As part of the first wave of work for a full reimagining of DinoLand USA, Walt Disney World has begun backstage preparations. New aerial photos from friend of the site Bioreconstruct show that some backstage preparations have already taken place ahead of the January 13th phase one closure of DinoLand USA.
Early Work Underway for DinoLand USA Reimagining
As a reminder, the last day to experience a number of DinoLand USA experiences will be January 12th, with construction walls expected to cordon off a corner of the prehistoric land starting on January 13th. The first phase of work will be to create an all-new Encanto-themed attraction, which will sit partially on the Dino-Rama plot, and partially in the backstage plot seen in our aerial photo below.
As you can see in the photo below, there is an empty space where the former Primeval Whirl attraction used to be, and then some backstage buildings in the lower middle of the photo. I believe that these backstage buildings used to be utilized by the character department, but that hasn’t been the case for at least a couple of months now. There is also a large building in the upper right of the photo, which is the Theater in the Wild where guests can watch a Finding Nemo show, and there are some backstage support buildings.
Essentially, the right half of the image below will remain rather untouched, with the construction of the new Encanto ride set to take place along the middle of the photo below.

In the updated aerial photos below from Bioreconstruct, we can see that three backstage support trailers have been removed, and new construction materials have arrived. In my book, this marks the start of work for the Tropical Americas reimagining, with construction walls set to arrive in just about 10 days.


As a reminder, the Tropical Americas-themed land will open in 2027 and feature an all-new Encanto-themed ride, and a rethemed DINOSAUR attraction into an Indiana Jones-themed ride. Guests will have all of 2025 to enjoy the DINOSAUR attraction before it closes sometime in 2026 for the next phase of construction.
Check out our earlier coverage of permits filed with the state for a better idea of what this area of Animal Kingdom will look like when the work is completed.
For everything you need to know about the Tropical Americas retheme of DinoLand USA, check out our article below!

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