The Yomiuri ShimbunTokyo Disney Resort operator Oriental Land Co. aims to increase the annual number of visitors to their theme parks by 10 percent to 33 million over the next 10 years, President Kyoichiro Uenishi said in an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun. To increase the number of repeat visitors, the company will introduce new attractions and areas, while taking measures to address overcrowding, according to Uenishi. Tokyo Disney Resort to expand
I had heard rumors that some of these plans had been cancelled and/or scaled back for various reasons (including the lack of available construction crews leading up to the Tokyo Olympics in 2020). I'm glad to hear that it appears that everything is still on track, since it looks like there are some pretty neat projects in the works
According to the article the Frozen land for TDS is still under consideration. While the concept art released many months ago looked really good, I'm still not sure that it fits into the park. On the other hand Mermaid Lagoon or Mysterious Island aren't based on real world locations either.
I think it will fit very well. The other ports are inspired by real locations but take a lot of liberties, similar to Main Street or Hollywood Blvd. They are detailed at a very convincing and realistic level, yet it still makes sense for the largest store in the American Waterfront to be owned by Scrooge McDuck, or for Lost River Delta to revolve around the Indiana Jones saga. Given that there are no other cold-weather ports, nor any set in that era, I think it can work Arabian Coast is probably the most similar of the existing ports. It pulls a lot of influence from Middle Eastern architecture and designs, yet also has a lot of references from Aladdin and its cartoony style. It's definitely not a real place, but manages to be real enough to be convincing
Frozen's Arendelle is a real place. Otherwise why is it part of Epcot's World Showcase? Aaahh, never mind.
It looks like the BATB ride will be in the castle building in the top left and the theater will be next to Space Mountain, but I'm curious about the large buildings in the foreground. I assume they'll have food/merchandise around the front, but it looks like they may also have attractions in them. The one on the left appears to have a ride path (boat flume maybe?) coming out of the building, and the high rounded roof on the right looks like it could also be for a ride Does anybody know what those labels say?
I had a friend who knows some Japanese look at it, and she deciphered that the lower left side is some sort of meet & greet facility, possibly part of Toontown, and the lower right side will be an attraction for Tomorrowland. Given that the original announcement was only about things for Fantasyland, I'm excited that the new stuff will be a little more diverse
The labels read (from topmost and going clockwise) "Fantasyland Live Entertainment Theatre", "Tomorrowland New Attraction", "Toontown New Character Greeting Facility" and "Fantasyland Beauty and the Beast Castle" in exact words.
Another D&M article about the expansion. http://disneyandmore.blogspot.co.at/2016/07/tokyo-disneyland-new-fantasyland-model.html
That gives me a much better understanding of what's coming! I had completely forgotten about the Big Hero 6 version of Mater's that was going to be part of this project Looking at the model, it seems like Beast's castle will be oriented toward Tomorrowland, rather than Fantasyland. While it will align for the bridge entrance, I would guess that a lot of the foot traffic would be coming from the general direction of Fantasyland, which will be the side. It will be really strange to have the best front-on view of the castle right next to the Space Mountain entrance (though it will still be a huge improvement over what's there now)
The building which houses the lottery next to Space Mountain is not going away as originally planned. The meet and greet being added to Toontown is themed to Minnie Mouse. Since the line to meet Mickey is usually 90 minutes to 120 minutes long, this should take a little pressure off that. And apparently Frozen is still coming, but not until 2021 or 2022. It will take three years to build, so look for cranes poking into the sky starting about 2018.
Disney also released a computer rendering video and some photos of the physical model It will be very interesting to see how this flows with the rest of the park. The new castle won't be quite as tall as Cinderella Castle, but it will still be one of the highest points in the park. It may also be strange to have such a large area devoted to Beauty and the Beast, when the rest of the park is themed more broadly (similar to the issue with plopping Star Wars in DL); it's slightly too small to really be a land of it's own, but it's also a big departure from the rest of Fantasyland
I don't if it's just the model or the rendering, but for me the BatB castle looks too big. A Magic Kingdom park should only have one big castle. The one in Florida looks fine and has the right size, but Tokyo's looks just too big. Did TDR already start construction for the TDS expansion?
I agree that the WDW castle is fine for what it is, but a lot of people complain that it's way too small. For an attraction entrance a bigger one may be more appropriate, but I still think the TDL one will be too big; it looks like it will be significantly bigger than Sleeping Beauty Castle in Anaheim I've heard that they've started doing some early ground clearing for the work in TDS, but haven't seen any photos myself. Apparently the Frozen area has been moved to the parking lot behind Lost River Delta and the Arabian Coast. There's not as much in-park space there as on the other side of LRD, so I wouldn't be surprised if they have to remove the magic carpet spinner. (which is relatively new, but nothing special). If that stays, I don't see how the new land could be connected to the main waterway that connects all the other ports throughout the park
WDWNT.com is reporting that TDR is going to expand the parks in 2025. http://wdwnt.com/blog/2017/11/breaking-tokyo-disney-resort-spend-2-7-billion-expansion-2025/
While this news doesn't have much information about the content of the expansions, the scale of it is pretty exciting. This seems to be the last big push they'll be able to do for the existing parks without replacing other attractions, so I'm glad they're taking the macro approach for the infrastructure improvements it will require. Obviously we're still a long way from them breaking ground on this (and even longer from opening) so things can change, but it sounds promising It's also worth pointing out that buried in the various Japanese-language press releases about this, it's mentioned that the Frozen project has been moved from TDS to TDL, somewhere behind/beside Space Mountain. I actually think the Scandinavian port would have worked pretty well in TDS's framework (better than other places a Frozen attraction has been proposed/built), and the TDL expansion will make Fantasyland even more oversized, but hopefully that means the TDS space will go to an even better project
Apparently there are some rumours that TDR might get a third park called "Tokyo DisneySky". New Park "Tokyo DisneySky" Reportedly Coming to Tokyo Disney Resort Right now I have my doubts, but maybe it is true.
