Encanto Casita & Indiana Jones Temple Rising as Tropical Americas Construction Speeds Ahead!

Construction of the Encanto Magical Madrigal Casita attraction and Indiana Jones Adventure speeds ahead, as the family home and temple take shape behind the walls in Animal Kingdom. Here’s the latest on Tropical Americas, including aerial photos of construction progress, plus predictions for the 2026 D23 Expo and opening dates for the critter carousel, Encanto, and IJA.

Let’s start with what we’re expecting for Tropical Americas at the 2026 D23 Expo, which is less than one month away, since realistically, we’re probably not doing another update on this project between now and then. Honestly, I don’t have high expectations for D23 when it comes to Tropical Americas.

Logically, this would be the event for really pulling back the curtain on Tropical Americas. It’s the last D23 Expo before the expansion opens in 2027, and there’s a good chance that even next year’s Destination D23 will be too late for really doing a deep dive. Given that, we are expecting something for Tropical Americas at the 2026 D23 Expo. It just probably won’t be anything super exciting.

We’ve already seen a detailed model of Tropical Americas. That was on display at the last D23 Expo and is now in Walt Disney Presents at Hollywood Studios. That was the big reveal. It’s possible there will be more detailed models this go-round, but I’m skeptical. Even with the largest-ever Imagineering booth, there’s only so much model space. I’m expecting the main event there to be Piston Peak, plus maybe Monstropolis and Disney California Adventure expansion. Those models will likely wow.

From a planning perspective, the most intriguing possibility is an opening season or seasons (plural) for Tropical Americas. I’m not holding my breath on that. If they do narrow the timing, it’ll probably be an offhand mention of “Late 2027” or “later in 2027.” Or they might quietly shift the debut to 2028, but I wouldn’t expect that at D23, which is treated as a “good news only” event. If there is a delay, it’ll be quietly signaled elsewhere to call as little attention to the news as possible.

If they’re trying for a Summer or Fall 2027 debut of anything, I think it’s probably too early to announce that, as it’s an aggressive opening timeline that they won’t be able to lock-in until more progress is made. (Counter-intuitive that a delay or later opening could be announced earlier, but that’s how it works with a conservative vs. ambitious date.)

Realistically, that leaves new concept art and details about the show scenes, model ride vehicles, and deeper dives into the story of each attraction. I wouldn’t expect Imagineering to get too in the weeds on these attractions, but there are a couple of wow moments in each attraction, and highlighting those would be obvious choices.

For instance, the larger-than-life climactic scene in Encanto would be a good reveal. Pulling back the curtain on the mythical creature, presumably the Kukulkan or Quetzalcoatl, that’s at the heart of Indiana Jones would also make sense. Showing more of the temple, inside and outside, would also reinforce the ambition of the transformation, as it’s still difficult to envision how the Dino Institute is going to become a remote Mayan temple.

Against that backdrop, let’s turn to the latest construction photos. The Tropical Americas at Animal Kingdom project is moving fast as of Summer 2026. As always, all aerial photos are courtesy of theme park eye in the sky bioreconstruct, which were shared on July 17, 2026.

Tropical Americas Construction Photos (July 2026)

The biggest development this month is that the foundation for the Casita Madrigal is starting to take shape.

The concept art, model, and permits all suggest that the indoor queue begins to the left of the casita. Like Haunted Mansion, guests will not walk through the front doors; it’ll be the illusion of entering the casita. I would expect the lowest section of show building to be queue space.

Concrete forms for additional walls are now visible, suggesting that a berm structure is being built with the casa itself perched on a hillside. Again, similar to the Haunted Mansion, and again, also evident from the model that we first saw nearly two years ago.

The idea is to make the Madrigal family home appear to be a freestanding structure, not a false-facade on a gigantic show building. The show building behind it should be largely hidden from guest view by carefully blocking sightlines via vegetation and other structures in Tropical Americas, including the elevated casita.

I am mentioning all of this because I’ve seen a shocking number of comments from concerned fans worried that the structure is too small. I can empathize with these fears to a degree given the failed forced perspective of the toy castle at Be Our Guest Restaurant, but this is a totally different story.

Making the casita the size of the show building is what would throw off the scale, not this. If you don’t believe me, pull up Google Maps and check out aerials of Haunted Mansion. This works really well with Haunted Mansion, so it’s smart of Imagineering to borrow from that playbook.

The show building will also be concealed by rockwork, and speaking of which, the steel mesh for that is starting to take shape! You can see it along the edge of the third tier of the show building. It’ll be used to conceal the highest points of the structure, along with more mountains dotting the rest of the roofline, per the model.

Installation of the steel mesh for rockwork has been fast, and the blocks on top of the show building are for precisely this purpose. The aerial photos give a good view of this work, but you can also see it from the ground when approaching Tropical Americas from Discovery Island.

Although Imagineering has excelled at rockwork in recent years, I wouldn’t expect much of this. It’s likely to be more practical and aimed at drawing attention away from the show building than it is at creating depth to the landscape. (I’d love to be wrong about that, especially since this is Imagineering’s strong suit; it’s just not the sense that I get from the model.)

While we’re on the topic of fan fears, I’ve seen the same for the temple at Indiana Jones Adventure and the old Dino Institute building. Very obviously, that temple structure that’s front and center is not going to block the entire rest of the building. It can’t.

Expect the remainder of the flatter facade will be repainted, weathered and made to look like an extension of that. The main temple will be the focal point, and the eye will be drawn away from the rest with lush landscaping and other tricks.

When it comes to Indiana Jones Adventure, the comparison is…Indiana Jones Adventure. The attraction exterior at Tokyo DisneySea is similar to what’s planned for Walt Disney World. I hesitate to ever compare TDS to WDW, as it’s highly unlikely the depth, detail and overall illusion will be as compelling at Animal Kingdom. Nevertheless, the animating idea is similar. It should look convincing. Fingers crossed.

Beyond the attraction facades and show buildings, site-wide work is continuing across Tropical Americas. There’s a ton happening, but let’s focus on a few highlights that are visible since our last update.

The carousel structure shows vertical construction progressing around the circular base. Along with this, beams are now up for the roof of the carousel queue. There’s also scaffolding at the center of the carousel, for what would appear to be the installation of that roof.

Just beyond the carousel, the first tree has been transplanted into the Tropical Americas project site. On the other side of the carousel, there’s a structure starting to take shape that’ll be across from the village fountain.

In the model (above), this appears to be a roof-less building, which doesn’t strike me as particularly practical. I have no clue what this will be, but I’m guessing a souvenir or snack stand (never bet against a DVC kiosk, though!).

Tropical Americas Opening Date(s)

Now that we’ve seen progress on Tropical Americas, let’s speculate a bit about opening dates. Both of the land as a whole and the possibility of a phased opening of the attractions within it.

We’re still wondering whether the critter carousel might be able to open ahead of Encanto and Indiana Jones Adventure. Normally, Walt Disney World would want to open Tropical Americas all at once to make for a splashy event and marketable expansion.

That’s a lesson they learned the hard way with the bifurcated opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in 2019 and the unexpectedly low crowds that followed for several months, up until Rise of the Resistance debuted. A lot was different about that, though.

For starters, Animal Kingdom is really light on rides.

Walt Disney World is clearly sensitive about closing too much at once. Having the critter carousel and restaurant open by the first half of 2027 might be the target simply for increasing/restoring park capacity. That type of phased opening would not ‘steal the thunder’ of the grand opening of the rest of Tropical Americas. They wouldn’t even have to publicize it.

The counter to this is that Disney might be okay with Animal Kingdom having a rough year or two. Even with the “Bluey bump,” crowds are really light at Animal Kingdom right now. It’s been less-busy than even EPCOT on our visits this summer, and we’d expect to see its attendance decrease when numbers are released for last year, and again in 2026-2027. And it’s already dropped a lot from its highs.

If everything opens around or after October 2027, that puts Tropical Americas at the start of a new fiscal year. If so, “easier comps” for this park to lap in 2028 and beyond mean that Tropical Americas can be trumpeted as a demonstrable success to Wall Street, supporting the business case for continued, aggressive investments in Parks & Resorts.

If fans got a “vote” in this, that’s the course of action I’d recommend. Even though Animal Kingdom is in rough shape and I feel for first-timers visiting right now, I also don’t think a critter carousel materially changes the equation on that. If anything, opening that area partially draws more attention to what they’re just barely missing.

As a general matter, I am strongly in favor of opening each of these expansions all-at-once. Tropical Americas has the most compelling case for a phased opening, but even so, it’s better to debut everything simultaneously. More obvious is that Monstropolis, Piston Peak, and Villains Land should open all-at-once in 2028, 2029, and 2030.

To whatever extent Animal Kingdom “needs” stuff to come online earlier in 2027, backfill with entertainment. There’s absolutely no reason that Disney Live Entertainment should move such a glacial pace. But just because this is what should happen doesn’t mean it’s what will happen–and a compelling case can be made for a phased opening here!

It will almost certainly take longer to reimagine DINOSAUR into Indiana Jones Adventure. When trying to reverse engineer the opening date of Indiana Jones Adventure, we have some recent precedent to work with: Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and Frozen Ever After. These two projects both took around 18-20 months.

Obviously, those are not perfect comparisons since both are slow-moving boat rides whereas Indiana Jones Adventure is a thrilling high-speed attraction. Splash Mountain and Maelstrom also had work that needed to be done that is likely irrelevant here. Nevertheless, I’d call them “good enough” proxies, especially since I assume (hope) the interiors will become more elaborate with this reimagining, as opposed to less so, as was the case with Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.

For better or worse, DINOSAUR presented more of a blank slate to work with, and this reimagining should involve filling that space with dimensional environments. It also probably entails more in the queue and pre-show, since it’s going from being a scientific institute to a temple. If anything, 18-20 months strikes me as being on the low end of what’ll be required to transform DINOSAUR into Indiana Jones Adventure.

Encanto is going to take more time than Indiana Jones Adventure since it’s a new build from the ground up. The exterior of the show building is now fully enclosed, but it’s safe to assume the ride system isn’t fully installed. Even though tremendous progress has been made on Encanto, it’s probably at least 3-4 months behind where Indiana Jones Adventure stands today. This is precisely why Dino-Rama closed over a year before DINOSAUR.

There’s always the possibility that Walt Disney World throws more resources at these projects, but I could see a scenario where Indiana Jones Adventure opens between October and December 2027, and the Encanto Casita attraction doesn’t debut until Spring 2028. Maybe I’m being overly conservative with the timeline, and those months should be adjusted earlier to July 2027 for Indiana Jones Adventure and December 2027 for Encanto.

Either way, I would not be the least bit surprised if there are separate opening dates for Tropical Americas, as getting capacity online is of paramount importance to Animal Kingdom. Maybe that works from a marketing perspective, too. “Indiana Jones ride and area is now open!” and “Encanto ride and area is now open!” is a lot easier to convey to mainstream audiences than the all-encompassing Tropical Americas land.

Regardless, I’d love to see Walt Disney World open all of Tropical Americas at once around Thanksgiving 2027. Debuting the new land all-at-once while also debuting a new nighttime spectacular and commencing construction on a Lion King ride around the same time would give Animal Kingdom “soft relaunch” vibes.

That’s pretty much what they did back when Pandora opened, with the accompanying Animal Kingdom After Dark campaign, and it worked well for a couple of years! Trying to reestablish Animal Kingdom as a full day park would be a savvy marketing move, and if history is any indication, would be a massive and badly-needed attendance driver for DAK.

A lot can happen between now and then, but I think the best case scenario is Tropical Americas debuting all at once during the Christmas 2027 season. That’s a long wait, but the good news is that Tropical Americas and Monstropolis probably aren’t a year apart. Once late 2027 arrives, Walt Disney World should have major additions coming online every ~6 months or so. Suffice to say, we should be in for another exciting D23 Expo, even if Tropical Americas isn’t the emphasis.

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YOUR THOUGHTS

Excited about Encanto, Indiana Jones, and Tropical Americas? Thoughts on recent progress or anything else? 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!