DisneylandForward — One Year Later
One year ago, the Anaheim City Council and The Walt Disney Company finally hammered out an agreement.
After roughly three years of negotiations, the two entities agreed to terms on the project known as DisneylandForward.
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At the time, I warned readers that the process was bureaucratic in nature, yet it was essential to the future of The Happiest Place on Earth.
Recent events have proven that, as you’re about to see. So, let’s evaluate DisneylandForward one year later. How is Disney doing?
About DisneylandForward
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I wrote this article in April 2021 just after your favorite company announced DisneylandForward.
At the time, I pointed out the challenge of working as a park planner at The Happiest Place on Earth.
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Disney officials carry the weight of 70 years of theme park history. In planning the future, they cannot disrespect the past.
Therein lies the challenge. Some decisions require boldness and forward-thinking, even if they’ll fly in the face of Disney history.
Photo: Disneylandforward
With DisneylandForward, Disneyland’s executive team entered negotiations with the Anaheim City Council.
Foremost on Disney’s collective mind was renegotiating terms on existing land agreements, specifically ones involving zoning.
In the 1990s, Disney had participated in a previous iteration of negotiations akin to DisneylandForward.
The agreement those Disney executives had made in the mid-1990s proved problematic in the 2020s.
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Thus, park planners hoped to reset terms and thereby expand options for future expansion at Disneyland Resort.
At a minimum, Disney expected to bargain for better usage contracts, one more conducive to improving traffic flow in and out of the parks.
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Basically, park officials desired a new method for addressing the explosive growth of Disneyland Resort, which was a desperately needed step.
Consider that Disneyland’s agreement with the Anaheim City Council dates back to the days before Disney California Adventure.
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Also, from 1993-1995, Disneyland Park averaged attendance of just under 12 million guests.
In 2019, the two theme parks claimed attendance of 28.5 million. Traffic more than doubled after Disneyland’s previous usage contracts.
Since nobody could have possibly anticipated that kind of staggering growth, the 1990s agreements simply weren’t working in 2021.
The New DisneylandForward Negotiations
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As I mentioned in 2023, DisneylandForward was never at all what fans expected.
People believed they were getting entire new themed lands and maybe even a third theme park.
In reality, Disney wanted to update some zoning ordinances, a subject so boring I may fall asleep writing about it.
You shouldn’t read much into that, though. What Disney park strategists knew was that the agreement would be the first step in something more.
With new zoning ordinances in place, modern Imagineers could place their stamp on the world’s first theme park.
So, DisneylandForward HAS paved the way for expansion. It just didn’t happen the way most people expected.
Photo: OC Register
I suffered through 20+ hours of Anaheim council meetings, including the final eight-hour one that – I won’t lie – fatigued me greatly.
Most of the discussions involved discussions about whether to sell roads to Disney and which parts of various streets would become Disney-only.
Photo: Spectrum news
Municipal government is more boring than you could ever imagine, but it’s also how the sausage gets made.
Disney officials dutifully presented their argument at all these events, diligently and patiently answering any and all questions.
Photo: OC independent
I never once witnessed any Disney representative lose their cool, which greatly impressed me. I wanted to throw my phone at a couple of folks.
Anyway, Disneyland promised the possibility of massive expansion at its theme parks. That was the carrot tantalizing local government officials.
Photo: LA Times
Since those officials are elected, they understand that their jobs are on the line when they alienate Disney.
Ultimately, the Anaheim City Council unanimously voted in favor of DisneylandForward, which presented Disney executives an opportunity.
The 2024 D23 Expo occurred just a few months after the DisneylandForward negotiations were completed. And that’s the part of this conversation that matters.
DisneylandForward Pays Dividends
No matter how mundane the DisneylandForward negotiations may have been, they served a vital purpose.
Once again, park officials control their own destiny, as Anaheim agreed to let Disney update its construction zones.
Photo: Disney
So, the possibility exists that Disney will add new parking lots, shops, hotels, and maybe even attractions in a different part of the Disneyland campus.
We don’t know any of that for sure yet, but I’ve combed through thousands of pages of documents. The blueprints showed these potential developments.
D23
At D23, Disney unveiled its first wave of impending attractions. Whether they’re part of DisneylandForward or not is up for debate.
Technically, all that Disney officials promised the Anaheim City Council were $1.9 billion in investments over the next decade.
Photo: Washington Post
Disneyland would do that anyway. It’s only $190 million per year, which is less than the cost of some theme park attractions.
Therefore, the criticism of DisneylandForward proved accurate; it was a decidedly one-sided deal in Disney’s favor.
Photo: skillastics.com
Negotiators hammered out that agreement not long after Disneyland Resort had closed for more than a year. Thus, the timing was perfect for Disney.
Anaheim officials had just witnessed firsthand how much revenue Disney brings to the local economy. So, the politicians were ready to deal.
To Disney’s credit, it is now and always has been a good neighbor in Anaheim, though.
Disney didn’t take advantage of its bargaining power but rather honored the spirit of the agreement.
The Rides Coming to Disneyland Resort
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The D23 announcements included the doubling for Avengers Campus to add two new rides, Stark Flight Lab and Avengers: Infinity Defense.
We already knew about the latter ride, which features King Thanos as the villain. Therefore, some don’t include it with DisneylandForward, but I do.
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Disney also revealed a Coco boat ride that’s part Pirates of the Caribbean and part Haunted Mansion.
Then, we have the Avengers-themed land and ride, which Disney had also previously announced.
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As you can see, the line blurs between what’s DisneylandForward versus what would have happened anyway.
That’s four rides thus far, and here’s an educated guess I made about timelines last year. (I probably need to update it.)
Here’s the thing, though. Disney’s projections indicated 16 attractions…and I mean rides.
Presuming that’s still the plan, the current announcements reflect just 25 percent of the impending Disneyland Resort expansions.
Now, the catch here is that the plans last through 2034. So, there’s a lot of time to build the other dozen rides.
As a reminder, the previous list of potential rides included:
- Two flat rides like Astro Orbiter and Dumbo the Flying Elephant
- Two outdoor thrill rides like the Incredicoaster and Tron Lightcycle / Run
- Three indoor thrill rides like Space Mountain, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, and Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
- Five outdoor family rides like Autopia, Goofy’s Sky School, Grizzly River Run, Jungle Cruise, and Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree
- Four indoor family rides like Haunted Mansion, Indiana Jones Adventure, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Soarin’
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You can try to mix and match the announced rides with the titles on this list. Personally, I can’t decide whether Stark Flight Lab counts as a flat ride.
Final Thoughts
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The point is more that the Disneyland you currently know will change dramatically over the next nine years.
None of that would have happened without the successful DisneylandForward negotiations.
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So, boring as these conversations may have been, we should all be grateful that they occurred.
More importantly, after just one year, we can already tell that the best is yet to come at Disneyland Resort.
I would definitely describe year one of DisneylandForward as a success. Disney has more than lived up to its promises.
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Feature Photo: Disney
