Tropical Americas News Update: Construction, Permits, and Rumors for Animal Kingdom

New rides are finally coming to Disney’s Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World. With a new Encanto dark ride replacing the already demolished DinoRama area, a new carousel replacing the soon-to-close Boneyard play area, and a new Indiana Jones adventure taking over Dinosaur, closing early next year, there’s a lot of ride details we still don’t have confirmation of.

Let’s check in on construction, and see what we can learn from permits for Tropical Americas, in today’s news update. See the video version of this story below for additional visuals.

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Disney is investing $8 billion in Walt Disney World over the next 10 years. While some outlets have reported that the company may be looking to build a 5th theme park in Florida, the truth is they have instead committed to building enough new attractions at their existing four theme parks over the next decade to fill a new park.

There have been multiple announcements over the last couple years for attractions replacing current ones, but also true park expansions that will increase attraction counts.

These include expansions to the Magic Kingdom to add Cars experiences to Frontierland, but also expand the park to add a new Villains land with two new rides that will add capacity to this popular park.

A Monsters. Inc. land is replacing the former Muppets courtyard area in Hollywood Studios, adding a new indoor suspended family coaster in addition to a theater show replacement for Muppet*Vision 3D.

EPCOT just opened its refreshed Test Track attraction, but does not currently have any new attractions on the schedule at this time. Many are hoping for a Journey into Imagination re-do announcement at Destination D23 later this month, (or maybe at D23 Expo next year, now called D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event).

The park that may need an expansion the most, Animal Kingdom, saw work starting on the new Tropical Americas land earlier this year.

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DinoLand USA Closures

Disney teased possible new attractions for this park back in 2022. They shared blue sky concept art during that year’s D23 Expo that seemed to include new Moana rides and a Zootopia area, but never confirmed any details.

A Tropical Americas land was officially announced a year later, at Destination D23 in 2023. With a targeted opening in 2027, it will completely reimagine DinoLand U.S.A., bringing a new dark ride and carousel to the park, and retheming the existing Dinosaur dark ride.

DinoLand is closing in phases, with the first phase back in January seeing the closure of the roadside attraction themed DinoRama section.

The Boneyard play area will close next, on September 2nd. The Dinosaur ride will close early next year in 2026. And Restaurantosaurus will close when it feels like it, probably when the ride does.

Disney wasted no time demolishing the roadside attraction-themed carnival games, Tricera-Top Spin flat ride, and Cementosaurus statue after closing the DinoRama area earlier this year.

Work walls now surround the area, featuring official concept art for the new Tropical Americas land. There are also Butterfly graphics on these walls, from the Disney Animation film Encanto, which will be getting the brand new ride in this area.

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Tropical Americas Permits

Demolition permit images submitted to the South Florida Water Management District show how much of the infrastructure will be retained and utilized, including all of the retail spaces, restrooms, and dining options from DinoLand.

With a before and after comparison between these two permit images, as seen above, we can get an idea of how big the new Encanto ride structure will be, seen on the right side of the image.

The image above has labels added for clarity, for all three of the new attractions for Tropical Americas.

The Dinosaur dark ride will receive an all new Mayan temple facade when it is converted into a new Indiana Jones ride. But the Encanto ride will be a fresh build, designed from scratch.

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Construction Update

These aerial views from Bioreconstruct show how the park’s footprint has been expanded into backstage areas to make more room for this upcoming Encanto dark ride.

Current work is happening for a retaining wall at this back edge of this area, as seen in the photo above.

Another retaining wall was previously installed on the other side, closer to the backstage of the Finding Nemo musical theater, shown at the arrow in the photos above.

Test materials can be spotted in this aerial view of the Imagineering offices set up at Animal Kingdom.

These include pavement samples and paint and material tests to see how they stack up to the outdoor elements, plus for seeing how they appear in different kinds of sunlight.

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Encanto Ride Info & Rumors

Disney has shared additional details for the new Tropical Americas land since it was first announced two years ago, and fans have been speculating on other details to help fill in the gaps.

The 11-acre land will take place in the fictional town of “Pueblo Esperanza,” which means village of hope. This is a similar set up as the other lands at Animal Kingdom, where the official land name may be Africa, but it is set at the fictional Harambe Village.

Disney promises the space to be lush, with a large fountain in the center of town. Official concept art shows a new arch at the entrance. Restaurantosaurus and the surrounding area will transformed into a large hacienda, which will become one of the largest quick-service restaurants at Walt Disney World.

Official details for the all-new indoor Encanto dark ride will take us inside of the Madrigal family’s magical Casita. The ride will take place as Antonio receives his special gift, the ability to communicate with animals, with his room having been transformed into a rain forest.

We will travel through the many rooms of the house via different pieces of moving furniture, but Disney has not confirmed the type of ride system it will utilize.

It’s possible the ride could use a modified omnimover system, similar to Journey Into Imagination, where a small train of ride vehicles move together. Or it could be a simple Fantasyland-style dark ride with small groups of furniture traveling together, as suggested by the concept art. It is not expected to be a boat ride or a trackless ride, which will allow it to feature more more scenes within a relatively small space.

Permit images show the outdoor queue entry and a possible Lightning Lane entrance, as well as what may be the ride’s exit path.

This possible outdoor ride entrance path can be seen on the left of both of the official pieces of concept art above.

The Casita facade itself, which appears to be separate from the ride building in permit images, may only be for show and will not be enterable from the front. As the concept art above shows, the entry to the ride is to the left of the structure, leaving the Casita facade just for show, similar to how The Haunted Mansion is set up at Magic Kingdom.

The ride queue entry and where we will actually enter the hidden show building is even more clear in the scale model of the new land. This model was on display during last year’s D23 event. See more photos of the official model at BlogMickey.com.

The magical house is expected to appear alive, so we may see moving shutters or opening and closing doors as we pass.

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Indiana Jones Ride

Disney has confirmed that the other main attraction for this new land, a retheme of the existing Dinosaur attraction based on Indiana Jones, will feature an all-new story developed just for Animal Kingdom—despite this ride utilizing the same ride system as Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland.

This new adventure has Indy exploring a perfectly preserved Maya temple. Legends speak of a mythical creature deep within it.

This ride re-do will likely utilize the existing ride system, track layout, and all of the existing queue spaces.

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Carousel & Play Area

The third ride for the area will be a carousel. The backstory for the attraction is that “a woodcarver has created a giant working carousel featuring his favorite animals from Disney stories.”

Zooming into official concept art for this ride we can see example characters from properties like Winnie the Pooh, Aladdin, Moana, The Lion King, Finding Nemo, UP, and several more.

When it was announced that The Boneyard would be closing September 2nd the official Disney Parks Blog mentioned for the first time that the new Tropical Americas will in fact feature a new themed play area.

We’re not sure exactly where this new kids play area will be located, since the carousel is taking over the main section of the current play area and additional dining seating will be taking over the dig site according to concept art and permit images.

The section of DinoLand called Cretaceous Trail doesn’t seem to have anything shown in concept art for the new land, so that could be a candidate.

Permit images have the pathways in this area reshaped, as seen above, but it does not describe for what. This area could be for a playground, or perhaps meet and greets like it has been used in recent years.

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Next Steps

It is unknown if the new land will feature any live animal exhibits. DinoLand U.S.A.’s couple animal exhibits were already evicted. Permits show that the area where their enclosures are located, in front of Restaurantosaurus, will become the new centerpiece fountain for Tropical Americas.

In recent days new Notices of Commencement have posted for the addition of construction trailers related to work to be done in this area. This may indicate that major construction on the Encanto ride building could be begin soon.

Tropical Americas has been announced to be completed in 2027. But these are not the only new attractions coming to the park.

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Zootopia Show

The new 3D show replacing It’s Tough to Be a Bug! within the Tree of Life Theater in the center of the park is planned to open this winter. Zootopia: Better Zoogether will star characters from the animated Zootopia film as they showcase the different biomes seen in the movie.

It’s Tough to Be a Bug! closed permanently on March 17th of this year. Construction walls have been in place since the day after.

Many believe that the new 3D show will feature at least one animatronic, just like the show it is replacing.

Shanghai Disneyland reveals an Officer Clawhauser animatronic in the upcoming #Zootopia attraction ahead of #D23Expo Day3. pic.twitter.com/EnHG0btMl2

— RiverDai (@RiverDai1992) September 11, 2022

The new one could be Officer Clawhauser, who is seen in official concept art, (above,) in the same spot where the animatronic Hopper was located in the former show. Clawhauser already has an impressive animatronic at Shanghai Disneyland’s Zootopia attraction.

We will be following construction of the new Tropical Americas land, as well as other projects at Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, so stay tuned for updates. Be sure to see the video version of this story for additional visuals.

Subscribe to the news feed or enter your email address below to never miss an update. Original Photos: Alicia Stella | Aerial Photos: Bioreconstruct | Main Permit Documents: my.sfwmd.gov | Official Art: Disney | Other Images as Captioned