"BIG THINGS ARE COMING" - Walt Disney World NEWS & RUMORS - DSNY Newscast

[Music] Hi there Waltineers! I'm Jack and this is DSNY Newscast and we have a lot to talk about today. So, I'm going to be doing something a little bit different. I'm going to be trying out a different format and making this into more of a longer form, in-depth, jam-packed, room of round-up style of video. As, you know, we're now officially on the road to D23 in August and it's just, you know, four months away. And like I said a couple of weeks ago in a video, this year's D23 from what I've hear

d is going to be big. And Disney want this to be a kind of return to form for D23, back to like 2015, 2017, 2019 levels. You know, getting away from the whole blue sky brainstorm stuff that we've seen in recent years and getting back to making announcements at D23. And lo and behold, this past week, it really did feel like the rumor mill kind of kicked into gear getting ready for D23. So we've got loads to talk about in terms of rumors and rumblings and we're going to cover it all. But the first

thing I think we need to talk about is obviously Disney's Animal Kingdom. As recently there was a major development for the Animal Kingdom expansion plans and that came in the way of a permit that was filed for the construction of backstage on-site offices for Walt Disney Imagineering at Animal Kingdom. And this is a very important step in the expansion plans, as whenever Imagineering do these kind of large-scale construction projects, they need to have a central location for the Imagineering o

ffices nearby. And this is going to be located, as we can see in the permit, just north of Kali River Rapids. And it's a five acre location with around five trailers there for the office space. And it's going to have approximately 360 parking spaces. But the thing that's interesting about this is this is actually quite a considerably sized Imagineering hub for just the Dino Land project. You know, the revamp and overhaul of Dinoland, of DinoRama and the dinosaur attraction in that part of the pa

rk. And it might indicate that Disney has bigger plans at play here. And in actual fact, earlier this week on Twitter, I actually said that Disney might be looking at doing a multi-phase approach to Animal Kingdom's expansions. And you know, there might be another expansion waiting to be greenlit for Animal Kingdom as well, that this location for Imagineering would also support. So that's the reason why it's the size that it is. But the reason why this is so exciting is because the Dino Land plo

t of land is fairly ready to begin construction very soon. And I think that we're most likely looking at the next fiscal year in terms of October of this year for construction to actually begin on this area. I could be wrong, but they do tend to like to line up the beginning of these projects with the fiscal years because then they can neatly tie it all into the capital expenditure for that next fiscal year. But that's not to say by the way that Magic Kingdom's Beyond Big Thunder plans aren't on

the table. They are very much definitely still on the table and Imagineering definitely do have some big plans there. But the thing is about that is it's going to take a lot more preparation work on that site before they can even start to go vertical on any sort of attractions or lands within Magic Kingdom. So we're probably looking at like 2029, 2034 new things to open at Magic Kingdom's Beyond Big Thunder section. But when it comes to Dino Land and Dinosaur, the re-theme of Dinosaur to Indian

a Jones, that can be ready and up and running by around 2027, 2028. So over the next few years we're going to see a lot of activity and focus on this corner of Animal Kingdom. And looking at the artwork that they revealed last year in September of 2023, Destination D23, for this whole overhaul of Dino Land to the tropical Americas, the Encanto attraction part of the artwork pretty much takes over the entirety of Chester and Hester's Dinorama. And that plot of land is roughly around 2.2 acres as

it currently stands, but they've even got room to expand further into the backstage area there as well, which is most likely what they'll probably end up doing as well at the same time. And so this area could quite easily support quite a sizable attraction show building. And just for an example, if we took the Remy's Ratatouille Adventure attraction show building from over in Epcot and just plopped it directly into place, you can see that this part of the proposals could easily have an attractio

n, the scale and scope and size of a ratatouille within the Animal Kingdom expansion. And you know, ever since the Encanto attraction rumors began really early in 2022, and I've been doing videos on it since then, I'm still of the same opinion, and that is, it just makes way too much sense for if they're going to do an Encanto attraction, it should be using a trackless dark ride for the attraction, as it just tells the story perfectly. As after all, you know, if you're moving throughout the casi

ta on the magical floors, then the trackless dark ride makes a lot of sense for that. And after all, you know, you got to think about it from a Magineering's point of view, they assess a bunch of ride systems for various IPs, and they try and pick the correct one. But the three main factors in this situation is capacity, expense and suitability. As after all, you know, they want to add more capacity to Animal Kingdom, the expense, you know, has to be within the budget for the proposals, and then

the suitability, the suitability of the ride system to tell the storyline of the attraction. And I think, you know, it just ticks all the boxes and makes too much sense for it not to happen really. And after all, Mystic Manor over in Hong Kong Disneyland is similar in a way, you know, you enter this big mansion, you're traversing around this mansion in this trackless dark ride, and that will be the same kind of thing here with the Madrigals and the Casita of Encanto. So it would make a lot of s

ense, and after all, Disney's been very hot on the trackless dark ride recently, and that's because it's reliable and very effective for technology for reliability to keep up time and good operational time. And then also it's a people eater, it's got good capacity. And so they're very much aligned with this, and they've already got Rise of Resistance and Runaway Railway and Ratatouille in Hollywood Studios and Epcot. And so Animal Kingdom could really benefit from a trackless dark ride within th

ese proposals. And then we come to Indiana Jones and the re-theme of Dinosaur to Indiana Jones. And I've actually been talking about this back in January and said that it wasn't going to be a clone. And I'm just going to play a clip from back in January just to recap that point. And specifically what the rumors are saying is that the Indiana Jones re-theme of Dinosaur is the thing that's pretty dead set on happening. And that's because it's not just going to be a clone of the Indiana Jones ride

in Disneyland, it's going to have its own original story and original show set elements and things like that to match the layout of the Dinosaur attraction. And so just building off that, I know a lot of people have been saying, "How does Indiana Jones fit within Animal Kingdom?" And I can tell you right now that Imagineering are going to integrate Indiana Jones within Animal Kingdom and they're going to make it work from a story perspective. And there's a lot of room for different things here a

s after all, Animal Kingdom, yes it's about animals, but it also had this called Beastly Kingdom concept early on. And this whole mythological creatures, it wasn't just dinosaurs and animals, it was also meant to be mythological creatures. And so whether they're going to go dinosaurs or mythological creatures with this, Indiana Jones as an IP plays with that in that whole world of myths and legends. So it makes sense that they could make a story that will better fit Animal Kingdom. And then you'

ve also got to consider that Joe Rohde has just been announced to be being made a Disney legend at D23 as well. And that kind of lines up with the idea that supposedly they're wanting to bring back some former Imagineers as advisors within Imagineering. And so if they've got Joe Rohde back as an advisor on this project, as after all, Joe Rodey is the architect of Animal Kingdom, you know, it's his thing. So if they bring him back to help shepherd this whole dino land overhaul, I've got a lot of

confidence in the fact that they'll make this work from that perspective. And then the other thing that a lot of people talk about is capacity concerns. And this is just replacing existing attractions. But when you look at Primeval Whirl and Triceratops Spin, those weren't particularly high capacity attractions, as after all, Primeval Whirl was a roller coaster that was susceptible to incremental weather. And if there were thunderstorms, it had to had to close and stuff like that. And then also

just operationally, it just wasn't the best in terms of operation uptime. So, you know, from all of that perspective, if they are to build a dark ride, an enclosed indoor dark ride for Encanto, that is going to be able to handle way more capacity than even Triceratops Spin and Primeval Whirl managed to do combined. So that is actually adding capacity to Animal Kingdom. And then also from a dinosaur's perspective, yes, it's the same ride system, and it's going to be a new theme. But if Indiana Jo

nes manages to draw in more people to go ride the dinosaur ride system, and takes its wait time for on average from 30 minutes to 60 minutes, or from 45 minutes to an hour and a half, then that is actually adding capacity to Animal Kingdom because it means it's taking more people away from other attractions and utilizing that dinosaur attraction more fully. Even though it's not doing more throughput, it's managing to pull more people to that attraction. So it is in a way more capacity for Animal

Kingdom by fixing these two areas of dino. And then we come to this whole multi-phase approach they might be taking towards Animal Kingdom's future, as there might be another expansion on the horizon as well, which hasn't been greenlit yet, but you know, it's the reason why this Imagineering Backstage section is so large is because it might be to support multiple expansions, obviously the Dino Land one and an additional one. And supposedly within this expansion, it's going to be an E-ticket att

raction that they might be adding to Animal Kingdom. Now this hasn't been greenlit yet, but we've got to start to look at other projects around the world as they all kind of tie together. And back in 2019, it was very early in the planning stages, but they had ideas of a Lion King attraction for Animal Kingdom. Very early on, you know, it wasn't, you know, it's kind of blue sky, but it was going to be located to the side of Festival of Lion King. In that kind of space, between that and Club 33 b

ack there, that's where they would have put the show building. But obviously this is just very early tentative plans that they had, and what's interesting about this is that plan obviously fell away, but the Lion King idea of the attraction, there's been a lot of rumors about the Lion King land and Lion King attraction supposedly being brought to Walt Disney Studios Park over at Disneyland Paris as part of the expansions around the lake area there. And if they're going to be building a Lion King

attraction, well, you know, they had originally been playing with some ideas that then fell off the table for Animal Kingdom, so possibly could they be designing once and then building twice as Disney liked to do. And then the other thing, which is if it's not Lion King, which is the IP that's chosen, there's the other idea, which is we all know that AVATAR is going to be going into Disneyland, you know, there's the AVATAR experience or attraction or mini land that's coming to Disneyland Resort

. And what the rumors are indicating with this is that it's going to be going into Disney California Adventure, supposedly what the rumors are saying is within the backlot area, which is actually where the Monsters Inc. ride is. But it all depends upon the Disneyland Forward proposal getting the go-ahead from the Anaheim City Council. And, you know, we're going to hopefully find that out in April. It looks like it's moving positively in that direction. And if they do get the green light and the

go-ahead on the Disneyland Forward plans, then the first thing that they will most likely want to do is build the Eastern Gateway Project, which was presented back in 2017, then was cancelled or delayed because it didn't get the go-ahead from the Anaheim City Council. And it would then create more space there near the backlot area to expand on out. And it's vital that that would happen for this Avatar experience to go into the DCA backlot area in that spot there. And if they're going to be desig

ning a brand new attraction, the type of attraction that's rumored for Disney California Adventure is supposedly a E-ticket boat ride. And it's not necessarily going to just tie into or themed around Avatar 1 or 2 with Way of Water, but it might be also linked to AVATAR 3 and 4 and other parts of that whole universe, you know, more of the human-based world of the universe as well. And so that's how it would work within DCA. But this is where it gets interesting with Animal Kingdom, because Anima

l Kingdom has an expansion spot for Pandora of the World AVATAR. And the location of that is from where the show building is for Flight of Passage and Navi River Journey to the side of there, to the side of a rainforest cafe. And in that spot, that corner, that's where the expansion spot is for Pandora the World of Avatar. But to use up that expansion spot, it would mean having to relocate some of the executive parking. It would mean having to move that out and then also relocate the bus loop an

d the, you know, the guest buses on out, the bus depot there, a bit further out. And then you'd also be then going into the cast member parking, which would mean then you'd have to relocate some of the cast parking. So the reason why this is supposedly part of a multi-phase approach is because that requires a lot of infrastructure work before they could even begin work on an expansion to Pandora. But if they're going to be designing one attraction, they might be building twice. And the other thi

ng about this is, it's been long rumoured that the Shanghai Boat Ride tech from the Shanghai Pirates of the Caribbean ride, you know, with the magnetic ride system for that boat ride, is going to be coming to the domestic US parks at some point. And this would then mean that then Disneyland and Walt Disney will both get that same tech at the same time. And then it could help split some of the cost of the R&D for the design of that ride across both parks if they were to design once and build twic

e. So that's, you know, obviously further off in the future. Nothing's been greenlit yet. And it's very much in the rumour stages at the moment. And that could be the reason why we're seeing such a large area for the offices for this Imagineering site within Animal Kingdom. And then moving on to the next topic, it's been officially confirmed that a drone show is returning to Walt Disney World. And we're going to be seeing some sort of drone use at Walt Disney World at long last. Now the last tim

e we saw drones at Walt Disney World was 2016 with the Intel, it was the StarBright Holiday show at Disney Springs. And you know, back in February, WDW Magic spotted a show drone with the show unit on the drone hovering over the Disney Springs Buena Vista Lake area. And this new drone show is called Disney Dreams That Saw. And it's going to be running from May 24th to September 2nd, 2024. And it's going to be taking place at Disney Springs again. And this is very much a test of how people respon

d to the drones at Walt Disney World. And also just beginning to use some of this drone technology at Walt Disney World, not over a guest area. Further back, therefore it's not near a park or damaging any park infrastructure or anything like that. Or encroaching on any park infrastructure, it's fairly easy to set up and run from one of the car parks over there. So it makes a lot of sense. And the Disneyland Paris drone shows that are extremely impressive that we've all seen. They've had the Elec

trical Light drone show parade that they've got over there. And it was all of the fantastic drone shows that we've seen over in Disneyland Paris. They use a partner company called Dronisos to make these drone shows happen. And this company has now actually opened up a regional office in Orlando as well. So it's very possible that they're going to be using their technology and their know-how for this drone show at Disney Springs. But like I said, this is very much like an early test for what they

could do within the parks. And of all the parks that could do with a drone show, as part of the nighttime spectacular, in my opinion, I think it's Animal Kingdom. As after all, you've got the Rivers of Light, you know, outdoor theater there that is just sitting vacant. They've got no nighttime show. They haven't had a nighttime show there since before the pandemic. They had Rivers of Light, We Are One, that was playing up until Covid shut down and all that sort of stuff. But since then, they ha

ven't had a nighttime show. And the reason why I think this makes the most sense is obviously Animal Kingdom. They can't have fireworks. They can't have, you know, any sort of pyrotechnics like that. They could maybe do a water show a bit like World of Color, but that body of water is actually connected to the main body of water, which means that it's not particularly clean. So that could mess up a lot of the water spouts and the fountains and stuff like that. So the other option would be, I thi

nk, a drone show within that outdoor theater. The Rivers of Light amphitheatre. So it makes a lot of sense and they've even got a space where they could fly the drones from backstage near Expedition Everest on out across the water. So it's not going over the guest area. They could close down that bridge whilst that's happening, fly the drones out, do the show, fly them back and it won't be going over a guest, you know, public guest area. So I think this makes a lot of sense for Animal Kingdom an

d it would really round out the offerings. You'd have Indiana Jones, you'd have Encanto, you'd have a new drone show and then further off into the future, I'm thinking like closer to 2030 here, an e-ticket attraction for an expansion at Animal Kingdom as well. It could really add a lot to this park. But that's not all for today as I also want to talk very quickly about some other things and that's Epcot, Hollywood Studios and Disney Cruise Line. And to begin with Epcot, Test Track is going to be

getting a massive revamp which is actually being paid by Chevrolet, you know, it's been paid by the pavilion sponsor and it's going to be, you know, somewhat inspired by World of Motion and bringing back a lot of that to the attraction. And it's going to be a massive year-long refurbishment supposedly and from what I've heard the closure will line up with roughly the opening of Communicore Hall and Communicore Plaza in the centre of Epcot. So when the construction walls go down there on June 10

th, roughly around mid-June, mid to late June, we should be expecting construction walls to go up in Test Track, you know, roughly around there. And it could be later but it could also be as early as mid to late June for these construction walls to go up. But either way, June, July, we're going to be having the closing of Test Track supposedly. So that's what I've been hearing and the other thing about this is there are rumours at the moment that the outdoor track of Test Track is going to suppo

sedly be enclosed as part of this massive revamp. And if they do this with the amount of money that they're spending on this project, it would be a huge win for Epcot in terms of capacity. Because although we're going to have to take a hit with Test Track going down initially for a year or so, when this thing comes back up, it means that Test Track then isn't going to be susceptible to thunderstorms or rain or anything like that, which shuts down the entire attraction. So then that way, this att

raction then can handle a lot more capacity within Epcot. And if they are going to be doing this, I think it's a major win and I'm very excited to see what happens with Test Track. Supposedly, this is what they're trying to get ready for 2025, summer 2025, as a way to have something new to offer whilst all the attention is going to be on Epic Universe. They want to open up something in summer 2025 and Test Track is likely going to be it. So that's what I'm hearing on that front. And then in Disn

ey's Hollywood Studios for D23, all that I know is that something big is being planned for Hollywood Studios. They are working on projects for that park still, because they still don't feel like it's fully rounded out yet. And this might be unrelated, but the launch bay area through to Rock and Roller Coaster is the expansion zone within Hollywood Studios that they could be looking at. And that would be demolishing Star Wars launch bay and building on through around the back of there. And obviou

sly at the moment, that backside of the Market Street area is currently used for cast break rooms and the cafeteria for the cast members of Hollywood Studios. So that would have to be relocated, but that is the next area they would like to expand at Hollywood Studios. Whether it's linked to this next big thing that they've got in the works for Hollywood Studios, or whether we even get that announced at D23, they're working towards adding more stuff at Disney's Hollywood Studios. Other stuff, Dis

ney Cruise Line. They announced they're having a brand new ship that their last of their Triton class ships are going to be launching next year. Obviously they announced the Disney Treasure is going to be setting sail in December of this year. So I would expect probably this next ship, which is called the Disney Destiny, is going to be launching or setting sail towards the end of 2025. And that's a big deal. But, you know, they're looking to spend a lot of money on Disney Cruise Line over the ne

xt 10 years. And as part of this, I don't think we're done with seeing new ships get announced for Disney Cruise Line. There's so much room for growth within that sector and that division. And Disney Cruise Line's fleet of ships is relatively small compared to the rest of the cruise industry and the rest of the cruise companies. So I think we're going to see new ships get announced at D23, if I'm being honest. And I think these new ships will be being destined for the West Coast. As you know, we

've seen them open up a new terminal, a new port in Florida, but they might be looking at building a brand new port in San Diego, most likely, because that is the port area in California, and have a major Disney Cruise Line port in California. And that would be a huge deal. And if they commissioned one or two ships to be servicing that whole section, that West Coast of America, in a major way, and doing Alaskan cruise and Hawaiian cruises on a more consistent basis and just devoted to doing that

, then there's a huge opportunity there. And I think that that's where we'll probably see some Disney Cruise Line news at D23 Expo, is moving towards the West Coast and expanding at Disney Cruise Line operations over there as well. And then one last little thing, which is a nighttime parade for Walt Disney World. I've been mentioning this quite a few times over the last couple of years, but as of recently, in February, I said that next year will be the time to actually have a new nighttime parad

e at Walt Disney World, if they are to announce it. And the WGW Magic forms, the insiders over there, actually have been fairly certain that a new nighttime parade is in development for Walt Disney World. So whether we see it for next year is a different matter, but maybe it's possible that'll be another announcement at D23, but we'll have to watch out for that one. So with all that being said, that's everything today. You know, hopefully we've covered a lot of ground and it has been as jam-pack

ed as I originally said it was going to be. But with all that being said for today, it's now over to you Waltineers Ersus. I would like to know what are your thoughts and opinions on all of these rumors and speculation that's been discussed today ready for D23 in August? You know, and also what is the one thing that you would love to see get announced at D23 in August? Now obviously I'm going to be doing a lot more of these rumor roundup videos as we build up towards D23. We're now on the road t

o D23 after all, and there's going to be a lot more news coming out and rumors coming out thick and fast. So be sure to subscribe down below, hit the notification bell icon, and stay notified as, you know, now that I'm a dad I try and get these videos out as and when I can. So to make sure you do see the videos, hit the notification bell for all of that, and you know, be sure to give this video a massive thumbs up, check out the rest of the videos on this channel, and I'd also like to say a mass

ive thank you to the official Waltineers Club over on Patreon for always supporting this channel. It's always greatly appreciated, and I'd like to say a huge thank you and a shout out to the Waltineers Gold members that you can see on the screen here, as well as Waltineer Diamond member Kyle Mahan. And with all that being said for today, I've been Jack, you've been you, and I'll see you real soon.