Water will be part of a Disney castle’s design for the first time, and the castle will stand in Abu Dhabi. The detail came out in a recent episode of Disney’s YouTube series “We Call It Imagineering,” in which senior executives at Walt Disney Imagineering described their plans for Disneyland Abu Dhabi, Khaleej Times reported.
Zach Riddley, Senior Vice President of Global Creative Strategy, said the park will follow the Magic Kingdom model, with a castle at its center. The coastline shaped the idea. “Abu Dhabi is a city on the water, and so we’re really excited about being able to incorporate water for the first time in the design of our Walt Disney castles,” he said.
Ali Rubinstein, Senior Vice President of Global Creative Show Design at Walt Disney Imagineering, said the building would not copy anything that already exists. “That castle is not a replication of any existing castle in the world,” she said. Its inspiration comes from broader nature themes such as water, with “subtle nods to our princesses Moana, and Elsa and Anna.” She also tied it to the company’s newest ship, the Disney Adventure, saying Disney is taking its iconic castle “to the sea, literally.”
Where and with whom
Disney announced the Abu Dhabi project last year. The park will go up on North Yas Island, built in partnership with Miral, the developer behind several of the capital’s best-known attractions. It will be the first Disney-branded theme park in the Middle East, and it will include several themed lands in addition to the castle.
Riddley spoke about the pressure that comes with decisions of this kind. “The things that we make have a lasting impact on so many people and that legacy is tremendously rich,” he said. “But it means that every choice we make has so much weight on it.”
