This is great news on multiple levels. First, Magic Kingdom, regardless of the larger sister parks at Walt-Disney World, is still the standard by which all other parks must be judged. It is nice to see some real attention come to an expansion on the most important “land” in the park (I do believe Fantasyland is the most important land, even though The Haunted Mansion is in Liberty Square and POTC is in Adventureland. Second, the concept of visiting the princesses within their own world is dead-on Disney. The whole point of a Disney trip is to enter a magical world where reality stops at the entrance gate. In this way, the guest is able to be immersed in the experience even more as they will meet the princesses in the environment from the movies. I’m not really into the princess thing (although my daughter will be very soon) but this exciting even to me! Third, I’m all about dark rides and Disney has some of the best. The addition of the Little Mermaid dark ride will, I hope, add even more support for the argument that the Magic Kingdom is the greatest single theme park in the world.
Finally, a word should be mentioned as to the timing of this announcement. With the WWOHP just around the corner at Islands of Adventure, is this Disney’s way of letting Universal have a year or two of excitement only to overshadow it by two years of new stuff at Magic Kingdom? All I know for sure is that there is a lot of exciting things going on in the theme park world and RexandtheBeast.com will be there every step of way. Join the Journey!
Take a look at this cool video of the Fantasyland announcement.