Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World, Orlando, Florida -

Walt Disney World has announced big plans to make over and expand its popular Fantasyland area in the Magic Kingdom park. In the 38 year old park history, the park is calling this the biggest overhaul yet. Everything is scheduled to be done by 2013, assuming everything goes according to schedule. The announcement is said to be a huge response to Universal's "Wizarding World of Harry Potter" attraction that opened last year and was a big hit to its visitors. This obviously caused Disney's attendance to go down due to a large number of people wanting to see the new Harry Potter attraction.

One of the main focuses of this project is Disney's princesses, including Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and many more of the famous heroines of Disney. Disney wants to make the princesses be appealing to a larger audience, such as boys, rather than just mostly girls. The biggest attraction that will come to the new Fantasy Land will be a Little Mermaid attraction called "Under the Sea: Journey of the Little Mermaid," which will take riders through various scenes of the movie while playing all the classic music. The concept of this ride will be much of like the Haunted Mansion attraction, which will use an Omnimover system that will slowly take guests through the ride. A clone of this ride is set to open at Disney's California Adventure later on this year.

Disney has a large variety of plans for this massive overhaul, from modifying existing rides to building brand new ones. The popular Star Tours attraction which debuted in 1989 is expected to be heavily modified with all new video and dialogue sequences from George Lucas' Lucasfilm Studio. Characters from the three Star Wars prequel films released between 1999 and 2005 will be included in these all new 3-D effects of Star Tours.

Another popular ride that will undergo a very big and significant change will be the Dumbo the elephant ride. Not only will this ride be relocated to a circus grounds area, it will also double in size allowing for double ride capacity than what it is now. This will be big as waits for the Dumbo ride can be very long a lot of the time. The queue will also be under a large top tent that will entertain guests in the queue as it will be interactive and fun to wait in. The area Dumbo will be relocated to will be known as the Storybook Circus. Goofy's Barnstormer roller coaster will be kept around, but will receive an updated theme so it fits in well with the Storybook Circus area.

Being interactive with a lot of the characters and attractions is seems to be one of Disney's primary goals with this expansion. Children will be able to dance with Cinderella and other favorite characters in individual areas such as a castle or cottage. There will be a meet and greet area called the Fairy Tale Hall for children to be able to meet all their favorite princess characters. In Beauty and the Beast, children could possibly be able to play a role with Belle in a performance in the library of the Beast's castle. A large variety of activities to interact with these popular Disney characters will entertain children and families even more. A new themed restaurant will also be a new part of the expansion which will be inside the Beast's castle from Beauty and the Beast. It will be located in the castle's "West Wing" area.

Mickey and Minnie's houses will no longer be in the Toon Town area as Mickey's Toon Town Fair will be completely done away with, but their houses will get new homes towards the front of the Magic Kingdom park. The Snow White Scary Adventure, which has been around since Magic Kingdom's opening day, will be discarded and scrapped to make room for the Princess meet and greet area. A new indoor mine train style roller coaster has also been announced, which the park is calling now "Seven Dwarfs Mine Train." This will take guests deep into a diamond mine, while playing the famous music from the movie for guests to enjoy while on the ride. The vehicles will actually swing back and forth on the twisting track throughout this unique ride. This will be a first of its kind as it has not been seen on any roller coaster built before.

Construction has already been started as part of this massive expansion to Fantasyland. Expect the first attractions of the project to be open by late 2012 and everything to be completed by 2013. The final project is expected to attract many more boys to the area rather than mainly girls, which is what it seems to be its primary focus at the current time. Even with Universal being a direct competitor with Disney , the two companies may team up to help attract more guests back to the Orlando area, since it has been down drastically lately due to the recession. Disney is on their way to a great improvement with this large project and people will be coming from all over the country and world once it is completed.