Thousands of Disney fans roared with applause in Anaheim’s Honda Center last month when executives announced an overhaul of Tomorrowland at Disneyland, the original Disney theme park. Tomorrowland, once a cornerstone of the park’s experiences and a vibrant expression of optimism toward the future, is today a disparate, neglected roster of attractions with contradicting aesthetics. All that, though, is about to change.
Walt Disney Imagineers are reimagining Tomorrowland with a focus on Walt’s original vision for the land. But what does that mean? In this story, we’ll share exclusive insight that Imagineers revealed to Mickey Visit on their approach to Tomorrowland’s makeover, and we’ll delve back in time to see Walt’s Tomorrowland that they’re being inspired by. Mickey Visit brings you the latest Disney news and planning resources, including a great Disneyland restaurant most guests walk past and Disneyland’s arrival and security changes.
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Tomorrowland Overhaul Coming to Disneyland
A sweeping overhaul of Tomorrowland is coming to Disneyland. A transformation of this scale has been on fans’ wish lists for a long time. The project will include new attractions, not just refreshes of existing experiences.
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During a media briefing that Mickey Visit attended several days before the public announcement of the Tomorrowland makeover, Disneyland executives and Walt Disney Imagineers provided a deeper glimpse into the transformation, including remarks they didn’t share with that arena full of fans.
“We’re going to start with Walt’s original vision for Tomorrowland,” said Disneyland Resort President Jill Estorino. “That’s going to be our guidepost and our North Star.”
Estorino was installed as Disneyland’s new President earlier this year in a domino shuffle of Disney leadership changes. She spent five weeks living at Disneyland to acclimate to the role and was instrumental in moving forward with Tomorrowland’s reimagining. Previously she oversaw all of Disney’s international theme parks.
Emo O’Brien, Disneyland Resort and Tokyo Disney Resort Portfolio Executive Creative Producer at Walt Disney Imagineering, is overseeing the Tomorrowland reimagining. She previously helped create Tokyo DisneySea’s Fantasy Springs, an elaborate land with high-quality new rides themed to Peter Pan, Tangled, and Frozen. That’s an excellent sign for Tomorrowland’s future.
“We were inspired by his vision of Walt being hopeful, of Tomorrowland being a vista into wondrous portals,” said O’Brien of Imagineers’ initial discussions about what a new Tomorrowland could look like at Disneyland. “We really garnered that this sense of optimism was at the core of everything he was thinking about in Tomorrowland.”
Like every change to “Walt’s park,” as Estorino and O’Brien referred to Disneyland, the teams involved are balancing stewarding the land’s 70-year legacy with modernizing it for new generations.
“We really want to keep the heritage and the responsibility to honoring that legacy at the center,” said O’Brien, “but we have to evolve it for our new generations, current and future to come.”
Imagineers haven’t announced specifics about which ride(s) will be refreshed, removed, or added to Tomorrowland. Based on how early the project is in development, they might still be deliberating these big choices. “We are literally just getting started,” O’Brien emphasized during the media briefing.
Later in this story, we’ll take a look at what’s currently in Tomorrowland. First, though, if Imagineers are being inspired by Walt’s vision, it might help to take a look at what that vision was.
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Walt’s Tomorrowland
O’Brien said that the Imagineers are looking back to Walt Disney’s brief opening day speech for Tomorrowland for inspiration in overhauling it. Walt Disney personally dedicated each land of Disneyland when the theme park opened on July 17, 1955.
Walt’s full speech dedicated Tomorrowland this way: “A vista into a world of wondrous ideas, signifying man’s achievement, a step into the future with predictions of constructive things to come. Tomorrow offers new frontiers in science, adventure, and ideals: the atomic age, the challenge of outer space, and the hope for a peaceful and unified world.”
One could spend hours pondering what the Imagineers have in mind for Tomorrowland with the words of Walt’s 1955 dedication in mind.
Admittedly, there wasn’t much in Tomorrowland at first. This was the last of the theme park lands to be completed before opening. Its two opening day attractions were Autopia, the miniature cars that are still around today, and Tomorrowland Boats, guest-driven vehicles on a lagoon. They also reused props from the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea movie to create a walkthrough attraction to fill unused spaced.
On July 22, 5 days after opening day, Rocket to the Moon, pictured above under construction, joined the lineup. It could be thought of as a very early version of the “elevator” guests ride today at Space 220 at EPCOT, with a screen on the floor and the ceiling simulating an outer-space flight.
It’s easy to forget that space travel was still very much a concept of the future when Disneyland opened in 1955. The moon landing was still 14 years away. The public’s fascination with, and lack of knowledge about, outer space was a concept Walt leaned into.
Walt’s weekly Disneyland television series divided its episodes by topic, correlating with the four main lands of the Disneyland theme park: Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland. Educating the public about the science behind space research, presented with fanciful Disney flair, was a keystone of the show’s Tomorrowland episodes.
Longtime animator Ward Kimball stepped into the director’s chair for these episodes, which were presented in a stylized art design not found in Disney’s full-length animated movies. Two of these programs, Man in Space and Mars and Beyond, are available to stream on Disney+. They are worth the watch if you’re a fan of Disney history and you haven’t seen them.
Millions of people watched these Disneyland TV episodes, and they informed the public’s consciousness of Tomorrowland’s identity as much as anything in the Disneyland theme park. There is a wealth of visual and narrative inspiration to be mined from the Ward Kimball programs for the Tomorrowland overhaul, should the Imagineers look there.
As Disneyland grew, other early Tomorrowland attractions, which have since closed, included Adventure Thru Inner Space, a dark ride through a subatomic wonderland; 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the actual submarine ride that was a precursor to today’s Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage; and the Monsanto House of the Future, pictured above, a walkthrough exhibit showcasing up-and-coming home appliances.
The land leaned on many corporate sponsors throughout the years to fill out and support the different attractions in this area of the park.
The Tomorrowland of Today
Tomorrowland of the modern era is a mixed bag. Individually, several of its attractions are among guests’ favorites, especially Space Mountain. As a whole, though, Tomorrowland lacks a strong, unifying identity, a quality that makes the other lands in Disneyland so great. Its chic, mid-century aesthetic has been slowly chipped away across the decades, and the aesthetics of the individual attractions now compete with each other for dominance.
The land also contains underutilized facilities. The defunct PeopleMover track still funnels through everything despite not having operated in nearly three decades. An indoor theater screens Pixar short films with no connection to Tomorrowland’s theme. A huge building that was originally built for the long-gone Carousel of Progress is now little more than a corporate hub for perks offered to Disney Vacation Club members and Disney Visa cardholders. In a park as small as Disneyland, where every bit of real estate matters preciously, there is no room to waste space.
This is precisely why Disney is reimagining Tomorrowland. Estorino said she agrees with fans’ sentiments about Tomorrowland needing an overhaul. During our media briefing, she specifically called out comments she had read online about Tomorrowland being “tired” and having “very little tomorrow” in it. “You’re right,” Estorino remarked.
Here’s the current lineup of everything that’s in Tomorrowland at Disneyland. Disney has not confirmed the fate of anything on this list as it relates to the Tomorrowland transformation:
Attractions
- Astro Orbitor
- Autopia
- Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters
- Disneyland Monorail
- Disneyland Railroad
- Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
- Pixar Short Film Spotlight at Tomorrowland Theater
- Space Mountain
- Star Tours – The Adventures Continue
- Star Wars Launch Bay
Dining
- Alien Pizza Planet
- Galactic Grill
- Tomorrowland Skyline Terrace
Shopping
- Little Green Men Store Command
- The Star Trader
- TomorrowLanding
Tomorrowland is a Priority
Everything in Tomorrowland currently remains open and operational, with no announcements about closures. In other words, physical construction and/or demolition for whatever Disney has planned for the Tomorrowland overhaul has not started.
This easily places the eventual opening of any new attractions, updated rides, and refreshed spaces at least a few years away. We could see Disney wanting to aim for Disneyland’s 75th anniversary in 2030 as a target for the first wave of changes, but who knows.
That being said, when Disney executives greenlit the Tomorrowland overhaul, they prioritized it over a previously announced expansion project, the new Avatar land coming to Disney California Adventure. Disney is prioritizing Tomorrowland over Avatar, showing that Disney is serious about the importance of this project.
“We believe that delivering the projects in this way is the right thing to do for our fans,” Estorino said. “We’re going to be able to provide a reimagined Tomorrowland in Walt’s park while continuing to invest in Disney California Adventure to bring new stories to life over time.”
Disneyland will either convert Autopia’s gas-powered engines to electric or close the attraction to do so by February 1, 2027, but this is a mandate from the California Air Resources Board, unrelated to the overall Tomorrowland transformation. It’s not known if Disneyland will take the opportunity to close Autopia for a long-term refurbishment as the first step toward Tomorrowland’s reimagining and/or if anything other than the engine swaps will happen during this changeover period.
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