Disney parks make money, lots of money. They are like the cornfield turned baseball field in "Field of Dreams"; if Disney builds it They will come. And They will spend loads of money.
So my question is, why hasn't Disney built a Disney Sea park in the US? Sure it's going to cost $20 billion or so, but the profits from the turn-every-animated-classic-into-a-live-action-movie craze that's in its nascent stage can cover the cost. That and the money made from Frozen 2, 3, and 4. And there's plenty of room at WDW.
So why aren't they doing it? Should we at TPI get a Kickstarter campaign going? I'm in for a $1000 investment.
Just wait a few decades for the polar ice caps to melt, and Orlando should be good to go for this! ;^)
FWIW, the original DisneySea plans were drawn up for Long Beach, California, with that being the second Disneyland resort park, connected to the Anaheim original by a monorail... or something. The logistics of connecting the two parks helped doom the concept, and Disney opted to go with Westcot on the Disneyland parking lot, instead. And that concept morphed into California Adventure, which we have today.
DisneySea ended up in Tokyo when the Oriental Land Company decided that it liked those plans better than the Disney Studios theme park plans that Disney was pitching for Tokyo's second gate. Instead, Paris got the stripped down version of that Studios park.
As Robert correctly pointed out, the Oriental Land Company owns and operates the Tokyo Disney Resort. Disney is simply contracted and licensed to develop and build attractions and parks. In other words, the Tokyo Disney Resort has a distinct advantage over the rest of the Disney parks as they are not tied into Disney's Park division but rather are operated and, more importantly, financed independent from the Disney suits. This gives the Oriental Land Company free reign to pump as much money as they want to and at any time they want to at the Tokyo Disney Resort.
As much as I would love to see a DisneySea state-side, I fear that the budgetary restraints put on the Imagineers and parks management would produce a lackluster and otherwise underwhelming shadow of the original DisneySea. The Parks division needs to first strengthen and improve the existing U.S. Parks before they even begin to think about building another gate, either at DLR or WDW. There's still tons of work to be done at Animal Kingdom, Epcot, DCA, and DHS to bring them up to the level of the Tokyo Disney parks.
I have doubts if there is “space” for a 5th gate in WDW. Most people spend 1 week or less in theirs Orlando vacations. Disney has already 4 parks, and MK is a two day park for most visitors. Few people can stand visiting a theme park 5 or 6 days in a row. Not counting Sea Worlds, Universals and Merlin’s parks in the neighborhood.
So, for the average 7 days customer, a 5th gate would result in cannibalization of the other Disneys parks.
Not that I don’t like the idea of having some of Disney’s Sea attractions in other parks. Voyage to Center of Earth, for instance, would fit very well in AK and Disneyland Paris Adventureland.
There is more than enough space in WDW to build another few parks the size of EPCOT. That is not a problem.
Disney, with all its money, cannot just build parks when they feel like it. It takes a huge amount of money to build a park. Notice that Disneyland and Disney World rarely have big projects going on at the exact same time. They are also not going to build anything unless they know they are going to make their money back quick.
Then again, Disney might feel that five is one to many for resort guests.
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Neither Orlando nor Anaheim are on bodies of water. Seven Seas Lagoon doesn't count. :p
Would you propose Disney dig out another man-made lake on which to put the new park? I think all of those animated movies can fit quite well into the existing parks. Building a Disney Sea park in a land-locked city seems a little far-fetched. But sure, it'd be cool.