Appreciate These Parts of Animal Kingdom While You Can
Change is coming to Disney’s Animal Kingdom.
While Disney executives have tap-danced around confirmation, the truth is simple.
At the 2023 D23 Expo Parks Panel, Disney promised that change is coming to Animal Kingdom.
Now, a permit filing suggests that the time could be almost at hand.
So, you should appreciate these parts of Animal Kingdom while you can.
What We Know about the Changes
I don’t want to relitigate the D23 Parks Panel, but the truth is Disney offered little by way of verification.
Yes, we expect Indiana Jones, Encanto, and Zootopia experiences coming to Animal Kingdom.
However, Disney has only officially confirmed one of them. It’s Zootopia, and it’s not in the way you think.
As a reminder, the park will add a Zootopia-based show around the Tree of Life area.
I’m allowing for the possibility that Disney will create a new space for this attraction, so let’s hold that out for a moment.
Other than that, all we know is that Josh D’Amaro all but shouted from the rooftops that DinoLand, U.S.A. is going away soon.
Without offering anything finite, the Chairman of Disney Experiences indicated that Disney would do something else here.
We believe that’s the Indiana Jones and Encanto attractions, but nobody has explicitly stated that for sure.
Still, Disney’s wording suggests that it won’t create a new area for these experiences.
Instead, Disney will reclaim the land currently used here. Yes, the poor dinosaurs are about to go extinct again.
So, which attractions should you prioritize during your upcoming Disney visits? Let’s see…
The Boneyard
Look, here’s the reality of what we’re discussing.
If/when Disney re-themes DinoLand U.S.A., it’s an everything must go situation.
All the stuff you love at this themed land is probably living on borrowed time.
While we don’t know when Disney will start working on this project, we can speculate a bit.
Unless Disney announces this project during the Annual Shareholder Meeting in April, word probably arrives in August.
That’s when Disney hosts the next D23 Expo Parks Panel event.
I’m not saying that the teardown will occur immediately afterward, but…it might.
As such, passionate fans of DinoLand U.S.A. should prioritize their favorites, one of which is likely The Boneyard.
Since the park’s inception, children have relished the opportunity to play with the dinosaur bones and other elements of this de facto playground.
Those of you with lasting memories of this experience should make sure to take pictures and videos while you still can.
Chester and Hester’s Dino-Rama
Similarly, the Fossil Fun games and other interactive activities at Dino-Rama have admirably performed their job as carnie distractions for kids.
Parents know that they can entertain their kids here while grabbing a quick breather during a visit to Disney’s largest, hottest park.
I’m not saying that cynically. Dino-Rama has proven to be the saving grace for many struggling parents.
For kids who visited here, this area imprinted on them as what a Disney visit could be.
The character interactions have played an integral role in that development, too.
You never know who you might meet here, but Launchpad McQuack is often in the rotation, to the delight of my wife.
Still, I suspect that for most people, Dino-Rama signifies Comet Crasher and Fossil Fueler, silly competitive games that possess a certain purity.
I’ll miss them and hope that the new geography-based theme includes something similar.
DINOSAUR
Okay, here’s the one that will leave a mark for many of us.
I am passionate about DINOSAUR, an attraction I consider among the most underrated at Walt Disney World.
While the movie, Dinosaur, quickly departed theaters and the pop culture zeitgeist many years ago, the ride has stood the test of time.
In fact, you challenge the concept of time by traveling back to the age of the dinosaurs.
During your journey, you quickly deduce that it’s the day of the extinction-level event that wiped out the dinosaurs.
So, you must escape an unexpected, decidedly unpleasant scenario wherein terrified dinosaurs block your path.
This ride is lovingly crafted and shockingly intense at times.
DINOSAUR is what I will miss the most when DinoLand U.S.A. goes away.
It’s Tough to Be a Bug!
And here’s the potentially controversial suggestion on this list.
We don’t know for sure that Disney will end this long-standing show based on the Pixar film, A Bug’s Life.
However, the location fits with the description of that upcoming Zootopia show, as this is technically in the same area.
Also, we should be honest about the fact that Disney will release Zootopia 2 in November 2025.
Conversely, the ship has long since sailed on a sequel to A Bug’s Life.
Disney would merely be picking the hotter brand in switching this attraction to Zootopia.
TriceraTop Spin
Before Disney mercifully killed another ride, I used to joke that TriceraTop Spin wasn’t much, but at least it wasn’t Primeval Whirl.
In truth, that gives the short shrift to TriceraTop Spin, a clone of Magic Kingdom’s Dumbo the Flying Elephant and Magic Carpets of Aladdin.
Obviously, at Dinoland U.S.A., you ride a dinosaur rather than an elephant or a magic carpet, but the experience is the same.
Since we already have two variants of the premise at Walt Disney World, this loss is more tolerable…but still.
Some people will miss TriceraTop Spin, and I would never diminish their feelings over something they love at Disney.
The reality is that Disney theme parks must always change, as Walt Disney himself dictated that rule.
Some of the losses like the upcoming ones at Animal Kingdom are a bit hard to swallow, though.
For me, that’s particularly true of DINOSAUR, which I like better than Indiana Jones Adventure, and I’m saying that as an Indiana Jones fan.
Ah well. I cannot wait to see the new Encanto experiences!
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