While visiting Disney’s Animal Kingdom today, we took a stroll through Pandora – The World of Avatar. The land, which opened in 2017, was met with high praise and likely contributed to the recent announcement that an Avatar-themed land will be built at the Disneyland Resort. It remains one of if not the highest guest satisfaction-scoring lands at Walt Disney World, and while the attractions and food are wonderful, entertainment has been missing for years.

Back in 2022, the Swotu Waya Na’vi Drum Ceremony was one of a number of entertainment offerings quietly removed from the Walt Disney World website following COVID-19 adjustments. Other offerings also removed at the time included the Jedi Training Academy, Citizens of Main Street, and Citizens of Hollywood. While those offerings hadn’t been available since the COVID-19 shutdowns, their removal from the Walt Disney World website was as close as we’d probably get to an official announcement.

Then, in January 2023, we noticed that Walt Disney World was making repairs to the drums. Could this signal the return of the show? We were far enough removed from COVID-19 that there were no physical distancing concerns, but Disney World has basically shown that environmental and area entertainment are not important. Still, we kept an eye on the work over the next few months.

Eventually, in Spring 2023, the drum repairs were complete and most of the interactive effects were restored. In theory, this would’ve cleared the way for the Swotu Waya Na’vi Drum Ceremony to return. Months went by and nothing happened. From what we understand, the performers that were part of the Discovery Island Drummers were the same or similar to those who performed in Pandora. The thinking there was that the Discovery Island Drummers were the relocated Swotu Waya act. I’m not sure how true that is, but it makes sense. Ok, so no Swotu Waya while the Discovery Island Drummers are still a thing.

Fast forward a year and we exclusively reported that the Character flotillas were going to be phased out. This was basically the final physically distanced offering at Walt Disney World, and we were some 4 years after the parks shut down. A week later, Disney confirmed our reporting. However, our reporting was too correct. We reported that the Character flotillas were coming to an end, and they were. However, the Discovery Island Drummers would continue to float around, entertaining guests throughout the day. To this day, they are the only flotilla that circumnavigates Discovery Island.

While walking through Pandora – The World of Avatar today, we noticed that every single guest-accessible drum was not working. It’s not clear if they were deactivated or they are all broken, but we’re going to guess the latter. The drums were working before, and now they aren’t. The shell “cymbals” are also not working. In addition, the skins of the drums are in probably the worst shape we’ve ever seen in terms of warping. It’s unclear what Disney’s intention for this area is, but we’d love to see entertainment return to the walkways of not only Pandora – The World of Avatar, but Main Street USA, Sunset Boulevard, and beyond.

Here’s a look around at the drums as seen during our recent visit to Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!