Walt Disney World has reached a major milestone in construction of Tropical Americas in Animal Kingdom. Here’s an update on the Encanto casita attraction, which is now vertical, 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, Walt Disney World just announced that Trilo-Bites and Dino-Bite Snacks in DinoLand USA will serve their final guests on October 19, 2025 before permanently closing as of October 20, 2025. This doesn’t really alter the equation with construction timelines, but it’s notably earlier than everything else that’s still open in the land.
Walt Disney World also announced that DINOSAUR and Restaurantosaurus will close as of February 2, 2026. This is a little over one year after Chester & Hester’s Dino-Rama closed and started demolition. It’s also the more significant date, as it’s safe to expect this area of the park to be completely walled-off and inaccessible to guests starting February 3, 2026.
Dinoland USA 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 the ride with a storyline unique to Animal Kingdom, making this the third non-cloned version of the attraction.
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-ized version of Mystic Manor, except not trackless. The premise 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.
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 mid-October 2025. As always, All aerial photos courtesy of theme park eye in the sky bioreconstruct, a highly recommended follow who graciously provided the construction photos here.)
Above is basically a high-level aerial establishing shot.
DINOSAUR is in the lower left corner of the above photo–the green show building. The exterior of that backstage structure is unlikely to change at all. The front will 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 Indiana Jones Adventure show building look.
Immediately to the right of DINOSAUR–the massive construction zone–is the backstage area where the Encanto show building will be built. Above that is the former home to Chester & Hester’s Dino-Rama, which will soon become the ‘Village of Hope.’ It’s currently identifiable as dirt. At the top 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 top right and DINOSAUR on the top left.
These photos also show the sets of construction walls that cut through two different project sites. On the right, in front of Restaurantosaurus, is the Boneyard demolition; the much larger left side is Encanto expansion. Work started 9 months earlier on Encanto, so it should be no surprise that it’s further along.
I kind of buried the lede with the first couple of photos–there’s now a tower crane on site and construction of the Encanto casita (or rather, the show building for the attraction) is now going vertical!
You can’t yet see this from the ground, but concrete walls have been poured and support columns constructed near the back of the construction site and show building. This comes after foundations were poured, footers installed, and utilities buried back in September.
To better visualize what we’re looking at, below is the Encanto model from roughly the same vantage:
One thing to note is the tiered show building, which gets progressively taller the further it goes backstage.
The concept art, model, and permits all suggest that the indoor queue begins to the left of the casita. Like Haunted Mansion, guests probably 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.
Scaling up one level is likely the load area, opening scene(s), closing scene(s), and unload. Again, something similar to Haunted Mansion would make sense. The Little Mermaid dark ride might be a better, newer example.
The highest section of show building is likely to be the marquee or climactic scene(s). My gut is that Walt Disney World has ‘secretly’ already showed us one of these with the only interior concept art that’s been released, featuring the family gathered around Antonio in his room-turned-rainforest with a bunch of animals.
Got all of that?
Eyeballing the model versus the aerials of the construction site, it looks like the walls are around the back section of show building, while the pit with the four forms taking shape are roughly in the middle, right behind what I’d expect to be the load area.
Here’s another, closer angle on the show building site.
The back section (far left on this photo) is presumably a maintenance area, which explains why it’s smaller and walled-off from the main show building. The walls on the left and right approximate the sides of the highest section of show building.
Then there’s the excavated pit with the four concrete forms.
It stands to reason that there’s a grandiose room or two in the Encanto attraction, like the Haunted Mansion graveyard or ‘Under the Sea’ area in the Little Mermaid. This could be for that, even though it doesn’t seem to quite line up with where we’d expect to see the highest section of the show building. We could be wrong about that, or this could have a more mundane explanation.
Circling the site a bit, we now have a side view of construction.
The area where nothing is really happening and there’s a giant pile of dirt is the front lawn of the casita. This is one area of the expansion that’s a bit of a wildcard. Obviously, the standby line and Lightning Lane will pass through here; but nothing in the permits or concept art suggests there will be a lengthy outdoor overflow.
One possibility is that this is the land’s animal enclosure. Maybe there’s a small pathway with a capybara or two that isn’t part of the queue. Honestly, I doubt that’s the case–but there are few other spots in the permits that could house an animal enclosure. If Tropical Americas is getting any animals at all, the area is necessarily small; anyone hoping for a jaguar enclosure should adjust their expectations, as there simply is not enough room anywhere.
My guess is that the lawn is just lawn, and not an animal enclosure of any sort. Having a bit of breathing room between the attraction’s entrance and the casita facade will be an impressive and photogenic visual. Although the permits are inconclusive as to this, it’s what the concept art suggests.
Above is a closer look at the former Chester & Hester’s Dinosaur Treasures gift shop. Like Restaurantosaurus, this is being reimagined as opposed to replaced. Hence it not being demolished along with everything else in Dino-Rama.
The models and permits show no structural changes to either the retail or restaurants. They’ll get a layer of new thematic window-dressing, but the structures themselves shouldn’t need any material changes. They’re still fairly new by Walt Disney World standards.
Walt Disney World keeps referring to the “large hacienda which will be one of the largest quick-service restaurants at Walt Disney World Resort” when discussing Tropical Americas. That’s just Restaurantosaurus, which is already one of the largest quick-service restaurants at WDW.
Turning our attention to the other side of the walls (lower right of the above photo), demolition on the Boneyard is nearly completed. The playground is gone and crews are now preparing the site for carousel construction.
In addition to the critter carousel, this is essentially where the fountain and entrance to Tropical Americas will be built. The new playground is not being built here. It’ll be between the souvenir shop and Indiana Jones Adventure; the permits suggest it’ll be smaller and simpler than the Boneyard.
We continue to wonder whether the 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.
Animal Kingdom is so light on attractions, and Walt Disney World is clearly sensitive about closing too much at once, that this might make sense. Having the critter carousel, large hacienda, and maybe even the gift shop open by Christmas 2026 or even the first half of 2027 might be the target simply for increasing/restoring park capacity.
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. And likewise, why they’re moving so quickly on demolition and construction for the carousel area. It’s not going to take the ~2 years that Encanto will likely require from this point.
Now that the tower crane is on site and walls have started, 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.
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.)
More recently, we’ve heard and seen the same scenario play out in Avengers Campus at DCA. But Disney construction happens slow…and then suddenly. The Avengers Campus went vertical in a hurry, and so too will this.
Within the coming weeks, it’s likely that we’ll start to see the show building from the ground inside Animal Kingdom. No more aerial photos will be necessary. At some point in early 2026, the aerial shots will stop being insightful since the show building will be fully enclosed. Hopefully this happens even earlier.
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 ~4 months.
Ultimately, we’re pleased to see the progress on Tropical Americas. My hope is that our next update is in early-to-mid November, consisting of only on-the-ground photos showcasing the speed at which the Encanto show building is going vertical. It would also be nice to see construction on the critter carousel by early 2026.
It’s a bullish sign that Tropical Americas is being accelerated as opposed to delayed. And we should see tremendous progress from within Animal Kingdom between now and early February 2026, after which point we won’t be able to see much of anything because this whole area will be consumed by construction and closed to guests. That’s really when the explosive progress will start to happen.
Even so, Tropical Americas is 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.
A lot can happen in two full years, but our expectation is that Tropical Americas is a holiday season opening. Maybe it’ll be a repeat of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, with a portion of the land (critter carousel, restaurants and retail) opening in the off-season and the marque attractions debuting in early December 2027!
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Optimistic that there’s a tower crane on-site to build the Encanto show building? Expect to see vertical progress from the ground by November (or earlier)? 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!
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