Never.
I am saying that because adding another park wouldn't increase the attendance of WDW a lot. All it would do is decrease the attendance of the existing parks by all 5 parks fighting for the same visitors.
The other problem is take a look at home many theme parks in Orlando or in that area right now. Once Universal adds a 3rd park in Florida, the market can't handle anymore theme parks in the Orlando area.
^^^^^ This.
I don't remember where I saw it, but research was done (or maybe it was Disney data) that pretty much eliminates the idea of a 5th gate. Here's what it boils down to: Disney has done everything it can to keep tourist dollars on site. The Magical Express, Dining Plans were concepts that locked visitors, and thier wallets, to Disney property.
When MK was a stand alone park, people stayed for X amount of days. When they opened Epcot, it became X + Y days. Then came (then) MGM and AK. The idea was that with the 4 parks, people would stay even longer and Disney would capture even more money from tourists. But when MGM and AK opened, there was no increase in length of stays by visitors. IF [and that is a big if] Disney brainstormed a 5th gate, they would need to be convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that they by spending the billions of dollars they would increase visitor stays. If not, they are just cannibalizing their own product.
What is happening now is that Sea World, USO are both peeling off days from Disney. People come for seven days and spend 2 at MK, 2 at Epcot, 1 day at HS and AK combined and then spend one or two days at SW or USO. Or, they cut back on E/HS/AK and increase thier time at the other major attractions. Disney can, and will, put a boatload of money into improving the offerings at HS and AK over the next five to ten years to try to steal some of this traffic back. But to do that they need to dream big, think bigger, and open the corporate vault wide. They have no problem dreaming, and thinking....but the money part kills them.
There has to be a cost/benefit for Disney to OK the expansion. If the powers that be don't see a return (Ie people staying on site and spending time and money in their parks for a significant amount of time) then the plans will be scaled back. Scaled back plans will allow them to say we are bringing new excitement to the parks and to some people it will be enough to check out. To those of us here, we may react like the bride who married the village eunuch on her wedding night. It's just like NFL - some people were excited....some of us here said, "that's it"....but it did what it needed to do in that it got Disney some press, it allowed them to promote the 'newness' and use it in marketing. It's no Harry Potter by any means....but I don't know if Disney wants to go that 'big' right now.
If everything we hear about HS and Avatar in AK are true - then Potter will be big and Disney will be bigger. It just comes down to: "We can spend 3 billion dollars on this expansion at Hollywood studios and Animal Kingdom, but will we ever see a return on this investment?" If they decide that USO is bleeding thier customers by a decent percentage (and wanna wager that Disney has people at the airport looking to see how many people are going home with kids brandishing wands, butterbeer flasks, stuffed Hedwigs rather than bags bursting with Mickey and Minnie?) then the redo of HS will be mind boggling.
But a 5th gate? It won't pass the cost/benefit analysis and won't happen
