Is Disney World Building a Fifth Theme Park in Florida? Here’s What We Know.

Central Florida is certainly well-known for its theme parks. And fans are always on the lookout for new developments. Now, thanks to some hints dropped in recent government filings, some fans are wondering: Is Disney actually building a fifth theme park in the Orlando area? Let’s separate fact from rumor.

In This Article:

What’s Behind the “Fifth Gate” Rumors?

The fifth gate (fifth major theme park) rumors most recently resurfaced in June 2025. That’s when the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District (CFTOD)—a governmental agency that oversees all of Disney World—recently approved its 2045 Comprehensive Plan.

Is a New Park in the Comprehensive Plan?

In CFTOD’s plan, Disney is allowed to build a major new theme park in the next 20 years if it desires to do so.

But I must stress that it merely allows for the possibility of a new park. We are not aware of any active proposals for a new park at this time.

Here’s what the plan allows:

• One Major Theme Park which, if built, could be up to 550 acres in size.
  • The plan defines a Major Theme Park as “designed for multiple-day visits. The exhibitions and rides are extensive and normally require more than one day to experience.”
  • CFTOD currently considers Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom to be Major Theme Parks
• Two Minor Theme Parks which, if built, could be up to 150 acres each.
  • The plan defines Minor Theme Park as “designed for single-day or partial-day visits. Visitors are expected to spend shorter amounts of time than they would at a major theme park.”
  • CFTOD considers Blizzard Beach Water Park, Typhoon Lagoon Water Park, and ESPN Wide World of Sports to be Minor Theme Parks
• Additional Developments, such as…
  • More accommodations (additional hotel rooms)
  • An additional golf course
  • Support facilities
  • Office space
  • And more

I should note that the acreage mentioned covers new parks “and/or Expansion”, meaning that some of the acreage could be “eaten up” by expansions such as the one underway right now at Magic Kingdom for a new Villains land “behind Big Thunder Mountain.” It’s theoretically even possible that the expansions could be “all there is,” with no new park at all.

Are the CFTOD Plans a Guarantee of Future Development?

No, the plans are not a guarantee that Disney will build a new park. The plan isn’t even new news. This version—including the mention of a major new park—is merely an update to a plan that was previously supposed to guide development through the year 2020.

Comprehensive plans like these are nothing unusual. Your hometown or county government probably has one. The idea is to do some long-range planning—what areas should be zoned for residential, retail, preservation, and the like—to ensure that things are developed in a thoughtful manner and you don’t wind up with a Walmart butting up against your back porch.

In the CFTOD’s own words, the plan “provides guidance in the location of specific uses, the density and intensity of those uses, and the overall quantity of development that may occur by 2045.”

Disney knows that they have to do some major pre-planning for anything they want to build. How much electricity and water will the new park use? How will tourists get there? Where will employees park? Will we also need more hotels to handle the new guests?

A new theme park will require utilities, roads, land clearing, and much more, all of which need to be tied back into existing roads and utilities. And remember that the area where Disney sits was all originally wetlands and forests which had to be “reclaimed” in order to build on it.

So it’s no surprise to see them holding space for these ideas. It’s much simpler to have the plan and not use it, than to try to shoehorn things in later.

If you’re into minutiae, you can read the entire plan starting on page 202 of this 611-page PDF.

A History of Rumors

It seems like the rumor of Disney building its fifth park has been around ever since Disney’s most recent park—Animal Kingdom—opened in 1998.

I personally remember reading new park rumors as early as around 2003. Of course back then, it was roughly the right time to expect a new opening. Up until that point, Disney had added a new park every 7-11 years:

• Magic Kingdom: Opened 1971
• EPCOT (originally EPCOT Center): Opened 1982 (11 years after Magic Kingdom)
• Hollywood Studios (originally Disney-MGM Studios): Opened 1989 (7 years after Epcot)
• Animal Kingdom: Opened 1998 (9 years after Hollywood Studios)

We’re now 27 years since the last theme park opening at Disney World. So it’s natural to think that we’re “overdue.”

But is that really the case? Well, certainly nobody knows what Disney is actually going to do. But there are some pros and cons to building that we can consider in the meantime. Let’s look at it from both sides.

The Pessimist’s View: Why Disney Won’t Build Anytime Soon

The “years between parks” metric doesn’t offer a complete picture. They certainly wouldn’t keep opening a new theme park every ten-ish years until the end of time — that’s simply not practical. Here’s why.

There’s Only So Much Vacation Time

If there are too many parks, visitors would run out of time to see everything before their vacation ended. Even if they wanted to stay longer, they only have limited time away from work and school. Disney already has plenty of extended offerings—water parks, mini-golf and traditional golf, resort hotels, Disney Springs, and more—to help guests round out a week-long vacation at the four parks.

Disney probably won’t build a new park until they’re sure that it will bring more people to Disney World for a longer visit. If their research merely shows that people would just, say, skip Hollywood Studios and visit the new park instead, then it doesn’t make much sense to invest in a new park.

Universal Owns the News Cycle Right Now

Disney isn’t just competing against itself. The summer 2025 opening of Universal’s Epic Universe is taking up all the oxygen at the moment. Guests this summer and next are probably much more likely than usual to drop a day from Disney and spend it at Universal.

Epic Universe | Image © Universal

Factor in the other Universal parks—not to mention SeaWorld and even the relatively-close Legoland—and you’ve got stiff competition for travelers’ vacation time and money. Again, Disney would want to make sure they could actually make some gains before they put shovel to soil.

Economic Realities Are Discouraging

Building a new park would be a huge investment. Universal reportedly spent $7 Billion to build Epic Universe, but only expects to recoup about $2 billion of that in the first year.

Is Disney willing to put that much cash on the line in the current economy? Disney’s annual attendance still hasn’t fully recovered following the global pandemic that actually closed all of Disney World for several months.

It’s arguable that Universal might have even considered putting the brakes on Epic Universe after the pandemic—but they’d already announced it and started work beforehand.

Disney isn’t afraid of changing course if economic realities change. They had actually started building a “Legendary Years” addition to the Pop Century resort prior to September 11, 2001—work stopped during the resulting economic downturn and the site sat abandoned for about a decade. It was eventually turned into Art of Animation.

Disney’s Already Building

It’s not like Disney isn’t doing anything new right now.

Disney Experiences Chairman Josh D’Amaro said in 2024 that “over the next decade, we’re going to have more projects underway [worldwide] than at any point in our history.”

In Florida alone, Magic Kingdom is undergoing its largest-ever expansion, with a new Villains Land and Cars mini-land.

Concept Art | Image © Disney

A massive overhaul of EPCOT only recently wrapped up, and there are major new lands in the works at Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom, too.

Considering all of these factors, it’s understandable why it still might be quite some time before Disney builds another full park.

The Optimist’s View: Now(ish) is the Best Time to Build a Fifth Park

Prefer to see the glass as half-full? Here are some reasons why the new park might be built.

Disney Has Made Binding Financial Commitments to Development in Florida

You might remember the rift between Disney and Florida’s Governor a few years back. It’s the reason Florida abolished Disney’s original governing district and presumably why Disney bailed on plans to move the bulk of Imagineering to the state. After all the bluster (and lawsuits) settled, Disney committed to $17 billion worth of investments in Florida over the next two decades.

Granted, not all of the money has to go toward theme parks. But make no mistake—the money will be spent somehow because it legally has to be. But a theme park seems to be a good way to make money back off of the money you’re required to spend.

Epic Universe Was a Wakeup Call

There’s a strong argument to be made that Universal’s Epic Universe has set an entirely new standard in themed attraction design. We previously referred to it as Universal’s “shot across the bow” of Disney World.

Disney has claimed that it doesn’t need to respond to Epic Universe because everything they’ve built over the past decade was a preemptive response to Epic Universe.

I don’t necessarily buy that. New rides may bring in some new people, but are mostly just a nice “plus” for people who were already coming. That’s not the same thing financially when compared to a new “gate” that actually generates an additional day of ticket sales.

Disney’s Last Two Parks Opened Neck-And-Neck with Universal

Disney actually has some history with going “neck-and-neck” with Universal when it comes to opening new parks.

Universal Studios Florida opened in June 1990—but Disney preemptively opened its own studio park in May 1989. Disney-MGM Studios (as it was known at the time) had been in the works for a few years prior, first as a potential EPCOT pavilion and later as a full-fledged park and production studio. Construction was put into overdrive to “beat” Universal Studios’ opening date.

Fast forward a decade or so. Disney’s Animal Kingdom opens in April 1998. Universal opened its second park, Islands of Adventure, about a year later in May 1999.

Universal’s Epic Universe opened in May 2025, marking the first time ever that Disney failed to steal Universal’s thunder by opening a new park a year in advance of Universal’s newest offering.

There’s no way Disney can quickly open something in 2026, but perhaps they do still want to keep the relative ratio of Disney parks to Universal parks as-is. That would require a new park sometime relatively soon.

Adding a Fifth Park Could Help “Lock In” Families for a Week

It’s no longer a safe bet that “families will always come to Disney and might go spend a day at Universal.” Universal now has three parks and incredibly strong franchises such as Harry Potter and Nintendo. It’s certainly realistic now that some families might forego Disney altogether—especially if they have older kids.

Disney would be wise to find ways to once again convince people to spend their entire week at Disney World. They gave up one of their biggest bargaining chips—free rides from the airport—years ago, meaning families have to find their own way to Disney through paid services like Mears Connect (or by renting a car, making Universal even easier to get to).

Mears Connect shuttle buses | Image © Mears Transportation

But a fifth park could certainly help. Especially when you consider that a lot of people are already spending two days at Magic Kingdom and one at each of the other three parks, adding a fifth park (and thus a sixth day) could help keep people from straying up I-4 to Universal.

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So IF They Build a Fifth Theme Park, What Will It Be Like?

So let’s go a but further down the speculation rabbit hole. Just for argument’s sake, let’s presume the optimists are right and Disney does decide to build a new park.

What Would the Name and Theme of the New Park Be?

There’s no real indication of what Disney’s “next” theme park would be.

Decades ago, there were rumors of a “Dark Kingdom” theme park that would be dedicated to Disney’s villains. That rumor can almost certainly be discarded now that Disney has announced an entire Magic Kingdom expansion land dedicated to Villains.

Concept Art | Image © Disney

Longtime fans would love to see a stateside version of Tokyo DisneySea, which many consider to be the best-themed Disney park anywhere. That park is heavily water-themed (but not a water park), with various “ports” instead of lands.

Tokyo DisneySea park | Image © Disney/OLC

There were even previous rumblings about a “Port Disney” park coming to California. (That that project never materialized, but maybe it has new legs with the DisneylandForward expansion project?)

So maybe it’s not that far-fetched of a hope that we could have something similar to Tokyo DisneySea in Florida at some point. I’d go as far as to say that’s probably the most likely new theme—but even that edge is shaky at best.

If we look at other Disney parks around the world, there’s not much additional inspiration to be had:

• We already have Magic Kingdom as our “castle park,” so no need to bring a separate “Disneyland” here.
• Disney California Adventure was once themed specifically to the state of California. Maybe they could do a dedicated-to-Florida theme park?
• Paris’s studio park is currently being revamped into “Disney Adventure World.” It’s possible that name could make its way to Florida, I suppose. But the theme is still very studio-y.
• Disney announced preliminary plans for a new park in Abu Dhabi, but it’s way too early to know what that looks like and if any ideas could be harvested for Florida.

As for abandoned concepts from U.S. Disney parks that never quite made it… “Disney’s America” would have been a colonial-style park in Virginia heavily themed to American history. That doesn’t seem like a viable concept in the current environment. And California almost had a “Westcot Center”—but, well, “we got EPCOT at home.”

Maybe we’re overthinking it. Theme parks lately seem to be more about a not-necessarily-connected grouping of themed lands rather than one overarching theme parkwide. So maybe that’s the most reasonable expectation—a hodge-podge of well-themed individual areas based on Disney’s existing Intellectual Property. Something would be PIXAR. Something might be Star Wars or Marvel. And there would probably be a mix of dark rides, boat rides, and thrill rides.

Where Would the New Park Be?

With roughly 27,000 acres of land in Florida, Disney wouldn’t have too much trouble sparing a few hundred acres for a new park. But where exactly?

There are two major maps within the CFTOD plan that might offer some hints—but even they contradict one another in some places.

This is the 2045 Future Land Use Map from the Comprehensive Plan…

And this is the 2035/2045 Future Trip Generators/Attractors map (which refers to developments that have major effects on automobile and mass transit traffic)…

Both maps show the current Major Theme Parks and Minor Theme Parks as “Entertainment,” so that’s the designation we need to look at for possible new park locations. Keep in mind, this is all purely speculation.

Near ESPN Wide World of Sports

On the Trip Generators/Attractors map, the biggest area currently marked as “Entertainment-Potential”—and thus a potential theme park—is a plot adjacent to the ESPN Wide World of Sports, not far from Hollywood Studios, Blizzard Beach, Pop Century, and the All-Star Resorts. It’s the striped pink area on the map below.

But as large as that area is, it’s nowhere near the 550-acre maximum size of the potential new park. And on the Future Land Use Map it’s listed as Mixed Use rather than Entertainment. Of course, “Mixed Use” could refer in this case to a mix of entertainment and hotel.

It would also seem like an odd logistical choice to cram a new park right up against an existing complex rather then somewhere completely on its own. This area might make sense for an expansion of ESPN, but not necessarily a full new park.

Near Magic Kingdom

A long-rumored “expansion pad” for a new park is near Magic Kingdom, along Floridian Way just north of Oak Trail Golf Course and near the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa. That area is also currently undergoing major roadway expansion work that could support a new theme park.

But a big swath of that land is earmarked on the Generators/Attractors map as potential Resort/Hotel development (purple stripes in the map above). On the Future Land Use Map, it’s a combination of Mixed Use, Recreation, and Resource Management. So that one seems in doubt.

One thing it would have going for it would be proximity to the existing Transportation and Ticket Center, which might make Guest flow logistics a bit easier.

Near EPCOT

There are other large unused areas throughout the property, especially west and north of EPCOT.

But much of that land is listed as “Conservation” on the Future Land Use map, which would limit its use as a potential theme park. And some of those plots are also in flood plains.

That’s a lot of words to say… we don’t really have a good idea where the park would go if it were to be built.

When Would the New Disney Park Be Built?

If it were to be built, it’s likely that the new “major” park would happen during the latter half of the comprehensive plan’s effective range, meaning somewhere between 2035 and 2045. The “minor” parks, if built, could start a little sooner—possibly as early as 2030.

When (if) construction starts, it would likely take several years to build out. It took Disney about three-and-a-half years of actual construction to build Animal Kingdom, not counting early planning. Universal’s Epic Universe took longer, but construction was halted during the pandemic.

Will There Be Disney Hotels at the New Park?

Disney would likely add resort hotels somewhere around the overall property to handle the extra guests that a new theme park would bring. The CFTOD plan suggests that a new park could bring an additional 50,000+ people per day to Disney World, and most of them will probably need to spend the night. The plan does contemplate additional hotel rooms to accommodate them—it allows for up to 923 acres of Hotel/Resort land to be developed through 2045.

What’s not known is if any of those hotels would be “inside” the new park. Disney World doesn’t currently have any hotels actually built into the park in the same way that Disney California Adventure (at Disneyland in California) has the Grand Californian Hotel connected alongside with a private entrance.

But all of Disney’s Florida parks do have hotels close by. It wouldn’t be surprising to see at least one new hotel at least near a new theme park, if not actually part of the park.

Will The New Park Have a Monorail?

Probably not. Even if they were to build a new theme park on one of the plots near Magic Kingdom (closest to the existing monorail lines), it’s highly unlikely they’d opt to add to the Disney World monorail system.

Disney hasn’t expanded the monorails in 43 years—not since EPCOT opened in 1982. Two more parks have opened since then, with no monorail extension. Why?

It’s generally believed that extending the monorail is extremely cost-prohibitive. We’re talking mind-boggling-ly expensive. Las Vegas built a 4-mile monorail system in 2004 and it cost $650 million, roughly $160 million per mile. And that’s not counting the need to buy additional trains and expand the monorail station at the Transportation and Ticket Center.

It’s hard to imagine Disney would sink that much money into monorails when they could buy literally hundreds or even thousands of buses, boats, or Skyliners for the same cost.

Will the New Park Be on the Skyliner?

Maybe? Adding a new route to the existing aerial gondola system seems more likely than a monorail, but only if the park is close enough to the existing Skyliner route.

That potential expansion plot near Wide World of Sports is very close to the existing Disney Skyliner system. From a central hub at Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort, the service radiates out to EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, Pop Century resort, Art of Animation resort, and Riviera resort. It wouldn’t take much (other than a few bulldozers and a large pile of cash) to add another line to the new park.

The Verdict: Is Disney Building a New Park in Orlando?

Disney currently has no announced plans for a new theme park in Florida, and we have no reason to believe they’ll build one until at least 2035. But the latest comprehensive plan by Disney’s governmental oversight group does allow for one new major park to be built by 2045 should the company opt to do so.

Across the Walt Disney World Resort, they could also add two smaller parks, a golf course, hotels and more if they desire. Economic realities—and the existing offering of Florida parks—probably mean that major new development isn’t likely in the near future, but Disney could always surprise us!

In the meantime, there are still plenty of major new additions to the existing parks to keep us excited in the years to come.