Where Can the Magic Kingdom Still Expand?

Magic Kingdom

The Magic Kingdom is the most popular theme park not only at Walt Disney World, but in the entire world. It is constantly growing in attendance and Disney has built many new areas in this park since it opened.

But the question remains, where can it still expand?

Disney is adding new attractions to its parks like almost never before and so any empty spot becomes a potential location for an attraction.

We will explore any unused expansion pads and discuss if we think they will be used in the near future. We are not including locations that already have announced expansions for them like Tron or currently empty locations like Stitch's Great Escape unless they have been empty for upwards of a decade.

9/12/2022: Updated to reference Beyond Big Thunder blue sky expansion concept announced for Frontierland Expansion Pad, featuring rides based on Coco, Encanto, and Disney Villains

Above is a quick map of the four main expansion pads we are going to be discussing in more detail below. We are going to start from the park entrance and move clockwise around the park.

Adventureland Expansion Pad

This is probably the easiest to use of all of the expansion areas we are looking at. By simply making a path in roughly the area highlighted in blue above this massive area becomes available. For comparison, the building directly above the expansion pad is Pirates of the Caribbean. It easily could be used for multiple smaller attractions or one massive attraction. This was the long-proposed location for Fire Mountain, an Adventureland themed addition to the Magic Kingdom's mountain range, although it could be used for anything in the future.

Frontierland Expansion Pad

This is by far the largest expansion area, but also the least accessible. A lot of backstage reconfiguration would need to happen behind Big Thunder Mountain to make this land available for park usage as well as an extended path.

However Disney has revealed that they are interested in utilizing this expansion pad with the revelation of blue sky concept art for their "Beyond Big Thunder" expansion, involving attractions based on Encanto, Coco, and Disney Villains being added in this location.

The practicality of using this land still remains difficult however, and it would likely involve building a bridge over a waterway that would need to be movable to allow the Riverboat to pass through it, as well as potentially causing traffic issues if the project did not travel all the way around the Rivers of America. This is without mentioning the difficulty of connecting Liberty Square or Fantasyland to this new land.

There is a decent chance in order for this to happen, the Rivers of America will need to be shortened to make room for this expansion.

Fantasyland Expansion Pad

This is a much more difficult spot to access. There are two major pads, behind It's a Small World and Journey of the Little Mermaid, but both are not currently accessible. Either could be reached but it would require removing existing attractions or restaurants.

The best route would probably be accessing both from Storybook Circus, but that would necessitate one of the circus buildings being removed to create a path to them. This likely won't be used for a while as Fantasyland had a relatively recent expansion.

Tomorrowland/ Main Street USA Expansion Pad

This location is unique as it could be used by one of two lands, Tomorrowland or Main Street USA as it is located directly in between them. It is the former location of an outside theater in Tomorrowland and a current parking lot.

This was the announced location for the Main Street Theater but that project has since been canceled, making this location available again. It could easily house a smaller flat ride or dark ride as long is it isn't too tall. Being between two lands it would have to account for sight-lines in both of them.

This is about as easy to use as the Adventureland expansion pad and will likely be used sooner than some of the other ones on this list.

Speculation

So what will go in any of these locations? We really don't know! These are all probably a decade away or more from being used based on current trends. Before Tron, the last major Magic Kingdom expansion was in 2012 meaning it will likely be in the late 2020s before the next one.

By then they could be used for an attraction based on a film that hasn't even been written yet. Don't expect Disney to announce they are using one of these any time soon.

But if you were in charge of the parks what would you do with these expansion areas? Let us know in the comments below!

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