When Will Disney’s Abu Dhabi Theme Park Open?

Disneyland Abu Dhabi was announced last May but there is not yet any confirmation of its opening date.

Disney

Disney’s theme park in Abu Dhabi is one of the most anticipated projects in the media giant’s history partly thanks to its chief executive Josh D’Amaro promising that it will be the “most advanced and interactive destination” in its portfolio. The anticipation is accentuated by how little is known about the project, including the opening timeframe which hasn’t been officially disclosed since the park was announced in May last year. Project-tracking specialists claim to have got the answer from primary sources.

Disney is famous for it secrecy. On walking into the headquarters in Glendale, California, of Walt Disney Imagineering, which designs its theme parks, it soon becomes clear how prized its privacy is. As you enter Imagineering’s Blaine Gibson Sculpting Studio there’s a sign saying ‘This is a closed set’ accompanied by a drawing of Mickey Mouse in a police uniform holding up his white-gloved hand in a stop position. Close by, another sign shows the scowling face of Pete, Mickey’s arch-rival, alongside the words, ‘Absolutely No Photography!’

The Abu Dhabi park was one of its most closely-guarded secrets. Rumors about upcoming Disney projects usually leak in the months ahead of an announcement. In contrast, the first hint of the Abu Dhabi project came the week before it was announced when this author broke the news about it on social media. It was followed by a report for Forbes previewing the announcement and another revealing that Imagineering luminary Zach Riddley will be involved with the park.

Adding to the anticipation is the fact it will be built and operated by Miral which has made a name for itself as the world’s leading developer of theme parks alongside Disney and Universal.

As I have reported, Miral’s commitment to the highest standards and its insistence that each of its projects must be a step up from its predecessors has led to it amassing a world-class collection of theme parks on Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island. They include SeaWorld, Warner Bros. World and Ferrari World which are all indoors to shield guests from Abu Dhabi’s intense heat. This also allows the parks to be decorated with much more elaborate scenery than their outdoor counterparts as they aren’t open to the elements.

Disney released just two pieces of concept art at the park’s announcement.

MSM

When Disney’s Abu Dhabi park was announced, two pieces of deliberately obscure concept art were released. One was an overview of the resort revealing its waterfront crystalline castle nestled next to lush greenery and avant-garde attractions. The other piece was a close up of the castle against a deep blue sky with a variant of this showing Disney’s traditional shooting star firework in an arc above it.

The concept art was created by freelance artist Sean Burke, whose designs formed the foundation for the Zootopia land at Shanghai Disney Resort. He collaborated on the art for Abu Dhabi with Imagineering’s Greg Pro, an executive concept designer who has 40 years of experience working for movie studios and theme park operators. The two pieces left fans yearning to learn more about the park but they are still waiting.

Despite suggestions that the park will be indoors, the latest concept art indicates that there will be outdoor attractions such as fireworks, reflecting other Disney parks. (Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)

Getty Images

I recently revealed that a third piece of concept art shows fireworks erupting into the sky suggesting that Disney’s Abu Dhabi park won’t be entirely indoors like its counterparts on Yas Island as industry title Blooloop reported.

More concept art was expected to be shown in this week’s Worldbuilders documentary about the development of Disney’s parks. Review copies of Worldbuilders showed concept art which was blurred out in the segment about Abu Dhabi and media were told it would be visible in the release version. In the end it didn’t make it into the final cut though the documentary did contain a nugget about the park’s direction. In a presentation ahead of his retirement last month, Imagineering’s Tom Fitzgerald explained that the park will be organized into biomes reflecting Abu Dhabi’s landscape rather than the lands typically found in Disney parks.

The ‘Worldbuilders’ documentary indicated that Disneyland Abu Dhabi will be organised into areas themed to different Abu Dhabi landscapes. (Photo by Leisa Tyler/LightRocket via Getty Images)

LightRocket via Getty Images

It reflected the local research trips taken by Imagineering as this report revealed. The locations were shown in a video at Disney’s biennial D23 convention earlier this month though there were no announcements about the park there. Thomas Mazloum, chairman of Disney’s theme park division, confirmed that development was still underway but said nothing more.

When the park was announced, D’Amaro told Reuters that a project of this scale could take a year or two to design, and another four to six years to build which would put it at 2033 at the latest. Reflecting this, a report in trade title Gulf Construction claimed that the project will be complete in the first quarter of 2033. It also claimed that it is valued at $10 billion which is the same sum that media industry title The Wrap reported.

Neither Miral nor Disney has officially announced an opening timeframe so the most that the Q1 2033 could be is a forecast. The only reason it is noteworthy is that Gulf Construction says its source is DMS Projects which claims that its “information is always derived from primary sources”. However, that’s not the end of the story.

Gulf Construction’s report was published in August last year and, of course, since then the Middle East has been engulfed in a war which has brought shipping to the region almost to a standstill. As I reported, soon after the war began, Miral confirmed its commitment to Disney’s Abu Dhabi park as its developer and operator. Accordingly, Disney doesn’t need to provide any capital, just its brand, characters and designers, which Miral is paying for. So, despite the ongoing war in the region, the project is risk-free for Disney.

Of course, just because a timeframe hasn’t been announced to the public, that doesn’t mean there is no internal timeframe that can be brought forwards and backwards as necessary. So it’s unlikely that Q1 2033 is the actual opening date but it may well indicate what the target was in August last year. If so, depending on how much of a buffer was built in and when the war ends, it could still roughly be when Abu Dhabi sees the dawn of a whole new world.