Imagineering Files Permits for Indiana Jones Adventure as Tropical Americas Advances at Animal Kingdom
Nearly three months after the closure of DINOSAUR, work on the Indiana Jones Adventure ride reimagining has advanced to installing show scenes inside the attraction. Here are the latest developments on Tropical Americas, including an aerial update construction progress, and our predicted opening dates for the critter carousel, Encanto, and IJA.
Let’s start by digging right into the construction permits. There are actually three Notice of Commencements for set installation, two of which are new and one of which is old. All three permits were filed by Walt Disney Imagineering, which is to be expected since this project involves creative work as opposed to routine maintenance.
The most recent permit was filed on April 28, 2026 and is assigned to Adirondack Scenic, Inc. This lists the scope of work as “Install Set Elements.” Also known as Adirondack Studios, this contractor serves as a premiere fabrication partner for Walt Disney Imagineering, specializing in physical environments that define some of Disney’s blockbuster additions of the last decade.
Adirondack’s portfolio includes Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and Pandora – The World of Avatar, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, Fantasy Springs at Tokyo DisneySea, Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, Aulani, and a laundry list of other projects for the Disney and Universal parks around the globe. Adirondack’s work has won multiple THEA Awards, and they’ve also worked on a Wegmans grocery store (a nice one).
The next permit was likewise filed on April 28, 2026 and assigned to Scenario. Again, the work is “Install Set Elements.” Scenario is one of the largest scenic theming contractors in the world, responsible for award-winning show sets, IP characters, props, attractions, and rockwork.
In perusing their portfolio, there’s a lot of overlap between Scenario and Adirondack, to the point that I wondered whether one is a subsidiary of the other (does not seem to be the case). In addition to most of the above projects, Scenario worked extensively on Shanghai Disneyland and Cars Land, among other projects. They seem to handle a lot of Disney’s biggest and best rockwork projects, as well as attraction interiors.
Finally, the first permit filed was assigned to Mecca Productions, Inc. as the contractor and lists “Install Set Elements” as the scope of the work. Notably, the Mecca Productions permit was filed on August 6, 2025. (I told you one of them wasn’t new!)
At the time, we questioned whether work was going to quietly get started transforming the show scenes or facade ahead of DINOSAUR closing, similar to Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout at DCA. Maybe that was the plan at one point, but regardless, it did not happen. As best we can tell, nothing happened with DINOSAUR between last August and this February that would’ve triggered a permit.
Mecca Productions is a Central Florida firm specializing in themed props, scenery, and set pieces. The company has large-scale themed entertainment projects in its portfolio, and has collaborated with Walt Disney World in the past, albeit to a lesser extent than Adirondack or Scenario. The most recent record we could find from Mecca in the DTB Archives was for Toy Story Roundup Rodeo BBQ. Here’s hoping Indiana Jones Adventure is a tad more ambitious.
One thing that’s notable about these permits is that all of them–even the one from last August–contain the default one-year expirations. We’re expecting a longer reimagining turnaround time for Indiana Jones Adventure, especially on that Mecca permit.
Indiana Jones Adventure won’t open until mid-2027 at the absolute earliest. Our expectation is that it debuts in the second half of the year, with a better chance of that slipping into 2028 than opening by the start of summer. Given all of that, I’m operating under the assumption that all of these permits will end up getting extensions. I’m not sure why they went with the default one year expiration, but I strongly suspect that wasn’t a purposeful choice with the expectation of work being finished by then.
The bulk of the interior work transforming DINOSAUR into Indiana Jones Adventure will be removing and installing set elements. The show scenes are changing, but the track layout–which is already almost identical to IJA–is not. We’d also expect fairly significant changes to the queue and, in all likelihood, ditching the dedicated pre-show room. And of course, the facade is being redone to change the building from part of the Dino Institute to a temple.
Work needing to be done to multiple phases of the attraction, as well as the exterior, also explains why there are three separate contractors all doing work to “install set elements.”
While the connotation of that might be installing show scenes, and replacing the prehistoric jungle with temple ruins, the actual definition is much more open-ended. (I’m honestly not sure why all Disney permits don’t just say “general construction.” It’s not like they need greater specificity.)
Set elements could be anything from interior show scenes to reworking the queue and pre-show to rockwork or the temple facade. Anything environmental, outside or inside the ride. They are probably not each working on a separate show scene.
The Mecca permit filed last August probably already makes this clear, but the filing of a Notice of Commencement also doesn’t mean work is set to start ASAP. That’s usually the case, but not always.
Here, I would be inclined to believe that the filing of two such permits signals that the project has reached a point where the interior is devoid of DINOSAUR and the teams are ready to commence construction on Indiana Jones Adventure. I would hope that ~3 months was sufficient time to remove a faux forest, dinosaurs on sticks, and whatever else!
Against that backdrop, let’s turn to the latest construction photos. The Tropical Americas at Animal Kingdom project is moving fast as of late April 2026. As always, all aerial photos are courtesy of theme park eye in the sky bioreconstruct.
Tropical Americas Construction Photos (Late April 2026)
Tropical Americas consists of three distinct areas. First is Pueblo Esperanza, the hub in the heart of the rainforest with a name translating to “Village of Hope.” This will be home to a large quick-service restaurant (Restaurantosaurus, reimagined), critter carousel, and other placemaking (plus hopefully an animal enclosure).
After leaving the Pueblo Esperanza, guests can venture deeper into the rainforest to find two signature attractions. To the right from Pueblo Esperanza is a new Indiana Jones Adventure attraction. This will be a new twist on the ride with a storyline unique to Animal Kingdom, making this the third non-cloned version of the attraction.
The mythical creature featured in Indiana Jones Adventure in Tropical Americas is expected to be the Kukulkan or Quetzalcoatl (the former being its Mayan name, the latter its Aztec). The teases of the original story for this IJA thus far have been very intriguing.
To the left is the Encanto magical Madrigal Casita dark ride, which is a family-friendly dark ride. It’s expected to be an Encanto twist on Mystic Manor, except not trackless.
The premise of the Encanto dark ride is that Antonio has just received the ability to communicate with animals, and his room has transformed into a rainforest. It’s time to go explore the casita alongside him, and you never know what member of the family you might bump into.
Tropical Americas Opening Date(s)
Now that we’ve seen progress on Tropical Americas and the latest construction permits, 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, large hacienda, and maybe even the gift shop open by the first half of 2027 might be the target simply for increasing/restoring park capacity. And I don’t think that type of phased opening would ‘steal the thunder’ of the grand opening of the rest of Tropical Americas.
Then again, Disney might be okay with Animal Kingdom having a rough year or two. 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. (Good for us, as it supports the case for continued investments.)
With that said, there’s likely a reason why Walt Disney World moved forward the Boneyard’s closure by several months. And likewise, why they’re moving so quickly on construction for the carousel area. It doesn’t need to take another 16 months to build a carousel and reimagine Restaurantosaurus. If I had to bet on any ride opening early, it’d be the carousel.
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.
It stands to reason that Encanto is going to take more time than Indiana Jones Adventure. Even though tremendous progress has been made on Encanto, it is still not currently at the point of “install set elements,” no matter what that vaguely means. Encanto is still probably 3-4 months behind where Indiana Jones Adventure stands today. This is precisely why Dino-Rama closed over a year before DINOSAUR.
Of course, 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 2 or 3 separate opening dates for Tropical Americas. Not because Walt Disney World is trying to get diehard fans to visit repeatedly–to the contrary, Disney knows that’s more effective at Disneyland–but because getting capacity online is going to be of paramount importance since this is Animal Kingdom.
Honestly, I hope I’m wrong about all of that. What I’d love to see is Walt Disney World open all of Tropical Americas at once around Thanksgiving 2027, while also debuting a new nighttime spectacular and commencing construction on a Lion King ride around the same time.
In other words, pulling from the Disney Adventure World playbook with something of a (much milder) soft relaunch. Trying to reestablish Animal Kingdom as a full day park would be a savvy marketing move, and they wouldn’t even need to look to the Paris park for that, but rather, to Animal Kingdom back when Pandora debuted and they first tried to make DAK After Dark a “thing.”
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. Some might even call this growth turbocharged. (Not me, that’s dorky.)
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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!
