Disney’s abandoned plans for a Magic Kingdom makeover
Disney publicly revealed plans for a vast makeover at Magic Kingdom, but later went back on its announcement and revised nearly the whole thing.
Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World is currently in the middle of a gargantuan construction project that will add two “Cars” attractions and an entire Villains Land to the world’s most-visited theme park. Nearly two decades ago, Disney had a similarly ambitious plan for a different corner of Magic Kingdom.
Fantasyland Forest and abandoned plans for Princesses and Fairies
At the first D23 Expo in September 2009, then-Disney Parks chairman Jay Rasulo confirmed rumors of an expansion to Magic Kingdom’s Fantasyland.
The area would be called Fantasyland Forest. The executive revealed now-familiar favorites like Enchanted Tales with Belle, Be Our Guest Restaurant, Under the Sea: Journey of the Little Mermaid, and the doubled-capacity Dumbo the Flying Elephant.
Rasulo also revealed details for a few attractions that would never come to pass.
Leveraging the basic concept of Enchanted Tales with Belle and duplicating it with other princesses, Disney planned to build not only Maurice’s cottage from “Beauty and the Beast,” but also Aurora’s childhood home from “Sleeping Beauty” and the Tremaines’ manor from “Cinderella.”
Like Belle’s experience, these attractions would be more than a traditional meet and greet.
As initially announced for the Fantasyland expansion project that day, guests would craft birthday cards for Aurora (with the logic being she was asleep for her 16th birthday), as seen in concept art below displayed onscreen in the convention center during the D23 presentation in 2009.
Next door, they could join Cinderella to learn how to dance like a royal or protect the kingdom like a knight.
The spring 2010 issue of Disney Twenty-Three Magazine referred to these attractions as “A Birthday Surprise for Princess Aurora” and “Dreams Come True with Cinderella,” respectively.
Meanwhile, Disney planned to replace much of Mickey’s Toontown Fair with Pixie Hollow from the then-new Disney Fairies franchise. Disney remained vague in describing Pixie Hollow other than mentioning character greetings. Concept art depicted the tree from the movie series.
In January 2011, Disney announced significant revisions to its initial plan, which resulted in several canceled Disney attractions. Gone were Cinderella, Aurora, and Tinker Bell. In their place would be Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and an extension of the previously announced Dumbo area, which came to be known as Storybook Circus. The project as a whole was now called New Fantasyland, not Fantasyland Forest.
To accommodate these changes and still provide a dedicated place to meet princesses, Disney would build Princess Fairytale Hall. The new character greeting venue would permanently replace Snow White’s Scary Adventures, a dark ride that had been around since Magic Kingdom opened in 1971.
Photo by Attractions Magazine
The revamped version of the project would retain Belle’s character experience and the “Little Mermaid” ride as initially announced. In the end, New Fantasyland had more variety in its attractions than Fantasyland Forest, opting for Magic Kingdom’s first new roller coaster in nearly two decades as opposed to additional character experiences, albeit at the expense of one of the park’s opening-day attractions (Snow White).
2011 aerial photography of New Fantasyland construction
While we’re on the subject, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share some of these old photos of ours, captured high in the sky by our own Matt Roseboom, of the construction of New Fantasyland at Magic Kingodm circa September 2011. At this point, the plan for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train was already in motion.
And now, Villains Land
Notably, Disney has been silent so far in exactly what attractions will comprise the upcoming Villains Land. Despite announcing the project in 2024, the company still hasn’t shared specifically what to expect in the land at the time of this writing in 2026. Did they learn a lesson from New Fantasyland about announcing plans too early?
Here’s what Disney did say about Villains Land, revealed by Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Disney Experiences, at D23 2024:
Are you happy with how the plans for New Fantasyland ended up? What types of attractions would you like to see in Villains Land? Stay connected with AttractionsMagazine.com for daily coverage of theme park news, trip reports, and exclusive interviews from Disney, Universal, Six Flags, and independent attractions around the world.
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