Reasons You May Want To Delay Booking Your Walt Disney World Vacation

Walt Disney once said, "Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world." This is even more true at Disney World, where there are twice as many theme parks — and twice as many updates happening to them at any given time. When you hear about the grand opening of rides like Tron Lightcycle / Run and all the other exciting new things going on, it's tempting to start planning a Disney World trip immediately. Yet the resort's escapist, fantasy pull is now offset more than ever by practical concerns like vacation cost and the difficulty of securing a ride aboard popular new attractions.

From airport shuttles to FastPasses (now known as Lightning Lane passes), Disney has spent the last few years monetizing many perks that were once free for guests. Data collected by Touring Plans (via The New York Times) indicates that the average cost of a Disney World vacation has risen 25% since 2019. Fussing with the resort's app and navigating virtual queues for certain rides also makes planning a trip trickier. One content creator, speaking to CNN, likened the process to planning a wedding.

For these and other reasons, you might want to time your Disney World trip for later to get the maximum value from it. In 2025, for instance, the resort is offering a new water park benefit for guests of its hotels, enabling you to visit Typhoon Lagoon or Blizzard Beach for free on your check-in day. In mid-2024, the D23 fan event also yielded a slew of announcements about upcoming developments in Disney World's four theme parks.

Frontierland has already undergone some big changes at the Magic Kingdom, with Country Bear Jamboree getting an update and the new Tiana's Bayou Adventure ride replacing Splash Mountain. It will continue evolving in 2025 as Disney begins filling in the Rivers of America and paving over Tom Sawyer Island to make way for a "Cars"-themed area. This is just one part of what's set to be the largest expansion in the 50-plus years since the park opened. What that means is that there will be a lot of construction work going on at Magic Kingdom the next few years — all the more reason to hold off on visiting.

The "Cars" area will feature a kid-friendly ride and one other attraction, which will take guests on a "thrilling rally race through the mountains," per Disney. In concept art, the attraction looks similar to Radiator Springs Racers at Disney California Adventure, but with an alpine setting to give Florida's version of the slot car ride its own unique appeal. Next door in Adventureland, there's also a Pirates of the Caribbean tavern on the way in 2025, while Main Street, U.S.A. has a new nighttime parade, "Disney Starlight," kicking off in summer.

For years, rumors persisted of a land called Villain Village or even an entire villain-centric park called Dark Kingdom coming to Disney World. As it turns out, those rumors weren't totally unfounded since Magic Kingdom now has an official Villains Land in the works beyond Big Thunder Mountain. If you go before it's finished, you'll be missing out on two major new attractions, plus villain-themed dining and shopping.

Epcot opened several new attractions in the 2020s, such as Remy's Ratatouille Adventure (2021), Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind (2022), and Journey of Water, Inspired by Moana (2023). However, if you're a fan of the popular Test Track ride, it closed in 2024, and it won't be reopening until 2025. This is because Test Track is about to see some changes. That includes a reimagined, road-to-tomorrow concept, new queue exhibits and show scenes, and a new exterior that "harkens back to the original pavilion design" for World of Motion (via Disney Parks Blog).

Spaceship Earth, meanwhile, is getting a new public lounge in a space that was previously exclusive to corporate sponsors. It's connected to the back of the ride building and will allow you to look out over Epcot from its front landmark as you dine. That's certainly something worth waiting for, as is the opening of a brand-new land themed to "Monsters, Inc." over at Disney's Hollywood Studios.

Concept art for the land centers on a factory building that resembles the exterior of Monsters, Inc. Ride & Go Seek! at Tokyo Disneyland. The Florida building will house a very different attraction: namely, Disney World's first suspended coaster. The ride is modeled on the movie scene where characters zoom through the Monsters, Inc. factory while hanging from closet doors. Apart from that, Hollywood Studios is bringing a new storyline to Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run in 2026, so "Star Wars" fans may want to hold out for that. Disney will rework the ride based on "The Mandolorian and Grogu," the first "Star Wars" movie since 2019.

As we reported last year, DinoLand is going extinct at Disney's Animal Kingdom, with the area set to begin closing in phases in fall 2024. In its place will come a new, 11-acre Tropical Americas land, but it's not scheduled to open until 2027. So, this is another instance where one whole section of the park will be closed off for two years as it undergoes reconstruction.

The Tropical Americas land will feature a carousel with wood-carved animals and a large-scale quick-service restaurant designed like a hacienda. Perhaps the biggest draws will be Disney's first-ever "Encanto" ride and a new Indiana Jones attraction that's different from any other one worldwide. In the "Encanto" ride, guests will explore a room-turned-rainforest with the magical Madrigal family. In the Indiana Jones ride, they'll join Indy as he adventures through a Mayan temple with a mythical creature inside.

The 3D show, "It's Tough to Be a Bug," was an opening-day attraction at Animal Kingdom when the park debuted on Earth Day back in 1998. For over 25 years, it anchored the park's central landmark, the Tree of Life, but by winter 2025, it will be gone as the theater inside the tree premieres a show with the punny title of "Zootopia: Better Zoogether." According to Disney, this show "will take guests on an adventure through different biomes" seen in the "Zootopia" movie. If it's a choice between watching "It's Tough to Be a Bug" one last time or experiencing all these other new offerings at Disney World, you may want to go with the latter and postpone your trip for now.