While visiting Disney’s Animal Kingdom this morning, we noticed that DinoLand USA is dressing up for the 2024 Holiday Season! Earlier this week, we noticed that holiday preparations were underway at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and while we’re just a few days away from Halloween, we’ve mentally turned the page to the holiday season and we’re keeping an eye out for signs of festive decor. To that end, we’re headed out to DinoLand USA to take a look at ongoing preparations for what may be the final Christmas for our favorite dinosaurs.
DinoLand USA Begins Preparing for 2024 Holiday Season
While visiting Disney’s Animal Kingdom today, we noticed that the Brachiosaurus that spans the Oldengate Bridge has been wrapped in Christmas lights, as is tradition for this corner of the park. First, here’s some background on the Oldengate Bridge, followed by photos of the holiday decorations!
Final Christmas for the Dinos?
The question that we can’t help but think of is: will this be the final Christmas for DinoLand USA? While we know of the closing date for a portion of DinoLand USA, Disney World has said that they plan on keeping the DINOSAUR attraction and other offerings open into next year. The question is, will DINOSAUR really make it to the 2025 Holiday Season?
I’ll start by saying this, I’m not privy to the planned construction schedule for the Tropical Americas project. That said, we do know the opening timeframe for the new land. Walt Disney World has previously announced that the Tropical Americas land will be open to guests in 2027. Let’s assume that Disney wants Tropical Americas to be open for summer 2027, which means a Memorial Day Weekend opening for the land. That might be a bit ambitious given the playful nervousness that Imagineering lead Bruce Vaughn showed at the recent D23 Expo, but let’s say that Disney sees some impact to its bottom line from Epic Universe and they want to get this newly reimagined land up and running.
I have to make another assumption, and one that I hope isn’t a stretch: Walt Disney World won’t keep DinoLand USA open if all of the rides in the land are closed. We know that TriceraTop Spin will be closed in January 2025, and if DINOSAUR closes, there won’t be any attractions left in the land.
Time for some back-of-the-napkin math. We’ll give Disney the same amount of time to retheme the DINOSAUR attraction from dinos to Indiana Jones as they took for the retheme of Splash Mountain into Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. The projects are similar in that the ride layout won’t change (or, at least, we assume it won’t change for Indiana Jones). The exterior retheme of the DINOSAUR attraction will be more substantial than the retheme of Splash Mountain, so lets tack on an additional two months for that work – it may be longer than that.
The Tiana’s Bayou Adventure retheme took 1 year and 5 months. If we add the extra time just allocated for a more complex exterior reimagining, we have 1 year and 7 months, or 19 months from closure to reopening. Assuming that Walt Disney World is targeting a May 28, 2027 opening for DinoLand USA, that would mean that DINOSAUR’s final day of operation would be sometime around Halloween 2025. If that’s the case, this is DinoLand USA’s final Christmas.
Of course, there are a lot of assumptions there, and perhaps Walt Disney World will close DinoLand USA much earlier to allow for other work such as the extensive demolition needed for the Boneyard area to support the new carousel attraction. Other work items include retheming the Restaurantosaurus dining location to fit the theme of the reimagined Tropical Americas land. When you factor in those items, it might be hard to see DinoLand USA making it much past next summer.
The opposite is also true. If Walt Disney World isn’t targeting a Memorial Day Weekend opening for the Tropical Americas land and instead just wants to open it by the end of 2027, we could be looking at an early 2026 closure for the DINOSAUR attraction and DinoLand USA, which would mean that this Christmas isn’t the final Christmas in the land.
All this talk of closures and demolition is a bit of a downer, so let’s talk about something new coming to DinoLand USA this Holiday Season. As previously announced, Santa Claus will be meeting guests in an all-new meet and greet offering near the Restaurantosaurus quick-service restaurant. Here’s a look at concept art for the new offering, which begins November 12th.
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!
