Change is constant in Disney theme parks. In fact, most of our stories here at Mickey Visit involve the parks changing in some way, whether with a relatively small update, like Disneyland adding a classic ride to its refurbishment calendar, or a large-scale, dramatic plan, like Disney World building a new land dedicated to Disney Villains.
One Disney theme park is showcasing how some changes are more significant than others as it debuted not only a handful of new rides, but also changed its name and in the process redefined the destination. Keep reading to learn all the details of this ambitious moment in Disney theme park history. Mickey Visit brings you the latest Disney news and planning resources, including a look at plans for Disneyland’s biggest expansion and what’s in store for the future of Magic Kingdom. See the latest news here.
READ MORE – These 10 Disney Rides Have Changed Dramatically Since Their Opening
Goodbye, Walt Disney Studios Park
Walt Disney Studios Park opened in 2002 as the second theme park at Disneyland Paris, joining Disneyland Park.
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From the beginning, Walt Disney Studios Park was built on a somewhat flimsy premise. In essence, Walt Disney Studios Park was an inferior version of Disney-MGM Studios in Florida, which in turn was, in its original form, a lesser version of Universal Studios Hollywood in California.
Two degrees removed from a thriving film studio, Walt Disney Studios Park was instead an imitation of a film lot. It excused the lack of theming and details as being true to its main concept, since a movie set wouldn’t be fully themed from every angle. The theme park was mandated by a deal with the French government to allow Disney to keep the land. The park was built on the cheap and opened quickly.
Paired with a lack of groundbreaking original attractions, this resulted in a theme park that failed to meet Disney’s typical standards of excellence.
In the stellar docuseries from Leslie Iwerks, The Imagineering Story, Walt Disney Imagineering President Bruce Vaughn speaks of how, when he first visited Walt Disney Studios Park, the guest-facing areas were so sparsely themed that for ten minutes he thought he was still standing in an employees-only, back-of-house area.
While many domestic Disney fans look to the original Disney California Adventure as the clearest example of Disney’s value engineering of the beginning of the 2000s gone wrong, the Walt Disney Studios Park was far worse. The park opened with almost no traditional rides (just studio tour and copy of Rockin’ Roller Coaster) and relied heavily on shows and walk through exhibits. There were no water features or greenery and no stand out attractions that stood the test of time like Soarin’ Over California or Grizzly River Run.
Coming into my visit to Disneyland Paris I was thinking about the redefining of Walt Disney Studios Park as comparable to the relaunch of Disney California Adventure in 2012. In doing more research and experiencing the park, I came to realize how much more ground the park had to make up than Disney’s California Adventure had ahead of that park’s overhaul.
In this article, we’ll take a journey through Disney’s attempt to course-correct Walt Disney Studios Park, a journey that launched a new era on March 29, 2026, when the park changed its name to Disney Adventure World.
READ MORE – These 10 Disney Rides Are Far Better Than The Ones They Replaced
Hello, Disney Adventure World
Disneyland Paris officially renamed Walt Disney Studios Park to Disney Adventure World, effective March 29, 2026. This name change indicates a shift in how Disney now approaches this park’s thesis.
Rather than attempting to thread the park together with a weak narrative of backstage moviemaking, Disney instead positions Disney Adventure World as a place where guests step into fully themed, 360-degree settings that guests recognize from familiar Disney stories. These changes bring guests into the stories rather than having them see how movies are made.
From the promotional artwork above, you can see the emphasis on popular Disney stories coming to life vs anything related to movie making. It’s a similar transition away from the initial theme that Disney California Adventure has gone through in the past decade with the addition of Disney-focused stories that move away from the California story.
The relaunch of the theme park is not just about the addition of the new Frozen land, but about the overall placemaking and refocus of the park. It is an improvement of the standards of what is offered for guests at the park across the board.
Some of the behind-the-scenes aesthetic remains, but it’s now relegated specifically to the park entrance rather than across every land.
With the debut of its new name on March 29, Disney Adventure World opened two new lands, Adventure Way and World of Frozen.
These new areas come with a concerted effort to master plan the layout of the park to improve the flow between attractions. Previously, the park was more a series of cul de sacs that dead ended into the different lands and offerings. Even as additions were made, they were not actively connected together. This has all changed now with the opening of the new lagoon and adventure way that connects all of the areas of the park and opens up the space.
These changes should be just the beginning of new additions to this theme park. There are still more additions on the horizon, which we cover at the end of this article, and hopefully even more on the docket beyond those. This opening and renaming marks a big step forward for the park, but the full transformation of the experience is not yet complete.
Even leading up to today, there has been a ton of work across the theme park to prepare it to be renamed from Walt Disney Studios Park to Disney Adventure World. The road leading to this moment has been gradual over the past few years.
Worlds of Pixar
As part of its effort to rebrand Walt Disney Studios Park to Disney Adventure World, Disney reorganized several existing areas into an overarching land called Worlds of Pixar in 2021. Disney perhaps got lucky in this respect, as all of the park’s Pixar attractions were close enough to one another to allow this reorg.
The land known today as Worlds of Pixar includes several outdoor family-friendly rides based on Toy Story, as well as a roller coaster themed to Crush the sea turtle from Finding Nemo. It’s also home to the indoor trackless ride Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, which opened here in Paris before being duplicated at EPCOT in Walt Disney World.
With the opening of World of Pixar in 2021, the park converted its former tram tour into a reimagined attraction called Cars Road Trip, pictured above. Longtime Walt Disney World visitors may remember Catastrophe Canyon from the old days of Disney-MGM Studios. The action-packed scene, featuring a deluge of water and a fiery explosion with a semi-truck, lives on at Disney Adventure World as part of Cars Road Trip.
The entrance to Cars Road Trip is positioned in such a way that now seamlessly connects to the Adventure Way promenade that circles the new lagoon. It feels like it was always planned to be connected into the lagoon area. This emphasizes the feeling of tighter master planning in the new park.
Marvel Avengers Campus
Marvel Avengers Campus opened in 2022 at Walt Disney Studios Park as the first major new land to open on the road leading to Disney Adventure World.
It opened one year after the original Avengers Campus at Disney California Adventure in Disneyland Resort, and the vibe mimics its U.S. counterpart. Like California’s Avengers Campus, Paris’s Marvel Avengers Campus is meant to be a hub for superheroes.
Upon its grand opening, the land’s main new ride was Spider-Man W.E.B. Adventure, a nearly identical attraction to WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure at Disney California Adventure. Riders “shoot webs” to capture rogue Spider-Bots, with the attraction’s screens possessing technology to identify guests’ arm movements.
With the opening of Marvel Avengers Campus, Disney also transformed the Paris version of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith into a reimagined ride called Avengers Assemble: Flight Force. The attraction retained the coaster track of its predecessor, but the story now stars Captain Marvel and Iron Man instead of the Aerosmith band. The pre-show of this attraction is the star with an awesome Iron Man Audio-Animatronics figure.
Like the Disney California Adventure version of the land, the corporate office park setting leaves me wanting a bit more in the area. Pleasantly, it stands in stark contrast to the new additions that just opened at the resort.
World Premiere
In preparation for the park’s transformation to Disney Adventure World, Disney reimagined the entrance experience of the theme park.
Guests previously entered Walt Disney Studios Park through Disney Studio 1, something of an all-indoor, Hollywood version of Main Street. Disney Studio 1 was closed for nearly a year and reopened in 2025 as World Premiere.
The refreshed space is still an indoor, Hollywood-themed entrance corridor, but now reflects a more glamorous version of Tinsel Town’s heyday. There are pros and cons to this warehouse-type entrance area. The indoor space provides an escape from the sometimes cold and wet French weather, but takes you out of the themed feeling that a redone area like Buena Vista Street in Disney California Adventure could have added here. I understand why they choose to keep the indoor space, but it is a clear reminder of what the entire theme park felt like when it first opened.
As part of these changes, the outdoor area that guests exit World Premiere into became known as World Premiere Plaza, replacing the formerly named Front Lot. In this area, there is now new paving that leads directly to the expanded area of the park. It pulls you deeper immediately. Guests have a clear view all the way down Adventure Way from here and across the lagoon to World of Frozen in the distance. From the moment you step outside of World Premiere you are in what feels like a completely redefined Disney Adventure World park..
World of Frozen, Adventure Way, and Grand Reopening
When Walt Disney Studios Park became Disney Adventure World on March 29, 2026, two new lands opened for guests. Mickey Visit was there for the grand opening, and you can read our coverage about all of the new attractions in detail here. They opened what they call Adventure Way which stretches up and around the lagoon and the new World of Frozen.
Adventure Way serves as a tribute to classic Disney characters in a lush, garden-inspired environment. Right now this area includes a Tangled-themed teacups ride and a table-service restaurant featuring character dining with Disney Princesses. The area is inspired by the beautiful garden settings of Tivoli Gardens, the Copenhagen theme park that partially served as inspiration for Walt Disney’s early visions of Disneyland.
The Tangled teacups ride is a perfect family-friendly addition that is fun to ride and look at.
The Adventure Way land is beautiful at night with popcorn bulbs lining the entire promenade. The land leads up to the beautiful Regal View Restaurant & Lounge. The restaurant is purpose built to be a high-end princess character dining. The decorations both outside and inside bring elegance to the experience. It feels like no expense has been spared to deliver this lavish setting. The restaurant serves proper long European meals. My place at the table looked out across the bay toward the World of Frozen. If Elsa’s ice palace were not shimmering in the distance, this could have been a grand salon restaurant looking out over Lake Zurich in Switzerland.
Stepping into the space was shocking in some ways how far from a Disney theme park it felt. Of course that feeling is removed when Merida comes bounding up to your table and you realize the beautiful murals are not of European monarchs, but Disney ones.
World of Frozen is a new land that looks just like Anna and Elsa’s kingdom of Arendelle in the Frozen movies, complete with their castle. The land includes the Frozen Ever After boat ride, duplicated here from EPCOT and Hong Kong Disneyland, as well as a quick-service restaurant and a lagoon show featuring the highly publicized, free-roaming Olaf Audio-Animatronics figure.
Every time that I ride the Frozen Ever After attraction I am reminded of how perfect that story and ride system mesh together. It’s amazing that it was initially an overlay of an older EPCOT ride, because the ride and story work so well together. The different settings of the rides around the world – in a specific Frozen land in Hong Kong and Paris – vs in the Norway Pavilion at EPCOT, bring different emotion and meaning to the ride as well. For as much fandom as there is for this ride among Frozen fans, I don’t think it gets enough credit for pacing and storytelling among Disney theme park fans. See my full report on this new version of the land.
Combine the fantastic attraction with the perfect theming of the land and you have one of the best new age Disney experiences that can be mentioned in the same sentence as my favorite new-age theme park addition, Cars Land.
The land also features a couple of shops and a restaurant. On the smaller water area next door to the new land is the very cute new lagoon show that features an original song from the Frozen songwriters, Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, and the new Olaf figure. This show, called A Celebration in Arendelle, is a wonderful addition to the land that brings kinetics and energy.
Tucked in the corner of the land is a meet and greet experience with Anna and Elsa. There were also other characters throughout the land including Olaf, Mossie the Troll, and Oaken. All of these helped to breathe real life into the space.
The walk from Adventure Way to World of Frozen surrounds the new Adventure Bay. After dark, Adventure Bay hosts the new nighttime spectacular, Disney Cascade of Lights. The show combines fireworks, fountains, and drones with music and scenes from Disney, Pixar, and Marvel movies.
The viewing for the show feels extremely close in to the core elements of the show with water and aerial drones spanning out from the central fountains toward the edge of the water. The show lacks the scale of World of Color at Disney California Adventure, but delivers the same evening draw for the area. The show is performed each night at the same time as the fireworks at Disneyland Paris Park to encourage guests to stay for multiple nights to see it all.
They artfully created tiered viewing levels around the bay that break up traffic during the day and at night serve as perfect viewing areas.
Here’s the shot that I captured on the opening day of the new expansion and renamed park of the line for World of Frozen. Below this, I’ll dive into the future additions planned and the abandoned concepts.
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Abandoned Projects and Future Attractions for Disney Adventure World
The addition and creation of Adventure Way and the Adventure Bay water area bring a new sense of place and master planning to this theme park. In addition to connecting the existing aspects of the park, the area creates a framework for future expansion. Looking at the map above, note how much of the park is truly new as part of the expansions in the past few years. While the fun map obviously emphasizes the greenery in unfilled spaces, the park-like nature that the map emphasizes is real and feels real to guests in the new addition.
The new World of Frozen area is situated on the back side of the new lagoon and pulls guests all the way around the bay. There are obvious spaces for expansion. This relaunch of the park brings with it the necessary infrastructure to support the easier addition of new attractions.
Note all of the greenery on the map above. Two of those expansion areas are already under construction and have been announced. There was also one earlier project that was announced and then seemingly replaced with this new project during the pandemic project shuffle.
Disney previously announced a Star Wars land for Disney Adventure World, but the company stopped mentioning this project when discussing the park several years ago. There are no publicly revealed plans to build a Star Wars land at Disney Adventure World at the time of this writing. Instead, they have announced a unique project for the resort that I believe will have a far greater impact on the park than a third version of the Star Wars land would have.
Disney has tapped into one of the most popular franchises among Disneyland Paris fans for their next major addition to the resort. That addition is now going in the same expansion spot that the Star Wars area is in the concept artwork above.
As Disney continues to look toward the future of Disney Adventure World, construction is underway for a new land at the park themed to The Lion King. Despite the colossal success of this classic Disney animated film through the decades, there isn’t a Lion King ride in any Disney theme park yet!
Disneyland Paris fans love this property. There is already a big segment in the Disneyland Paris nighttime show and a major stage production based on the film in the main park. This land will be a runaway success.
That will change when a log flume thrill ride with Audio-Animatronics figures based on The Lion King opens at Disney Adventure World. Disney has not announced an opening date for this attraction. We just shared more information on this new ride and the new Up ride coming soon to the area.
Disney is also adding a version of the Silly Symphony Swings attraction that is at Disney California Adventure themed to Pixar’s Up to Adventure Way. It will be opposite from the Tangled teacups ride across the promenade. Adding this attraction is a smart move that brings more energy and life to this part of the theme park.
With the opening of this new half of the Disney Adventure World theme park, it jumps from a half day experience to a full day theme park. Combine all of the above additions with the other attractions that have been added over the years since the park first opened, including Crush’s Coaster, Tower of Terror, wonderful stage shows, and Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, and this starts to feel like a true Disney theme park.
Walking around today, it is easy to see how the addition of the new land and attractions will help to even further establish this park. I hope that the Frozen additions begin to immediately pay off with new demand for the park so that there is further incentive to keep investing in new additions. I want even more from the creatives who brought us Frozen and are now leading the Lion King addition. They have proven themselves and now I look forward to the continued investment in the experience.
As Disney makes progress with the future of Disney Adventure World and other massive theme park expansion projects around the globe, we’ll continue to update you on all the latest news and developments right here at Mickey Visit.
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