Disney has done this a few times before actually! There's of course the Disney Store rather it be at a mall or Target. Below the Disney Store is Character Warehouse offering theme park goods on heavy clearance (I've bought ornaments there for under $5!) and the Disney Baby store which caters to just babies!
Beyond the regular Disney stores Disney has had many forays into dining!
Mickey's Kitchen was a fast food restaurant that would be located at malls around the USA. These restaurant would be next door to the Disney Stores With theming done in the style of restaurants like Fuddruckers's with cutouts and props pulled from various films. The menu focused on healthier fare with names inspired from various Disney characters such as Jumbo Dumbo burgers, Supercalifragi-Chicken salad, Salads-in-Wonderland, Soup-a-dee-doo-dah, fries shaped like Disney characters, Mickey’s Meatless Burger, Pinocchio’s Pizza, etc. It only had two test locations and lasted only two years.
ESPN Zone is another Disney themed restaurant that was more successful than the Mickey's Kitchen concept. At its peak it had 11 locations located at popular tourist destinations alongside Denver and Baltimore, but it is down to two locations found at the Boardwalk and Wide World of Sports. At its peak it was the Hard Rock of sports featuring plenty of sports memorabilia from athletes alongside close to 200 screens showing every sport under the sun. Servers were given updates on the hour of sports news to update diners and place settings. To tie everything together there were plenty of arcade classics like air hockey and foosball.
Outside of dining there were a lot of attractions and entertainment that were tried with the most famous being Disney Quest which started in Chicago. Alongside Disney Quest was Club Disney. Club Disney was a children's exploration place similar to what is seen on the Cruise Lines with their Avengers, Imagineers, Star Wars, Pixar, etc play areas that combine things like playgrounds but also miniature interactive attractions. There's actually a thread on the forums that give a great recap IMO:
https://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/club-disney-the-ill-fated-playzones-of-the-90s.943188/
Moving to hotels there's of course Aulani in Hawaii, Vero Beach Resort in well Vero Beach, Florida and Hilton Head Resort in Hilton Head, South Carolina. There's plenty of cancelled projects for this category though! The most recent example was the National Harbor resort. The resort would have sat at well National Harbor and be part of a greater complex that included a convention center by Gaylord. Disney had actually bought out 11 acres for the resort, but backed out in 2011. My guess? The low demand for Aulani which opened in August 2011, and Disney backed out of National Harbor in November 2011 which seems to fit the narrative perfectly.
Another older example of a resort would come from Walt Disney himself in 1965! This resort of course being Mineral King Ski Resort located at Sequoia National Park in California. As is well known the resort was the birthplace of the Country Bears which would later be shifted towards Magic Kingdom as an opening day attraction. The resort would have been compromised of a five-story hotel, movie theater, general store, pools, ice rinks, tennis courts, and a golf course. Meanwhile the ski mountain would have been the steepest in California to this day 3,700 feet, and would have been the tallest peak elevation in the state at 11,090 feet. At the peak of the mountain a nice little coffee shop would have been built for guests to warm up a bit. The reason it never got built? Conservation concerns, the Sierra Club lobbied against Disney, but the Sierra Club eventually lost at the SUPREME COURT. In 1970 the National Environmental Policy Act was enacted requiring environmental effects to be studied thoroughly, and Disney alongside the Forest Service turned it in 1976. Interest in this was rather low at Disney as it's projected cost was over 35 million and of course had been in the works for more than a decade now. The final nail in the coffin was when the sire for the resort became a part of the National Park thus killing this resort for good.
There was something else that was worked on a bit before being cancelled I just cant find any info right now on it. But it was essentially a touring Disney theme park on a boat that would travel the world, and dock in major cities that could support something grand like a moving theme park but not as big as a theme park. I believe this shifted into the Cruise lines eventually? I feel like this was shown in that Disney+ Imagineeering series but honestly might have been a fever dream.
In terms of successes Disney on Ice, Disney LIVE!, Disney on Broadway/Touring Shows, Disney Cruises, and the El Capitan Theater seem to be the few that have lasted the test of time. While a stretch Disney has dabbled with minigolf at Walt Disney World resort so that's another feather in their hat I guess?
Either way I still think it is a good idea however their failures show key issues that need to be addressed:
- Location - This involves the actual placement of projects it has to be in a place with a lot of traffic rather it be foot or automobile. In my opinion something like a bit nicer and spruced up Mickey's Kitchen could work really well in places like Time Square where this is a heavy inflow of tourists. In today's day opening something in a mall may honestly be a death sentence given how badly many malls are doing.
- Competition - What is nearby the location selected? How would this experience differ from the others? Is there even demand for this and if so what is the threshold needed to succeed?
- Theming - The reason many people love Disney Parks is the high caliber of theming found in places like Toy Story Playland and Chester and Hester's Dinorama. These standards have to be applied to the experience on a massive scale similar to what Rainforest Cafe does the only issue is that this can be very expensive and may be tough to break even.
- Freshness - Depending on what's done it has to be kept fresh and modern if things start getting too outdated then surprise surprise they're going to need update things every so often which costs money and is one of the things that led to the downfall of Disney Quest IMO. A good example of freshness was The Void VR Experience which while it wasn't Disney was really successful and constantly had new Disney based missions inspired by Marvel, Rogue One, and Ralph Breaks the Internet. Only issue was the pandemic killed this venture completely
With all that said I still think Disney should try again, and honestly do think it's a great idea
