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🎢 How long has it been since a new ride opened in each of Disney’s 12 parks?

Some parks have gone a shockingly long time.

With D23 just around the corner, I wanted to take a look at the last time each park opened a new ride. And I’m talking new rides (at least, new for that park), not rethemes or updates. Sorry, Tiana.

Working backwards:

4 months ago, Disney Adventure World in Paris opened 2 new lands with 2 new rides, and even got a new park name.

2 years ago, Tokyo DisneySea opened Fantasy Springs with 4 new rides.

Just under 3 years since Zootopia opened at Shanghai Disneyland and World of Frozen at Hong Kong Disneyland.

3.33 years since Magic Kingdom’s last new ride: TRON, April 2023. Its next rides will most likely be the Cars expansion.

3 and a half years since Disneyland got a new ride: Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway.

4 years ago: EPCOT’s Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind (although Test Track got a nice overhaul last year)

5 years since California Adventure opened WEB SLINGERS and Avengers Campus. But 3 new rides are all under construction at DCA, and I’m expecting updates on all of them at D23.

6 years since Beauty and the Beast at Tokyo Disneyland. Next year they’ll open a brand new Space Mountain.

The third longest ride drought is surprisingly at Hollywood Studios, which has a lot of recent updates like Muppets, Millennium Falcon, and the Villains show. But its last totally new ride was over 6 years ago: Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway in March 2020.

The second longest is at Animal Kingdom, which opened two Avatar rides over 9 years ago. That drought ends next year when Encanto opens.

But we don’t know when the ride drought ends for Disneyland Paris Park. Its last brand new ride was Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast, which opened a staggering 20 years ago on April 8, 2006. And there are no new rides currently announced for this park.

I’ll be at D23 this month, so follow along for all the news and what it means as it breaks. Will Paris finally get an announcement? I’m keeping my fingers crossed. 🤞

🗑️ Disney World’s TRASH Update

Disney’s beloved trash cans are getting an upgrade in almost every way… except one big one.

Disney World’s been rolling out new solar trash & recycling cans at the parks that use the power of the sun to compact the contents, letting them hold much more. That means cast members have to empty them less often.

But these are also better for guests. They now open out to you, so you don’t have to reach in, and there’s even a pedal for hands-free opening. Very nice.

Plus, Disney is making sure these are still themed with unique location designs, which is one of the big reasons Disney trash cans have a surprising cult following. I mean, what other trash can has its own water bottle or salt and pepper shaker?

But this new can is a downgrade in one real way, as any EPCOT festival veteran will tell you: eating on top of a trash can is a rite of passage. I do it every festival.

But the solar tops are curved. Not ideal for a cup of Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup.

These are much better trash cans. But much worse dining surfaces.

So trash can dining might be a habit we all have to throw away… but at least we can do that hands-free now.

Fan reaction I’ve seen is split. What do you think? Do you think these are an upgrade, or do you miss the old cans? Let me know. ♻️

🏰 Disney Worldbuilders is secretly a movie about Bob Iger.

I watched the new Leslie Iwerks documentary before it comes out on Disney+. Here are my big 3 takeaways, including the one thing I wish was different.

First, Worldbuilders is an hour long documentary profiling 7 filmmakers and how the worlds they’ve built for the screen have become physical spaces in Disney Parks : Star Wars, Marvel, Frozen, Zootopia, Monsters, Inc, Avatar.

But it’s secretly about the legacy of an 8th person: former CEO Bob Iger, and the world he built, transforming the Walt Disney Company through massive acquisitions of Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel, and 20th Century Fox, and through massive investment in the parks leveraging those acquired IPs for themed lands and rides.

Second, Worldbuilders delivers the hallmarks of a Leslie Iwerks film: fantastic visuals of the parks including very recent additions, and some tantalizing glimpses of what’s coming for the future. Plus, Iwerks uses her rare access to give you a better sense of the personalities behind the properties.

And I could listen to James Cameron talk about building story worlds and translating them to physical spaces for literally hours.

Third, and this is my biggest compliment and biggest criticism: it left me wanting more.

There are genuinely great insights, but the film covers a lot of ground quickly. Each world is covered in around 10 minutes or less. I wish Worldbuilders was a series with a full episode per world, telling more of the personal story of each creator and giving more insights on the making of these attractions and the challenges of adapting these worlds from the screen.

Even so, if you’re interested in the behind the scenes of the parks, like other Iwerks films, Worldbuilders remains a must watch.

Worldbuilders debuts at D23 on August 16th, and hits Disney+ on August 20th.

Which world do you most want a full episode on? Let me know. 🎬

💥 Disney made Star Wars blasters real.

This is not a projection or CGI.

Imagineering made laser bolts that actually fly midair on Rise of the Resistance at Disneyland and Disney World. And the whole illusion hinges on something that’s impossible to see, unless you slow down the footage.

For every Stormtrooper laser blast, there’s a black rod whipping in an arc up to 140 RPM. Fast enough to be invisible to the naked eye. And it’s mounted away from the wall, so the bolt flies through midair.

But the real Jedi mind trick is how the laser actually appears, because it’s a bit of a mystery.

Everyone has assumed that the end of the rod has a red LED light, like one of those spinning LED fan displays. But Disney’s patent for a “midair laser blast illusion” — first filed in December 2016, years before the ride opened — tells a different story.
The patent shows an external light source shining a straight beam. There’s no light source on the rod, but the patent does show the end of the rod has material meant to catch or reflect the light, like a nylon mesh.

The rod rotates in the same plane as the light. And for 30 degrees of the arc, the rod and the light beam intersect, illuminating the material bright red. Thanks to persistence of vision, our brains piece it together as one continuous bolt.

Now, Disney could have patented this method and still gone with an LED on the rod. I personally think it’s external, because a straight external light beam means straight laser bolts. An LED moving on an arc would result in a bendy blaster bolt.

Which might explain why the stormtroopers keep missing all the time.

But do you think my aim’s accurate on this one? Let me know. 🔴

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

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Disclosure: Guide2WDW is an affiliate partner of Unlocked Magic.