Disney World Makes Major Progress on Tropical Americas Project
Less than one month after the Boneyard closed, Walt Disney World has made major progress on demolition and construction of Tropical Americas in Animal Kingdom. Here’s an update on Encanto, which is poised to go vertical very soon, and the critter carousel in Pueblo Esperanza, the hub in heart of the rainforest that might open ahead of schedule.
In case you missed it, the Boneyard had its last day of operations over Labor Day weekend, with construction walls quickly going up overnight blocking the main entrance to the land under the “OldenGate Bridge.” Walt Disney World had previously moved forward the closure of the play area from 2026 to September 2025 to accommodate construction timelines.
The same day the Boneyard closed, Walt Disney World announced the extinction date for the remainder of Dinoland, USA. DINOSAUR, Restaurantosaurus, Dino-Bites Snacks, and the rest of the gifts shops and dining spots will close as of February 2, 2026. This is a little over one year after Chester & Hester’s Dino-Rama closed and started demolition. What’s starting to go up in the place of that carnival section is the primary topic of this post.
Dinoland USA, which was itself two distinct areas, is being replaced by three areas of Tropical Americas. First is Pueblo Esperanza, the hub in heart of the rainforest that’s name translates to “Village of Hope.” This will be home to a large quick-service restaurant and will also offer a critter carousel as an attraction.
After leaving the Pueblo Esperanza, guests can venture deeper into the rainforest to find not one but two signature attractions! To the right from Pueblo Esperanza is a new Indiana Jones Adventure attraction, which will replace DINOSAUR. This will be a new twist on IJA that will be different from the existing versions, making this the third non-cloned version of the attraction. Obviously, they all bear similarities–but also all tell unique and distinct stories.
To the left is the Encanto magical Madrigal Casita dark ride, which is likely to be a family-friendly Omnimover–perhaps like an Encanto-ized version of Mystic Manor. Inside the Casita, Antonio has just received his special gift — the ability to communicate with animals — and his room has transformed into a rainforest. It’s time to go explore alongside him, and you never know what member of the family you might bump into.
Encanto Attraction Script News
The first update on Encanto is that Jared Bush, who is the Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios, revealed yesterday on Twitter that his “homework” while flying home from Europe was to write “new words for the magical, fantastical Familia Madrigal!”
He also added that Walt Disney World fans “will not believe what the Imagineers are cooking up” for the Encanto attraction.
Bush was named Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios (WDAS) one year ago. He previously received the Academy Award for Encanto, for which he was both director and a writer. He now oversees the creative output of the entire WDAS, and part of that process is collaborating with Imagineering on this expansion. It’s just one of several upcoming parks projects on which WDAS and WDI are working closely.
Bush’s tweet is a fun tease, but that’s really about it. We already know the basic premise of the attraction, which thankfully was arrived on long before now. My hope is that Walt Disney Animation Studios and Imagineering take the assignment seriously.
The dialogue for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is bad (when it’s not incomprehensible). And not in a ‘so bad it’s good’ kinda way that makes it quotable. A bit of cheese is fine for Disney attractions–that’s one of the things fans love about DINOSAUR. But that has to be offset by a coherent story, dialogue that’s better than a Little Golden Book, and a bit of sharp wit. There’s a secret sauce to the best Disney ride scripts, and hopefully WDAS/WDI land on that here, because the recipe for TBA produced something barely edible.
Let’s turn to the latest construction development, which is that the Tropical Americas at Animal Kingdom project has reached a major milestone as of late September 2025…
Encanto Attraction Construction
We’re going to be focusing on two areas with today’s update. First is the Encanto expansion, which replaces Dino-Rama and has a show building that’ll be built backstage.
(All aerial photos courtesy of theme park eye in the sky bioreconstruct, a highly recommended follow who graciously provided the construction photos here.)
These first few photos are basically high-level aerial establishing shots.
DINOSAUR is in the upper left corner of the above photo–the green show building. The exterior of that backstage structure is unlikely to change at all. It’ll get a new facade, but there’s no reason to believe anything else about the structure will be altered. This is more or less how the other versions of the IJA show building look.
Immediately below DINOSAUR is more or less the backstage area where the Encanto show building will be built. To the right of that is the former home to Chester & Hester’s Dino-Rama, which will soon become the ‘Village of Hope’ and Encanto expansion in Animal Kingdom. It’s currently identifiable as dirt. At the lower right, you can see the Theater in the Wild, home to Finding Nemo: The Musical, and the seating area for Rivers of Light (RIP).
For a bit more context, the above photo shows Restaurantosaurus at the lower left and DINOSAUR on the lower right.
You’ll also notice sets of construction walls that cut through two different project sites. The left set (above Restaurantosaurus) is the Boneyard demolition; the right side is Encanto expansion.
There’s one final set of buildings we haven’t really covered, which is the former Chester & Hester’s Dinosaur Treasures gift shop; it’s easier to see in the next photo, with one rooftop reading “Souvenirs.” Like Restaurantosaurus, that’s being reimagined as opposed to replaced. Hence it not being demolished along with everything else in Dino-Rama.
Up until now, we’ve been covering the demolition of Dino-Rama and backstage facilities, as opposed to the construction of the Encanto attraction. That’s no longer the case, as we’re starting to see–at least from the sky–foundations being poured and footers installed. It looks like utilities have also been buried.
Basically, construction crews are laying the groundwork for the show building to go vertical. As we commented long before construction even started, the demolition and foundation phases always take longer than fans expect.
There are frequently complaints about the slow pace of the project or even purposeful delays. We remember hearing that first about New Fantasyland, and pretty much every project since. (In fairness, some of the post-2019 projects were purposefully delayed or slowed.)
Here are a few more angles of Encanto before we get to this week’s big news:
In the above photo, you can see the base for a tower crane (the white structure on the upper left). This photo was taken over the weekend and, as you can see, all that’s there is the base.
Only a couple days later, the fully-assembled tower crane is now on-site, dominating the skyline at Animal Kingdom from the parking lot to Africa. Now that this tower crane has arrived, work should start to go fast.
Fans will undoubtedly talk about construction being accelerated, but this is simply the normal pace of projects. Things appear slow-going in the demolition and foundation stages, and then vertical work appears to move at lightning speed. There will be claims of a new fiscal year being the difference-maker, but that’s not it at all. This is just how work normally progresses.
Just within the last few months, we’ve seen the exact same scenario play out in Avengers Campus at DCA. To borrow a line, Disney construction happens slow and then suddenly. The Avengers Campus went vertical in a hurry, and so too will this.
Since even before demolition started, we said a good ‘benchmark’ of this project would be whether the show building is fully enclosed by the end of the year. That remains our hope, and if the crews manage that, Encanto is probably still on pace to make a late 2027 opening.
This also explains why DINOSAUR isn’t closing until February 2, 2026. Even at that time, it’ll still be ahead of the Encanto dark ride by virtue of its show building and ride system already being “done.” There’s no way Encanto is making that much progress in ~5 months.
The Boneyard Demolition
Turning our attention to the other side of the walls, demolition on the Boneyard is nearly completed.
The playground is more or less gone. The section with the Dig Site, slides and climbable structures has been reduced to rubble. The bridge that previously connected the Dig Site to the playground is gone. Also extinct (doubly) is the dinosaur fossil that stood over the entrance bridge.
This is similar to what happened with Dino-Rama. The main structures were razed in weeks, and then work seemingly slowed as more granular clean-up and site prep was carried out. This will almost certainly be a similar story.
Here are a few more photos showing the progress.
We can’t help but wonder whether the new plan is to fast-track the critter carousel and have that open ahead of Encanto and Indiana Jones Adventure. Although it’s getting a later start, it’s obviously a much less complex attraction that can be built quicker.
In normal circumstances, we would not expect a phased opening. But Animal Kingdom is so light on attractions, and Walt Disney World is clearly sensitive about closing too much at once. So having this open by Christmas 2026 or even the first half of 2027 might be the target simply for the sake of increasing the ride roster.
That’s purely speculative on my part, but there’s gotta be a reason why Disney opted to move forward the Boneyard’s closure by several months. Cynical as we sometimes are, operational cost-savings does not strike us as the rationale here.
Ultimately, we’re pleased to see the progress on Tropical Americas. If other projects offer a benchmark, we should be back sometime in October with another major update on the ‘explosive’ growth of the Encanto show-building. Hopefully that will be visible from on the ground inside the park within the next few weeks. It would also be nice to see construction on the critter carousel by early 2026.
On balance, it’s a bullish sign that Tropical Americas is being accelerated as opposed to delayed. Personally, I wish that also would’ve happened with Indiana Jones Adventure to give Imagineers as much time as possible to complete the reimagining. (Another lesson from Tiana’s Bayou Adventure should’ve been that rushing reimaginings is a bad approach.)
As soon as Zootopia: Better Zoogether opens and the holiday season ends, DINOSAUR should be closing. Honestly, I would’ve been fine with it closing this year during the off-seaosn. What’s a few months when Indiana Jones Adventure is going to be around for a few decades?! The longer DINOSAUR is closed, the more time Imagineering has to do justice to an ambitious reimagining. Everything I’ve heard about this version of Indiana Jones Adventure has me optimistic, including insiders suggesting it has the potential to be the best of the trio.
Tropical Americas is already going to have a tough time hitting its 2027 target date. While Walt Disney World has declined to offer a season for the new land (just sometime in 2027), our strong suspicion is that, even with the most aggressive timeline, the two marquee attractions won’t be done before October 2027. But who knows–work has been progressively relatively quickly on demolition and the first crane is now on-site. This timeline acceleration is promising, so stay tuned!
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Surprised that the Boneyard has been demolished so fast? Optimistic that there’s a tower crane on-site to build the Encanto show building? Expect to see vertical progress in October? Think our timeline speculation is right or wrong? Do you agree or disagree with our assessments? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
I think it will be interesting to compare the Dinosaur reimagning to the current Indiana Jones refurb in TDS. The TDS ride has no posted reopening date, but is expected to be many months. Sinbad was 7 months with no substantive changes. So I would imagine changing from Dinosaur to Indy to be a much more significant effort and take multimples longer.
Does anybody really want another Merry-go-Round? We can’t think of anything better?
Hoo boy, your take on Tiana has sure changed since your initial review!
Has it? https://www.disneytouristblog.com/tianas-bayou-adventure-ride-review-reimagined-splash-mountain/
From that: “Paradoxically, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure at once has too much story and not enough story. Ironically, it feels like there were too many cooks in the kitchen all with competing visions for TBA, and instead of settling on one, they threw all the ingredients into the pot.”
“I’d actually go a step further and say that the story for the ride-through portion of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is too simple. The basic outline of the plot is that there’s a Mardi Gras celebration at Tiana’s house, and she needs to find a band for the party. My issues with this are two-fold. First, the resolution to the story feels too swift.”
…
“Second, the ride isn’t over once you find the critter bands, so there’s additional action that unfolds long before the finale…and I’m still not completely sure why. By this, I don’t mean that it’s bad or feels out of place to the attraction. I mean I literally didn’t understand why the things that were happening, were happening.”
I identified plenty of ‘ugly’ in that initial review. I still think the ride is not as bad as its critics make it out to be, nor as great as its defenders argue. And it’s definitely hurt by how often multiple AAs are broken.
Oh, for sure. Your initial review just seems more patient with the ugly than you seem to be with it now (which is totally fair! I’m far from a hater of the ride but my enthusiasm has waned some too.) Even with the ugly, your reviews (and scores) of TBA have landed on an overall positive note so I was surprised.
I’ve definitely enjoyed the attraction less over time, and a big part of that is probably the gratifying dialogue and story beats.
I also did just write this in our Disneyland ride rankings: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/ride-rankings-disneyland-california-adventure/
“I already know that this is probably going to be the most controversial ranking on this list, but the thing is, the bones of this ride are so good that even though it’s arguably a downgrade over Splash Mountain (which, in fact, ranked higher than this), it’s still a fantastic attraction. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is also much better at Disneyland than at Walt Disney World.”
I feel like that’s a big part of it. The bones of Splash Mountain are still there, and the underlying ride is so good (pacing, drops, etc) that even a weaker attraction/story/etc layered on top is still pretty good!
While the ride is still fun because of the legacy features, I think TBA is going to age poorly because of its terrible writing and lack of tension or real story. It won’t be a “classic” in the long term. This is unfortunate because the IP is good. They really missed an opportunity on using Dr. Facilier and playing on his themes of taking the “easy way” with the drop. It could have been similar thematically to Splash Mountain in that way.
“I think TBA is going to age poorly because of its terrible writing and lack of tension or real story.”
I’d agree with this.
And I’d add that this is the one thing I did get really wrong. I thought the attraction would grow on people thanks to the music (most of which is catchy and good), but even that can’t overcome the poor storytelling, dead spaces, and maintenance.
The Encanto dark ride is intriguing. I am glad that there will be an Indiana Jones attraction. Animal Kingdom should be about “Live” attractions. It is understandable that there needs to be compromised for business reasons. If the effort is made to have live cast members interaction I am all for it. They are smart people in Imagineering, I think they will surprise.
Per the comments below about animals, I really do hope there is a capybara habitat in the plans!
Which reminds me that legendary Disney storyman/animator Bill Peet (who worked on so many classics, and was basically the sole auteur on 101 Dalmatians) actually adopted a pet capybara with his family, and later wrote and illustrated the children’s book “Capyboppy” about the experience.
And also reminds me that if anyone has children in their lives, there’s literally nothing more delightful than reading them the books of Bill Peet (he focused solely on these after a falling out with Walt over Peet’s more serious vision for The Jungle Book). Each one is like reading a gorgeously illustrated, clever, and heartwarming Disney movie that was never made. I grew up on these books myself, and then raised my children on them. Tom, I hope you’re aware of these for Megatron’s sake!
(FYI, my favorites are The Whingdingdilly, Chester The Worldy Pig, and The Wump World. I’d happily read any of his books as an adult, as they’re not patronizing for kids.)
Thanks for the heads up on Bill Peet!
In Googling his name, I recognize a lot of those books (presumably from when I was a kid), but we haven’t read any of them to Megatron. Sarah is making a library run today or tomorrow, so I’ll add them to the list. Thanks!!!
The Bill Peet books are good. They are a little long, but Megatron might be getting close to the age where my kids liked them. On a related note, I have to disagree about the dialogue in Little Golden books:) The conversation between the tiger and Sooki in The Saggy, Baggy Elephant, the chess scene in Tootle, and the Good Humor Man listing his flavor options are great models for dialogue on a Disney ride.
Tom, given your fondness for dinosaurs, what is your opinion about cloning dinosaurs from DNA in order to bring to life these giant animals for our entertainment? I mean, it is possible something might go wrong with the plan,.. but I am prepared to take our chances if it means seeing these ancient creatures walk through Animal Kingdom,..
The dinosaur enthusiast in me wants to see the majestic beasts roam the earth again, no matter the cost or consequences.
The ethicist in me thinks we should leave well enough alone, and worries that humanity already has too much willingness to play god/creator/whatever without fully considering the consequences and morality of it all.
It was a Jurassic Park joke.., about the consequences obviously backfiring.., not easy to convey the jest in print.., although in the sequels they keep failing to learn their lesson
Joke or not, I choose to take it seriously. I might be willing to throw a lot of ethics and lessons learned from movies out the window if it means getting to see an IRL dinosaur in Animal Kingdom or roaming the streets of NYC! 😉
Great update. Thanks, Tom. Still so very disappointed that we’re not getting an animal trails in Tropical Americas.
I’m glad it’s not just me, Susan!
I was just going to ask about an animal trail. They are some of our favorite parts of Animal Kingdom.
Though I wonder if there are restrictions on animal placement so far from the backstage veterinarian area.
There were never any animals that I know of in the front of the park.
I have missed some of your posts on this, so I’m curious – do you know if there’s an animal trail or exhibit planned for this area? I’m probably one of a small number of people who want *more animals*, but I would love waiting in a line to see the Casita that passes by critters from the region, and it looks like there’s space for it. I would also love to see this open in phases for capacity reasons – though it is kind of handy being able to knock out Animal Kingdom in a half-day and spend the rest of it hitting another park, relaxing on animal trails, or enjoying the hotel.
Wow. I just posted the same about my disappointment of no animal trails. I was wondering the same as Maggie about the ability to accommodate some animal enclosures somewhere in the land, perhaps near the exit/entrance to the Casa Madrigal.
From a previous post: Tropical Americas will feature “authentic experiences” from this area of the world, with placemaking and storytelling you’d expect from Animal Kingdom. “It’s a beautiful region to explore and has been the inspiration for so many magical stories over the years,” said head Imagineer Bruce Vaughn. We can only assume this means that Tropical Americas will feature capybara and chupacabra, both of which are definitely real animals and not at all made up freaks of nature.
Expanding on this further: There’s nothing in the site plan to suggest there’s a major animal exhibit or enclosure and Disney hasn’t said anything, specifically, about animals in Tropical Americas. The best case scenario is probably a small area in the casita courtyard with those oversized rodents–but there’s definitely not enough area for jaguar or anything larger.