As part of the Blue Sky section of the Disney Parks & Experiences Panel at D23, Disney Parks Chairman teased an exciting new area coming to Disney World’s most popular theme park. Magic Kingdom will expand its boundaries with attractions themed to Coco, Encanto, and Disney Villains. Each of these attractions will be surrounded by a mini-land themed to its respective property.
Read on to find out everything we know about these new lands coming to Magic Kingdom.
Where is this new section going in Magic Kingdom?
This expansion will be located just beyond Frontierland, in the back left section of Magic Kingdom. In the concept art above, you can see the spires of Big Thunder Mountain in the foreground.
Coco Land
In the Coco area, it will be themed to Santa Cecilia as they celebrate Día de Muertos, aka the Day of the Day. On the attraction here, guests will hop aboard a Alebrije, similar to Pepita the mythical flying creature seen in the Pixar film, as they take an exciting journey through the Land of the Dead. Considering this is one of the most visually inventive and dazzling settings to come out of Disney and Pixar, this sounds like a very promising attraction.
Encanto Land
Nearby, Magic Kingdom guests can then make their way to Colombia and visit Mirabel and the Family Madrigal. Imagineering promised to “talk about Bruno” and bring to life the Casa Madrigal in a way only they can through an attraction that takes guests into the enchanted house.
Considering that each room from Encanto is spellbinding and dazzling, this should make for a magical addition to the Magic Kingdom.
Villains Land
We’ve been covering Disney World for over twenty years. Over those years, one of the most persistent and popular rumors was a Villains-based land or park. That rumor is finally coming to fruition, in a delightful and dastardly way.
Details are very vague, but Imagineering promised that this land would bring together evildoers ranging from Maleficent to Chernabog. You can even see Chernabog’s foreboding silhouette in the distance in Disney’s concept art.
No details were given on what type of attraction or attractions would be found in this land.
When will the Encanto, Coco, and Villains lands open at Magic Kingdom?
No clue! Disney did not announce any concrete timeline for when these lands will come to Magic Kingdom. Details were extremely vague, and the presenters talked with very flexible language. Such as: An Encanto attraction could be this, or what if you could visit the Land of the Dead? As we’ve seen with previous D23 announcements — ahem, Spaceship Earth redo and Mary Poppins attractions — there’s no guarantee that these attractions will ever come to light.
However, Disney has previously given very early looks at projects like Cars Land, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, and New Fantasyland. As I mentioned in the article detailing the glimpse at the Zootopia and Moana lands coming to Animal Kingdom, the timeline in these previous cases were 4-5 years from first concept art/announcement to those parks opening. Pandora: The World of Avatar took longer, but that was announced as soon as a business deal was signed, and concept art was not even beginning to be created at that stage.
Barring any major worldwide disasters that derailed the last set of D23 announcements, I would guess we would see this expansion at Magic Kingdom sometime in 2026-2027 at the earliest. However, with the competition heating up with Universal’s Epic Universe opening in 2025, it’s possible we might see Disney put the pedal to the metal with these new lands.
We want to hear your thoughts!
What do you think about the Encanto, Coco, and Villains attractions coming to Magic Kingdom? Which villains do you want to see featured in this new land? Let me know in the comments below!
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There seems to be a good amount of space between Big Thunder Mountain and Floridian Way. Easiest access would be from the current deadend in Frontierland and a new train station. I’m looking forward to the new additions, but I fear for Tom Sawyer Island anytime they propose something new. Tom Sawyer was such a life saver when I used to go with a small child. It was/is the only place in the entire park that is low stimulus to allow the child to decompress. Fingers crossed none of the proposed additions takes out the Island.