Earlier today the Oriental Land Company, along with Bob Iger and other Disney executives, held a ceremony to commemorate the groundbreaking of DisneySea’s largest expansion ever. They announced that the new land will be named Fantasy Springs and also revealed new concept art. We’ll take a look at the new concept art in this post as well as adding some commentary about the expansion.

The theme of this new port will be based off of a magical spring that will lead to Disney fantasy. This new expansion will include four attractions, three restaurants, and a gift shop all based in three mini-ports inspired by Peter Pan, Tangled and Frozen. The project has an unprecedented budget of 250 billion yen (roughly $2.3 billion). I am not sure if that budget also covers the hotel that will be built with the land or not. Either way, this price tag is nearly double the price of any other Disney expansion in history. To read more about the initial announcement, click here.

Let’s take a look at the concept art.

These are day and night renderings of three locations. It appears that this massive spring/waterfall will be at the entrance of the land. Here’s a look at a video that was also released.

The concept art is beautiful, obviously. This would be quite a way to enter the land and showing off the beautiful nighttime renditions definitely adds some excitement. This reminds me a bit of the Tree of Life with some intricate carvings and the running water to enhance the beauty of the area. Perhaps a more direct comparison would be the Tree of Life Gardens that you can explore below Animal Kingdom’s icon. It also has a Pandora-like glow after dark in the nighttime concept art.

I’m also happy to see that water is taking such a prominent role in the concept art. It sounds simple, but water and how it connects us is the thesis behind DisneySea. That the entrance includes waterfalls and the IP’s included in the expansion all have some element of water featured in them calms some trepidation I have about the project.

Speaking of, some of my worries about the initial announcement have since been put to rest. The inclusion of water is a big reason for that. At first I was worried about how the inclusion of more characters (and essentially a new Fantasyland) would fit into the world’s best theme park. While some worries still remain, I think DisneySea has succeeded with a nice mix of realism and fantasy. Port Discovery and Mysterious Island are both examples of fantasy and both lands successfully execute a beautiful theme. Having Fantasy Springs at the back of the park, behind the more realistic Arabian Coast and Lost River Delta should give the park a nice blend.

Honestly, details being revealed about Soaring: Fantastic Flight have also calmed my nerves. Seeing how DisneySea has taken the worst parts of that attraction (the ugly ride building and somewhat random backstory) and greatly improved upon them has me believing that they’ll be able to fit in Fantasy Springs thematically. One of my biggest hopes is that they’ll be able to connect all of the water into Fantasy Springs. That’s a silly hope, considering the excitement a 2.3 billion dollar land brings, but having all of the current lands connected to each other in DisneySea by water is a beautiful touch that underscores the idea of the park.

Here’s a look at the whole project. The scale is spectacular. Tokyo Disney Resort is in the midst of several other expansions, including the aforementioned Soaring: Fantastic Flight opening this summer, a Toy Story Hotel and Fantasyland expansion in Tokyo Disneyland that will include a Beauty and the Beast mini-land.

The red area is the Fantasy Springs section. The filled in green area is TDL’s Fantasyland project, the bottom yellow area is the Toy Story Hotel, the yellow section on the right is a new parking structure and the blue filled in area is Soaring: Fantastic Flight.

As more news and details are revealed about Tokyo Disney Resort’s projects, we’ll cover them here. We couldn’t be more excited about the future of Tokyo Disney Resort.

What do you think of the Fantasy Springs Expansion? Let us know in the comments below. Planning a trip to Tokyo Disney Resort? Check out our planning guide here to help you get started! Thank you for reading Wandering in Disney! If you enjoy the blog then please subscribe via email or WordPress and like our social media accounts. You can do all of those things on the right side of this page.