An annual report released by The Walt Disney Company sheds some light on how much money the Disney Experiences division is investing in the theme parks, cruise ships, and more. While the Disney parks division set a record in 2025, Disney says that it plans on increasing its capital expenditures by $1 billion in 2026, and theme park fans are going to like the reason why. In this article, we’ll take a look at what Disney has outlined for the year ahead, how it compares to recent years, and why theme park fans should have something to look forward to.
New Record Spending at Theme Parks in 2025
According to a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Disney Experiences had a record year of spending. In fact, there was nothing short of an explosion in spending. In 2025, Disney Experiences racked up a capital expenditures bill of $6.429 billion. That was a whopping $2.77 billion, or 75.7%, more than the division spent in fiscal 2024.
Of that $6.429 billion, Disney spent $5.271 billion domestically and $1.158 billion internationally. That was a 94.5% increase in spending domestically and a 22% increase internationally. To say that the money was flowing within the Experiences division would be an understatement.
Then again, the Experiences division was the singular division within The Walt Disney Company that saw the largest year-over-year revenue growth. The Experiences division also had the largest operating income for the year, more than doubling the Entertainment division. In short, there is some significant return on invested capital within Experiences, and 2025 was a good example of that.
That said, all of that spending was not divided equally. In the filing, Disney says that the delta increase in capital expenditure spending between 2024 and 2025 was “due to higher spending on cruise fleet expansion” first and foremost. Disney also says that there was an increase in spending at the theme parks and resorts for new offerings and expansions.
Unfortunately, Disney Cruise Line gets bundled in with domestic theme parks, so it’s impossible to ascertain just how much of the extra $2.561 billion was devoted to cruise ships, but that sounds like at least two cruise ships’ worth of extra spending.
All told, this is a massive increase in spending. If we had to guess, we are certainly in “turbocharged” territory, with more spending to come. To better understand what Disney is forecasting for fiscal 2026, let’s put 2025 into perspective with a look back at spending within the theme parks division.
Capital Expenditures – A Look Back
To better understand just how much of a spending increase 2025 was, and how much more 2026 will be, here’s a look back at capital expenditure reporting within the theme parks division going back 15 years:
- 2025: $6.43 billion
- 2024: $3.66 billion
- 2023: $3.03 billion
- 2022: $3.45 billion
- 2021: $2.27 billion
- 2020: $2.90 billion
- 2019: $4.14 billion
- 2018: $3.88 billion
- 2017: $3.19 billion
- 2016: $4.22 billion
- 2015: $3.60 billion
- 2014: $2.69 billion
- 2013: $2.11 billion
- 2012: $2.88 billion
- 2011: $2.72 billion
- 2010: $1.53 billion
Obviously, the trajectory was thrown off by COVID-19 in 2020, but there were previously only two years in which Disney spent more than $4 billion in its theme park division. In 2025, that number was nearly $6.5 billion!
The increase in spending was already forecast earlier this year, when we covered another filing where Disney anticipated its total capital expenditures to top $8 billion. When accounting for all spending in 2025, Disney had a capital expenditure bill of $8.043 billion in 2025.
Are We Turbocharged Yet?
It’s a phrase that we’ve heard repeated a number of times by Disney executives: turbocharged investment in the theme parks. The idea of “turbocharging” investments can be traced back to a September 2023 announcement that Disney would be investing $60 billion into its theme park division over the next 10 years. The figure represented an increase in capital nearly double what Disney had been throwing at the theme parks, and it signaled that Disney was really trying to invest in a line of business that certainly had earned the capital.
In an email to the New York Times, Bob Iger uttered the first usage of the word “turbocharged” and a phrase was born.
There are far fewer limits to our parks business than people think.
The growth trajectory is very compelling if we do nothing beyond what we have already committed. By dramatically increasing our investment — building big, being ambitious, maintaining quality and high standards and using our most popular I.P. — it will be turbocharged.
Since then, Iger and Disney Experiences Chairman Josh D’Amaro have not been shy to utter the word “turbocharge” despite very little actual movement or shovels in the ground. That has certainly changed in 2025 with a number of projects underway at Walt Disney World and Disneyland, with plenty more on the way for the West Coast original in the coming years.
We are certainly turbocharged right now, with plenty of spending underway at Walt Disney World, and more spending set to ramp up at Disneyland in the next 3-5 years (and beyond).
2026 Forecast: Another Record Year of Spending, This Time More Focused on Theme Parks
As Disney continues a rapid pace of construction projects at Walt Disney World and Disneyland, The Walt Disney Company has announced a $1 billion increase in capital expenditure spending. It is worth nothing that the $1 billion increase is across the entire company, with the Experiences division accounting for the vast majority of that spending. However, there is one sentence in the forecast that stuck out to me as great news for theme park fans.
In recent years, Disney Cruise Line has been getting a ton of love from the Experiences division – and for good reason. Just recently, Disney CFO Hugh Johnston had glowing things to say about the cruise line division, noting that cruises have some of the highest guest satisfaction scores in the entire company. Disney is rapidly expanding the fleet, and the ships aren’t cheap. Each of the recent cruise ships have cost somewhere in the $1 billion to $1.4 billion range. That is quite the addition to the total capital expenditures for the Experiences division. However, that’s going to change a bit in fiscal 2026, which is good news for theme park fans.
According to the recent filing, the $1 billion increase in capital expenditures next year is “primarily due to higher spending at Experiences, attributable to theme park and resort expansion and new attractions, partially offset by lower spending on cruise ship fleet expansion“. That’s right theme park fans, Disney isn’t going to be spending a ton on cruise ships this year!
That should be obivous enough to theme park observers as massive tracts of dirt can currently be found in both Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Another big project is underway at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, with rumors of construction coming to EPCOT in the future.
It’s possible that total Experiences spending will end up north of $7 billion in 2026, and only climb higher over the next 5-7 years.
All of this spending is part of a $60 billion investment in the Disney Experiences division that was announced at the end of fiscal 2023. Disney announced that it was develoing plans “to accelerate and expand investment in its Parks, Experiences and Products segment to nearly double capital expenditures over the course of approximately 10 years to roughly $60 billion”.
By March 2024, we learned that only 50% of the $60 billion announced would be for “parks and resorts”, with 30% for “Tech & Maintenance”, and 20% for “Cruise/Other”. Of the remaining $30 billion for theme parks and resorts, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that $17 billion of that would be for Walt Disney World. Disney was later obligated to invest $17 billion at Walt Disney World by way of a new development agreement with the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District.
Walt Disney World has a number of construction and refurbishment projects planned and underway. To find out a full list of what’s happening and what’s to come, check out our page below!
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!
