HKDL Glacier Bay, The Land That Never Was

Years ago, a land named Glacier Bay was announced and supposed to be part of the first expansion of Hong Kong Disneyland, and then the land was mysteriously cancelled to be replaced by HKDL Toy Story land. In a previous D&M article that you can read HERE i talked about why at that time Glacier Bay was cancelled. The same thing, by the way, happened to the great HKDL Pirates land concept which was designed by Imagineers Tom Morris and Tim Delaney before being cancelled for different reasons, but that will be for another story.



But  what kind of attractions HKDL guests would have enjoyed at Glacier Bay? Well, it's Favilli Studio who "developed the story, planning and designs for this phase-two expansion of Hong Kong Disneyland" for WDI and according to their website HERE Glacier Bay would have been "an arctic outpost filled with an array of cold weather activities. Guests can jet-ski through an iceberg-filled glacial lake, grab a sled and slide down an massive snow hill and ride an icy roller-coaster deep into the interior massive ice cavern of Glacier Peak—a research base for studying glacial formations and life forms where they are treated to a variety of interactive games and show experiences."


But there is more surprises about Glacier Bay as a visual found recently and showing a map for Tokyo Disney Sea - which include all the different lands of the park excepting Arabian Coast - though the lands are placed differently than they currently are at TDS - shows a land which also never was at TDS, named ...Glacier Bay!

Well, that's interesting... and it is for two reasons: first it seems that the idea of a land named "Glacier Bay" is older than we thought - though the tDS one most probably would not have had the Ravioli Studio design who was done years after, but also because it might explain the announcement of a Frozen land for Tokyo Disney Sea, some years ago - a project now apparently cancelled. Here is why: i don't know if you were as surprised as i was when TDR did the announcement but when they did it i thought "a Frozen land at DisneySea?!?", thinking that it didn't really fit with the general theme of the park, even if we consider Arendelle as a port. So, how could they have thought about putting a Frozen land at TDS? Well, if they did envisioned a Glacier Bay for DisneySea in the park early design, that may give the explanation. After all, if a Glacier Bay was envisioned then the idea of a TDS land with snow and ice but based on the Frozen story was not that misplaced...

I'm not sure that we'll know the truth anytime soon but that's one more damn' interesting mystery for this Glacier Bay project...

Pictures: copyright Disney, Favilli Studio