Disneyland Resort has announced a robust slate of new rides and infrastructure improvements for Disneyland Park, Disney California Adventure, and the resort’s property at large. Disney has been tight-lipped, though, in announcing any opening dates to go along with these huge reveals, even as work moves forward.
In this article, we map out the exciting future of Disneyland Resort and predict when each new phase of its multi-year plans will roll out. We also analyze how these projects align with a company-wide initiative important to Disney’s new CEO. Mickey Visit brings you the latest Disney news and planning resources, including changes to classic Disneyland rides and a new policy Disneyland is testing with its outdoor vending.
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New Rides Charting Disneyland’s Future
Disneyland Resort has announced large-scale theme park attractions and operations infrastructure that fall into two categories.
One category is DisneylandForward. This name refers to the long-term plan for rezoning some of the property Disney owns near its existing theme parks. The city of Anaheim approved DisneylandForward in 2024, giving Disney the go-ahead to dream big for the resort’s future with more space allocated for theme parks than ever before.
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Some of the ideas we discuss below pertain to DisneylandForward. These include a new Avatar land, made possible only because of DisneylandForward’s approval. We dive into a macro overview of what’s on the table for DisneylandForward over the next few decades at the end of this article.
Most of the projects currently announced for Disneyland were planned independently of DisneylandForward, but exciting nonetheless. These include an expansion of Avengers Campus and a new Coco ride. We get into details for all of these attractions below.
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Many of our predictions for the opening dates of Disneyland’s new rides are informed by an initiative rallied by Josh D’Amaro, the new CEO of The Walt Disney Company, effective March 2026. D’Amaro was previously Chairman of Disney Experiences, overseeing all Disney theme parks globally. Before that, he held stints as President of Disneyland and Walt Disney World.
All that to say, D’Amaro knows the parks well and understands how to leverage them across other areas of Disney.
One of D’Amaro’s key initiatives is called “One Disney,” basically a slick term for synergy. D’Amaro is impressing upon leaders to strategize ways all components of The Walt Disney Company can work in tandem and leverage one another’s long-term goals.
Undoubtedly helping in this regard is the recent appointment of 20-year Disney veteran Asad Ayaz as Disney’s first Chief Brand and Marketing Officer, effective January 2026.
As it relates to future Disneyland attractions, I see how the philosophy behind One Disney could play out in aligning theme park attractions’ openings with the release dates of major tentpole films.
Disney has taken a liking to this strategy lately. In fact, Disneyland’s newest update adheres to it. A new version of Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run featuring Din Djarin and “baby Yoda” will debut at both Disneyland Park in California and Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida on May 22, 2026, the same day that the pair’s new movie, The Mandalorian and Grogu, will be released in theaters.
Walt Disney World employed this same approach last year when it opened Zootopia: Better Zoogether!, a 3D show at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, less than three weeks before the theatrical release of Zootopia 2.
It’s no coincidence that all four of Disneyland’s major upcoming attractions are connected to franchises with sequels on Disney’s movie release calendar right now. As we discuss each attraction below, we’ll gauge how these movie releases could influence when Disney decides to open new attractions based on those story worlds.
Timeline for New Disneyland Rides Opening
Disney California Adventure is expanding Avengers Campus with two new rides.
Avengers Campus already includes Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission – BREAKOUT!, which opened in 2017, and WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure, which opened in 2021. Crucial to our conversation today, both rides debuted the same year as a new movie in their respective superhero franchises, and even the same month in Guardians’ case.
The two new rides in Avengers Campus will share a massive building currently under construction. The basic structure for this building seems nearly complete, towering from behind its construction walls.
One of the new rides, Avengers Infinity Defense, will take up most of the building. This indoor, large-scale ride will see classic Avengers characters like Iron Man, the Hulk, Ant-Man, and Black Panther take on King Thanos, a new, multiverse variant of the villain we know from the movies.
The other new ride, Stark Flight Lab, will be located underneath an open-air shelter at the edge of the new building facing a pedestrian promenade. In this attraction, riders will “test” new technology from Stark Industries as they are flung around at the mercy of a robotic arm.
How Disney set up Marvel Studios means there’s at least one Marvel movie released every year, helping the idea of Avengers Campus remain seemingly evergreen. However, two Marvel films on the horizon could be particularly relevant to the opening dates of Avengers Infinity Defense and Stark Flight Lab.
Avengers: Doomsday releases on December 18, 2026, followed by Avengers: Secret Wars on December 17, 2027. Marvel is touting this pair of films as the studio’s biggest releases since Avengers: Endgame in 2019.
There’s zero chance the Avengers Campus expansion opens in time for the 2026 release of Doomsday. However, if Disney really hustles with construction, it may be able to open the new rides in tandem with the press campaign for Avengers: Secret Wars.
We’ve already seen how Disney values its unique position to unleash the full breadth of its synergy portfolio toward similar goals simultaneously, and this seems like an opportunity Disney wouldn’t pass up.
This would also align with the construction of another Disney project on the other side of the country. The building for Avengers Infinity Defense and the building for an upcoming Encanto ride at Disney’s Animal Kingdom both went vertical around the same time.
Though Disney hasn’t mentioned an opening date or even an opening year for Avengers Infinity Defense, it has publicly committed to a 2027 opening year for the Encanto ride. Therefore, we might expect the new Avengers Campus rides to be capable of opening in 2027 as well, at least from a construction timeline standpoint.
In a perfect world, Disney would open Avengers Infinity Defense and Stark Flight Lab at the same time. However, if one opens before the other, I could see Disney vying to open Stark Flight Lab ASAP before the grander reveal of Avengers Infinity Defense.
Stark Flight Lab opening prediction – Mid-2027 or late 2027
Avengers Infinity Defense opening prediction – Late 2027
Disney California Adventure is opening a new Coco ride! The attraction will reside in a new building under construction behind Incredicoaster. See how Disney is maneuvering backstage areas to make room for the Coco ride here.
The Coco attraction will be a family-friendly boat ride that takes guests into the Land of the Dead, filled with state-of-the-art Audio-Animatronics figures. Walt Disney Imagineering is comparing the scale of the Coco ride to that of Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion, so expectations are very high for this one.
The future home of the Coco ride is currently a plot of dirt, so there’s still a long way to go, but the site has already come a long way from where it started. Construction crews have cleared trees and are now prepping the site for what’s next.
Again, we can look to Animal Kingdom’s upcoming Encanto ride to gauge the timeline here. Like the Coco ride, the Encanto ride will be a family-friendly attraction in the style of a modern Fantasyland dark ride. Also, like the Coco ride, the Encanto ride will be located inside a new building that Disney constructed from scratch.
Disney began prepping the site for the Encanto ride in earnest in early 2025. Disney has announced a 2027 opening for Encanto, but has not revealed an exact opening date. This means the maximum turnaround for that construction project is less than three years, which could equate to a similar timeline for Coco.
Coco’s construction prep began in early 2026. If it follows a similar pacing to Encanto, the Coco ride may go vertical by the end of this year, paving the way for an opening in 2028.
Wrinkling things a bit is the highly anticipated release of Coco 2, which Disney has announced for 2029, but hasn’t assigned an exact release date.
If the Coco ride is ready by late 2028, would Disney hold its opening to align with the publicity blitz for Coco 2? What’s more important to the company’s current goals: increasing theme park capacity or a near-perfect alignment of the “One Disney” initiative?
While the latter is clearly important to Disney right now, I think the former is more critical, and late 2028 is close enough to 2029 to make the ride timely overall with the sequel’s promotional push.
Coco ride opening prediction – Late 2028
Disney California Adventure is opening a new area based on the Avatar films. Walt Disney Imagineering has used the phrasing of an Avatar “destination” to describe this project, but we’re expecting something on the scale of a new land.
The land at Disney California Adventure will be different from Pandora – The World of Avatar at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Don’t expect duplicates of Avatar Flight of Passage and Na’vi River Journey.
Instead of being rooted in the mountainous locales of 2009’s Avatar movie, the California version will focus on the aquatic locations of 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water and 2025’s Avatar: Fire and Ash.
Disney California Adventure’s Avatar area will include at least one attraction, a boat ride with moments both thrilling, like the propulsion of a giant Tulkun creature from the depths of the ocean, and peaceful, like an encounter with a Na’vi in a bioluminescent forest.
Out of all the attractions we’re discussing today, the Avatar project has the most dominoes that need to fall before it comes anywhere close to opening. It’s also the project most directly unlocked from the approval of DisneylandForward.
The Avatar land will replace two very different parcels of real estate.
Part of the Avatar land will replace a section of Disney California Adventure’s Hollywood Land, including Monsters, Inc. Mikey & Sulley to the Rescue! and a snack location called Hollywood Lounge. The rest of the Avatar land will replace Disneyland’s transportation hub, which is not currently designated as part of Disney California Adventure, but is located just beyond the Monsters, Inc. ride building.
Other parts of Hollywood Land, including the Hyperion Theatre, will be unaffected by Avatar and will remain in place.
If you visit Disney California Adventure right now, you would not know the Monsters, Inc. area is bookmarked for demolition without prior knowledge. The ride is still fully operational, and the surrounding area shows no signs of imminent closure.
The Monsters, Inc. ride will remain open through early 2027, when it will permanently close. Disney previously announced the ride would close in early 2026, then shifted the timeline.
We understand that this does not signify a delay in the Avatar land opening, but rather a realignment of overall construction phases to keep this family-friendly attraction open as long as possible.
Avatar construction cannot begin in earnest until the transportation hub outside the park closes. In turn, the transportation hub outside the park cannot close until Disneyland’s new parking deck and transportation services open on the other side of Harbor Boulevard, east of Disneyland. When this is complete, a new pedestrian bridge over Harbor Boulevard will connect that parking deck to Disneyland’s Esplanade, serving as a new entrance to the overall Disneyland Resort.
This is what we mean by there being a few dominoes in place for Avatar to properly move forward. There’s a long runway for the Avatar land from here.
Construction on the new parking deck and Harbor Boulevard bridge hasn’t started yet. That will begin in fall 2026. Will Disney be ready to close the existing transportation hub by early 2027 in tandem with Monsters, Inc., or will that come later? Later seems likelier, unless the new parking deck and bridge can be built in a few months.
Possibly providing another small ballpark hint toward the opening timeframe of the Avatar land are Disney’s December 2029 and December 2031 release dates for Avatar 4 and 5. Disney would likely want to have Disney California Adventure’s Avatar land open in time for the fifth movie at the latest.
The Avatar films are, however, infamous for their release dates being repeatedly delayed. Director James Cameron has also spoken publicly about whether additional movies will even be made, despite Disney assigning release dates for them.
Unlike the Avengers and Coco projects, the Avatar land will require a lot of exterior theming and rockwork, adding more time to its construction schedule. While Disney California Adventure’s version won’t be the same as Animal Kingdom’s, it will be on a similar scale.
Disney opened Pandora at Animal Kingdom three years and four months after closing the attractions that previously stood there. If 2027 is the earliest anything at Disney California Adventure will even begin to close in prep for Avatar, we’re looking at 2030, at the soonest, for these new Avatar attractions to open.
Avatar land opening prediction – 2030 or 2031
Expansions of Disneyland Resort Theme Parks
DisneylandForward is Disney’s long-term plan for Disneyland Resort theme park expansion. Unlike Walt Disney World, which has ample property on which to build new parks, hotels, and attractions, Disneyland is very limited in its space. Even within the property Disney owns, the company was restricted in how the real estate could be utilized for decades.
With the 2024 approval of DisneylandForward, Disney now has the green light to designate more of its property as future theme park space that previously was not legally allowed to be developed in that way. Here’s a look at the use of that space today.
In the future, both parks can expand beyond their current borders, across Disneyland Drive to the west, a road that would supposedly stay in place. This would admittedly create unorthodox layouts for both parks, but we’ve already seen Disney effectively use this same approach in the design of Downtown Disney, which traverses over Disneyland Drive in a way that is not obvious to guests enjoying shopping there.
This could mean a parking lot near Disneyland Hotel one day may become part of Disneyland Park itself, and a parking lot near Pixar Place Hotel may be annexed into Disney California Adventure.
The descriptions and the graphic here reflect how Disney pitched the use of those parcels when it proposed DisneylandForward. Their exact uses may change, and the company has a lot of flexibility in how they develop the space.
A parking lot southeast of the majority of the Disneyland Resort campus, the Toy Story Parking Lot today, may one day become additional theme park space. It could also become a shopping and dining district similar to Downtown Disney.
All of these projects are long-term. The former President of Disneyland Resort told us DisneylandForward was a roadmap for the next 30-40 years.
As described above, one of the first steps in DisneylandForward is to build a new parking structure or deck east of Disneyland on the current site of a parking lot, as well as a bridge across Harbor Boulevard. This will also add a new arrival area for buses and security. There will then be a bridge over Harbor Boulevard and into the resort. That new parking structure then unlocks much of the other expansion area at the resort by reducing the need for that surface parking by adding more spots and a new arrival area.
We’ll be tracking all of the above projects and any other surprise news Disney reveals for its ambitious DisneylandForward plans as developments progress.
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