New Kid Zones and Character Experiences Coming to Walt Disney World Summer 2025

3 days ago in "Magic Kingdom"

Posted: Wednesday March 26, 2025 8:45am ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

Walt Disney World is adding new experiences for families with young kids from May 27 through September 1, 2025. These limited-time offerings are focused on play, character interactions, and summer fun across the parks.

Magic Kingdom overview

“We’re curating simple, yet fun entertainment experiences geared towards families,” Jason Kirk, Senior Vice President of Operations at Walt Disney World said during a panel at Disney. “There will be areas where guests can go, have fun and relax.”

Here’s what you can expect:

Kid Zones with Character Interactions and Activities

Magic Kingdom will introduce kid zones in Storybook Circus and Tomorrowland.
Storybook Circus will offer extra activities tailored for younger kids.
Tomorrowland will include new experiences themed to Stitch.
EPCOT will launch a Goofy-hosted party and play space inside CommuniCore Hall following the Flower and Garden Festival.
Expect a mix of games, music, dancing, and water play to help families cool down.

More Character Access During Early Entry

Characters will begin appearing earlier in the day for Disney Resort hotel guests using the early theme park entry benefit.
This means you could run into Mickey or Minnie right after rope drop.
Theme park admission and early entry eligibility are required.

Additional Pop-Up Entertainment

Across the parks, Disney plans to introduce surprise entertainment moments.
These will include games, interactive adventures, and music-driven activities designed for preschool and early elementary age kids.

Disney hasn’t released full details yet, but expect more announcements in the coming months as summer approaches. These additions are part of Disney’s continued push to offer more experiences for families traveling with young children.

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HauntedPirate1 day ago

That would be nice, even though my kids have aged out of most of that. But Josh and Jeff would have to actually care to make it happen.

easyrowrdw2 days ago

One of the things we enjoyed about Disneyland were the play areas in Toontown. My kids aren't even that young, but they loved it. I wish Disney would do something like that at Hollywood Studios. You still see them outside Hollywood Studios or other off-the-beaten path spots from time to time. I agree though. It would definitely be nice if they were more regular or if there was just more variety.

AidenRodriguez7312 days ago

Exactly what Ive been saying. They are tacking on some nice extras to increase guest experience. If anything, this is 100% in line with their strategy that EU will boost their numbers too. They want to make families who come to both (but may spend a shortened trip at WDW) think "Hey that Universal park was super packed and there wasn't all that much to do for little Timmy, but MK was packed with rides and Epcot had the adorable dance party that Little TImmy couldn't get enough of. Maybe next year will be a Disney trip!" That's their plan.

bmr15912 days ago

A Goofy dance party isn't selling vacation packages and isn't influencing anyone but the .00001% of diehard Goofy fans to book anything. They wanted something in Communicore this summer, so they decided to put a kid-friendly option in there to give parents a reprieve during the hot day. They already have someone hired to play Goofy/Stitch, so it's costing them nothing extra to bring those characters out for these things. This isn't an attempt to fill rooms. Discounts are, but this isn't. If they desperately needed to fill rooms by adding some fun offerings in the parks this summer, they'd have rare character weeks, special after hour parties like Disneyland is having, bigger perks for staying on property rather than off.

Piebald2 days ago

They won't do this because A) Disney Adults and vloggers would just fill up with massive lines if they did this (see the free villains event which was pure chaos) B) they can just add random ticketed events with the characters

Jrb19792 days ago

I view these things differently. I don't view this dance party as something they added just cause or as a plus for those already visiting. It's not some gift as thank you to those visiting this summer. IMO this just goes along with all the discounts they throw out there cause they are having trouble filling rooms and the parks this summer. My belief is Epic isn't raising all boats like Disney had hoped. They are throwing everything that can out there in hopes something works to get those numbers up.

Raineman2 days ago

I think you can almost guarantee a slow summer (or slow-ish, anyway), just based on the craziness happening in the US right now-specifically a possible recession and the massive drop in visitors from Canada and Europe. Disney is gonna need to come up with everything they can think of to try to draw in more people (of course, lowering prices is not an option, as we are all very much aware).

bmr15912 days ago

Why would they announce a Goofy dance party in Communicore at D23? Why would they announce summer ticket deals at D23? All of this falls in line with the timing of when they'd normally announce deals and relatively small offerings to plus the experience for families already attending. No one is booking a trip because of the Goofy dance party, but for a family already there, it may be a nice reprieve for their kids to let off some steam while mom and dad sit in air conditioning.

Jrb19792 days ago

For the most part I agree with what you said. The timing is what question. Had they announced all this back at D23 as new offering for the summer it would make more sense. Like I said earlier, with this and the discounts they keep announcing, it feels like their bookings are softer than they had hoped. They throwing whatever they can out there in hopes it will get people to come. What gets me with these discounts and things like this, is the majority of people book their Disney trip months in advance. Disney is not a last minute vacation for many. IMO it makes a lot more sense to put these things out 6 months ago.

Sir_Cliff2 days ago

Yes, it really wouldn't be a smart move for Disney to throw a lot of money at somehow trying to crush Epic during its first year. What do they really gain by that? It's not going anywhere whether it struggles or is a smash hit in year 1 and it is an open question whether even if it opens to sell-out crowds this is a net negative for Disney. For all my problems with Disney management, what they're doing seems a lot smarter: pull the levers of pricing and add some relatively minor new offerings to keep attendance stable and have things ready to go in the coming years once the hype dies down in the hope of growing attendance. Presumably, they also hope there will be less economic uncertainty by the time these things start to open, but that's not necessarily by design. This announcement isn't aimed at me, but a strategy to encourage people to bring young children makes sense if they are thinking longterm about the importance of nostalgia to their theme park business. I imagine their surveys show price and lack of activities for younger kids (too small for the rides, etc.) come up on surveys as reasons not to bring them, so these seem like lateral responses. As an aside, I did notice HKDL very directly catered to younger children, with lots of little play areas scattered around the park which also seemed smart to me.

mastromjm2 days ago

It would actually be such a fun little win this summer if they brought out some not-easily-spotted characters. But now we're going on almost 20 years of the same

seabreezept8132 days ago

This is pretty vague but sounds like the year of Summer Fun where they gave you sticks with Olaf to carry around and take pictures.

Andrew252 days ago

I've said it in the past here, Disney gets far more media coverage than UOR does for anything. So something major at WDW wouldn't necessarily be ignored, it would be silly though. They should have had something in the works for next year of significance.

bmr15912 days ago

I genuinely don’t understand how many of you don’t understand that Disney never had an anti-Epic strategy. Do you really think they should have had this bold strategy to open an entire new land for the press to completely drown out its hype with Epic hype? Unless Disney was looking to open a 5th gate in 2025, they were never going to compete for headlines. What Disney is doing is an intentional strategy to surrender this year (because people aren’t going to care what you’re building when Epic just opened), let the hype die down, and once it does, they’ll have Tropical Americas, Monstropolis, and Frontireland opening, with Villains on the horizon. Im not entirely sure what yall were hoping Disney might do this summer to counter Epic, but it wouldn’t be a smart business strategy. Now, do I wish they’d do some rare character weeks to push in some passholders? Sure. But they were never going to open something major and let it be a whimper in comparison to an entirely new theme park down the road.