One week after closing, the Rivers of America, Tom Sawyer Island, Liberty Square Riverboat, and Walt Disney World Railroad’s Frontierland Station, work is underway and construction walls are up at Magic Kingdom. There are a a few new notable changes worth sharing as Imagineering gears up to start on Piston Peak and Villains Land, and we’re going to quickly cover those here.
As we previously reported, permits have already been filed for the demolition of Tom Sawyer Island. In the days since that area closed, countless workers have been spotted on the island, with boats transporting items away. As is normally the case, a variety of teams from Operations, Imagineering, and the Walt Disney Archives tag various items for reuse, preservation, or resale to collectors.
So John Stamos and Neil Patrick Harris might end up getting into a bidding war over the entire windmill (kidding but only kinda), iconic signage will end up in the Archives, and trash cans could see second life at Lakeshore Lodge or Fort Wilderness. Once Tom Sawyer Island is fully picked over by all of these various groups, the rest will be demolished. (Well, aside from what intrepid contractors can sneak out.) Although we don’t have any on-the-ground intel, that process is probably completed by now.
Otherwise, we’ve seen work over the last couple of months already starting backstage. From the ground, it’s been difficult to discern just how far along progress is in this area closer to on-stage areas and the guest-facing side of the Rivers of America. This is something we covered recently in Massive Magic Kingdom Land Clearing Beyond Big Thunder, which offers an aerial view of the work to show its full scope and scale. We’re surprised at just how much land has been cleared already.
Now, we have another batch of eye in the sky photos courtesy of friend-of-the-site bioreconstruct, the go-to source for aerial theme park photography (a highly recommended follow who graciously provided the helicopter shots here)…
Let’s start with a high-level establishing shot, which offers an update on progress from our last look a couple of weeks ago.
To orient yourself, this is of Magic Kingdom (Big Thunder is lower left) and the area to the northwest of the park. The Magic Kingdom side of the image shows Frontierland and the Rivers of America, making the rest of the photo the area that’s (truly!) ‘Beyond Big Thunder.’
There’s a lot of land cleared in the photos. The areas nearer the parks will be laydown yards supporting the construction of Cars and Villains Lands. The far right is a new retention pond that’s being created for displaced stormwater capacity lost due to the infill of the Rivers of America. The top middle shows the new routing of Floridian Way, which is a major multi-year project aimed at easing congestion. It presumably also opens the door for another Seven Seas Lagoon resort.
Taking a closer and more overhead aerial view, we can see one full gravel laydown yard and a portion of another that will be adjacent to the project site. These are in low-lying areas to the northwest of the Rivers of America, necessitating additional work to establish usable gravel laydown yards in the first place.
There will be three gravel laydown yards in total around the northwestern perimeter of Magic Kingdom. Two will be located beyond the berm, meaning outside of Magic Kingdom guest areas, with the third laydown yard within Magic Kingdom along the northwestern banks of what’s currently the Rivers of America (lower left–all trees currently).
These gravel laydown yards will be used for construction equipment, heavy machinery, materials staging, earth-moving, etc. One will become a parking lot for construction workers and field office for Walt Disney Imagineering. The laydown yards themselves will eventually become suitable for future development, too.
Zooming in even further and we have the first ‘newsy’ photo, which reveals two major developments.
Second, construction crews have removed portions of the railroad track behind BTMRR and other sections of the closed portion of the Walt Disney World Railroad. I’m a little surprised this particular section of track was removed, unless crews need direct access to Big Thunder?
As a reminder, “shuttle mode” operations of the Walt Disney World Railroad have now begun as of July 7, 2025. This is due to the temporary closure of the Frontierland Station, which is occurring to accommodate Cars and Villains Land construction. The staging areas and the construction sites are on opposite sides of the railroad tracks, hence the closure.
This means you can no longer experience the Grand Circle Tour of the Walt Disney World Railroad until 2030 at minimum. We’re just happy the WDW Railroad isn’t closed completely (again). What’s also unknown is if the track will be re-routed around Villains Land, a new tunnel will be added, or even a new station. We’ve previously suggested that perhaps there will be a new in-park hotel back here adjacent to a new railroad station. But none of that is relevant to this track removal, which is so far closed to BTMRR and Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.
The other big development is that the Liberty Square Riverboat and Tom Sawyer Island rafts are now docked in the Magic Kingdom service canal. This is located next to the construction site behind Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
Walt Disney World has a proper dry dock area located on the northwest corner of Bay Lake, but there’s also this small secondary marina that the Liberty Belle sometimes uses within Magic Kingdom. This isn’t visible to guests from inside the park, in case you’re wondering.
Any potential future plans for the Liberty Square Riverboat have not yet been revealed, but teams at Imagineering and Walt Disney World are working together to evaluate and determine what’s possible according to the company. In a perfect world, it would’ve been permanently docked in front of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, but since that’s not happening, here’s hoping for Port Orleans or Disney Springs.
I’m not holding my breath at this point, though. There have been a lot of “rumors” about the future of the Liberty Belle, but I haven’t heard anything credible. One suggests it’s going to be relocated to the Grand Floridian. Another that it’s going to be used in the finale of Fantasmic. Finally, that this is the final resting place of the riverboat, and it’ll be demolished here.
While I’d love to be wrong, I’m inclined to believe that the Liberty Belle has no future at Walt Disney World. Its use cases are limited, since it’s not a watercraft in the traditional sense of the term. It needs the guide track to navigate waterways, so it’s either a matter of finding a home somewhere with a track or docking it somewhere and using it as a restaurant or aesthetic feature.
I’m skeptical any of that happens, especially given the associated maintenance costs. Best case scenario is probably it being disassembled and shipped off to a maritime museum. Maybe it ends up at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut–a place I literally just learned about when Googling “best boat museum.” Again, would love to be wrong and have the Liberty Belle live on at Port Orleans or elsewhere at Walt Disney World. Hopefully the beancounters are boaties!
The final development is that construction walls are now up around the Rivers of America:
They’re difficult to discern from the first couple of high-level photos, but the final two show them better.
Basically, there are walls up everywhere but the waterfront walkway that offers a “shortcut” along the parade route between Liberty Square and Frontierland. They’re up pretty much everywhere else at this point, and that walkway probably isn’t far behind.
Walkways now extend from Haunted Mansion to the Liberty Square Riverboat landing, and again from the bypass bridge by the Tiana’s Bayou Adventure splashdown loop over to Big Thunder. For now, there are still plenty of in-park views of the Rivers of America, and we really hope that lasts until Starlight debuts, but it seems less likely by the day. Disney is moving fast on this one.
The good news is that a Walt Disney World spokesperson advised us that construction walls will not impact viewing areas for the new Starlight Night Parade in Magic Kingdom. They also shared that construction walls will not impact crowd flow or bypasses in Frontierland for those who do not want to see Starlight.
This means that the waterfront promenade in Frontierland will remain open for the foreseeable future. Presumably, construction walls will go up on the other side of the boardwalk, just like they have on the adjacent bridge heading towards Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and BTMRR. This is at least a small victory for those of us who appreciate this Frontierland ‘shortcut’ or were/are fearing the worst with crowdflow for Starlight.
These walls are going up faster than we expected, suggesting Walt Disney World is going to waste no time in draining the Rivers of America and demolishing Tom Sawyer Island. The walls will block most guest views into that, meaning we’ll either need helicopters or Lightning Lanes for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure for future updates!
This is all a bit bittersweet. On the one hand, I’m holding out hope that this view still exists in 5 days so I can see–and photograph–it in person one last time. On the other hand, it’s heartening to see Imagineering moving fast on all of this, and not just closing everything “early” and letting things stagnate.
I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but now that it’s crystal clear that this Piston Peak project is happening, we want it to be fast-tracked. Minimize the amount of time there’s construction blight in Magic Kingdom, avoiding a repeat of the Giant EPCOT Dirt Pit fiasco. The longer any project drags on, the more likely it is that to be budget-cut or value engineered into oblivion.
I still don’t love this idea (see Why the Rivers of America is Worth Saving), but it’s going to happen and there’s nothing we fans can do to change the course of this Piston Peak project except at the margins. Accordingly, I would love nothing more than for the future-former Rivers of America to be unrecognizable by January 2026, and cranes appearing on site to commence vertical construction. Get this done quickly to minimize the guest impact and have Piston Peak open ASAP.
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Your Thoughts
Thoughts on the future of the Liberty Belle or why Walt Disney World is ripping up the railroad tracks? What about how quickly walls have gone up, blocking most views of the water and island? Mourning the closure of Tom Sawyer Island, Rivers of America, and the Liberty Square Riverboat? Did you have a chance to say your goodbyes? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? 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!
