WDW Theme Park Conceptual Expansions

Imagineerland

Imagineerland

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Hey everyone, I am posting here to share my detailed plans of my ideal expansion to the four WDW parks.

My work was inspired by the plans of Randy Savage from the Ideal Buildout Blog which many of you may be familiar with. If any of you are long time readers of Ideal Buildout, you also may have seen my work before as I am the winner of his theme park contest a few years ago.

Since then, I have developed an expansion plan for all 4 WDW parks and have gotten to the point that I want to post them publicly. In addition to just theme park plans, I've also created detailed plans of nearly all the attractions I've proposed.

I will be posting my work on a blog, linked below. As a preview, I have posted my Magic Kingdom plan below. The detailed plan for the first attraction is up on my blog now along with the description of the MK plan below. All my work is done, so I will be putting up new post every few days for the next few months.

So come on over to the blog, read my whole plan as i put it up (or at least a few posts) and leave comments, criticisms, and ideas.

http://themeparkplanning.blogspot.com/


MK+FINAL2-01.png
 
Imagineerland

Imagineerland

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I use SketchUp to draw the plans and then used a little photoshop and illustrator to resize them and add all the text. One of the tabs at the top of the blog talks a bit about that stuff if you want to see more.

Thanks for reading and commenting. I'll probably wait a day or two to put up the next post to give more people a chance to find it. After that, I'll be putting something up every other day or so until its all up.
 
Otamin

Otamin

Well-Known Member
Great start so far dude!

I love the plans for the Magic Kingdom, it's just a shame none of it will probably ever happen, but who knows eh?

The addition of a mini Discoveryland would make a lot of sense, it would also help the transition between Fantasyland and Tomorrowland.
 
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Fox&Hound

Fox&Hound

Well-Known Member
Love the idea for moving Peter Pan and adding tinker bell next to him. I wonder what that ride would look like with new technology. Cool idea!
 
Imagineerland

Imagineerland

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I just put up another post on the blog, this one about the additions to Adventureland. Check it out and leave thoughts. http://themeparkplanning.blogspot.com/

Otamin: Nearly the entire reason I chose to do Discoveryland was because of the transition possibilities. I just think going from urban fantasy, to urban steampunk, to urban futurism works much better than the forest fantasy to urban futurism as it is now. That intersection has always felt incomplete to me. This was my attempt.

MA Screamin': I'll give you a little preview. Five new countries and two new Future World pavilions filling all the expansion pads, a ride in every pavilion, and only 1 appearance of a Disney IP through the entire park. I'll be getting to posting that in about 2 weeks.

Fox&Hound: Thanks! Keep on checking out the blog, I'll go into detail about those attractions in a week or so. I think Peter Pan deserves a solid modern ride with actual animated figures, rich sets, and most importantly, a larger capacity. This move seemed to work out the best.
 
Sam Magic

Sam Magic

Well-Known Member
TRF said:
New Orleans Square and Bayou Theater

Audio:


This new land’s main access point is the new path to the left of the Haunted Mansion. After rounding the recently added graveyard queue area and passing the new bridges, guests enter a mini version of the streets of New Orleans. This is really just two buildings with a few overhead bridges. These first buildings are the stores of this land. Once you pass the left building, you see the waterfront complete with the relocated riverboat on the left and a recreation of Tiana’s Palace Restaurant on the right. More shops and the entrance to the theater are ahead before the path fades into the forest of Thunder Mesa. I should say that although the idea and attraction is based on the animated movie, the style is completely realistic like the original New Orleans Square.





Tiana’s Palace; Table Service, New Orleans favorites

This restaurant would recreate the interior of the one seen at the end of the movie with a more refined and realistic exterior. The dining room would be expanded from what is seen there and would have a second floor complete with private dining room for special events, so this would be a high capacity restaurant. The main room would have a stage that could feature music at specific times through meals though I do not think this should be a character meal.

New Orleans Bakery; Snacks, beignets, cupcakes

This would just be a small snack stand selling traditional snacks from New Orleans.


Audio:

Princess and the Frog Bayou Bash; D ticket, 1350 seat capacity, 5-8 shows a day

So The Princess and the Frog is probably one of my favorite Disney movies in the past few years, mostly because of its score. Also, I and many others really enjoyed the Bayou Bash that used to be performed. It all came together and made sense to make a permanent theater musical show for this movie in this new area. This is probably another move that some will disagree with but this is rumored for DHS and I think this makes much more sense.
The theater will be a copy of the Chaparrel Theater from Disneyland Paris, which is an outdoor covered theater. Guests enter theater right after queuing in a lobby and exit theater left. The stage of the theater features a pretty large riverboat, which acts as most of the set for the show. It is able to rotate, so it can be closer or farther away from the audience and with different set dressings for different scenes. The riverboat also houses the live band.
The show will be a condensed musical retelling of the Princess and the Frog, featuring all of the songs performed by the live band and the cast of singers. It will be fairly stylized, maybe similar to the look of Almost There from the film. In addition, all the animal scenes will be done with puppetry including Ray and Louis.
The cast includes Tiana, Naveen, Dr. Faciliar, Ray, Louis, Mama Odie, 2 head puppeteers, 10 chorus, drum set, trumpet, trombone, clarinet, barry sax, bass, and piano.
Click to expand...

All I can say is WOW for all of this. I would suggest making the NOLA bakery themed to a building like Cafe Du Monde, also not sure where bridges are coming from. I live in Baton Rouge which is Louisiana's capital and an hour away from NOLA so I visit a lot. The city has four parts to it: The East end (run-down, hit hard bu Katrina, etc.), Modern NOLA (Superdome, skyscrapers, tricentennial park, casinos, etc.), French Quarter (Two-Four story buildings, ornate decorations, unique shops and cafes, historic sites, large four-ten story tall hotels and historic buildings, carriage rides, Cafe Du Monde, City Park, Museums, Basilica/Jackson Square, Memorials, Monuments, iconic NOLA) The French Quarter buildings having balconys, but are all separated into blocks each apart from each other by two car lanes. These buildings do not have bridges; in fact the entire city really has no pedestrian bridges. In the case of Jackson Square you have the park in the center, brick road, two two lane roads flanking the all sides of the park, then a block on the West and East sides of the park, In the center of the North side is St. Louis Basilica/Cathedral and two three story French styled buildings next to it which take up the rest of the North Side, On the South side you have Cafe Du Monde, and River Walk which is a upscale modern mall the stretches from Tricentennial Park to Jackson Square. I suggest making a copy of Jackson Square without River Walk.
 
Imagineerland

Imagineerland

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Really appreciate the comment Sam4D23. Thanks for reading, and feel free to leave comments here or on the blog anytime!

The reason i did the bridges is because there are 2 similar bridges in the original New Orleans Square. When you look at the layout and design of the Disneyland version vs the real New Orleans, they are vastly different, mostly in the point you made about the streets being straight, the buildings square, and the streets wide. I guess the change to narrower winding streets was made for Disneyland so it could have a more romanticized and mysterious entry sequence. The bending streets and the low bridges that block your view seem to make the approach more complex and exciting. So I did the same, though i think to a less effective degree. Trying to fit a land of substantial size in between the HM showbuilding and the river forces some compromises, especially if i wanted to put the steamboat and an open park area by the water. I still debate whether i made a land that is too heavily based on the Princess and the Frog and not on real New Orleans, but as i said in the post, i feel like it is a movie that deserves representation in the park and this was a way better option than shoehorning it in somewhere it does not fit.

An accurate New Orleans area, with the Jackson Square recreation like you mentioned would be interesting, though i wonder if it would work better in a different styled park. The Disneyland New Orleans square doesn't recreate buildings i don't believe, it just recreates the mood, so i did the same. I might do the accurate style in another more realistic park later on however.


I posted the plan for EPCOT last night on the blog, so come over, read and leave a comment. Thanks everyone!
 
Imagineerland

Imagineerland

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Thanks, i wanted to try something really small. Like so small it forced me to be very purposeful with my decisions. I think it turned out well. If i have time, i may present other side projects between each of the 4 parks. Depends on if i get inspiration and time to put something together.
 
Imagineerland

Imagineerland

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I've lurked for a long time and watched alot of those competitions happen, but have never tried one because I've worried about the time commitment, but i may be interested in trying one in the future.
 
jdmdisney99

jdmdisney99

Well-Known Member
Awesome Imagination Pavilion man! Just wondering if you will be using the DHS you designed for SW's competition? It looked cool!
 
Imagineerland

Imagineerland

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
yeah its a modified version that still has some roots in the plan i put in the contest, except i decided against the working studio style park and made it a movie world based park, which seems to be the direction they are actually going with it. It's definitely the park i put the most work into and am most excited about, because it think DHS has the potential to be the most popular park of the resort. It has 5 super franchise themed lands on the south side, a large Pixar Place, an expanded Animation Courtyard, a Roger Rabbit based Toontown, and multiple special events that im pretty excited about.

Thanks for continuing to read and comment!
 
jdmdisney99

jdmdisney99

Well-Known Member
TRF said:
yeah its a modified version that still has some roots in the plan i put in the contest, except i decided against the working studio style park and made it a movie world based park, which seems to be the direction they are actually going with it. It's definitely the park i put the most work into and am most excited about, because it think DHS has the potential to be the most popular park of the resort. It has 5 super franchise themed lands on the south side, a large Pixar Place, an expanded Animation Courtyard, a Roger Rabbit based Toontown, and multiple special events that im pretty excited about.

Thanks for continuing to read and comment!
Click to expand...
Cool and no problem! Your site has become a regular on my roster of Disney sites. I check it multiple times a day, waiting to see what's new.
 

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