Disney Makes Big Apps Change Removing Park Offering

Disney is a tech-forward company, and Disney theme park guests regularly interact with cutting-edge technology, including advanced Audio-Animatronics figures and AI planning tools. A byproduct of Disney embracing technology so aggressively is that not every new idea, service, or tool is destined to become the next big thing. Sometimes a risky investment in what seems like permanent digital infrastructure might not pay off. This is the case with an app that Disney designed to be a staple of its theme parks, but is now shuttering less than a decade after its launch.

Disneyland Resort in California and Walt Disney World in Florida are shutting down an app that was once thought to be a gateway into the future of theme park technology. We have details on what will close in the parks when this app is removed and what’s still uncertain. Mickey Visit brings you the latest Disney news and planning resources, including EPCOT Food & Wine Festival menus and changes to a Star Wars ride at Disneyland and Disney World.

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Disney Theme Park App Being Removed

Play Disney Parks is an app that Disney launched for Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World in 2018. The app features free games intended to be played within the Disney theme parks.

Some of the games were designed to engage guests with Walt Disney Imagineering’s heavily detailed architecture and visual storytelling of the parks. Activities lead players to discover hidden or overlooked things in the parks, like a scavenger hunt throughout the incredible Tree of Life Gardens at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, which many guests walk right past.

As another example, at Disneyland, guests can use the app to decode the secret Mara message while in line for Indiana Jones Adventure.

Within some of Play Disney Parks’ flagship games, guests can even cause things to happen within the parks themselves. While playing DuckTales World Showcase Adventure at EPCOT, for example, players can make Donald Duck appear on a cuckoo clock and spin around, all because they activated the effect based on their gameplay in the app.

These are just a few examples of the many Play Disney Parks games. See the full list below.

The Play Disney Parks app will be retired on September 16, 2026. This means that most of the guided games will be discontinued.

Some activities will still exist, just without the app component of their experience.

Star Wars: Datapad, a game in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, will still operate, but guests will only use their MagicBand+ to activate the game rather than the Play Disney Parks app.

At the four Walt Disney World parks, the Fab 50 gold character statues will remain in place, and guests will still be able to activate audio effects by waving their MagicBand+ at the statues. The ability to track their progress of finding the 50 statues across the four parks will be discontinued when the Play Disney Parks app is removed.

The fate of DuckTales World Showcase Adventure is unclear. Disney says the experience has been closed for refurbishment for the past few weeks. We played the game as recently as August 6. Many of its effects began their life as part of Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure in 2009, predating the Play Disney Parks app.

@ScottGustin on X first reported the news about Disney shuttering the Play Disney Parks app.

Park details that the Play Disney Parks leveraged into digital activities, like the previously mentioned Tree of Life details or the Indiana Jones deciphering, will still be there for guests to find, just on their own, not with the help of a digital guide.

The Play Disney Parks removal does not affect the Disneyland Resort app or Disney World’s My Disney Experience app. Guests will continue to use those to check wait times, mobile order food, and make Lightning Lane reservations, among other functions. None of that is changing.

Some of the activities now solely relying on MagicBand+ are interesting considering Disney seems to be phasing out MagicBands, especially at Disneyland.

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Here is the full list of games currently available in each location through the Play Disney Parks app.

Disneyland Park

• Esmeralda the Fortune Teller, on Main Street, U.S.A.
• The Gifts of Mara, in the queue for Indiana Jones Adventure
• The Tall Tales of Fortune Road, in New Orleans Square
• Star Wars: Batuu Bounty Hunters, in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge
• Star Wars: Datapad, in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge
• Resistance Encampment, at Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
• Flight Crews Wanted, at Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
• Off to Never Land, in the queue for Peter Pan’s Flight
• Rocket Race, in the queue for Space Mountain

Disney California Adventure

• Playset Party, in the queue for Toy Story Midway Mania!

Magic Kingdom

• Disney Fab 50 Quest, parkwide
• Off to Never Land, in the queue for Peter Pan’s Flight
• Rocket Race, in the queue for Space Mountain

EPCOT

• Disney Fab 50 Quest, parkwide
• DuckTales World Showcase Adventure, in select World Showcase pavilions

Disney’s Hollywood Studios

• Disney Fab 50 Quest, parkwide
• Playset Party, in the queue for Toy Story Mania!
• Star Wars: Batuu Bounty Hunters, in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge
• Star Wars: Datapad, in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge
• Resistance Encampment, at Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
• Flight Crews Wanted, at Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run

Disney’s Animal Kingdom

• Disney Fab 50 Quest, parkwide
• The ACE Guide to Pandora, in Pandora – The World of Avatar
• Animal Expeditions, parkwide

Disney’s Art of Animation Resort

• Stories of the Enchanted Gallery

Some games were available to play from home, or anywhere:

• Disney Parks Trivia
• Jungle Cruise Trivia: Survival of the Wittiest
• Andy’s Boardgame Blast!
• Mickey & Minnie’s Trivia Time
• The SOUL of Jazz

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