Why It Has Taken Years for Disney Adults to Get Over This Controversial Closure

Disney Adults have experienced a few heartbreaking moments in the last couple of years.

Sadly, more heartbreak is to come when nostalgic parts of Disney World like Tom Sawyer Island and the Rivers of America close to make way for a new ‘Cars’ area in Frontierland. It was also announced that the first closures of DinoLand U.S.A. are set to hit Animal Kingdom in January 2025. While we are excited about these changes, does Disney really have to put us through more after closing The Great Movie Ride and the loss of the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights? There is one closure that has been so hard for Disney Adults to get over, and for good reason, since the building where this experience once sat is now abandoned.

In Disney Springs, you may have noticed an empty blue building between the M&M’s store and City Works. While this building was recently used for the Harry Styles Pleasing pop-up store, it was once home to DisneyQuest.

DisneyQuest was a five-floor interactive experience that opened in 1998 and featured different Disney-themed games, like a Jungle Cruise and Pirates of the Caribbean simulator, where you could get in on the action! You could ride in a Buzz Lightyear interactive attraction or even CyberSpace Mountain. 

DisneyQuest also had tons of creative offerings like the Animation Academy, build your own toy, and recording studio booths. Of course, there was food available similar to that found in food courts at Value Resorts, so you did not have to worry about leaving DisneyQuest for lunch or dinner.

DisneyQuest was supposed to be the next big thing, and it had state-of-the-art technology. DisneyQuest even opened in Downtown Chicago, but due to low attendance, it closed about two years after it opened. 

DisneyQuest in Downtown Disney/ Disney Springs was a great activity to do on an off-park day, and tickets were priced similarly to water park tickets. Due to advancing technology and new ideas, Disney decided to close DisneyQuest in 2017 for something new.

It was announced that the NBA Experience would replace DisneyQuest; considering the building is abandoned today, you can probably guess where this story is going. 

The NBA Experience opened in Disney Springs in August 2019, but when the parks closed in March 2020 due to the pandemic, the NBA Experience never reopened. Thus, the NBA Experience was only open for about eight months.

So now, the old building for DisneyQuest and the NBA Experience has been abandoned for years, and there is still no word on what will happen next. In February of this year, Disney filed a permit for general demolition of the building, but we have not seen many updates since then.

Like other Disney Adults, we are upset that a cool experience like DisneyQuest closed only to be replaced with another that did not even last a year. Disney, if you see this, please hear our cries and bring back DisneyQuest or some interactive experience back to Disney Springs!

We wil continue to keep an eye out for any permit that Disney may file for this building, but for now it seems as if it will continue to sit abandoned. For more Disney news and history, continue to follow along with AllEars!

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Do you miss DisneyQuest? What do you hope Disney does with the abandoned building? Let us know in the comments!