2026 is the year Disney's next era stopped being a press release and started being visible from the parking lot. A parks boss became CEO. Four headline attractions reopened in four months. Two classics closed to be reborn. Cranes went up on both coasts, prices went up almost everywhere, and the year's biggest reveal party - D23 - just wrapped in Anaheim with an animatronic Walt Disney as its showstopper.
Here's the whole year, in one place.
The changing of the guard
The biggest Disney story of 2026 didn't happen in a park. On February 3, Disney announced that Bob Iger, 74, would retire as CEO at the end of the year - and that his successor, effective March 18, would be Josh D'Amaro, the 54-year-old chairman of Disney Experiences. That's the parks division, which pulled in $36 billion in revenue in fiscal 2025.
Read that again from a parks fan's perspective: the person now running the entire Walt Disney Company is the person who ran the theme parks. Every construction project in this article now reports, ultimately, to the executive who greenlit most of them. The handoff became official at the company's annual meeting on March 18, with Dana Walden stepping into a new president and chief creative officer role reporting to D'Amaro.
The reopening wave
If you visited Disney World between February and May, you watched the refurbishment logjam of the past two years break all at once.
Frozen Ever After came back at EPCOT on February 12 with fully articulated, silicone-skinned Audio-Animatronics for Anna, Elsa, and Kristoff - the same figure technology as Tiana's Bayou Adventure - replacing the projection-mapped faces the ride opened with.
Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin returned at Magic Kingdom in the spring with updated ride vehicles and new interactive targets.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad reopened May 3 after a 14-month rebuild: new track, refreshed trains, a new Rainbow Caverns scene - and a height requirement lowered from 40 inches to 38, which quietly added one of Magic Kingdom's best rides to thousands of shorter kids' trips. (Our free height checker at theadventuristslog.com/height-checker.html already reflects the change.)
Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets opened May 26 at Hollywood Studios, giving the old Aerosmith coaster to Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem - the first Disney ride the Muppets have ever headlined.
The same Memorial Day weekend, Soarin' Across America debuted at EPCOT as part of the company-wide "Disney Celebrates America" push tied to the country's 250th anniversary, with Disneyland's version following July 2. And Galaxy's Edge got its first new Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run mission - a Mandalorian and Grogu storyline - starting May 22 at Disneyland and reaching Hollywood Studios by the end of May.
The goodbyes
Two closures this year hurt, and both are bets on 2027.
DINOSAUR carried its last explorers through the Cretaceous on February 1. The Animal Kingdom ride and Restaurantosaurus closed as the first phase of DinoLand U.S.A.'s teardown, making way for Tropical Americas - the Indiana Jones and Encanto-themed land targeted for 2027.
The Carousel of Progress stopped rotating on July 6. Disney is reimagining the 1964 World's Fair classic through 2027 - and at D23 this month, we finally learned what that means (more below).
Out west, Disney California Adventure filed demolition permits in April for Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!, clearing the way for a next-generation land - and at D23, Disney confirmed what's replacing it.
What it costs now
The 2026 price story is less one big headline than a steady stack of them.
One-day, one-park Disney World tickets now run roughly $119 to $209 depending on park and date, after increases averaging 5-8% across ticket categories. Annual passes took an inflation-linked increase of as much as $80. And the Lightning Lane system got its biggest overhaul in five years: Genie+ is fully gone, replaced by an unbundled lineup - Multi Pass, Single Pass (roughly $12-$24 per ride), and the skip-everything Premier Pass (roughly $129-$449 depending on park and date). On-site resort guests can now book Multi Pass up to 21 days ahead; off-site guests get a shorter window. If you're doing that math for your own trip, our free Lightning Lane calculator at theadventuristslog.com/lightning-lane-calculator.html exists for exactly this.
Two policy changes stung passholders and locals. On June 28, Disney made permanent a rule restricting Disney Springs bus and boat transportation to guests with a resort or dining reservation - ending the era of using Disney Springs as a free transportation hub. And on August 1, ten V.I.PASSHOLDER Summer Days perks - dining discounts, the passholder lounge at EPCOT, exclusive merch and treats - expired with the seasonal promotion that created them.
The construction year
In May, Disney's CFO Hugh Johnston said the quiet part at an investor conference: the parks are running "essentially full," and growing attendance requires building capacity. That's the thesis behind the $60 billion, ten-year parks investment Disney committed to in 2023 - roughly half earmarked for the domestic parks - and 2026 is the year it became steel and permits.
Monstropolis is visibly rising at Hollywood Studios, with structural steel for the Monsters, Inc. Doors coaster - Disney's first suspended coaster - reaching full height by June.
DisneylandForward broke ground for real: the Manchester parking lot closed for a planned 6,000-space Eastern Gateway parking structure, a demolition permit was filed for the Team Disney Anaheim East building, and construction walls went up for the Coco boat ride near Pixar Pier.
Disney Lakeshore Lodge, the new Bay Lake DVC resort near Wilderness Lodge, got its opening timeline in April - summer 2027, with 967 accommodations and a new "Lake House" villa style - and a June DVC filing detailed its structure.
Tropical Americas, the Cars Land expansion, and Villains Land all remain on the announced slate, with Villains Land getting its first physical reveal at D23 (below).
The competitive subtext, which Disney barely bothers to hide: Universal's Epic Universe opened in Orlando in May 2025, and Disney's answer is to out-build it.
The rough stretch
Not all of 2026's headlines were the kind Disney wanted. Reported plainly:
Disney's legally required quarterly incident report, covered in July, disclosed that a 54-year-old man with a pre-existing condition suffered a cardiac emergency on It's a Small World in April and later died, among several other guest injuries from the spring quarter. In June, a 13-year-old exited a Tiana's Bayou Adventure boat early at Disneyland and fell down the ride's waterfall drop; he was hospitalized as a precaution and released. On August 2, a fight between two groups broke out in the Flight of Passage queue at Animal Kingdom after an 80-minute wait, drawing a sheriff's response and spreading widely on video. And a viral TikTok account documenting one guest's years of repeated interactions with Disneyland's Peter Pan performers ignited a broader conversation about boundaries and cast member safety at meet-and-greets.
D23 just changed the ending of this article
The year's biggest reveal event, D23, ran August 13-16 in Anaheim - and its Imagineering: Horizons showcase delivered the next chapters for several projects above.
The Carousel of Progress reimagining got its first full reveal: the rotating theater, the family, and "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" all stay, but the four acts jump to the 1960s (Apollo 11), a 1980s Halloween, 1999, and a new future finale - introduced by a brand-new Audio-Animatronic of Walt Disney himself. Target: 2027.
Villains Land showed its first physical model - a 19-by-19-foot model of the Piston Peak National Park area of Magic Kingdom's western expansion - plus sculpted "Dark Forest" trees inspired by Snow White's 1937 forest sequence. Disney calls the combined project the largest expansion in Magic Kingdom history. No rides revealed yet, deliberately.
Avatar is coming to Disney California Adventure: a detailed model showed a coastal, water-themed Pandora built around a boat ride inspired by The Way of Water, taking over the Monsters, Inc. footprint after that ride closes in early 2027.
The Coco ride revealed a statue of Hector that will greet guests - replacing the Ernesto de la Cruz figure from earlier concepts, a detail the movie's fans will appreciate.
And the year isn't done
Still ahead in 2026: The Magic of Disney Animation experience opens at Hollywood Studios on September 14, the holiday season brings its usual takeover, and Disney Cruise Line - which launched its largest ship ever, the Disney Adventure, out of Singapore in March - has scheduled the full reveal of its next ship, the Disney Believe, for October 7.
If this year has a theme, it's that Disney is building at a pace the parks haven't seen in a decade - and charging accordingly. Whichever half of that sentence matters more to you probably says which kind of 2026 you had.
Planning around all of this? Our free crowd calendar at theadventuristslog.com/crowd-calendar.html covers every park, every day, through 2027 - construction seasons, festival crowds and all.
Sources
Fox Business (CEO succession) - foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/longtime-ceo-bob-iger-retire-from-disney
BlogMickey (Frozen Ever After; CFO remarks) - blogmickey.com/2026/02/first-look-new-frozen-ever-after-audio-animatronics-at-epcot/ and blogmickey.com/2026/05/disney-parks-are-essentially-full-expanded-capacity-is-coming-soon/
WDWMagic and Good Morning America (Big Thunder reopening) - wdwmagic.com and goodmorningamerica.com/travel/story/disney-world-big-thunder-mountain-railroad-reopening-date-details-131877357
Disney Tourist Blog (Muppets coaster; Lightning Lane; refurbishments) - disneytouristblog.com
Inside the Magic (DINOSAUR closure; 2026 ticket prices; passholder perks) - insidethemagic.net
Disney Food Blog (Disney Springs transportation; quarterly incident report; Lakeshore Lodge) - disneyfoodblog.com
MickeyVisit (DisneylandForward construction) - mickeyvisit.com/disneyland-first-step-resort-expansion-milestone-june-10-2026/
TMZ and Inside the Magic (Flight of Passage queue fight) - tmz.com/2026/08/03/disney-world-fight-outside-avatar-ride/
Disney Dining and The Main Street Mouse (D23 reveals) - disneydining.com and themainstreetmouse.com
The Walt Disney Company ($60B parks investment) - thewaltdisneycompany.com/news/disney-plans-to-expand-investment-in-parks-business/
Photos: The Adventurist's Log.