At a personal level 2025 was a year of discovering the parks in a new way, as my son really turned a corner with a lot of his sensory processing issues. We’re still not doing coasters, for the most part, but previously we couldn’t even do dark rides. The toddler and preschool years of just wandering Main Street, meeting characters, buying Mickey pretzels and riding the train were very sweet, but going on actual rides with him is awesome.
As a fan analyzing the parks, I think 2025 was more win than loss, although there were definitely pros and cons.
Cons:
I think Cars for Rivers was a mistake. At an absolute minimum I wish they would have just waited, as consensus seems to be there’s been a loss of institutional wisdom that will take time to mend, and this is one of those projects where it’s vital that they knock it out of the park. And if replacing it was inevitable, I wish they would done a “Disney+ to parks pipeline” and cranked out a series about talking bears and squirrels somewhere in the wilderness so that we got something based on a forest and not talking cars.
Haven’t seen the Zootopia show but for the time being I’ll say it must not be great based on fan reactions.
Labor shortage issues are still present and not going away in the foreseeable future. Mousekeeping still seems understaffed (stayed at two deluxes this year and somehow there was a disposable contact on the bathroom floor both times when we checked in).
Pros
Service and food have improved continuously since Covid. Went to Chef Mickey’s in the fall and was shocked at what a glow up it had gotten. The buffet went on forever! Other buffets seemed to have increased offerings as well.
There have been some good small scale offerings. Things like the Villains show, Beak and Barrel (although I realize some don’t like that one), Little Mermaid redo, Test Track, maybe the parade would go in this category (even if you consider it a mini upgrade vs. a substantial parade, it’s still something where there was nothing.)
If you’re into cruising, tons of new offerings there.
Disney finally started offering some discounts, without major same-year price increases. Granted prices have still exploded since Covid, so this one is only a “pro” if looking at pricing in the last year or two. But my thought is - so many things changed post Covid, they’re not changing back, so the realistic baseline is where we are right now.
Previous plans are still rolling forward so I would put those in the “Pros” category even though they’re unrealized at the moment.
