DAK 'Encanto' and 'Indiana Jones'-themed experiences at Animal Kingdom

[Rob562]

Nah. Dinoland was a very witty, well-designed area with a lot of great details. I’m sad it’s going but I understand - it was probably too clever for its own good (and I really like Indy, so that cushions the blow). Still, Dinoland had the classic Disney parks humor, and that’s pretty much entirely dead now.

I'll agree with you, but only as far as the *original* Dinoland U.S.A.

Boneyard, Restaurantosaurus, CTX and Chester & Hester's (just the gift shop). It was all cleverly designed as a singular backstory that worked. Adding Dino-rama spoiled what was an amazing land. The fossil prep lab was exactly the type of "edutainment" that made EPCOT Center great. (The Dino Jubilee was a bit temporary and meh, though they had fun Streetmosphere-type "grad students")

-Rob

 

[Bocabear]

A gut of the interior is different from a full rebuild. I assumed you meant you thought they were razing the original restaurant, which they are not.

I assumed they would keep the structure, add additional architectural components and additions, and completely gut and redesign the interior.... not tear the whole building down... but now how many years did it take to build the Cake Bake Shop? I still think this will take longer than a year and a half to complete this area...

 

[James Alucobond]

I assumed they would keep the structure, add additional architectural components and additions, and completely gut and redesign the interior.... not tear the whole building down... but now how many years did it take to build the Cake Bake Shop? I still think this will take longer than a year and a half to complete this area...

Cake Bake is a third party and irrelevant to the discussion, as always. Anyway, I agree that the total time may end up being longer than their target, but it still makes sense to stagger the closure since the original Dinoland corridor will take a lot less time than the Dinorama plot, which is essentially being developed from scratch at this point. Everything else is mostly modification of existing infrastructure.

 

[doctornick]

Build the Encanto attraction, the Indiana Jones water ride that was considered a few years ago, and keep Dinosaur. The parks need more capacity and additional rides, especially Animal Kingdom. It's truly baffling how Disneyland gets so many new rides without needing to replace old ones, while WDW faces this kind of destruction...

IMHO the mistake is not building the TLK ride that is being considered as the first thing. Get that extra capacity opened first or at least ASAP

 

[Two Ears]

You would hope the new land is built much more quickly then usual because animal kingdom is really going to struggle losing another ride from capacity. Its going to become a qtr day park for a while.

 

[coffeefan]

They could keep Dinosaur ride and still be in theme since the meteor technically hit modern-day Tropical Americas.

 

[GoofGoof]

You would hope the new land is built much more quickly then usual because animal kingdom is really going to struggle losing another ride from capacity. Its going to become a qtr day park for a while.

AK is a park that definitely shouldn’t be reducing capacity, however, the Dinosaur area is simply not that popular right now. How much time do people actually spend there? Dinosaur the ride is usually a very short wait and the rest of the land is a play area and a spinner with some carnival games. I just don’t see AK going from a half day park to a quarter day park because of this closure. Did people spend half their time at AK in Dinoland? I think it will remain a half day park with 1 less ride to do and when this project is over will likely still be a half day park (maybe 3/4 a day if the waits for the 2 rides are long ).

I said hundreds of pages back that they should have greenlit the Lion King ride and built that first to make this project a “net zero“ total headliner rides situation during construction but that didn’t happen. The next few years will probably see a dip in AK attendance, especially after EU opens. In 2027 the park will likely be better than it is today. The bar is kinda low to exceed Dinoland which has been flawed since day 1.

 

[Two Ears]

AK is a park that definitely shouldn’t be reducing capacity, however, the Dinosaur area is simply not that popular right now. How much time do people actually spend there? Dinosaur the ride is usually a very short wait and the rest of the land is a play area and a spinner with some carnival games. I just don’t see AK going from a half day park to a quarter day park because of this closure. Did people spend half their time at AK in Dinoland? I think it will remain a half day park with 1 less ride to do and when this project is over will likely still be a half day park (maybe 3/4 a day if the waits for the 2 rides are long ).

I said hundreds of pages back that they should have greenlit the Lion King ride and built that first to make this project a “net zero“ total headliner rides situation during construction but that didn’t happen. The next few years will probably see a dip in AK attendance, especially after EU opens. In 2027 the park will likely be better than it is today. The bar is kinda low to exceed Dinoland which has been flawed since day 1.

I was being a bit simplistic. But get a lightning lane for flight of passage. Go to early entry and you get all the fill of rides you want by 10:00am and do breakfast as well. You dont even make it to lunch time.

 

[GoofGoof]

I was being a bit simplistic. But get a lightning lane for flight of passage. Go to early entry and you get all the fill of rides you want by 10:00am and do breakfast as well. You dont even make it to lunch time.

I don’t disagree, but Dinoland doesn’t add much to that timeline today. So if you already have lightning lane it’s easy to add Dinosaur which won’t have a wait longer than 10 mins anyway and then if you want you could ride the spinner. Probably adds 30 mins to your day. The longest time spent could be walking to and from Dinoland. This is a bigger loss for people with young kids who use the playground. Then it could be a loss of an hour or 2 from your day or even more depending on how much you like digging in the sand.

 

[Marc Davis Fan]

Does anyone have thoughts and/or information about the rockwork being planned for Tropical Americas?

The concept model obviously shows "forested hills" atop the Encanto show building - which could look nice, but don't seem extraordinary. The concept art originally looked like that rockwork was a bit more involved, but I can't tell if they blurred/reduced that when it was re-displayed next to the concept model.

I think rockwork remains one of Disney's fortes, and to me it goes far in making their environments feel more transportive. I've been glad to see them leaning more into amazing rockwork in recent years (Pandora, Galaxy's Edge, Shanghai's Adventure Isle [which, by the way, takes place in, well, the topical Americas], World of Frozen, Fantasy Springs...).

My fingers are crossed for some tropical cliffs and waterfalls...

 

[GoofGoof]

Does anyone have thoughts and/or information about the rockwork being planned for Tropical Americas?

The concept model obviously shows "forested hills" atop the Encanto show building - which could look nice, but don't seem extraordinary. The concept art originally looked like that rockwork was a bit more involved, but I can't tell if they blurred/reduced that when it was re-displayed next to the concept model.

I think rockwork remains one of Disney's fortes, and to me it goes far in making their environments feel more transportive. I've been glad to see them leaning more into amazing rockwork in recent years (Pandora, Galaxy's Edge, Shanghai's Adventure Isle [which, by the way, takes place in, well, the topical Americas], World of Frozen, Fantasy Springs...).

My fingers are crossed for some tropical cliffs and waterfalls...

Agreed it would be nice to work in some rock work and definitely waterfalls of some sort. It’s hard to tell from the concept art but it doesn’t seem like rock work will be as prominent as pandora or galaxy’s edge. the cars project seems to be more likely to center on rock work and probably also villains land. This looks like a distant third. Should have more rocks than Monsters at DHS

 

[celluloid]

I don’t disagree, but Dinoland doesn’t add much to that timeline today. So if you already have lightning lane it’s easy to add Dinosaur which won’t have a wait longer than 10 mins anyway and then if you want you could ride the spinner. Probably adds 30 mins to your day. The longest time spent could be walking to and from Dinoland. This is a bigger loss for people with young kids who use the playground. Then it could be a loss of an hour or 2 from your day or even more depending on how much you like digging in the sand.

Not just the playground but kids/riders at 40 inches.

Tough to be a bug is closing too.

So train to rafiki's, killimanjaro, Kali and Navi river journey will be all any rider under 44 inches will have.

Not a good count for many parks, awful for a Disney one.

 

[GoofGoof]

Not just the playground but kids/riders at 40 inches.

Tough to be a bug is closing too.

So train to rafiki's, killimanjaro, Kali and Navi river journey will be all any rider under 44 inches will have.

Not a good count for many parks, awful for a Disney one.

The other shows plus the walking trails also have no height requirement, but I agree with your overall point. I assume most people with kids under 40 inches spent more time in Dinoland than the average guest.

Dinosaur was 40 inches which I assume will be the same when it re-opens as Indy, the carousel should have no restriction and I hope they figure out how to make Encanto without a height limit. So in theory in 2027 they will add 2 rides and a show back for the under 40 crowd (plus Indy) but it doesn’t increase capacity for that crowd and you still lose the playground.

 

[co10064]

Animal Kingdom attendance is declining even as we speak.

Over the past month as I have glanced at wait times in advance of my trip, wait times for DAK have been consistently lower than the other three parks. It’s become rare for anything there to be above an hour wait, with the average posted wait probably being 20 minutes park-wide (which of course is great as a guest, but highly unusual for WDW).

FOP, which has historically always been in the top three wait times across property at any given moment, is now being consistently beat out by the likes of Slinky, RnRC, Rise, 7DMT, Peter Pan, Space, Remy, and of course, TRON.

 

[Brer Oswald]

Honestly on this one I think the reasoning is as simple as they have watched the two versions of this attraction have a large disparity in popularity for years. I would actually go even further to say that they could have placed almost anything else in this attraction as a retheme and it would boost the ride's popularity. Indiana Jones is just a proven solid marriage to this ride system.

All that to say, I don't think that this has anything to do with the animatronic upkeep. I think it's got everything to do with the ride just hasn't been much of a people pleaser for a long time now, and it's semi-twin across the country has been for years. That does sort of suggest that DINOSAUR's theme and content brought with it some obstacles that Indiana Jones does not. People clearly are not turned off by the thrill level and ride style, or else Indiana Jones Adventure wouldn't be as popular as it is.

I really, really like DINOSAUR, but of all the decisions for stuff they announced at D23, this decision seems to be the most straightforward and easy to explain.

It’s a ride in a park with only 5 rides. It’s fairly busy most of the time. I don’t think this is a case of trying to make the ride “more popular”. It’s not like it’s Carousel of Progress in the Magic Kingdom or something.

 

[celluloid]

The other shows plus the walking trails also have no height requirement, but I agree with your overall point. I assume most people with kids under 40 inches spent more time in Dinoland than the average guest.

Dinosaur was 40 inches which I assume will be the same when it re-opens as Indy, the carousel should have no restriction and I hope they figure out how to make Encanto without a height limit. So in theory in 2027 they will add 2 rides and a show back for the under 40 crowd (plus Indy) but it doesn’t increase capacity for that crowd and you still lose the playground.

This is true. And I am traditonally in defense of AK having more than just rides to spend the day.

But in reality, it is a weak situation all around right now. The trails have also changed. And to some degree, the walking trails are often no stroller allowed. Which when you have a two or three year old and the day is that demanding of walking, is a crappy day to fill your day with all of them.

And the time without these attractions is still a bad situation for the next year or two and a half.

 

[jannerUK]

I have read the brief but really don't fully understand it. Surely the best bit would be to phase the closure so Dinosaur was one of the last to close. I am right in saying that there is no phasing as such...

 

[osian]

I have read the brief but really don't fully understand it. Surely the best bit would be to phase the closure so Dinosaur was one of the last to close. I am right in saying that there is no phasing as such...

No. There is a phased closure and Dinosaur is closing last.

https://www.wdwmagic.com/attraction...to-make-way-for-encanto-and-indiana-jones.htm

"The phased-closure process will continue into 2025, with Dinosaur, the park's original thrill ride, closing to make way for a new Indiana Jones adventure."

 

[jannerUK]

Yeah knew it was me being slow in reading. We are there for August 2025. I hope there is something for us to at least go on, like Dinosaur.

 

[osian]

Yeah knew it was me being slow in reading. We are there for August 2025. I hope there is something for us to at least go on, like Dinosaur.

Unfortunately, I think we are expecting Dinosaur to close by the spring. I'm from UK and visiting this November so will catch it, however I'm missing out on Test Track whose closure was announced after I'd booked!