a couple of my favorite lands. First, the look back at the posts.



We started with two plans for the Magic Kingdom back in October.

Magic Kingdom Plan A - This was my attempt at a realistic plan, incorporating the real additions coming soon and a couple of other small but impactful additions to the park, mostly in Tomorrowland and Adventureland. Of course, this was made before the Main Street Theater was cancelled, so it still remains in this park.

Magic Kingdom Plan B - This is the crazy ambitious dream plan that goes a little overboard with new additions to the park. Major additions come to Tomorrowland and Fantasyland, but every land sees something new and exciting, including expansions to Fantasyland and Frontierland in the northern undeveloped area of the park.



EPCOT was the focus in January with 3 versions of the park with 3 different goals.

EPCOT Plan A - This is another realistic plan, though it is on the ambitious side. The focus was to redefine the central spine of Future World, add new relevant characters to pavilions in both halves of the park, and add a new country to World Showcase. I defied expectations and instead of Brazil or Spain, I went with Saudi Arabia because I was interested in how some Middle Eastern representation would look in World Showcase. Plus, I followed the strong rumor and placed a new hotel outside the park gates.

EPCOT Plan B - This plan is the ambitious plan if the park were to go all in on characters and IP. It includes many of the additions from Plan A, plus new Future World pavilions for space featuring WALL-E, the seasons featuring Bambi, and a new take on Horizons at the center of the park. New World Showcase countries include Peru featuring the Emperors New Groove and Equatorial Africa featuring Tarzan, plus all other countries get a character based attraction.

EPCOT Plan C - This big plan is an alternate take on Plan B, where instead there are no characters anywhere in the park and actually assumes that some current additions didn;t actually happen. New Future World pavilions are created for Imagination, Weather, Health, and Computers plus Horizons from the last plan. New World Showcase countries featuring all original attractions are Ethiopia, India, South Africa, and Malaysia, plus Peru and Saudi Arabia from past plans.



Hollywood Studios had just one plan posted back in April, because I decided that so much was already happening to the park that a realistic plan was redundant.

Hollywood Studios Plan A - The goal of this big plan was to follow the lead of Toy Story Land and Galaxys Edge by creating more fully immersive single universe lands that represent the other studio brands of the Company. So that led to the creation of new lands for Marvel, Cars, The Incredibles, Monsters Inc, and Toontown, plus some additions to Sunset Boulevard to represent live action films.



Lastly, two plans for Animal Kingdom were posted early this summer.

Animal Kingdom Plan A - This is a step above a realistic plan, but with this being my favorite park, I got a little carried away. I added one all new land, North America, with attractions and an animal trail. I rethemed one land, changing Planet Watch to Zootopia with a new attraction. And I made major additions to Dinoland with a new coaster and a heavily reworked version of Mystic Manor. Plus a couple small additions to other lands.

Animal Kingdom Plan B - This might be the largest and craziest of my dream plans because it basically doubles the park in one move. There are new lands for Europe, North America, Australia, and South America, all with many attractions, both original and IP.



Some stats for these plans.

Across all the plans, there are approximately 20 new lands, approximately 30 new IPs represented, and approximately 80 new attractions. That's a lot.



To conclude this wrap up, I decided to share enlarged plans of my favorite land from each park. This was a bit of a difficult decision for some of the parks, but I was able to decide on just 4.


In the Magic Kingdom, I choose Tomorrowland from Plan B.

I took inspiration from the organic canopy of the future TRON attraction to create a new sweeping element that crosses the east side of the land, incorporating the entrance to Space Mountain, a new elevated table service restaurant, and a permanent outdoor stage. The other big move for the land is the redesign of the Autopia into a very organic and winding track that includes a flyover above the public walkway and around a large freestanding rocket. The concept of the land is that the setting is an intergalactic science showcase of the future. All the new attractions support this idea by showing various fantasy science/technology topics. Time travel, alien technology, robotics are featured in the additions.


For EPCOT, I decided on Future World Central from Plan C.

The big change here is a complete rethinking of the spine through the center of the park in geometry and logic. The goal was to open up the center of the park, make it greener and more organic, and add new attractions that make sense in the core of the park. The two new attractions are new versions of Imagination and Horizons which along with Spaceship Earth form the thesis statement of the park. These are three attractions about the bigger picture of human progress and the topics of the rest of Future World support them. The center of the land is redeveloped with a new high tech fountain, a permanent stage and viewing area, and a new counter service restaurant that serves healthy Earth based food and features a 360 degree outdoor view of Future World. Also visible in this plan are a pair of new outdoor attractions for Future World East and West with the intention of adding kinetics to the area. A trackless water based teacups style ride sits in the west side and a jetpack spinner is placed in the east side.



In the Hollywood Studios Plan, I picked Toontown.


This is an urban take on Toontown, set in the downtown of the city featured in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The entrance it through a pair of tunnels from Sunset Boulevard and lead to a cartoony and exagerated city street. First is the downtown area, which includes a Ducktales suspended dark ride in the McDuck Bank, a large spinning dark ride taxi tour of the city, an apartment themed meet and greet location, and many very themed retail locations. The other end of the land is Toontown Gardens Park, which includes a carousel of animated animals and the Toontown Amphitheater, playing Fantasmic. The highlight attraction is a boat ride through the Sorcerers Workshop, where magic lets us travel right into the animated classics.


And for Animal Kingdom, I choose Europe from Plan B.


This land takes over more than half of Dinoland and serves as the mythological animal land in my version of this park. It is set in a Greek village adjacent to a mountain and the ruins of an ancient temple. The town square includes a restaurant and a new version of Mystic Manor that focuses just on mythological animals from history. The mountain, which is topped by a giant ruined statue head, holds a flume dark ride based on Hercules and focusing on his trials that feature animals of mythology. The rest of the land holds an outdoor spinning coaster around and through the ruins and an adjacent spring that is guarded by a dragon.



And that's the conclusion to this huge project, for now at least. At least a couple of attractions from this project are likely to be future posts.

But I also want to be able to move on to other original projects. In fact, I have tentatively decided to retire from doing these expansion plans for existing parks and really just do original projects from now on. That means new parks with new themes, and new attractions for both existing parks and new parks. That's way more fun and more challenging for me, so that's what I want to do from now on.

So there will be another post this month, an analysis essay project that I have been wanting to do for a long time about theme park layout form. And then likely an attraction the month after that.


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