Could a NEW Hotel Be Part of Disney World’s Magic Kingdom Expansion?

Could Disney World’s next expansion include a major hotel? 

We know that the Magic Kingdom has a massive expansion coming “beyond Big Thunder Mountain” soon, with all signs indicating that that said expansion will be based around Intellectual Property including Coco and Disney’s stable of villains. Our question today: Could a new hotel be involved? Disney history and recent developments tell us its at least possible. 

If the Magic Kingdom expansion turns out to be as big as promised – – and to jog your memory, Michael Hundgen (Walt Disney World Site Portfolio Expert) said during an April 2024 media event that this project was “probably the largest expansion ever at Magic Kingdom” – – than Disney is likely going to want to build more hotel rooms in the Magic Kingdom resort area. 

Currently, the Magic Kingdom resort area is home to the Polynesian Village Resort, the Contemporary Resort, the Grand Floridian Resort and Spa, Disney’s Wilderness Lodge, and Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground. However, over the history of Walt Disney World, there have been plans for many hotels in the area. 

From Walt Disney World’s earliest days of development, there were several resorts planned to surround the Seven Seas Lagoon, including Asian, Persian and Venetian resorts that ended up unbuilt in the 1970s thanks to the reverberations of the Oil Crisis. A Greek-themed Mediterranean Resort was planned in the 1990s – allegedly it would have rivaled the Grand Floridian in luxury and price – but went on built due to issues with Florida’s swampy ground. Which actually ties us back to the upcoming expansion. 

You see, as Disney themselves revealed during the seventh episode of Behind the Attraction, way back when Walt Disney World was first being planned initial plans called for the Polynesian Resort to be built close behind Adventureland, and be thematically integrated into the Magic Kingdom. However, the area’s soil was unsuitable for hotel construction at the time. Could Disney perhaps revive building a hotel in that rough area along with the Magic Kingdom’s new expansion? Well, recent history tells us it’s possible. 

While Walt Disney World doesn’t currently have any hotels that are directly integrated into any of its theme parks, the Disney company has built several of these types of hotels across the world including the Paris-version of the Disneyland Hotel built into the park’s entrance, the Hotel Mira Costa built into the entrance of Tokyo DisneySea, and – – of the most interest to us today, the Fantasy Springs Hotel built into the new Fantasy Springs section of Tokyo DisneySea.

As we’ve established in the past, since the Tokyo Disney Resort is owned by the Oriental Land Company as opposed to Disney, it can never be assumed that that ANYthing from Tokyo will come to the Disney-owned U.S. parks. However, it’s still interesting to think about since the IP-inspired Fantasy Springs Hotel ties directly into the IP-centric Fantasy Springs land in a way that delivers on Disney’s new “Beyond Story” IP-integration approach, which in-turn would arguably make it a good for for whatever is happened “beyond big thunder.” 

Just imagine a hotel themed to say Coco located just beyond the Magic Kingdom’s new Coco-inspired are for example. 

Will there be a hotel included in the Magic Kingdom’s new expansion? At this point, we’d lean towards probably not, but history – – both recent and dating back to Walt Disney World’s earliest days – – tells us it’s at least a possibility to think about. Stay tuned to AllEars for more coverage of Walt Disney World’s upcoming projects.

 

IF there were to be an IP-inspired hotel included in the Magic Kingdom expansion, what would you like to see it include? Let us know in the comments below. 

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