Disney quits Australia as final cruises depart and theme park hopes are crushed
Disney may have given up entirely on Australia, with their final cruises now setting sail and the last hopes of Disneyland Down Under slowly dying.
Australians, like much of the world, love all things Disney and for many years have been holding tight to the swirling rumours that we might have our own piece of Disney magic in the form of a theme park.
Disney Cruise Lines offered a glimmer into what having Disney’s magic in Australia looked like.
However in August last year it was announced Disney cruises would no longer be sailing out of Sydney with the last sparkle of Disney magic set to leave Australia.
The cruise operating out of Sydney Harbour only lasted two years, opening in late November 2023 and finishing up their final cruises next month.
Disney is sailing out of Australia for good next month.
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At the time of publishing, there are only 6 cruise dates left to book for 2026, five in January with the final one sailing out of Sydney Harbour on February 2nd.
Many Disney fans are disappointed to no longer have Disney roots in Australia, with the closest cruise for Aussie Disney cruisers now being stationed out of Singapore.
One of the reasons cruise goers cited for Disney’s oceanic demise was sky-high prices compared to other cruise lines sailing out of Sydney which offered much more affordable options.
Disney have also stamped out rumours there will ever be a permanent Disney location in Australia.
Rumours of a park coming to Werribee in Victoria were swirling for many years and stories of the Gold Coast being a potential Disney site given its home to Australia’s existing popular theme parks had also done the rounds.
Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland during its 70th Celebration on May 17, 2025 in Anaheim, California. Photo: Getty
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Disney executives, however, never committed to concrete plans and told 9 Travel that Australia doesn’t have the base population to support a park.
Australia’s current population is around 27.6 million, and even when you add the 8 million trips to Australia by international tourists recorded in the year ending December 2024, it still doesn’t add up to enough for Disney to justify the cost.
In comparison, California’s population is 33.5 million, and Tokyo’s population sits at 39 million.
How does it compare to Australia’s theme parks?
Disneyland Tokyo alone hosted approximately 15 million visitors in 2023, according to Statista.
On January 7, the park reached a 900 million-visitor milestone since its opening in 1983.
Warner Bros. Movie World is one of Australia’s most popular parks. Picture: Nigel Hallett
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Australia’s largest theme park is Dreamworld which covers 85 hectares and has more than 40 rides.
Dreamworld executives told the Australian Financial Review in 2025 they had an operating revenue of $96.4 million for the year ended June 2024, which was up 10.8 per cent on the previous year when visitor numbers rose 11.2 per cent.
Even then, it only attracts an estimated 1 million visitors per year.
While Village Road Show owns Warner Bros. Movie World, SeaWorld, Wet Wild and Paradise Country and Australian Outback Spectacular, according to their website they host more than 4 million guests across all of their theme parks by the end of financial year 2024.
Gold Coast Theme Parks – generic / File picture 2025. Warner Bros. Movie World sign. – rides / Rollercoaster. Picture: Nigel Hallett
Approximately 1.5 million of those are for Warner Bros. Movie World in 2023.
In other states, there is Luna Park in Melbourne which hosts only 800,000 people annually, while Sydney’s Luna Park attracts around 1 million visitors.
It’s unclear if the magic of Disney would entice a whole new array of people to theme parks or if the Disney executives are right and Australia just doesn’t have the people power to make a Disneyland Australia feasible.
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