May 8, 2025, 1:09 AM ·
Now that Disney and Miral have announced their Disney Abu Dhabi project, what’s next?The first task will be a hiring spree by Walt Disney Imagineering. Although Miral win own and operate Disney Abu Dhabi, Walt Disney Imagineering will be in charge of designing it. To do that, WDI will need to staff up with hundreds of additional Imagineers in Southern California. Disney CEO Bob Iger has promised that the new park will be “distinctively Emirati,” so WDI will need to establish and staff a large office of Imagineers in Abu Dhabi, as well.With Miral ultimately paying the bills here, hiring the people that Disney wants for this project should not be a problem. RIP WDI Chief Creative Officer Bruce Vaughn’s in-box this morning. So many resumes must be filling it right now. At some point in the next few months, I suspect that UAE flag carrier Etihad will resume its non-stop flights to LAX from Abu Dhabi’s new Terminal A at the Zayed International Airport. At this moment, the only nonstop flight between LAX and the UAE is Emirates’ daily flight to its home airport in Dubai. That’s a 90-minute drive from the Yas Island Resort in Abu Dhabi. It’s better than connecting to get to AUH, but that drive is gonna get old, fast. Having secured an agreement to develop a Disney theme park, Abu Dhabi does not want to be the only Disney theme park resort destination without nonstop flight access to Disney’s headquarters in the Los Angeles area. Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Paris, and Orlando all have that.The big question that many of us on the ground here in Abu Dhabi have been asking this week is, “Where on Yas Island will Miral build its Disneyland?” Miral has been developing its property aggressively over the past decade, filling it with three indoor theme parks, a water park, a Formula 1 track, an NBA-sized arena (that has hosted NBA games), a golf course, hotels, and multiple residential developments. There’s also the massive Yas Mall in the center of everything. Let’s fire up the Google Map.You can see how convenient Yas Island is to the Abu Dhabi International Airport, which is less than a 10-minute drive from the resort. The obvious blank space here is on the northwest corner of the island, around the Yas School. That appears to have been platted for residential development, however, and is surrounded by homes, removed from the tourism and commercial infrastructure elsewhere on the island.That has drawn attention to Abu al Habl Island, to the southwest of Yas. Could that space be annexed into the resort, via roads from Yas Waterfront? That space would give Disney Abu Dhabi a connection to Yas Island’s current tourism infrastructure while also allowing Disney some separation that would give it a more exclusive feel that Disney certainly would find attractive. No officials on the ground here are talking about sites yet. But their decision should become obvious within months, as contractors come on board to begin preparing the site for construction. Miral has the resources to build this project swiftly. Miral typically selects the “good” and “fast” over “cheap” option in the cliched, business-school “pick two” scenario. That requires a big budget to cover those costs, and Miral is backed by the governments of Abu Dhabi and the UAE. That said, Miral announced a Harry Potter expansion to its Warner Bros. World Yas Island park over two years ago, and not one shovel of dirt has moved on that yet. So it’s not a given that Disney Abu Dhabi will get an express pass to its opening date, whenever that might be.Yet this announcement came together quickly, which I will detail in a future post. Perhaps that is part of the reason for the vagueness of Disney’s released concept art for the park.
Concept image courtesy Walt Disney Imagineering and MiralWe are getting to know about this park relatively early in its development process, which is likely due to Disney working with a development partner on this rather than keeping everything in house. But the excitement here in the UAE and on Yas Island is obvious. This is a huge “get” for Miral, Abu Dhabi, and the UAE. Everyone here wants Yas Island to become the world’s next great tourism destination. They have the resources, and now the agreements, to help make that happen.The next step is to do it.Coming up: Why did Disney choose Abu Dhabi for its next theme park? To keep up with more travel and theme park news, please sign up for Theme Park Insider’s weekly newsletter.
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