We have been following the Disney-DeSantis saga since it started, and we thought we had a pretty good handle on what actually happened. Turns out we did not know the half of it.
Florida Politics reporter Gabrielle Russon just published an investigation based on 700 pages of court depositions from the legal dispute between Disney and the DeSantis-controlled board that replaced Reedy Creek. And what is in those pages is genuinely remarkable. We are talking about billion-dollar expansion plans that got quietly shelved, a law firm that was so nervous about being seen working with Disney that it had its own name removed from documents, a board member who thought his actual job was to delete the governing district from existence, and a road near the Grand Floridian that still has not been finished because of all of this.
This is not ancient history. The construction you can see at Magic Kingdom right now, the expansion plans Disney has been announcing over the past year, the half-built road you might notice if you are staying near the Polynesian — all of it connects back to what these depositions describe.
Let’s go through what Russon found.
Disney Put Magic Kingdom’s Biggest Expansion on Pause Because of the Fight
This is the one that really lands. According to the depositions, Disney’s top leadership, including Walt Disney World Resort President Jeff Vahle, reached what the court records call a “general agreement” to pause the largest expansion in Magic Kingdom’s history. Not delay it for creative reasons. Not slow it down for budget reasons. Pause it because they genuinely did not know if the new DeSantis board would approve the wetland mitigation credits they needed to build anything.
Master Planning Executive Todd Rimmer said it plainly in his testimony: “When we’re looking at billions of dollars of investment, we want to be certain that we can proceed.”
The expansion includes Villains Land and new attractions. Disney did not publicly announce any of this until August 2024, which was months after Rimmer sat down and gave that deposition. So while Disney was out here telling guests and the press nothing official, internally the entire future of Magic Kingdom’s next chapter was on hold because of a political dispute over who controlled a governing board.
If you have been to Magic Kingdom recently you already know the expansion is back on. Aerial photos from February 2026 show major construction underway for what is becoming Piston Peak. The pipeline is moving. But the depositions make clear how close it came to not moving at all.
The Law Firm That Did Not Want Anyone to Know It Was Involved
Here is where it gets genuinely strange.
Disney hired Holtzman Vogel, a law firm with deep connections to the DeSantis administration, to help draft a development agreement that would lock in Disney’s future expansion rights before the new board took over. That alone is a good story. But the firm was apparently so worried about being seen as working against the governor that it did not want its name anywhere near the documents.
Chief Counsel John McGowan testified that Holtzman Vogel feared DeSantis would pull state work from them as retaliation. According to Florida Politics, the firm had received more than $16 million in state legal work since 2021. McGowan also had his own name stripped from the agreement. He told the court he was trying to avoid a “false narrative” that the agreement was “something shoved down the district’s throat.”
The outgoing Reedy Creek board approved the whole thing in a matter of weeks before DeSantis‘ appointees arrived. McGowan wrote the talking points for district administrator John Classe to present to the board and deliberately kept everything vague. His own words from the court records: “We think less is more in this case.”
When the new board figured out what had happened, they were not happy about it. Chair Martin Garcia called it “a caper worthy of Scrooge McDuck,” which is honestly a pretty perfect line.
And then there is the detail about whether the DeSantis office actually knew. McGowan testified that Ray Treadwell, Chief Deputy General Counsel in DeSantis’ Office, may have been aware of the development agreement before it was approved, based on what Disney lobbyist Adam Babington told him. DeSantis and Treadwell did not respond to comment requests from Florida Politics.
There Is a Half-Built Road Sitting Next to the Grand Floridian Right Now
If you want to see the most concrete evidence of what this fight cost, you do not need court documents. You can just look out the window on the way to the Grand Floridian or the Polynesian.
World Drive Phase III was a $175 million project to widen a two-lane road near those resorts into four lanes. The new DeSantis board refused to issue the municipal bonds to fund it. The project stalled. As of April 2026 it is still not finished, with active construction work still visible near the Grand Floridian.
The depositions explain why this happened. DeSantis appointee Brian Aungst Jr. reportedly believed his mandate was to eliminate the governing district entirely, not manage it differently. When that is your operating assumption, a routine road widening project is not a priority. It is just something that does not get done.
Guests staying near the Polynesian or the Grand Floridian have been living with the result of that for years now.
Where Things Actually Stand Today
The legal dispute is settled. Disney and the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, which replaced Reedy Creek, have worked things out. Disney’s statement to Florida Politics was direct: development plans are “moving full speed ahead with the support of” CFTOD, with “more projects underway at Walt Disney World than at any other point in our history.”
DeSantis is in his final year as governor. Every original board appointee, including Aungst, has been replaced.
What the depositions leave behind is a very clear picture of how much uncertainty was baked into the years between 2022 and the settlement. The expansion guests are watching take shape right now across Walt Disney World was not inevitable. It got paused, lawyered around, fought over, and eventually unstuck. The depositions are how we know exactly what that looked like from the inside.
If you are planning a Walt Disney World trip and want to know what is actually being built and when things are expected to open, we keep our construction guide current. The pipeline right now is genuinely one of the most significant in the resort’s recent history, and knowing what is coming helps you decide whether to book now or wait for something specific to open. Check it before you finalize your dates.
