5. Sorcerer’s Hat (Disney’s Hollywood Studios)

Closure date: January 7, 2015

OK – it’s stretching the definition of “attraction” to include the Sorcerer’s Hat on this list. But its removal from Disney’s Hollywood Studios is so significant for that park’s future that it warrants a mention.

When Disney-MGM Studios first opened back in 1989, guests wandered through the entrance onto Hollywood Boulevard. At the end of this sat a recreation of the famous Grauman’s Chinese Theatre (now known as the TCL Chinese Theatre) in Hollywood. This housed the park’s signature attraction, the Great Movie Ride. It was an appropriate way for guests to arrive at a park designed to celebrate the movie-making process.

That all changed in 2001, when the Sorcerer’s Hat made its debut as part of the 100 Years of Magic celebrations. Inspired by the Sorcerer’s Apprentice sequence of Fantasia, it was placed right in front of the Great Movie Ride. From then on, it acted as the park’s icon, similar to Cinderella Castle at the Magic Kingdom or Spaceship Earth at Epcot. Its presence, though, was always contentious, with many Disney fans feeling that it didn’t fit with the theme of the park and angered by the concealment of the Chinese Theatre.

And now, of course, it’s gone. Disney’s Hollywood Studios is set for a radical overhaul – including a new name – that will dispense with the pretence that the park is any longer a working movie studio. And, it seems, there’s no place for a giant Sorcerer’s Hat in that future.

4. Premiere Theater (Disney’s Hollywood Studios)

Closure date: February 2015 (TBC)

Many Walt Disney World fans will never even have heard of the Premiere Theater, which is located near the Streets of America at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The venue was used to house live shows during various special events, such as the popular Star Wars Weekends.

In February 2015, it was announced that this year’s Star Wars Weekends shows would instead be hosted in the Theater of the Stars (which normally hosts Beauty and the Beast – Live on Stage). It was also revealed a month later that For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-a-Long would be moved to the former American Idol Experience theater.

More recently, The Disney Blog reported that Disney has filed a new application to build an additional theater in the backstage parking lot area close to Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster – probably as a replacement for the Premiere Theater.

So what will become of this location? Rumors continue to abound that it will be demolished to open up space for a new development – perhaps even forming part of the long-rumored (and utterly inevitable) Star Wars Land.

3. Tomorrowland Arcade (Magic Kingdom)

Closure date: February 8, 2015

The Tomorrowland Arcade was located directly beside Space Mountain and you’re likely to have passed through it on your way to the gift shop after exiting the ride.

The Orlando Sentinel offered up a very credible theory as to the reasons for the arcade's sudden closure in February. It suggests that Walt Disney World is looking to comply with a Florida law passed in 2013 by removing all “turn in a ticket for a prize” arcade games. The Tomorrowland Arcade itself didn’t offer any such games, but it has been speculated that it was closed to enable Disney to move the games that it did offer to its resorts, to replace the ticket games that have been scrapped.

2. Captain EO (Epcot)?

Closure date: April 9, 2015?

This one is as yet unconfirmed - Captain EO, the 3-D movie starring the late Michael Jackson. The show originally closed at the Imagination Pavilion back in 1994, being replaced by Honey, I Shrunk the Audience. However, it was brought back following Jackson’s death in 2010.

In March, Disney announced that Captain EO would close on April 9 to make room for screenings of Tomorrowland, the upcoming movie starring George Clooney. The official line is that Captain EO will return after an unspecified amount of time, but that hasn’t stopped speculation that it, in fact, won’t.

Opinion is somewhat divided on this one. Some Michael Jackson fans are desperate to preserve Captain EO, while others point to the widely-derided Journey into Imagination with Figment elsewhere in the pavilion and demand that Disney revamp the entire structure and the attractions within it.

Will Captain EO return? Quite possibly – at least until Disney decides what to do with a pavilion that is looking devoid of purpose right now.

1. Innoventions West (Epcot)

Closure date: April 29, 2015

In March, Disney made a surprise announcement that Innoventions West would be closing for good at the end of April. This will see the loss of several fan-favorite innovation exhibits such as IBM Think, The Great Piggy Bank Adventure and Where's the Fire?

Disney has yet to reveal its plans for the area. However, the most likely outcome is a revamp of Innoventions West, with all-new, more up-to-date exhibits being installed. This is, after all, supposed to Future World. But we’ll have to wait and see if Disney has more radical plans.