With Disney confirming the rumours over the weekend and planning a Star Wars expansion for both Disneyland and Disney’s Hollywood Studios. While these rumours were confirmed, Disney didn’t confirm just where the new 14 acres of land would be sitting and whether or not people should expect to see attraction closures as a result of this new expansion. The same can be said for the new Toy Story plans though it is a lot more easy to see where this could fit into the park.
I will take you guys through the possibilities that Disney has and why it could result in several attractions closing or indeed result in almost no change at all in the attraction count at the park.
If Disney Closes No Existing Attractions
To look into the possibilities it is first important to look at the area surrounding major attractions as well as the area surrounding the park itself:
Notice just how much woodland Disney has available around the Hollywood Studios area. It is entirely possible that in order to complete the ambitious plans that they have for both Star Wars and Toy Story that they will not need to close a single attraction and will simply build outwards into the woodland area.
The issue with this is that Disney will need to get permission from the water district who have the authority to reject plans if they are potentially going to impact drainage or water supply.
If Disney Has To Close Existing Attractions
If building outwards is limiting or simply not an option for Disney then we are going to see some big changes coming to the park including multiple closures.
Here are the attractions I think will be impacted by closures if Disney are keeping to the existing boundaries of the park (at the very least):
- Muppets
- Lights, Motors, Action
- Streets of America
- Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular
Now closing any of the above attractions would be a shame (though personally I wouldn’t be bothered about Lights, Motors, Action) but it is highly likely we will see at least a couple of these attractions close. It would be a great shame to see the Spectacle of Lights cease to exist but think about how useful the Streets of America is for Disney for the rest of the year?
The expansion of Toy Story is clearly going to go into the area where the backlot tour used to exist, just looking at the below map shows just how much room Disney has to play with for Toy Story, especially if they relocate some of the backstage areas for the cast:
Personally, I hope that Disney finds a way to expand outwards into the surrounding woodland area rather than having to close some fan favourite attractions but it all depends on the importance of that area to the water district.
It is more than possible that Disney will actually work out a solution that is a combination of the above and we will only a couple of closures within the park.
If attraction closures do have to happen then lets hope that they happen in phases otherwise Hollywood Studios is going to be extremely limited on its attractions for a good couple of years at the very least.
What are your thoughts on the planned expansion for Toy Story and Star Wars, is there an area where you think both would fit, let us know in the comments!
Ryan has been attending theme parks since as long as he can remember and his first proper memory comes from when he was just three years old sitting in Main Street USA drinking a Nesquik milkshake from a carton while the piano was being played outside Casey’s Corner.
