Guide2WDW

🚨 If you want to know what Disney will announce at this D23, look at their unfinished business from last D23.

Disney said this year’s D23 parks presentation will build “on the ambitious projects announced in 2024”

So in case you need a refresher, here’s what’s happening with all 12 projects Disney announced that haven’t opened yet.

Disney Cruise Line revealed four new ships, and we already know what the first one will be: the Believe, a Wish-class ship debuting in 2027. Disney just announced a Believe reveal stream on October 7th, so expect a lot of details then.

A Lion King land is currently under construction at Disney Adventure World in France.

Shanghai’s Spider-Man coaster is on track, with its track completed. And in Hong Kong, the Spider-Man drop ride has since changed to an Avengers drop ride.

Then Disney World has four new lands, all under construction. In 2027, Tropical Americas opens in Animal Kingdom with Encanto and Indiana Jones rides.

Hollywood Studios is getting a Monsters Inc land with a door vault roller coaster. Disney teased updates on the show and restaurant menus for D23.

Magic Kingdom not only has a complete overhaul of Carousel of Progress opening in ’27 (technically announced at Destination D23), but there’s also two new lands:

Piston Peak National Park, aka Cars Land, with a rally race ride and an unknown second ride.

Villains Land, announced with two rides. I think we’ll get a lot more clarity on what Villains Land actually is.

At Disneyland Resort, Avengers Campus in California Adventure is getting two new rides, Stark Flight Lab and Infinity Defense. A Coco boat ride is coming near Pixar Pier, and construction for all of that is underway.

What’s not under construction yet is the Avatar land with a boat ride. DCA’s Monsters Inc ride was supposed to close early this year to make way for Avatar, but that got delayed to 2027.

I made 45 D23 predictions, including what new projects could be announced. You can see all of them in the full video.

Comment PREDICTIONS and I’ll send you the link 🏰

🛗 Fake elevators? They’re real, and something you only really see at theme parks.

Each one is a room whose whole purpose is to fool you, and it happens so much at Disney and Universal there are actually different genres of deceitful elevator.

First, the standard fake elevator: Rise of the Resistance, Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts, the Stellarvator in Space 220. These are rooms that try to fool you into thinking you’re moving up or down using screens, lights, or a rumbling floor, but you’re actually staying still. (The Living Seas used to have one called the Hydrolator.)

Then there’s the elevator in disguise, appropriately enough at Transformers at Universal. This is where you’re in a real elevator that moves up and down, but the ride hides it from you. On Transformers, your ride vehicle actually rides two different elevators: they’re just really well hidden, seamlessly integrated with the ride.

The stretching room at Haunted Mansion in Disneyland and Phantom Manor in Disneyland Paris are elevators in disguise too… but not Disney World. That room doesn’t move.

But my favorite fake elevator in the world is the Terravator. Sounds like the Tower of Terror elevator, but it’s not. That elevator’s real, just evil.

The Terravator is at Tokyo DisneySea’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, and it’s the ultimate liar. It simulates going down hundreds of meters underground, so obviously, it’s fake.

But here’s the fun trick: it’s actually a real elevator. It moves guests to a different level — just not down.

The Terravator moves up while using special effects and sounds to make it feel like you’re going down.

So it’s somehow a real elevator, a fake elevator, and an elevator in disguise, all in one.

What’s your favorite fake elevator? Let me know. 🛗

⚖️ Should Disney's controversial pirate animatronic walk the plank?

Disney gave fans exactly what they usually beg for: replacing a static figure with an advanced animatronic.

And fans responded by hating it.

Walt Disney Imagineering added a new animatronic to Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland, replacing the evocative skeleton that's been there for 59 years with a very advanced, very animated animatronic — the first use of Disney's next-gen audio animatronics platform. And the fan backlash has been intense.

Critics are calling it a theme park crime for four big reasons. So I put this new pirate animatronic on trial. Screen face, too cartoony, breaks the story, ruins the vibes: four charges, and I'm judge, jury, and executioner. Does this pirate stay in the ride, or walk the plank?

This pirate is genuinely different from the screen faces everyone loves to hate. The face isn't rear-projected like Frozen Ever After. It's a partially articulated 3D-printed shell with the animation front-projected from an external projector, tracked in real time with AR markers hidden in the bandana that only show up under UV light. The whole face is rendered live in Unreal Engine, the same engine that runs Fortnite.

But this trial isn't really about the tech. It's about a tension baked into Pirates since the 1960s. So I examine all four accusations in the context of the ride's actual history, its story, and the merits of both the tech and the art. Screen faces vs. physical faces. A surprising homage hidden in plain sight. The infinite-loop curse, and what the original 1967 X Atencio narration actually says.

Then I hand down verdicts on all four counts... and a binding sentence for where this pirate really belongs.

What verdict and fate would you give this animatronic? Let me know. ⚖️

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While Annual Passholders and DVC members save $10 per ticket at Mickey's Not So Scary, Mickey's Very Merry Christmas, and Jollywood Nights, Unlocked Magic sells them to everyone for $10-$15.

For a family of four, that's up to $60 saved. Or 9.23 Mickey bars (how I measure any financial decision)

These tickets are authentic and link to your My Disney Experience account just like tickets you buy from Disney. And Unlocked Magic has been featured on Touring Plans, Yahoo Travel, Mammoth Club (and Guide2WDW).

So if you want a not so scary way to have very merry savings, comment MICKEYBARS and I'll send you the link to save 🎟️

Disclosure: Guide2WDW is an affiliate partner of Unlocked Magic.

🚀 Disney quietly fixed one of the loudest complaints about Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run.

One of the most persistent complaints about this ride was pointed at little kid pilots ruining it for everybody else. Some people have even suggested there should be an age limit to pilot this ride.

Let’s ignore for a second that Episode 1 establishes that in a galaxy far, far away anyone can fly at dangerously young ages, because having a bad pilot could really impact the original Millennium Falcon ride experience. After waiting an hour in line, sitting in the back of the ride vehicle while Little Timmy from Tampa crashes the entire time isn’t exactly living your Star Wars story like Disney promised in the ads.

But this is no longer a problem, because Disney just completely overhauled Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run at both Disneyland and Disney World.

StarWars.com interviewed Imagineer Asa Kalama, and they report that the pilot controls are not only more responsive, but there are also “hidden guardrails” so that no matter how the pilots fly, it will always feel cinematic.

In other words, they made crashing feel a lot more fun. And I can vouch for that. I rode the new Millennium Falcon ride 11 times.

Before, crashing felt like failing on a video game. Frustrating. But now crashing just gives the ride more of that scrappy adventure feel. Like Lando and Nien Nunb barely escaping the Death Star.
But is this change enough to fix a ride CEO Josh D’Amaro once admitted that guests don’t love?

Comment LIGHTSPEED and I’ll send you the link to the full deep dive video. ⚡

🌴 Where are Disney World’s Summer Crowds?

You might think summer vacation is the busy season at Disney World, but wait times have actually gone down this summer.

If you rank every week this year by wait time, the five least crowded weeks at Disney World have all been in the summer season. That includes four of the last five weeks.

This year had the lightest June going back to 2021, by a lot: 22% lower than the average of the previous 5 years, according to Thrill-Data.com.

Why is this happening? I see 4 reasons:

First, international travel is down. Earlier this year in their earnings report, Disney signaled that they’re expecting fewer foreign travelers.

Second, the World Cup. Many foreign and domestic travelers are spending their travel budgets on that this summer.

Third, the heat has simply been insane. Disney World has been in the middle of an intense heat wave, with the heat index officially reaching “you gotta be kidding me” levels.

And the heat is a key factor in reason four: this is now the seasonal crowd pattern. I’ve been saying this for years: summer just isn’t the busy season it used to be, and it’s been this way pretty much this entire decade.

The busy season is the cooler months, winter and spring, while summer is now the savvy pick. If you can handle the heat, you can enjoy some great deals and some short lines.

Follow along if you want the inside track on what the crowd data actually says.

🚨 RUMOR: Disney is planning a massive rebuild of Space Mountain that reportedly goes “well beyond a standard refresh.”

That’s according to a new rumor reported by wdwmagic.

So why now, and how big of a change are we talking about?

Why now is simple: Space Mountain is over 50 years old, the oldest operating roller coaster in Florida, and it still has its original track. So it’s very much due for a track replacement, or maybe more.

But how much will change? Possibilities here range from familiar to extreme.

On the familiar end, we could see Space Mountain get the Big Thunder treatment, which just reopened with a new track, enhanced show scenes, and updated effects. Same ride layout, just an upgraded, smoother, more modern experience.

On the extreme end, we can actually see what that would look like in Tokyo, which completely demolished their Space Mountain to build an entirely new one for $460 million dollars, including a new state-of-the-art track manufactured by Intamin. That’s slated to open next year.

While I don’t see Disney World going *that* extreme, a new track layout with modern tricks sounds really compelling.

Does this rumor have the right stuff? We could find out as soon as D23.

So which way will Disney World go? While I’d love to see a brand new layout, my money’s on the Big Thunder treatment.

But let me know: What would you hope for from a rebuilt Space Mountain? 🚀

🚂 Riding Big Thunder Mountain to pass a kidney stone is real science…

…or it was, until Disney retracked it.

Go on Big Thunder for your kidney stones. Sounds like fake medical advice from Dr. Nick. It’s not. For years, Dr. David Wartinger, a professor emeritus of urology at Michigan State, kept having patients who rode Big Thunder at Disney World and passed a kidney stone. One even said it happened to him three times.
So in the mid-2010s, Wartinger decided to test it. He 3D-printed a silicone model of a patient’s kidney, dropped in 3 real kidney stones plus real urine, and rode coasters with that fake kidney in a backpack — over 360 times.
Space Mountain and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster? Don’t work. But Big Thunder, specifically: the stones passed 17% of the time in the front row, and 64% in the back row, because it shakes you up more.
So the back row is the scientifically proven best seat (I knew it!)

And the study actually won an Ig Nobel Prize (aka the wacky science award).

As funny as it is, Wartinger says his research can save people a trip to the ER and thousands of dollars.

But maybe not anymore. Big Thunder just reopened with a complete track replacement that made it much, much smoother. Some people accused it of being slower. Not true. Disney confirmed to Scott Gustin it’s actually slightly faster. But it definitely doesn’t shake you up like it used to.

For the ride experience, I think that’s an upgrade. I’ll take a smooth coaster.

But for DIY urology, it’s a downgrade, because Wartinger said the ideal coaster is “rough.”

So to be scientific about it, it’s probably worth running the study again. Dr. Wartinger: grab your backpack and that horrible water balloon. It’s time to ride.🎢