The Disneyland Forward expansion plan was announced recently for Disneyland and Disney California Adventure. This expansion plan involves massive new lands being added to both Disney California Adventure and Disneyland, including attractions based on Frozen, Tangled, Peter Pan, Zootopia, Toy Story, and Tron.
Click here if you want to know more about the expansion plan.
But I am a bit skeptical that this exact version of the plan is actually going to happen. For anyone who does not know, Disney does not have the best relationship with the city of Anaheim, especially in recent years, with multiple recent expansion plans for the Disneyland resort having been canceled due to lack of approval by the city.
Disneyland has a long history in recent years of projects being canceled due to lack of approval, and I wouldn't be surprised if these announcements are more Disneyland trying to get the regulation changes they want approved than actually wanting any of the expansions announced.
I think that this was a strategically planned announcement, about a month before Disneyland is set to reopen to the public when Anaheim is really struggling from a lack of tourist dollars. A new massive expansion like this, (even if it isn't exactly this), is likely very appealing to the city of Anaheim at the moment, when they have gone over a year without Disneyland.
If you look at the actual announcement, Disney states with every single piece of the announcement that it isn't an official announcement, just a statement of the possibility of what could happen if Anaheim changes their regulations to allow Disney to build in the locations they want to.
This isn't to say though that I don't think all of this isn't going to happen. If Disney chooses to expand the parks on these plots of land, I certainly think some, if not all of these things could end up getting built. I just don't think this is the final version of the plans.
What I am going to say though is that this shows the Disneyland Resort is still looking to expand a lot in the next decade, which is not something I would have predicted after the impacts of the COVID19 pandemic. That is exciting in itself, even if some or any of these proposed expansions never end up happening.
The early stages of upcoming Disney projects often look very different from the final version that ends up getting built. If you looked at the original version of the Magic Kingdom's New Fantasyland, it didn't even include Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. Disney projects change during development, and that's all I'm really trying to say here.
This may be a proposal at the moment, but things could change before things actually end up getting built. This expansion is likely still a few years off, so let's all get excited because this looks amazing but recognize that it could still change before it actually gets built.
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