Construction continues to move quickly on the new Tropical Americas land at Disney’s Animal Kingdom! A lot has changed since our last update. The building for the Encanto ride appears to be nearing completion, and we can see our first signs of theming on the building’s roof.
Around the rest of the land, we can see more work taking place on the carousel, the ever-growing Mayan temple for the Indiana Jones ride, and more. As always, a huge “thank you!” to @bioreconstruct. His incredible eye-in-the-sky pictures makes documenting these projects possible.
Encanto Building & Entrance
We’ll start with a new look at the Encanto building and its entrance. As Bio notes, it looks like the ride will resemble the Haunted Mansion’s layout on the outside. The family Madrigal’s home, Casita, will sit in front of the large ride building and guests will enter to the side.
Zooming way out, we can see just how massive the Encanto ride building is. It’s the large green building (painted in Disney’s iconic Go Away Green paint color) near the top of the image below.
It’s a big one! How exciting. Zooming way in, we can the first bits of work starting on theming. Mesh wiring has been added on top of the Encanto ride building. These mesh forms will be used to form the rock work that will act as the background of the land.
Disney is always so good at making fake rocks. Seriously! The rock work in Galaxy’s Edge and Pandora is just incredible. We expect the Tropical Americas will lean more on landscaping than rock work, but it’s fun to see Disney is planning for depth in their backdrops.
Carousel & Quick Service Dining
Moving around the Tropical Americas, the structure of the new carousel is taking shape.
Note at the top of the left image we can see the start of an entryway. The concept art depicts this space as a new seating area for the land’s quick service restaurants. For reference, this was roughly where guests would walk to head to Restaurantosaurus (RIP).
Indiana Jones Ride
That brings us to the other side of the Tropical Americas land where the old DINOSAUR ride is becoming an Indiana Jones attraction. There, we’ve seen crews building a large Mayan temple that will act as the facade of the Indiana Jones ride.
It’s easy to see where construction is headed when comparing the steel framing to the Indiana Jones concept art. They still have a lot to do if the goal is to hide the large ride building from view.
There you have it! We’re pretty impressed with how quickly construction is moving around the Tropical Americas land. There’s still a lot to do, of course, but it seems like this pace is much faster than the usual Disney construction projects.
While we’re still sad to see DinoLand USA go, it’s easy to be excited about what’s coming. We have high hopes the Encanto ride will be the major headliner that Disney’s Animal Kingdom needs.
Want to learn more about the Tropical Americas land? Mark your calendar for the D23 Disney Experiences Showcase on August 15. We expect Disney to reveal a lot more about the land, especially the Encanto ride, and give a better timeline on the land’s opening date. We’ll discuss all of the new details here at Notes From Neverland, so make sure you check back!
