Park, Resort: what’s the difference?
Walt Disney originally started with just one park: Disneyland in Annheim, California. It was only a few years later that a resort was developed around the original park.
A resort can include one or more theme parks, as well as hotels, restaurants, shopping areas (such as Disney Village), business services, etc. In short, a resort is a collection of Disney experiences concentrated in a single location for a diverse audience.
At Disney, theme parks are themed. Each has its own story and each park is divided into themed areas or ‘lands’. So there can be several lands in one park, or several theme parks in one resort.
There are 6 resorts with one or more theme parks:
- Disneyland Resort in Annaheim – United States (2 parks): Disneyland Park and Disneyland California Adventure Park
- Walt Disney World in Orlando – United States (4 parks): Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios
- Tokyo Disney Resort – Japan (2 parks): Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Sea
- Disneyland Paris – France (2 parks): Disneyland Park and Walt Disney Studios Park
- Hong Kong Disneyland Resort (1 park) Hong Kong Disneyland Park
- Shanghai Disney Resort (1 Park) – China
Can you have a resort without a park?
Yes, like the Aulani Resort in Hawaii, it doesn’t have a theme park, but mainly hotel services and activities based around water and the sea.
The world’s 12 Disneyland parks
Disneyland Resort
On 17 July 1955, the world’s first theme park was built in the originally agricultural town of Annaheim. It was the brainchild of Walter Elias Disney, better known as Walt Disney.
The 100-acre resort isn’t the biggest, but for many Disney fans it’s the one most steeped in history and the imprint of its creator. The first park, Disneyland, has 39 attractions, many of which have become icons and models for other parks: It’s a Small World, Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Autopia, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad…
With 18.6 million visitors in 2018, Disneyland was the second most visited park in the world.
Here is the list of Disneyland Park lands:
- Main Street USA
- New Orleans Square
- Fantasyland
- Tomorrowland
- Adventureland
- Frontierland
- Adventureland
- Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge
- Critter Land
- Mickey’s Toontown
Almost 50 years later, on February 8, 2001, a second park was added: Disney California Adventure. The Walt Disney Imagineers in charge of the project originally wanted to pay homage to California and all its typical West Coast attractions. However, the park did not live up to Disney’s expectations and underwent a major re-theming in 2012.
Disney California Adventure is divided into 6 thematic zones or lands:
- Buena Vista Street
- Pixar Pier
- Paradise Gardens
- Pacifiq Wharf
- Grizzly Peak
- Hollywood land
- Avengers campus
- Cars land
Walt Disney World
It will always be the unfinished business of Walt Disney. Frustrated by his inability to control the commercial development around Disneyland, Walt Disney imagined a bigger, better and more successful resort in Orlando, Florida. This would be the first true Disney resort: Walt Disney World Resort and its first park, the Magic Kingdom, opened its doors to guests on October 1st 1971, 7 years after its creator’s death.
A resort bigger than Paris!
It’s the largest Disney resort in the world: 109km2. To give you an idea, that’s 5km2 more than the city of Paris!
It now comprises 4 theme parks: Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Animal Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Divided into 6 lands, the Magic Kingdom is the equivalent of Disneyland:
- Main Street USA
- Adventureland
- Frontierland
- Tomorrowland
- Fantasyland
- Liberty Square
The second park, designed by Walt Disney himself, stands for ‘Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow‘ (EPCOT). This park has no equivalent anywhere else in the world and was the first to introduce themed areas by country: the French Quarter, the Italian Quarter ….
Animal Kingdom is a truly unique theme park in the world of Disneyland theme parks. It is both an animal park and a theme park. Animal Kingdom manages to integrate wild animals into the Disney universe without looking like a zoo.
The park is also home to an even more exclusive land: Pandora Land, the world of Avatar. With two absolutely stunning attractions, this area promises a unique immersion into the world of the Na’vi: Avatar’s Flight of Passage and Na’vi River Journey, a magical dark ride.
The last of the Disneyworld parks, Disney’s Hollywood Studios opened on May 1, 1989. It is the smallest of Orlando’s 4 parks. However, it is home to one of the world’s most fabulous lands, especially popular with lightsaber fans: Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. It is also home to several iconic areas such as Toy Story Land and Sunset Boulevard.
Tokyo Disney Resort
Tokyo Disneyland is the first park to open in Asia. It is also the third complex built by the Walt Disney Company. The complex has a unique feature: it’s not owned by Disney, but by the Oriental Land Company!
Located in Chiba, just outside of Tokyo, the complex is very small, as is typical for Japan. To illustrate, the Walt Disney Studio alone is larger than the two Tokyo Disneyland parks (48 ha vs. 55 ha):
- Tokyo Disneyland: the enchanted realm of the park with a Japanese twist
- Tokyo Disney Sea: a park concept borrowed from Disney’s Sea in California, consisting of a number of mini ports dedicated to different regions of the world.
Despite their small size, the two parks have undergone a number of developments that set them apart from the rest.
A major expansion phase is currently underway, which will add 3 new mini-port areas to Tokyo Disney Sea at Fantasy Springs: World of Frozen, Rapunzel’s Forest and Peter Pan’s Neverland.
Disneyland Paris
The French complex, which was originally called Euro Disney and which almost ended up in Spain, was opened to the public on April 12, 1992, in Marne-la-Vallée. Now known as Disneyland Paris, for many of the imaginative people who worked on the project, it is the most beautiful park of all!
This is even more true for the first of the two Disneyland Paris parks, Disney Park, a “Magic Kingdom”. Although this park bears a striking resemblance to Orlando’s Magic Kingdom, it is distinguished by the European pastry added by the Imagineers. The view of Sleeping Beauty’s castle, recently renovated in 2021, is unrivaled from the Disney park and its main street. The park is divided into 4 lands:
- Fantasyland
- Adventureland
- Discovery Land
- Frontierland
The second park in the Paris Resort is the Walt Disney Studio, one of the smallest Disneyland parks in the world. It is also one of the most criticised, not least because of the meagre resources invested in it. However, it is now one of the most ambitious, with the Avengers Campus set to open in 2022 and two new expansions planned: World of Frozen, which will give a whole new dimension to the Walt Disney Studio, and Lion King Land, a world exclusive announced at D23 for 2024.
Hong Kong Disneyland Resort
The Walt Disney Company’s fifth theme park is Hong Kong Disneyland, which opened on 12 September 2005 and is located on Lantau Island in Hong Kong, China. Due to a lack of space in the world’s most densely populated city, the park was built on the open sea. In fact, it’s the smallest Disneyland Park in the world!
Like California Adventure and the Walt Disney Studios in Paris, this park was built on a shoestring budget, which is why there were so many problems when it opened.
Like its French and American cousins, it benefits from a multi-expansion plan, including a new Disney castle, a Marvel Avengers Campus in Tomorrowland and the very first World of Frozen land.
Shanghaï Disney Resort
After Hong Kong, China has a second theme park, Walt Disney Company’s latest: Shanghai Disney Resort. The park opened its doors to Chinese Mickey fans on 16 June 2016. The park has cost more than expected, but many of its attractions are state-of-the-art, such as the 3D version of the Pirates of the Caribbean dark ride, which has little in common with the California park’s version.
By 2023, the park will have an entirely new themed area. This expansion follows the arrival of Toy Story Land in 2016.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Disney planning to open a new resort anywhere in the world?
For several months now, the internet has been abuzz with rumours of plans for a brand new resort in Dubai.
What is Disney’s America?
It’s a project for a new resort near Washington DC in the United States that was abandoned by Disney after a local protest movement.
Did Walt Disney want to build a ski resort?
Yes, Walt Disney, who loved skiing, had plans to build a ski resort in the Mineral King Valley in California. Land had even been purchased. However, the project was abandoned when Walt died on 15 December 1966.
