Coco Ride Coming to Disney California Adventure

In a surprise announcement, Disney has revealed that a first-ever Coco ride is coming to Disney California Adventure at the Disneyland Resort.

Disney Experiences Chairman Josh D’Amaro made the announcement at the “Horizons: Disney Experiences Showcase” during the D23 Expo at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. He revealed that an all-new attraction themed to Pixar Animation Studios’ “Coco” is coming to Disney California Adventure in the future.

“The attraction will be filled with the characters — and music! — you know and love from the beloved movie, as you join Miguel on a trip to the land of the dead. This marks the first-ever “Coco” ride in a Disney park!

Walt Disney Imagineering will draw inspiration for the attraction from beloved classics, like Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean. “We’re bringing our skeletal cast of characters to life in a big way through the latest Audio-Animatronicstechnology,” Josh told the crowd. “These figures will appear in ways you’ll have to see to believe.””

No opening date has been given at this time, but we do know that work will begin on the attraction starting in 2026.

I have to say that out of all the announcements we heard at D23, this was the one we were most surprised about and were absolutely not expecting.

First of all, if a Coco attraction is coming to any Disney park, our money would have been on EPCOT. After all, a Coco attraction has been rumored for the Mexico pavilion for years now, which would replace the popular but aged Gran Fiesta Tour.

If I am thinking strictly from a thematic perspective, it would be a perfect fit there, more so than in Disney California Adventure (though we don’t hate the idea).

In general, we are surprised it took Disney this long to make a Coco ride given its huge popularity and that we view it as one of the strongest, if not the strongest Pixar film released in the last 10 years. We think it’s a great idea to build it, even though we would have preferred it in EPCOT.

From the concept art, I am not sure what to expect though besides a simple boat ride. In the end, lack of space seemed to be the problem in EPCOT, though they easily could just overlay the Gran Fiesta Tour with Coco theming and animatronics if they really wanted to.

The fact they didn’t simply do this in EPCOT, makes me hopeful they have something a little more complex in mind for this ride and there just wasn’t the space to do it in EPCOT, hence they moved it to Disney California Adventure instead. The fact that D’Amaro described it as a spiritual successor to Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion sets the standard pretty high.

However, I don’t want to get too excited about it yet and until we get some concrete info on what the ride is going to include and just how ambitious it is, we can’t really say what we think of the attraction, other than we are happy Coco is finally getting some ride representation as it is long overdue.

As soon as we know any more info on this story we will update you so keep tuned for more…

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Your Thoughts

I want to know what you think about a Coco-themed ride coming to Disney California Adventure…

• Are you happy with this announcement?
• What would you like to see included in the ride?

Let us know in the comments section below!

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