This year’s Destination D23 event will be held in Coronado Springs Resort at Walt Disney World. With the countdown to the off-year event officially on, the company has released the full schedule for DD23, with one notable omission: there’s no parks panel?!
As quick background, this year’s event is known as “Destination D23: A Journey Around the Worlds of Disney.” Unlike the flagship D23 Expo that’s held in Anaheim, Destination D23 (or DD23) is held at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida,
The one-of-a-kind Destination D23 event will bring together the biggest Disney fans for a multi-day experience on August 29, 30, and 31, 2025. New this year, Destination D23 will take place at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort, providing a larger venue with increased capacity–making Destination D23 bigger than ever before.
On Saturday, August 30, and Sunday, August 31, ticketed Destination D23 guests can enjoy a full slate of over 25 specially curated presentations from across the company, including Walt Disney Studios, Disney Entertainment Television, Walt Disney Archives, and Disney Experiences (otherwise known as Disney Parks & Resorts, which is what this blog concerns).
This programming will feature the creatives and talent behind popular films and series, Imagineers, archivists, and Disney Legends, providing exclusive access and behind-the-scenes looks at fan-favorite entertainment and experiences. As you might’ve noticed from the above, Destination D23 runs from Friday, August 29 through Sunday, August 31, 2025. However, the actual programming and presentations are only on Saturday and Sunday.
D23 Shopping Spree, an exclusive shopping experience, will be available to Destination D23 attendees starting Friday, August 29 and run throughout the weekend. Here are the details about D23 Shopping Spree:
Here are the shopping opportunities during the 2025 Destination D23:
- The Walt Disney Company Store is back on the East Coast! At this location, D23 Gold Members will have access to official Destination D23 merchandise along with new D23 Member-exclusive items and other unique merchandise from TWDC Store. Please note that limited-edition trading pins for this event will be offered to attendees exclusively through a Random Selection Process (RSP) opportunity.**
- Mickey’s of Glendale. The Walt Disney Imagineering campus store returns to the event with a pop-up shop featuring selections of specialty merchandise! Trading pins for this event will be offered to attendees through a RSP opportunity.**
- Disney Studio Store Hollywood. For the first time, the magic of Tinseltown is coming to Florida for Destination D23! The Disney Studio Store Hollywood will have a pop-up location at this year’s event that will feature new apparel, accessories and pins! Limited-edition trading pins for this event will be offered to attendees through an RSP opportunity.**
- Ink & Paint Marketplace. Returning to Destination D23, the Ink & Paint Marketplace will feature an assortment from fan favorite brands and friends of Disney including Lug, and more!
Here’s the full schedule for Saturday & Sunday:
The most noteworthy aspect of this schedule for readers of this blog is going to be the lack of a traditional ‘Parks Panel.’
For reference, “A Celebration of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” was the marquee presentation at the 2023 Destination D23. It was the presentation by Parks Chairman Josh D’Amaro and Imagineering President Bruce Vaughn, who were joined on stage by a variety of other Imagineers, Muppets, Figment and others to announce the following:
- Test Track 3.0
- Country Bear Musical Jamboree
- Beak & Barrel (Pirates Tavern)
- Soarin’ Over California’s Return
- Tropical Americas Reveal
- Zootopia: Better Zoogether
There were also some opening dates, name reveals, and recalibration of expectations about things like Beyond Big Thunder at Magic Kingdom. The event was basically a good mix of ‘singles and doubles’ announcements, the reintroduction of Bruce Vaughn, course-correction, and laying the groundwork for the following year’s D23 Expo.
That Parks Panel occupied the exact same time slot of the 75-minute Walt Disney Studios Showcase.
The good news is that there are other spots in the schedule that could feature announcements for Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, etc., with the Studios Showcase, Villains: Icons of Evil, and Part of Our World panels all being logical fits. However, there appears to be no dedicated D’Amaro and Vaughn presentation. To the contrary, we do not expect to see either of them at Destination D23. That’s a big blow in terms of the likelihood of major news.
While I don’t think it’s necessary to have a Parks Panel at Destination D23–to the contrary, we’ve been warning readers to adjust their expectations downward for months–the lack of standalone Walt Disney World panels is nevertheless a bit surprising. It looks like we’ll have to take our 2025 Destination D23 Wish List and dramatically scale that down for the actual predictions. (On the plus side, at least this should mean we won’t be subjected to anything about Epic Games?!)
Back when the schedule was first teased months ago, we pointed out how Disney was sending mixed signals with the Destination D23 announcements to date. When we heard that they were moving the event to Coronado Springs Resort in order for it to be bigger than ever before, our expectation was that Destination D23 was becoming the D23 Expo: Walt Disney World Edition.
That would make sense after last year’s D23 Expo exploded in size last year and was even more popular than ever, selling out more tickets and faster than ever before. And against all odds, it was also the best-run D23 Expo ever! (Not a high bar.) That plus the new venue pointed to a similar transformation for Destination D23. Not so fast.
However, the press release with a schedule outline from back in April signaled something very different, and far less newsy. In light of this, what was announced and the conspicuous omissions, plus what we’ve heard through the grapevine, was wrote back then that it was now our expectation that the 2025 Destination D23 will not be an announcement-heavy event.
Here’s what else we wrote back in April:
Basically, Disney “shot its shot” with a blockbuster D23 Expo last year, and there won’t be much in the way of big reveals or bombshell news at the 2025 Destination D23. Instead, we should expect new concept art about projects that are already underway, somewhat akin to what was revealed at D23 Brazil or the recent SXSW.
Along with this, we’d also expect more ‘singles and doubles’ news for Walt Disney World, specifically. Think smaller scale news like minor entertainment, lounges, ride reimaginings & enhancements–that type of thing. Examples of this would include more details about the new Audio Animatronics coming to Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, enhancements to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Test Track (if it hasn’t reopened by that point), and maybe a yet-unannounced reimagining (Spaceship Earth?).
I would not expect any bombshell announcements of brand-new attractions or full-scale redevelopments. Meaning no Lion King or Moana rides for the kingdom parks, and nothing for Animation Courtyard. Although I would love to believe otherwise, I’d also bet that a reimagining of Journey into Imagination is “too big” for the 2025 Destination D23. It would be brilliant to make that announcement to the home crowd at Walt Disney World, but my gut says 2025 is too early. Maybe 2027 will finally be our year.
On a positive note, we did get a surprise announcement for Animation Courtyard last month and Test Track has already opened, so at least there’s that. There are also a few opportunities for morsels of news within the other presentations at Destination D23. It’s probably also worth pointing out that there’s another Walt Disney World-centric event on the horizon where more announcements might occur.
Nevertheless, we had hoped that–even in the absence of new announcements–Destination D23 would be leveraged as an opportunity for expanding upon existing plans and previous announcements. There are a lot of projects that got announced at last year’s D23 Expo with fairly hazy details. It would’ve been nice to hear specifics about the Magic of Disney Animation, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, Monstropolis, and Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run feat. Baby Yoda–and that’s just the DHS projects!
What we were really hoping for was a presentation on the Piston Peak Cars Land slated for Frontierland in Magic Kingdom. Walt Disney Imagineering shared new details about this a few months ago, and that put a lot of fans’ minds at ease. With the water in the Rivers of America now being drained, it would’ve been nice for a meatier presentation on Piston Peak. But there’s nowhere in the schedule where that, or really anything listed above, would be a logical fit.
As we wrote previously, this will be a return to normal for Destination D/23. Or, it would be if the presentations were actually about Walt Disney World instead of…a bunch of things that aren’t Walt Disney World.
This event started out as a history-oriented event (and was called D23’s Destination D) that was absolutely awesome for geeks like us. Destination D/23 had maybe 1-2 newsy items per year, and was mostly hearing gritty old dudes talk about the creation of the Vacation Kingdom of the World, the challenges they overcame to achieve success, and how they just got stuff done.
It wasn’t until 2018 that Destination D23 really became the off-year Expo, and even then, the biggest news was the names of the attractions in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Everything else was updates, opening seasons, or returning/limited time entertainment. That’s literally it. Destination D23 really went mainstream in 2023, with what I’d argue was a bigger slate of announcements than during the 2022 D23 Expo.
Ultimately, if you still haven’t submitted your DD23 Bracket, you might want to remove all of the E-Ticket announcements, most of the singles & doubles, and even the bunts like names of things and opening dates or seasons. With no Parks Panel or appearances by Josh D’Amaro and (presumably) Imagineering heavyweights, it’s safe to expect a fairly muted Destination D23.
I’ll be attending the 2025 Destination D23 once again, and am nevertheless really looking forward to the off-year D23 event. We’ve had a good time at each of the past D23 events at Walt Disney World, dating back to the 2011 Destination D (its name at the time) celebrating Walt Disney World’s 40th Anniversary. It’s always a fun event, and a nice change-of-pace from the bigger D23 Expo in Anaheim.
Whatever news does end up being shared, you’ll be able to catch here. But you might want to just check the updates all at once on Sunday night or Monday morning, as opposed to clearing your weekend schedule as you can watch for Walt Disney World announcements. Hopefully the biggest ‘news’ coming out of Coronado is not that Toledo is still delicious–but I’ll be monitoring that situation, as well.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Surprised by the lack of a Parks Panel at the 2025 Destination D23? Will you be attending the DD23? If you’ve done the event in the past, would you recommend it to other WDW diehards? Think it’ll feature fewer announcements than the last Destination D23? Thoughts about anything else covered here? If you’re a frequent visitor during this timeframe, what’s your take on crowds, wait times, seasonal offerings, weather, etc? Agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!