Hello, August! In a lot of ways this will probably be a somewhat slow month for Disney news – and that will most likely be the case until mid-September. That’s because from September 9-11 Disney is holding their big D23 Expo in Anaheim, where they will (probably) make a lot of exciting announcements! Sadly I won’t be attending this year, but I’ll be looking forward to hearing all about what goes down. I’ve also got a quick weekend trip to Disney World myself coming in the beginning of August so I’ll have a few things to report back on (hopefully that includes a ride on Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind!).
Disney news
- Winnie the Pooh and friends are returning to Crystal Palace! The buffet will once again be a character meal starting on September 20th.
- They’re not the only ones – ‘Ohana breakfast will also be a character meal once more on September 27th, featuring Lilo and Stitch.
- Cape May Cafe will again start serving a character breakfast buffet on October 4th.
- MagicBand+ is now available for purchase. They are able to do everything the original MagicBands can do, but they also have additional interactive features.
- The new resort studio rooms are now open at the Grand Floridian resort.
- The Boardwalk Bakery has been getting a makeover to become the “Boardwalk Deli” – and we’ve now learned that it will be opening “later this summer.”
- San Diego Comic Con supplied a number of exciting announcements, particularly for Marvel fans. In the realm of animation, the shorts “I Am Groot” will debut on Disney+ on August 10th. Marvel’s What If…? is also confirmed for a second season.
- For the live action films, phases 4,5,6 of the MCU are confirmed to be part of the multiverse saga. Phase 4 will continue this year with the She-Hulk TV series on Disney+ and end with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in November. Then phase 5 will start in February 2023 with Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania.
- We learned that we will get two new Avengers movies in 2025 (Avengers: Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars).
- Additional Marvel titles announced to be coming include Disney+ series Secret Invasion (featuring Nick Fury), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Loki Season 2, Agatha: Coven of Chaos, Blade, Captain America: New World Order, and Fantastic Four amongst others.
Disney rumors
Epcot // Moana’s Journey of Water has seen some progress on construction, but no opening date is announced. Based on what’s there, many are guessing we will probably see it open around spring 2023.
Park hopping // Lots of rumors have been around about park hopping recently, including the suggestion that Disney might start requiring a park pass reservation for your second park. However, this theory seems less in favor now. Instead, the rumor is that you’d be able to make a reservation for a second park if you wanted to park hop before 2pm.
Walt Disney World // A new rumor is saying that the theme park may officially change its name to “Disney World” and drop the Walt. Personally, I find this somewhat unlikely – the two are already pretty interchangeable so I don’t see that it would help them much. Beyond that, it would be rather sad since Roy had insisted on adding “Walt” to the name in honor of his brother.
Other Disney blogs
Tired of eating off of trash cans at Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival? Allyson at WDW Prep School has the best places to actually find seating at Food and Wine!
Let Jenn from Fairest Run of All convince you that Meet the Robinsons is criminally underrated.
Over at the Disney Tourist Blog, Tom keeps us updated on all the (frustrating) little changes that have come to Genie+ recently.
If you want to know the top 10 things to do during Disney’s 50th anniversary, Rochelle from Polka Dots and Pixie Dust has you covered!
Oh, boy. If we start needing a second pass for hopping people are going to fliiiiip. And I will have a whole new thing to be anxious about, so… yay? >D