I wrote this in another thread, with the aim of a more realistic park expansion plan, so I thought I would drop it here!
Animal Kingdom needs new rides more than any other park at WDW. Still, given how infinitely superior Indiana Jones Adventure is to Dinosaur, I wouldn't necessarily be against a complete gutting of the attraction remade to be on par with its west coast counterpart as a more modern take with a dinosaur element.
Dinoland should then be rethemed to South America like has been repeated on the forums for years. Creating what's basically an Indiana Jones mini-land, from the boneyard to Dinosaur, would be a noticeable quality upgrade as well.
For the disastrous Chester and Hester's area, cloning the masterpiece that is
Mystic Manor with an altered story to fit the new South America locale would give the park a major indoor family ride which it is in desperate need of. I guess you could get TriceraTop Spin to fit better by making it more like the Moana concept art, and I wouldn't necessarily want to get rid of it for capacity's sake, but perhaps move it if possible.
Scatter some South American animal exhibits like caimans, piranhas, and jaguars, and put rockwork blocking sightlines of the Theater in the Wild (Nemo) with a new elaborately themed entry Doing so, with a new South America appropriate show (Encanto, well-done, would fit better than Nemo and be popular), and the land is stacked.
It would probably only cost half as much as Galaxy's Edge too since it would repurpose much of the land like Hogsmeade at Islands of Adventure did. I bet Disney is looking to expand Pandora, so if the plan is to put, let's speculate, an indoor coaster over there, an excavator coaster for Dinoland to me falls by the wayside in favor of a family-friendly, relatively inexpensive, E-ticket like Mystic Manor, which is phenomenal I might add.
Seriously, imagine if Animal Kingdom got an
E-ticket Pandora Coaster ($300M+), an
E-ticket Mystic Manor variation that ties in better to Animal Kingdom’s themes
($165M), a
Retheme of Dinosaur to Indiana Jones Adventure with a dinosaur story bringing it from just an okay E-ticket to a headliner
($100M), and even toss in a small ride like Tokyo DisneySea's
Aquatopia trackless flat-ride
(~$45M) by 2030. Animal Kingdom would easily be the best Disney park in Orlando for all sorts of guests.
The land's overhaul itself could include upgrading facades, new pathways, new animal exhibits, let's say a clone of Hong Kong's excellent
Explorer's Club Restaurant, a bar like
Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar at Disney Springs, and some shops with a consistent design language. Altogether, it would probably cost under
$200M on top of the ride costs and add massive capacity to the park.
All of this would fit SO much better than Zootopia. I'm honestly baffled Indy hasn't found his way into the park as it's one of the
only huge IPs that would fit perfectly if it has an edutainment angle and design language to fit as Pandora did. I would be even happier if he made his way to Hollywood Studios in a purpose-built land, but honestly, I'd prefer to keep Animal Kingdom thematically pure, and I think it's one of the only large IPs that would be able to. Here's to hoping Indiana Jones 5 is excellent and extremely successful!
Moana isn't necessarily an awful fit either, I just have more of a problem with Zootopia specifically and the hodgepodge nature of them residing alongside one another. If they themed the entire land to Oceania and modified Dinosaur to fit that and scratched Zootopia, it could work, and would also be an improvement. However, I'm in the camp that thinks Animal Kingdom needs more indoor rides given Orlando's preponderance for summer showers alongside at least one more non-height requirement attraction which a Moana log flume would likely have two strikes on that front. If Disney is dead set on a Zootopia ride, it should go to Hollywood Studios.
Alternatively, just setting Dinoland to be like you're walking in a place from millions of years ago so you're actually visiting the Cretaceous would also be cool and would be my personal first choice, though we obviously know that isn't going to happen. Jurassic Park shouldn't have exclusive rights to dinosaurs in movies or theme parks.
