Disney Drone Show and Fireworks Kick Off Disneyland Abu Dhabi Theme Park Project

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Disneyland Abu Dhabi Announcement Ceremony

Posted: Wednesday May 7, 2025 6:50pm ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

The Walt Disney Company and Miral marked the announcement of the first-ever Disney theme park resort in the Middle East with a dramatic celebration over the Abu Dhabi skyline. A coordinated drone show and fireworks display lit up the night sky, highlighting Disney icons and imagery above Yas Island.

Disneyland Abu Dhabi Announcement Ceremony

The show included celebrities Tyrese Gibson, Naomi Campbell, Ed Westwick, and more. Guests were also treated to a live performance featuring world-renowned pianist Lang Lang alongside acclaimed Emirati singer, Rashed Alnuaimi, Kerry Ellis, and Sonya Balsara.

The spectacle followed the formal unveiling of plans for the new resort, which will be built and operated by Miral with creative development and operational oversight from Disney. The waterfront park will be Disney’s seventh global theme park destination and its first in the region.

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Comped11 minutes ago

Shows are not attractions... Different category.

UNCgolf1 hour ago

Forgot about Test Track. Wasn't thinking about shows, although they would fall under the attraction banner.

Comped1 hour ago

The only parts of WDI that seem to keep stable headcounts (relatively) are DLE and Muppets.

Go_Bears_801 hour ago

Another assumption or projection with no basis in reality. People will be assigned based on need.

Go_Bears_801 hour ago

That is complete speculation and projection with zero basis in reality.

James Alucobond1 hour ago

Depends on what you include, but Test Track 3.0, Zootopia, the Monsters show, and the Villains show could potentially get bundled in there.

UNCgolf1 hour ago

Encanto, Indiana Jones, Villains 1, Villains 2, Cars 1, Cars 2, Door Coaster, Tropical Americas Carousel, Muppets Coaster... what are the other 3 for WDW?

peter114351 hour ago

lol. Everything @lazyboy97o said in the post you quoted was 100% true. People obviously get shifted around to work on different projects. But WDI absolutely increases and decreases its workforce based on project load. Sometimes resulting in the number of imagineers shifting by 4 digits.

peter114351 hour ago

There are currently a dozen announced new attractions in development for WDW and another half dozen at Disneyland. And more that haven’t been announced yet.

lazyboy97o2 hours ago

People getting moved around doesn’t mean the size of the organization doesn’t fluctuate.

Splashin' Ryan2 hours ago

Not true and there are plenty of imagineers' stories to back this up that are widely available on the internet... people getting pulled from WDW and Disneyland to work on Paris, Tokyo etc. Unless you really actually think they'd invest in more imagineers just to keep the numbers the same, you'd be sorely mistaken.

Splashin' Ryan2 hours ago

Nice try at the black and white logical fallacy but no, of course they will continue to do projects all over the place regardless, but they should at minimum be making a decent effort to plus up and expand WDW, and the most visited park on earth, before embarking on an entire new park imo. Also, let's not forget they are boasting that this new park will have the best technology out of all of their parks, which definitely means they do not see any path forward to making the most visited park and theme park resort destination on earth anywhere close to competing with this park...