Disney Reveals Blockbuster Cost Of Designing Its Theme Parks

The cost of designing Dsiney’s Paris parks has been revealed. (BERTRAND GUAY/AFP via Getty Images)

AFP via Getty Images

Disney’s annual design budget for just one of its six theme park resorts is equivalent to the price of the most advanced battle tank in the United States army according to documents recently released by the media giant.

Disney’s in-house design division is known as Imagineering due to its imaginative use of engineering. It began life in the early 1950s when Disneyland in California was being developed. Walt himself handpicked a group of trusted animators, designers and technicians from his studio to create the theme park and it was far from child’s play.

Most of the amusement parks at the time were squarely aimed at children whereas Walt envisaged building one which would appeal just as much to their parents. The magic formula was infusing fairground attractions with Disney’s classic cartoons as Walt knew they were a hit with adults.

At the time, it was common for amusement parks to have carousels with seats atop models of mythical creatures which spin around a central point. Disney added its famous pixie dust to this format by integrating the seats into models of the eponymous elephant star of 1941 film Dumbo and installing a joystick into each one enabling them to be raised or lowered as they spin. Likewise, Disneyland’s twirling tea cups ride is formed from giant versions of the dancing crockery in Alice in Wonderland while the park’s tree house is a life-sized replica of the castaway home from Swiss Family Robinson.

Even Disneyland’s roller coasters got this magic touch. Instead of looking like a steel track winding through the air, Disneyland’s Big Thunder Mountain has ride cars resembling runaway mine trains which race around a mini mock-up of the mountains from Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah.

The birth of WDI

Although the designers worked on the studio lot, they were actually employed by an independent company called WED Enterprises, which was named after its owner, Walter Elias Disney. Walt sold WED to his studio in 1965 and his designers started referring to themselves as Imagineers around the same time. Just over two decades later WED was officially renamed Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI) and it hasn’t looked back ever since.

WDI now has more than 3,000 Imagineers on its roster as Disney is in the midst of its biggest-ever expansion drive with $30 billion being spent across new attractions at all of its resorts. The Imagineers cover more than 100 different disciplines from artists and architects to mathematicians and scientists. They are prized positions.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal in 1987, Disney’s visionary former chief executive Michael Eisner said “if I could pick any job here, I’d move my office to the Imagineering building and immerse myself in all that lunacy and free-thinking.” He wasn’t exaggerating.

Amongst the more than 800 patents held by Imagineering are ones for multidirectional moving floors, off-road ride systems, rotating roller coasters and extendable glowing swords resembling the Lightsabers from Star Wars. The patents are the foundation of assets which could tempt millions of tourists through Disney’s turnstiles rather than those of its competitors which explains why Imagineering is perhaps Disney’s most secretive division.

On stepping through the doors of its headquarters at 1401 Flower Street in Glendale, California it soon becomes clear how prized its privacy is. As you enter Imagineering’s Blaine Gibson Sculpting Studio there’s a sign saying ‘This is a closed set’ accompanied by a drawing of Mickey Mouse in a police uniform holding up his white-gloved hand in a stop position. Close by, another sign shows the scowling face of Pete, Mickey’s arch-rival, alongside the words, ‘Absolutely No Photography!’

Its secrecy extends to its finances as WDI’s costs are part of Disney’s overall expenses and aren’t itemized separately in its U.S. filings. This has kept the amount spent on the design of individual resorts a closely-guarded secret. Until now.

Disney’s outpost in Paris is an exception to this rule and there is good reason why. It dates back to the opening of Disneyland in 1955 which soon became such a success that that motels and restaurants began springing up next to the park breaking the immersive atmosphere. To prevent a repeat of this in France, Disney requested a vast plot of land which would enable it to maintain standards throughout the entire resort, from the parks to the surrounding hotels and even the roads and nature reserves. It came with a catch.

A fairytale partnership

Disneyland Paris comprises seven on-site hotels, two convention centers, a 27-hole golf course and two theme parks – the recently-renamed Disney Adventure World and the neighboring Disneyland Park which was the first to swing open its ornate iron gates in 1992.

The entire complex is around a fifth the size of Paris but Disney hasn’t got free reign over all of the land. The sprawling site was originally home to five villages and huge beet fields which were earmarked for development until the 1973 oil crisis put them on ice. Mindful of the fact that it was selling so much land near to its capital to a foreign corporation, the French government only agreed to hand over the land to Disney on condition that it entered into a public-private partnership.

In order to ensure that the land was developed in accordance with the government’s vision, Disney committed to partnering with its public urban management authority, EPAFrance. The French government only sells the land to Disney in stages once previous plots have been developed and approved by EPAFrance which enables the government to guarantee that they benefit the local area. In order to retain its rights to the land, Disney has to develop it by specific deadlines which also ensures that the resort is regularly upgraded.

EPAFrance represents the public while Disney is the private party in the partnership. Reflecting this structure, when the resort opened, its parent company Euro Disney was listed on the Euronext stock exchange with only 49% of the shares in Disney’s hands and the remainder owned by the public. This gave it the same disclosure obligations as any other French company and the same goes for the suite of other entities that Disney set up to support it. These obligations include filing publicly-available financial statements which lift the lid on precisely how much they have spent.

Until 2023, two companies were involved with the design of Disneyland Paris. S.E.T.E.M.O. Imagineering provided studies and supervised the construction of the theme park attractions while Euro Disneyland Imagineering (EDLI) was responsible for the management and administration of the overall design of the parks as well as the construction of them, including the design and procurement of the show-and-ride equipment. The structure was simplified in 2023 when EDLI was deregistered and S.E.T.E.M.O. changed its name to EDLI to become the master design company of Disneyland Paris.

The division is run by David Wilson, who initially joined Disney in 1991 after serving six years in the U.S. Navy as a nuclear engineering officer. More than 350 Imagineers work under him and oversee the conception, design, strategy development, budget, schedule and quality of major resort projects at Disneyland Paris. It doesn’t come cheap.

Over the 20 years to September 30, 2025, S.E.T.E.M.O. and EDLI spent a total of $471.9 million (€407.1 million) giving average annual costs of $23.6 million which is is almost the exact price of an M1A2 Abrams SEPv3, the most advanced battle tank in the U.S. army. The actual annual spending on design will be even higher as the costs aren’t adjusted for inflation. It is money well spent.

According to a recent report by the Wall Street Journal, 93% of Imagineering’s work in the past four years has come in under-budget. Disneyland Paris is perhaps the best example of the value of this investment.

Eisner hand-picked the most talented Imagineers to work on Disneyland Paris and the glow they gave it is instantly apparent on stepping onto the turn-of-the-century-themed Main Street U.S.A. which runs from the entrance to its centerpiece pink castle.

The street is the handiwork of the late Eddie Sotto, a design legend who left no stone unturned. Lined with ornate iron lamps, it has a bandstand at the bottom, a barbershop quartet singing in front of an actual barbershop and carriages pulled by horses which trot up and down it. Looking closer reveals layer upon layer of details from carved cornices and stained glass domes inside the stores to curtains in the windows of the faux upper exterior floors of buildings. There are even tiled terraces with furniture on the upper floors which can only be seen from some of the buildings that have an actual second story.

The attention to detail is equally astonishing inside. In one of the stores, old-fashioned brass telephones hang on the wall and if you pick one up you can listen in on a conversation taking place as commonly happened in that era. Even the color of paint was carefully chosen as Sotto explained when talking about its photography store which is packed with period props. “We deliberately went with sepia toned color scheme to immerse guests into a ‘Tintype’ photo. Amber tinted windows achieved the effect more fully,” he revealed. That’s just the start.

At the end of Main Street stands the castle which is widely acknowledged to be the most eyecatching icon of any Disney park thanks to its soaring spires and elaborate balustrades that twist around its spiral shape. It is the brainchild of Tom Morris, WDI’s former creative executive and an architect whose work is renowned around the world.

No expense was spared on even the walkthrough attractions at Disneyland Paris. The most attractive of them is themed to Aladdin and was developed by Jim Shull, founder of the Disney Journey YouTube channel and one of the most skilled artists ever to have worked at WDI. Highlighting the lengths it went to at Disneyland Paris, he gives the example of its version of Big Thunder Mountain which is home to fields of fake cacti reflecting its origins in the Old West. The cacti don’t just look just like the real thing, they are even different sizes. “Given the size of the faux plant materials and the speed at which the guests race through the scene, some may argue this was an unneeded cost however I will disagree,” he said. “It adds to the texture.” This hard work is still paying dividends.

Reaping the rewards

As this report explained, the Disneyland park in Paris hasn’t added a new ride to its roster in more than 30 years but it has nevertheless become Europe’s most-visited tourist destination with 15.8 million guests in 2024 according to the latest data from the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA). It’s a far cry from the resort’s early days.

Soon after Disneyland Paris opened in 1992 it hit a severe recession with deeply unfavorable exchange rates which put off international visitors while French tourists objected to the high ticket prices, the lack of alcohol in the restaurants and English being its first language.

To make matters worse, as the majority of the shares in its parent company were owned by the public it was difficult for Disney to pour money into the business as it has done with its parks in the United States which it wholly owns. Instead, Disneyland Paris funded its construction with $2 billion (€1.7 billion) of bank borrowings and Disney followed suit by lending it even more money.

This capital structure cast a dark spell on the company’s fortunes as the finance charges on the debt dragged down its bottom line for decades. It didn’t deter the Mouse.

After opening a new blockbuster roller coaster and making changes to appeal to the local audience, Disneyland Paris turned the corner enough to open its second park, which was initially called the Walt Disney Studios. However, no sooner had it premiered in 2002 than dark clouds gathered over the resort yet again.

The timing couldn’t have been worse as the behind the scenes movie park debuted in the midst of the global tourism downturn following 9/11. In an interview for UK newspaper The Business, the resort’s then-chief executive Jay Rasulo told my colleague that it had “adapted enormously over the last 10 years”. However, it wasn’t enough.

In its first 25 years, Euro Disney required repeated bailouts, capital increases and refinancings due to its debt mountain. In order to bring this roller coaster ride to an end, Disney took over the debt in 2012 and refinanced it to significantly reduce the interest rate. It put the resort on course for profitability but that was just the start.

The stars align

In 2014 Disney backed a $1.2 billion (€1 billion) recapitalization of the company and three years later it finally took full control of it in a takeover forecast by my colleague in Britain’s Daily Telegraph. For the first time in forever the stars had aligned for Disneyland Paris and it hasn’t looked back.

In 2018, one year after the takeover, my colleague revealed that the on-site Disney Village shopping and dining complex at Disneyland Paris would be transformed by both a major renovation and expansion. This was finally officially announced four years later and it is still underway. So is the transformation of the Studios park.

In November 2017 my colleague also broke the news in The Express that Disney was planning its biggest show of support yet by investing $2.1 billion in Disneyland Paris. This was officially announced in February 2018 by Disney’s then-chief executive Bob Iger and French president Emmanuel Macron.

They announced that the money would be spent on adding three new lands to the Studios park. The first one, based on Disney’s Marvel superheroes, opened in 2022 at a cost of $435.5 million (€370 million) as this report revealed. It was followed in March this year by a land themed to wildly-popular animated film Frozen and at the same time the Studios park was renamed Disney Adventure World on the grounds that behind the scenes movie attractions have become outdated.

The third land will be themed to classic cartoon The Lion King and is expected to open in either 2028 or 2029. As beloved as that movie is, one more new land might not be enough to give Disneyland Paris a happy ending.

That’s because Disney’s arch-rival Universal Studios is in the midst of building a mega park in the United Kingdom which is expected to open in 2031. It will be the first time that Disneyland Paris has faced such strong competition that close to home in such an important market. More of its visitors are from the U.K. than any other country, except for France, with 17% of all guests coming from there in 2016 according to the latest data released by Disneyland Paris. A third theme park could give the resort precisely the edge it needs.

World building

In an interview last year with French weekly magazine Le Point, Disneyland Paris’ president Natacha Rafalski, was coy when asked whether it was planning to build another park. “We are always working on the long-term planning and development of the destination,” she said. “It is a constant topic for us. Very honestly, we have nothing to announce at this time.” There’s little doubt that it is only a matter of time before they do.

In a wide-ranging interview about the future of the Disneyland park in 2017, Francis Borezée, Euro Disney’s former vice president of resort and real estate development, told my colleague that “we will be adding new attractions in this park and mostly in the Walt Disney Studios.” He added that the company has “the opportunity to develop a third gate if we wanted to.”

Borezée explained that Disney’s contract with the French government runs “up to 2030 and within the umbrella of this main agreement we sign what we call development phases whereby we initiate a number of resort programmes and community development programmes, for instance, a new park, or part of a new park, a new hotel or an extension of the Disney Village, on the resort side.” He added that “we have an agreement up to 2030 but in 2030 we can sign the last development phase so it will give another 10 years.”

This timeframe was formalized in an update to the contract in 2020. It now commits Disney to building a third park by 2036 unless the existing two hit a combined 22 million visitors annually, in which case it has until 2040. The TEA’s data shows that it was only 6.6 million shy of that total before the new Frozen land opened so the 22 million target may not be unachievable. However, with Universal on the horizon, Disneyland Paris may not wait until 2040 to open a new park.

A possible indication that plans are already underway comes in EDLI’s financial statements (which can be found here). The 2024 filings describe the activity of the company as “conducting design studies and overseeing the construction of additional attractions for the Disneyland Paris theme parks.” However, this was updated in the 2025 filings to say that “Euro Disneyland Imagineering is primarily engaged in conducting studies and providing services related to the design, construction, and development of attractions and infrastructure for Disneyland Park and Walt Disney Studios Park at Disneyland Paris, their expansion, and any other theme park within the Euro Disneyland project in France.”

Of course, the update doesn’t say that EDLI is working on a third park but that its activity covers work on “any other theme park” aside from the existing two. However, the activity of the company isn’t a wish list, it is meant to describe what it is doing and, in the case of EDLI, it is providing services related to the design of the existing parks and any other theme park within the resort. In short, it has updated its activity to include the design of additional parks, which appears to move them from a future possibility to a current business activity.

It reflects recent reports that EPAFrance is planning to double the capacity of some of the roads in and around the resort. Last year Disney also reportedly filed permits for a new electrical substation which could support the existing resort as well as six more hotels and an additional park.

In recent years, the closest Disneyland Paris has come to actually expanding its footprint was in 2017 when it opened a 440 acre carbon neutral nature resort called Villages Nature. As this report explained, it was designed by Disney in partnership with holiday park operator Groupe Pierre & Vacances-Center Parcs and that too has the potential to grow.

“We have an option to expand Villages Nature. The core piece of it with the lake, lagoon and water park will expand so it could triple in size,” said Borezée. Testimony to this, in September last year 193 new premium and VIP holiday homes opened at the resort. Time will tell how long it takes for the rest of his forecasts to come true.

Additional reporting by Chris Sylt