Rumor D23 2024 WDW Rumors, Predictions & Discussion

[BrianLo]

Is this the presentation that included the ships? Tokyo's ship is 2029, that's five years.

If they're moving dirt now, as Josh said, Villains should be one of the first mini-lands done.

Oh, you think it will be on a faster timeline than 2029?

But yes, notably the ships extend to 2031. Though I feel like that’s understood empirically, since that was dated. Everything else struck me as within 5 years from his comment.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Oh, you think it will be on a faster timeline than 2029?

But yes, notably the ships extend to 2031. Though I feel like that’s understood empirically, since that was dated. Everything else struck me as within 5 years from his comment.

But Cars and TA were specifically mentioned to be done in 2027.

 

[BrianLo]

But Cars and TA were specifically mentioned to be done in 2027.

Sorry… I’m actually lost on what your position is? What are we talking about?

I’m saying I think all the major parks projects should be done within five years. I think I misinterpreted what you were arguing.

I don’t remember a date on cars, did that happen after the fact?



My read on the date menagerie is that Tropical Americas was called out specifically because it was first. Coco was called out because it was starting up later than everything else.

 

[Jrb1979]

I’m honestly shocked that Comcast had the money to build Epic in the first place. Guess we really gotta hope it pans out for them.

I'm sure it will do just fine. Now with 3 parks and a water park it makes them 3-4 day visit.

 

[DarkMetroid567]

1978

Bring him back!!!!!!!!!!

I'm sure it will do just fine. Now with 3 parks and a water park it makes them 3-4 day visit.

I’m sure it’ll do fine, but is fine good enough? We don’t know how much it cost, but it likely cost a ton. It’s going to need a lot of consistent success if we’re hoping for future expansions at Universal.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Sorry… I’m actually lost on what your position is? What are we talking about?

I’m saying I think all the major parks projects should be done within five years. I think I misinterpreted what you were arguing.

I don’t remember a date on cars, did that happen after the fact?



My read on the date menagerie is that Tropical Americas was called out specifically because it was first. Coco was called out because it was starting up later than everything else.

Here's all the dates mentioned in Disney's online materials. I was asking where a 2029 date showed up for Villains. Some part of it already "underway."

Where is the 2029 date coming from?

I'm putting together the updates to the sacred timeline, and this is what I have as far as official dates from Disney. I haven't checked if there were any updates in the past 24 hours...

???? ???? – MK Villains Land / Start Aug 2024 (“underway”) /

2027 ???? – MK Cars mini land, 2 rides, / Start: early 2025 /

2025 Sum – MK night time parade, Starlight

2025 ???? – MK – Pirate’s Lounge

???? ???? – MK DVC Lounge (former shooting range) / Start 2025 /



???? ???? DHS – Monstropolis – hanging coaster / Start 2025 /

2026 ???? DHS – New story to Smugglers Run feat. Mando and Grogu



2025 ???? EP – Test Track refresh reopens

2025 ???? EP – SSE Lounge



2025 Wint DAK – Zootopia in Tree of Life, “Better Zoogether”

2027 ???? DAK – Tropical Americas: Indy, Encanto, Carousel Start 2024



2024 Dec. DCL – The Treasure, Triton Class, Port Canaveral

2025 Nov. DCL – The Destiny, Triton Class

2025 ???? DCL – The Adventure, newly acquired, Singapore

2029 ???? DCL – Unnamed, Triton class, Tokyo (OLC)

2027-2031 DCL – 4 more ships



2025 ???? – DL – 70th Anniversary

2024 ???? – DL Nov 15, TBA opens

2025 ???? – DL Walt Disney: A Magical Life



???? ???? – DCA Avatar/Pandora

???? ???? – DCA Coco ride / Start 2026 /

???? ???? – DCA Avengers Infinity Defense & Stark Flight Lab




2026 ???? – DAW World of Frozen

2026 ???? – DAW New fountain/drone show on Adventure Bay

???? ???? – DAW Lion King mini-land with flume



???? ???? – HDL Spider-Man thrill tower



???? ???? – SDL Spider-Man thrill coaster


2024 Aug 16 – Epic: Fortnight Marvel season - Doom

2024 Soon – Epic: More Fortnight Disney skins

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Come to life in 5 years doesn’t mean open in 5 years. It means legit construction is taking place and over 5 years projects are planned to open and continue to be constructed.

That’s my understanding.

Villians is early on - they couldn’t start building today if they had flat land and wanted to. “Earth is moving” yeah they are prepping for work around MK that will allow for lots of construction that will prep the land to build a villains land on top.

 

[hopemax]

Question…given how immense the frozen ip is, why is there not more of a frozen expansion land equivalent to what Tokyo received ? I’m somewhat shocked that the only thing that Disney world got this point was an attraction at the world show case no less.

You would think that Disney would have expedited some tacked in addition to fantasy lane or even dhs at this point given how much of a force frozen is.

Because this is how WDW handles popular IP. The mistreatment for such a huge franchise should have been obvious, and I raised the point about Frozen needed to be a bigger scale, if they really wanted to move the attendance needle of the park it was in, but many people latched onto the "but no one rode Maelstrom," narrative to counter criticism about Frozen going in that space. Same as what is happening with these projects.

 

[TheDisneyParksfanC8]

Because this is how WDW handles popular IP. The mistreatment for such a huge franchise should have been obvious, and I raised the point about Frozen needed to be a bigger scale, if they really wanted to move the attendance needle of the park it was in, but many people latched onto the "but no one rode Maelstrom," narrative to counter criticism about Frozen going in that space. Same as what is happening with these projects.

At least DLR has the chance to get a proper frozen land.

 

[hopemax]

off topic, but what is the point of the orange bird? What does he do?

He is one of the stable of Festival mascots. Along with Figment, Mickey & Minnie, Spike the Bee, Remy and more recently Encanto. Plus, some occasional references to Adventureland.

 

[BrianLo]

Here's all the dates mentioned in Disney's online materials. I was asking where a 2029 date showed up for Villains. Some part of it already "underway."

Ah! Deductive reasoning. Underway means the lay down yards and site prep, that was a clearly crafted fib.

ROA doesn’t actually close until next year, seemingly. Cars will be an approximately 3 year project and we’re at best looking at early 2028 there. Villains land will come in the second phase.

None of this is official, but I certainly wouldn’t conclude Villainsland is imminent, based on everything we know. It doesn’t make sense from a marketing perspective to go faster than sequentially opening the six major rides two at a time.

 

[Quietmouse]

Is there a reason why Disney construction takes as long as it does? I’ve seen giant Manhattan skyscrapers with over 400 units be built within a span of 3 years.

I know Florida weather is more dodgy but it doesn’t really compute why a multi billion dollar company like Disney has issues with expedited construction.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Is there a reason why Disney construction takes as long as it does? I’ve seen giant Manhattan skyscrapers with over 400 units be built within a span of 3 years.

I know Florida weather is more dodgy but it doesn’t really compute why a multi billion dollar company like Disney has issues with expedited construction.

They slow roll it…period

You’ll get a million excuses…but the reality is if it takes double to build now with superior technology what it took them to build 40 years ago…that’s a matter of choice, tactics, mismanagement…or likely all 3

 

[mickEblu]

The very end of the presentation

"Just look around you at everything we have shared. As I mentioned at the top, I am so excited for everything we are doing. I can't wait for you to see these projects start to come to life over the next five years."

We can definitely parse words. But, Josh is not Chapek, he chooses his words quite clearly. He even corrected Scott Trowbridge at one point who very innocently said 'may' with "no, we 'are' doing these things".

Though I would also say end of 2029 into early 2030 counts as five years.

Hmmm. I had never seen the actual quote. Now I’m less optimistic. To me starting to come to life over the next 5 years probably means some of the announced projects starting and finishing in the next 5 years and not necessarily all of them finishing. It could even mean some of them starting construction as late as 5 years from now. I could see Villains land for example coming a few years into the 2030’s in this case. With all of that said according to OG55 apparently there was an announcement that wasn’t on the live steam where D’Amaro addressed the audience saying everything announced would be done by the end of the decade. But now I’m not so sure that he didn’t misinterpreted something.

 

[Sir_Cliff]

Hmmm. I had never seen the actual quote. Now I’m less optimistic. To me starting to come to life over the next 5 years probably means some of the announced projects starting and finishing in the next 5 years and not not necessarily all of the finishing. It could even mean some of them starting construction as late as 5 years from now. I could see Villains land for example coming a few years into the 2030’s in this case. With all of that said according to OG55 apparently there was an announcement that wasn’t on the live steam when D’Amaro addressed the audience saying everything announced would be done by the end of the decade. But now I’m not so sure that he misinterpreted something.

Indeed. I’m not sure why people are clinging to that 5 year comment, because he moved on very quickly from Villains land to make this very general comment about things starting to happen over the next 5 years. He certainly didn’t say it would be open by then and in terms of it being under way, well, we know it is under way on some level because they produced a piece of artwork which is part of the whole process. How far it is beyond that is anyone’s guess. They’re certainly not clearing the site or anything.

 

[DarkMetroid567]

Is there a reason why Disney construction takes as long as it does? I’ve seen giant Manhattan skyscrapers with over 400 units be built within a span of 3 years.

I know Florida weather is more dodgy but it doesn’t really compute why a multi billion dollar company like Disney has issues with expedited construction.

As an aside, very few modern Manhattan skyscrapers take only three years to build. You’re looking closer to 5-7 years. One Vanderbilt took 4 and that was pretty quick.

But in general, a lot of construction setbacks are land-related. Skyscrapers, inherently, don’t need to worry about that to the same extent.

 

[BrianLo]

Hmmm. I had never seen the actual quote. Now I’m less optimistic. To me starting to come to life over the next 5 years probably means some of the announced projects starting and finishing in the next 5 years and not necessarily all of them finishing. It could even mean some of them starting construction as late as 5 years from now. I could see Villains land for example coming a few years into the 2030’s in this case. With all of that said according to OG55 apparently there was an announcement that wasn’t on the live steam where D’Amaro addressed the audience saying everything announced would be done by the end of the decade. But now I’m not so sure that he didn’t misinterpreted something.

Things can and do slip. But even without that general context, I’d be pretty surprised if Villains Land was well beyond 2030. As slow as we think they are to build things, 2029 puts this on a very, very similar timeframe to other projects that were ‘approved’ early In their project development like DAK’s Pandora or both Galaxies Edges. That’s assuming almost no work has been done on this project, even.

I mean, we’ll know definitively if we don’t see any work on Villainsland by mid 2026.

I still strongly believe the goal schedule is;
2027- Tropical Americas, Avengers
2028- Cars, Monsters Inc, Avatar
2029- Villains, Coco

It makes sense from their current stated plans, which is to have consistent things to market annually so that people don’t feel like they can skip out on their resort of preference. It’s an actually good strategy (but, yes the realist in me says they don’t stick to things).

As dramatic as this all seems though, it actually isn’t currently more than what WDW pulled off from 2017-19. It’s actually slightly less. But I still think there are many more smaller projects to come.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

WDWM members: no more IP in the parks!

Disney: Villains.

WDWM members: Wheeeeeeeee!!!

 

[mickEblu]

Things can and do slip. But even without that general context, I’d be pretty surprised if Villains Land was well beyond 2030. As slow as we think they are to build things, 2029 puts this on a very, very similar timeframe to other projects that were ‘approved’ early In their project development like DAK’s Pandora or both Galaxies Edges. That’s assuming almost no work has been done on this project, even.

I mean, we’ll know definitively if we don’t see any work on Villainsland by mid 2026.

I still strongly believe the goal schedule is;
2027- Tropical Americas, Avengers
2028- Cars, Monsters Inc, Avatar
2029- Villains, Coco

It makes sense from their current stated plans, which is to have consistent things to market annually so that people don’t feel like they can skip out on their resort of preference. It’s an actually good strategy (but, yes the realist in me says they don’t stick to things).

As dramatic as this all seems though, it actually isn’t currently more than what WDW pulled off from 2017-19. It’s actually slightly less. But I still think there are many more smaller projects to come.

Possible but why not word it differently and say everything will be completed by the end of the decade? The words he used seem very carefully chosen. I agree with 2027 Tropical Americas. I can see Avengers being late 2027 or 2028 (if they start early 2025) with Monsters. Coco I can see mid 2028 if they start early 2026. Avatar 2029/ early 2030 to have synergy with Avatar 4. I can see Villains being 2032 but maybe they push for 2031 for MKs 60th.

 

[BrianLo]

Possible but why not word it differently and say everything will be completed by the end of the decade? The words he used seem very carefully chise. I agree with 2027 Tropical Americas. I can see Avengers being 2028 with Monsters. Coco 2029. Avatar 2029/ early to have synergy with Avatar 4. I can see Villains being 2032 but maybe they push for 2031 for MKs 60th.

2032? Thats so slow though, much slower than they moved last decade, on anything. If I'm taking them on their word that these projects are approved and funded, they don’t take 8 years.

It was worded that way because they announced a 2031 cruise ship and they were displayed beside him and around the auditorium on the screens as he made that comment. Plus I think five years rather than ‘this decade’ was chosen to allow 2030 slippage.

2032 means they realistically don’t start Villains Land until 2028. Josh has put himself in a position where he’s going to show up for two D23’s in a row, having claimed “shovels were in the ground” during the Villains announcement? We can check back in two years from now, I certainly will still be here. But Josh will have put himself in a terrible position if there isn’t visible construction on every single project (other than possibly Coco, which is I think why it was called out), by summer 2026.

I think the projects most liable to slip are the 2028 ones. Probably not cars, that seems super aggressively proceeding. But most likely I’m being too optimistic on DCA due to the eastern Gateway holdup. I want to see evidence of that project basically start by Q1, same with Avengers.