High-concept character meet & greet edutainment coming to Walt Disney World in 2026
A high-concept character meet & greet that will also teach the animation process will open in 2026 at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
A new character greeting experience called “Off the Page” will open inside The Magic of Disney Animation in late summer 2026 at Disney’s Hollywood Studios near Orlando, Fla.
Disney first announced the meet & greet on Dec. 3, 2025, and revealed the full character roster on Feb 23, 2026.
Guests can meet eight characters across six photo-ops, each in a photo-op representing a different aspect of the animation process. Here’s Rapunzel in “Layout,” inspired by the multiplane camera with different layers of scenery. When the photographer lines up the shot, the final image will look deeper than it actually is, just like the multiplane camera.
The multiplane camera was an ingenious special effects tool in the early days of Disney Animation film techniques. Each layer, or plane, of the frame would be composed on a separate section of the large camera, arranged vertically and filmed from the top, so as to provide greater depth to the final composition of the shot. The concept art for the new meet & greet depicts photographs on the wall of Walt Disney and the animation crew using the camera.
The multiplane camera tribute is just one of six sections of the Off the Page character greeting experience:
- Story: Mulan (in front of a giant storyboard)
- Layout: Rapunzel (multiplane camera)
- Hand-Drawn Animation: Chip and Dale
- Computer Animation: Donald Duck and Daisy Duck
- Lighting: Goofy
- Effects: Stitch
Mulan and Stitch are appropriate choices for this venue, seeing as their films were created onsite in this very park, back when Walt Disney Animation Studios (then Walt Disney Feature Animation) had a satellite campus at the theme park. For what it’s worth, other films created at Disney’s Hollywood Studios (then Disney-MGM Studios) were “Brother Bear” and significant portions of “The Lion King” and “Aladdin.”
As revealed last year, The Magic of Disney Animation — a defunct attraction that operated from 1989-2015 — will return to Disney’s Hollywood Studios in a new way in 2026. The pavilion-style attraction will celebrate the art form of animation with a Mary Blair-inspired “Alice in Wonderland” playground, drawing lessons featuring a new Olaf animatronic, exhibits, and more. Star Wars Launch Bay permanently closed in September 2025 to prepare for the changes.
Disney has not announced an opening date for Off the Page or The Magic of Disney Animation other than “late summer” 2026.
Incidentally, Off the Page is also the name of a gift shop at Disney California Adventure.
You can see Walt Disney himself explain the multiplane camera in this clip from a 1957 episode of the “Disneyland” television series:
The Magic of Disney Animation isn’t the only attraction debuting at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in 2026. “Disney Jr. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Live” and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets are also on the way.
Stay connected with AttractionsMagazine.com for daily coverage of theme park news, trip reports, and exclusive interviews from Disney, Universal, and independent attractions around the world.
More Attractions Magazine stories:
Follow us:
