Florida's Magic Kingdom has always been a victim of its own success. Year in and year out, it's typically the most-visited theme park in the world, no matter if Disney adds something new or not. So, the motivation is to rarely add anything. Compared to its sister parks at Walt Disney World, the Magic Kingdom has plenty of attractions. Expansion dollars, therefore, are deemed better spent elsewhere on property.
The problem is that a day at the Magic Kingdom today is basically the same experience it was last summer, albeit a few bucks pricier. And the summer before that. And the summer before that. Considering the Magic Kingdom's the most visible component of Disney World, after a few trips the average tourist will figure he's seen everything and won't be in any hurry to return.
Yet there is a silver lining. There is some pleasure in seeing so little change if you're one of us “parkeologists”—those history-minded folks who appreciate stepping back in time and experiencing attractions as they were when Walt first built them and, more importantly, as they were when we first experienced them as kids. We're the malcontents who've been whining for Disneyland to bring back the PeopleMover, even before most people noticed it was missing.
For me, it's not all bad that most of the Magic Kingdom seems frozen in time. A stroll through Liberty Square, across Tom Sawyer Island, up and down the Swiss Family Treehouse, seem as they were on Opening Day. Certainly, there have been plenty of small changes, but the experience feels principally the same as it did 40 years ago.
Nowhere is this Disney deja vu more evident than in Fantasyland. It's ironic, because the land has suffered more major subtractions than anywhere else in the park, losing 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, the Skyway, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, and the Mickey Mouse Revue. Yet because its closed-in layout and cartoonish medieval tent motif remain, the entire area seems most like Yesterdayland. The feeling is even more pronounced for me, as a native Disneylander, since Florida's Fantasyland preserves the original design style that the Anaheim park abandoned three decades back.
So, it's with mixed emotions that I'll welcome the Extreme Makeover currently underway, phase one of which is set to debut late next year. Several elements of Old Fantasyland, namely the carousel, the Mad Tea Party, and “it's a small world,” should survive unscathed. Peter Pan's Flight is to receive a new, interactive queue.
Most tragically, Snow White's Scary Adventures will be gutted and replaced with a princess meet-and-greet (the only good news is that the princess meet-and-greet area was originally going to be a massive forest consuming half of the new acreage of Fantasyland. That land will instead be used for a Seven Dwarfs Mine Train coaster).
Considerable changes are also coming to Dumbo the Flying Elephant. The plan is to leave the current Dumbo in place until a new, second Dumbo is built between Goofy's Barnstormer and the Mad Tea Party. When the new Dumbo is operational, the old one will be closed, dismantled and its ride mechanism moved next to the new one.
All the original 1971 elephants will be replaced (for one thing, the ears on the new elephants will be tilted at a different angle, supposedly making it more difficult for little kids to walk into them).
It will also be prettied up, adding lots of gold leaf and other ornamentation and setting it above a pool of water, like its Disneyland counterpart.
The “dueling Dumbos” will rotate in opposite directions, so it looks like they're flying towards each other. And the queue will be enclosed within a giant circus tent filled with interactive games (off-hand, I can't think of any other Disney attractions that have an inside queue leading to an outside ride!).
The Dumbos will be the signature attraction of a new Storybook Circus adjunct to Fantasyland, which replaces the dreadful Mickey's Toontown Fair.
Currently, there are a few ways to get a sneak peek at the project. Disney's blog has released several pieces of concept art. Even better, ride Dumbo yourself. A trip provides a great view over the construction walls of the coming Beauty and the Beast and Little Mermaid attractions.
A painting by Walt Disney Imagineering showing a Fantasyland of 2012. Copyright Walt Disney Company.
And, next month at the D23 Expo in Anaheim, Walt Disney Imagineering will be unveiling its scale model of the new Fantasyland, measuring roughly 16 feet by 24 feet. I expect it to be the talk of the show, as the massive Carsland model was in 2009.
