Disney CEO Bob Iger shared photos of himself late Sunday night walking along the waterfront site that will one day be home to the Disneyland Abu Dhabi theme park in the United Arab Emirates.
Iger, who saw an 11.5% increase in his pay from $41.1 million in 2024 to $45.8 million in 2025, announced plans for the theme park in May of last year. The park is projected to cost $10 billion, but it will be fully funded by the United Arab Emirates company Miral Group. If completed, the park will be Disney’s latest international theme park, following its installations in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Paris and Tokyo.
“Walking the site of what will one day be Disneyland Abu Dhabi! Lots of work ahead, but all very exciting!” Iger wrote in his Instagram post Sunday.
The photos not only feature the Disney CEO and the Abu Dhabi park’s unsurprisingly sandy locale, but also the waterfront location that Disney Experiences Chairman Josh D’Amaro called “incredibly unique” and said last year would allow Disney to “tell our stories in completely new ways.” You can check out Iger’s post yourself below.
Previous reports suggested that Disneyland Abu Dhabi would be built on a 300-acre parcel of land. If that is indeed the case, it would make it the smallest Disney theme park in the world. Hong Kong Disneyland is the only park comparable in size, but even it is a few acres larger.
Disney’s Abu Dhabi park will be the company’s first expansion into not only the Arabian Gulf, but the entire Middle East. That fact makes it, from a business and financial perspective, an alluring expansion for Disney. However, the entertainment company received swift pushback from members of its fan base after its Abu Dhabi plans were announced last year.
Many LGBTQ+ Disney fans and straight allies alike took issue with the company’s intent to build a Disneyland theme park in a country that bans homosexuality. That is not to mention the concerns that were also raised about working with a country that has had previous, reported instances of abusing its guest workers.
In his original announcement of the park, Iger promised that Disneyland Abu Dhabi would be “authentically Disney and distinctly Emirati.” In that sense, the park promises to be in keeping with Disney’s past theme park expansions, which have strived to maintain the company’s brand while also conforming to the cultural norms and sensitivities of the countries in which they’ve been built.
The United Arab Emirates, for its part, continues to be aggressive in pursuing new ties and connections to Hollywood and the American entertainment industry — not only in its partnerships with companies like Disney but also with Western celebrities. Iger’s post Sunday only confirms that Disney is forging ahead with its Abu Dhabi plans, even in the face of the concerns voiced online by fans about its partnership with the UAE.
