Work on the entrance overhaul at Disney’s Animal Kingdom has picked up the pace, leading to some pathway adjustments and other noteworthy items. We made it out to Animal Kingdom this morning just after sunrise to take a look at the latest work.

First, let’s take a quick look back at the permit that outlines the work. As you can see below, there will be some adjustments to what Disney is calling the “arrival experience”. At the bottom middle of the below image, you can see the new parking lot tram drop off loop. This will move the tram drop off area further away from the main entrance, but will allow for the bag check area to be expanded. We’ve seen work at all four Walt Disney World theme park entrances to expand the walkways and bag check areas. For a more detailed look at what you can expect when it’s completed, check out our original permit post.

It’ll likely be easier for you to visualize where all of the work is taking place if we highlight it on a map, so we’ll be using the Walt Disney World interactive online map to highlight each point of interest as we go along.

We’ll start out in the parking lot, where a temporary tram drop off point is ready to be used. This will be an area to drop guests off at while the new loop is under construction. That would mean three of the four Walt Disney World parks will be using a temporary tram drop off point while a new one is being constructed. As you can see below, the temporary drop off point will be further away from the main entrance than the current drop off point, likely requiring an extra 2 minutes of walking. It likely won’t be as much of a tangled mess of construction as what we saw at Disney’s Hollywood Studios at one point, but who knows?

There is a small construction area to the left of the tram lane that we’ll take a quick look at next.

This area seems to be part staging area and part land clearing area. There’s not much to report from here, but we did notice that Disney added some photos to the construction walls much like what we’ve been use to seeing on walls that will remain in place for some time.

The most interesting logistical development of note is the closure (or more accurately, re-routing) of a popular guest walkway to the main entrance. As you can see in the map below, guests walking on the northernmost walkway won’t have a straight shot into the park.

Instead, you’ll have to walk around the construction walls (into the parking lot traffic lane), and to the other side. Here’s a look at what it looks like from that walkway.

And from the turn around the construction wall towards the main entrance.

More photos on construction walls.

On the other side of this wall is where we spot the first bit of preparations being made for the first foundation pour of the new arrival experience.

Concrete is being torn up in this area to make preparations for what looks to be the installation of a gate and building.

Here’s a look back at the permit that contains the area in question.

As a result of all of this work, the ride share area has been moved out into the parking lot. If you’re familiar with the Animal Kingdom parking lot, the ride share area is now past the handicap parking, past the third party bus parking, and just before the handicap overflow parking. Again, the construction will result in a longer walk to the main entrance from this new drop off point.

You can just make out the floating mountains of Pandora – The World of Avatar from here on the left side of the below image. In the image, the pathway in the middle of the cones is for pedestrians, the right of the cones is the ride share drop off area, and the left of the cones is the third party bus parking.

A sign points you in the general direction of the entrance to Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com for the latest on the changing landscape at Disney’s Animal Kingdom and much more from around all of the Disney Parks!