We’ve made it to the last month of 2021! It’s been quite a year. The pandemic continues to affect life (and Disney) in many ways, but we’ve seen so many things open back up too and getting closer to a sort of “normalcy” in the parks. The 50th anniversary celebration has been off to a great start with lots of exciting things happening. In November there was also the Destination D23 held in Florida, where they announced a few new things or gave more details on previous projects. So we’ve got plenty of news this month!
Disney news
- Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind has a slightly more official opening date – it’s now being promoted as “summer 2022.” We got some new details about this ride as well.
- Even though Disney World started selling annual passes again in September, they’ve now stopped selling them temporarily (except for one basic pass available for Florida residents only). Current passholders can renew but new passes cannot be purchased.
- Drawn to Life, the new Cirque du Soleil show in Disney Springs, has just made its debut this past month.
- Over in Disneyland, Mickey’s Toontown is getting a big makeover and will temporarily close starting in March 2022, to reopen sometime in 2023.
- A few more restaurants are reopening at Disney World this month, including Storybook Dining at Artist Point on December 16 and Boatwright’s Dining Hall on December 14.
- Le Creperie de Paris in Epcot is now accepting reservations for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
- Finding Nemo: The Musical will be returning to Animal Kingdom park in 2022 with a re-do… this time it will be set during Finding Dory and will be called “Finding Nemo: The Big Blue… and Beyond!”
- “Fantasmic!” will also be returning to Disney’s Hollywood Studios in 2022.
- “Mickey’s Magical Friendship Faire” will return to the castle stage in Magic Kingdom in 2022 with some new scenes added for the 50th anniversary.
- The Festival of Fantasy parade will also return to Magic Kingdom in 2022.
- A new cavalcade will come to Magic Kingdom featuring some fun characters including Miguel from Coco, Nick and Judy from Zootopia, the Three Caballeros, and more!
Disney rumors
Animal Kingdom // More work has been done in Animal Kingdom to remove Primeval Whirl, so some people are hoping that means there will be an announcement about a replacement attraction coming to that park sometime soon.
Dining // One location that has not yet reopened is Hoop-de-Doo, though there was news about cast members being brought back for it months ago. There’s speculation on why it hasn’t reopened as well as some guessing about it opening in early 2022.
Water parks // Blizzard Beach reopened this past year, but there still hasn’t been word on Typhoon Lagoon. Some people have seen photos of Typhoon Lagoon being drained and unmaintained. Most likely it means they will do some big refurbs on it, though there is the rumor/fear that it could go the way of River Country (I don’t see that happening though).
Other Disney blog posts
Even if you can’t get to Space 220, Diznify has a copycat recipe for the Milky Way drink, one of their non-alcoholic specialties. It sounds delicious!
Jessica from the Happiest Blog on Earth has all of the details about the new updates coming to Mickey’s Toontown in Disneyland!
Have you heard about the Agave Experience at La Cava del Tequila? Jenn from Fairest Run of All tried it and wrote up her review. It sounds amazing and if she ever wants to go experience it again I’m a willing volunteer 😉
Book nerds like me might appreciate George’s Favorite Books of 2021, put together by George from Imaginerding. Most of them are Disney related and all of them sound really interesting!
Um YES TEQUILA DATE
Yesss we need to make it happen!