Well, y’all — whew! It has been QUITE the weekend.

Destination D23, a HUGE Disney fan event, is underway at Disney’s Contemporary Resort at Disney World, and Disney started the event off by announcing a TON of new things coming to Disney Parks, Disney Cruise Line, and more. If you weren’t able to keep up with all those announcements, though — don’t worry, we’ve got your back. Here’s EVERYTHING Disney announced.

Okay, you might want to sit down for this because it might take us a while to get through all the huge announcements Disney dropped. Okay…are you ready? Let’s go!

Disney World

Magic Kingdom

If you recall, Disney previously mentioned that it wanted to add an expansion to Magic Kingdom. Well, we got a few more details about the potential concepts for that expansion. Disney said it would be the largest expansion EVER for Magic Kingdom and that Imagineers are looking to tell stories “Beyond Big Thunder Mountain.”

That’s not the ONLY thing coming to Magic Kingdom. Disney revealed that a new tavern is in the works for Adventureland in Magic Kingdom. That tavern will be themed to Pirates of the Caribbean. How fun! Yo ho! Disney also confirmed the return of Barker Bird at the new establishment.

We know you’ve been anxiously awaiting the appearance of Hatbox Ghost in Disney World’s Haunted Mansion. Well, the wait is almost over! You’ll be seeing his grim, grinning, disappearing face as early as November 2023.

Yee-haw! Some things are going down in Frontierland, too, especially at Country Bear Jamboree. This classic Disney attraction is getting ALL new songs and a brand-new show. This totally makes up for Disney getting rid of Wendell’s Bear Claw.

Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is coming right along, but Disney shared a first look at one of the new animatronics from the ride: it’s alligator musician Louis!

We can’t wait to see more of the characters we’ll be meeting in the bayou.

See More Photos of the Louis Animatronic

EPCOT

Over at EPCOT, we have an opening date for Journey of Water — Inspired by Moana: October 16th.

A meet and greet will also open on that date nearby, where guests can meet Moana!

Moana won’t be the only new meet and greet coming to EPCOT, though. Asha from Disney’s upcoming animated feature film, Wish, will be seen soon at several parks, including EPCOT, Disneyland, and Disneyland Paris.

A classic EPCOT ride will also soon be getting a bit of an upgrade. Disney unveiled plans to reimagine Test Track.

Okay, Figment fans, prepare yourselves. We already knew a Figment meet and greet was coming to EPCOT, well, it’s coming sooner than you might think! Figment will start meeting guests in the Journey Into Imagination Pavilion as of September 10th, 2023.

EPCOT will be getting a new nighttime show to celebrate the Walt Disney Company’s 100th Anniversary. Disney has finally announced what the name of that show will be: Luminous, the Symphony of Us.

The multi-year MASSIVE EPCOT transformation is close to being completed. Disney gave a timeline of when it expected all the work at EPCOT to be done: December 2023. 

It’s hard to believe it’s almost finished! No more construction walls in EPCOT, y’all!

Here’s more about the EPCOT Transformation

Disney’s Hollywood Studios

Even Hollywood Studios is getting in on the action and this one is for you Star Wars fans. We’d already learned that Star Tours would be getting updated soon, but now we know that Star Tours will soon get new scenes featuring Ahsoka at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Disneyland, and Disneyland Paris.

We’re looking forward to new adventures with Ahsoka.

Read more about Ahsoka in Star Tours

Disney’s Animal Kingdom

The Tree of Life in Animal Kingdom is also getting a new show and it will feature Zootopia. We expect this show might be replacing It’s Tough To Be A Bug. Disney said the show would be filled with humor and action.

Disney has previously thrown out the idea that it wants to turn DinoLand, U.S.A. into something else. Well, we learned that Disney wants to theme the area to the Tropical Americas and mentioned the area could include both Encanto and Indiana Jones.

Although we’ll be sad to say goodbye to Dr. Grant Seeker (if you know, you know), we are excited to see what Disney plans for this new land.

Learn more about Disney’s ideas for DinoLand

Disneyland

In 2022, Disney revealed that it would be expanding Disneyland’s Avengers Campus, including a new attraction that will take guests into the Multiverse. We now have a few more details about that attraction. The Avengers have developed a technology that can connect to the Multiverse.

A new ride vehicle will transport “recruits” to new worlds to go on a multi-world mission with the Avengers.

Here’s more about that ride

International Parks

The Destination D23 panel also revealed a sneak peek at World of Frozen, which will open at Hong Kong Disneyland Resort on November 30th. We saw images of the new land at night, and we have to say that they look STUNNING.

These photos have us wanting to book a flight to Hong Kong.

See more photos of World of Frozen

Disney Cruise Line

Disney Cruise Line revealed that the name of the private beach club on its new destination, Lighthouse Point, will be called Lighthouse Cay. Lighthouse Point is located on the island of Eleuthera in The Bahamas. The first guests to get to see this new beach will be those aboard a 3-night preview cruise on the Disney Magic, which sets sail on June 6th, 2024, from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Disney announced that it has THREE new ships coming to the fleet soon and introduced the name of what will be the 7th ship to join the fleet, the Disney Adventure.

We can’t wait to learn more about the new ship.

Learn more about Disney’s new ship

Other

Disney dropped some news about the 2024 D23 Expo and even announced the dates: August 8th-11th. The event will take place in Anaheim, California, but the biggest panels are moving to a bigger space: the marquee shows will take place in the Honda Center, an indoor arena that’s home to NHL’s Anaheim Ducks.

It sounds like the 2024 D23 Expo is going to be bigger than ever.

Read more about the 2024 D23 Expo

We told you Disney dropped a lot of news bombs! We’ll be covering ALL of Destination D23 this weekend, so stay tuned to DFB for more.

The 3 Disney World CHANGES We’re CELEBRATING This Week!

 

Which of these announcements surprised you the most? Let us know in the comments!

Disclosure: In nearly all circumstances, Disney Food Blog writers and photographers pay full price for their own travel, hotel, food, beverage, and event tickets. We do this because it’s important to us as journalists to ensure not only that we give you unbiased opinions, but also that you can trust us to do so since we’re paying our own way. On rare occasions, when we are invited by a company to attend a preview as media, and when we choose to accept that invitation, we will always make you, our readers, aware of that situation. Today, we were invited by Disney to attend Destination D23. Note that when we attend events as media we are 1) Not required to review that event/food on any of our channels, and 2) Not required to review that event/food favorably. You can always count on DFB to give you a 100% unbiased and honest review of any event that we attend, food that we eat, or beverage that we drink. You can see more in our Disclosure Policy. Thank you for reading. — AJ

The post Disney Just Hit Us With 20 (!!!) MASSIVE News Bombs! first appeared on the disney food blog.