Updated August 14, 2026. D23 is underway this weekend, with the Horizons: Disney Experiences Showcase scheduled for Saturday night. We’ll update this article after Disney announces what is coming next.
There is a lot of construction at Walt Disney World in 2026.
Some of it is good.
Big Thunder Mountain is back after a substantial refurbishment. Buzz Lightyear finally has blasters that don’t feel like they survived a yard sale. Soarin’ has a new film. Hollywood Studios is putting animation back into a park that still has the word “Studios” in its name.
But after the last couple of years, I have become wary of treating construction as synonymous with progress.
We’ve watched Disney drain the Rivers of America and bulldoze Tom Sawyer Island. Muppet*Vision 3D is gone. DINOSAUR is gone. Huge pieces of several parks are construction zones. And Carousel of Progress, one of the few attractions at Walt Disney World with Walt Disney’s direct fingerprints on it, is closed for a much more radical reworking than we initially realized.
Some of what Disney is building may be terrific. The question is what the parks lose while getting there.
Here is where Walt Disney World actually stands in August 2026.
Disney World Changes in 2026 at a Glance
| Park | What’s Changed in 2026 |
|---|---|
| Magic Kingdom | Big Thunder Mountain and Buzz Lightyear reopened with major upgrades; Cinderella Castle has its classic-looking colors back; Carousel of Progress is closed for a wholesale rewrite; the Rivers of America area is becoming Piston Peak |
| EPCOT | Soarin’ Across America replaced Soarin’ Around the World |
| Hollywood Studios | The Muppets replaced Aerosmith at Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster; Muppet*Vision is gone; The Magic of Disney Animation opens September 14; Monstropolis construction is underway |
| Animal Kingdom | DinoLand U.S.A. and DINOSAUR have closed while Tropical Americas is being built for 2027 |
Magic Kingdom: Some Welcome Restoration and One Enormous Loss
Magic Kingdom may be the best place to understand the strange moment Walt Disney World is in.
Disney has done real preservation work on some classic attractions. At the same time, it has removed one of the largest pieces of atmosphere and open space the park ever had.
Big Thunder Mountain Is Back
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad reopened May 3 after an extensive refurbishment.
This was more than paint and routine maintenance. Disney did substantial work on the attraction and added new effects, including a new version of Rainbow Caverns inspired by Disney history.
This is the sort of investment I like seeing.
Big Thunder is still Big Thunder. Disney did not decide that the old mine train needed Lightning McQueen driving it or that Frontierland desperately needed a recognizable movie character in every scene. They took an attraction people already loved, repaired it and gave it more to do.
You can read Disney’s description of the Big Thunder refurbishment here.
Buzz Lightyear Got a Needed Upgrade
Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin reopened April 8 with handheld blasters, always-on lasers, interactive targets, updated ride vehicles and a new character named Buddy.
The old fixed blasters were one of those things you tolerated because the ride was old enough that they were part of the package. The new system fixes an obvious weakness without trying to turn the attraction into something fundamentally different.
Again: good.
There is nothing wrong with updating an old attraction. Disney parks have always changed.
The interesting question is whether the thing that returns still possesses the qualities that made people care about it in the first place.
Cinderella Castle Looks Like Cinderella Castle Again
Cinderella Castle’s repaint is complete, replacing much of the pink and rose-gold 50th-anniversary palette with grays, creams, blues and gold inspired by its more traditional appearance.
I like it.
We said essentially that when Disney announced the change. The classic-looking castle is elegant and fits Main Street and the rest of the park better.
But as we wrote in Cinderella’s Castle Returns to Classic Colors, But Disney’s Magic Kingdom Still Feels Less Magical, a fresh coat of paint doesn’t replace a river.
The Rivers of America Are Gone
This remains the Magic Kingdom change I have the hardest time accepting.
The Rivers of America, Liberty Belle Riverboat and Tom Sawyer Island are gone. Their former home is becoming Piston Peak National Park, a Cars-themed expansion of Frontierland.
Disney has shown attractive concept art. Piston Peak is supposed to resemble a grand American national park, complete with mountains, waterfalls, geysers, a visitor lodge and park-style architecture. It will contain two Cars attractions.
It might be excellent.
I still wish Disney had built it somewhere else.
Before the river disappeared, we made one final visit to Tom Sawyer Island.
It reminded me why the place mattered.
There were caves to wander through, a fort, a barrel bridge, a mill, picnic tables and people simply sitting around. I found someone eating lunch while working on his laptop. Kids could run around without being strapped into a ride vehicle or shuttled through a queue.
It was inefficient space by modern Disney standards.
That was part of its charm.
Tom Sawyer Island felt like an older version of Disney: still commercial, certainly, but less optimized. You crossed the river on a slightly smelly motorized raft and then had permission to waste some time.
The river itself mattered even if you never crossed it.
It gave Liberty Square and Frontierland water, reflections, breezes and distance. The Liberty Belle moved through the landscape. The island gave you somewhere to look across to. The park felt bigger because part of it wasn’t immediately accessible from the walkway in front of you.
After Disney drained it, we wrote Paving Paradise: Disney’s Rivers of America and Liberty Belle—What We Lost When Magic Kingdom Changed.
My opinion hasn’t improved with time.
A park needs more than rides. It needs kinetics, landscape, quiet places, things happening in the background and corners that reward wandering. The Rivers of America provided all of those at once.
Cars can produce a great attraction. Cars already has one of Disney’s best attractions in California.
It can’t give Magic Kingdom its river back.
Carousel of Progress Is Closed—and I Am Much More Worried Than I Was a Year Ago
Carousel of Progress closed July 6 and Disney expects it to reopen in 2027.
When Disney first announced that it was investing in the attraction, I was delighted.
We published A Greater Big Beautiful Tomorrow: Carousel of Progress Gets a New Lease on Life and treated the news as one of the rare encouraging preservation stories in a year filled with closures.
I was especially happy that Disney planned to update the final scene, which has been showing its age for a very long time.
Then Disney told us what it is actually doing.
This is far more than a final-scene refresh.
The familiar historical sequence is being replaced.
Disney says the new version will begin in 1969, with the family watching the moon landing. The next scene jumps to Halloween 1985. The third takes place on New Year’s Eve 1999. The final scene will depict a possible future with robots and space travel.
The existing early-1900s, 1920s and 1940s scenes will be gone.
Those are exactly the scenes I wrote last year that I hoped Disney would leave alone.
This changes my feelings about the project considerably.
Carousel of Progress has never been valuable merely because the theater rotates and everyone sings “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.”
Its structure tells a story.
You meet essentially the same American family at the beginning of the 20th century and watch technology gradually change their lives. Electricity, appliances, communication and entertainment that seem miraculous in one era become ordinary by the next. The family remains recognizable while the world around them changes.
Starting in 1969 creates a very different attraction.
The historical portion becomes recent nostalgia—moon landings, the 1980s and Y2K—rather than a century-long journey through the transformation of ordinary life.
I understand Disney’s stated goal. They want today’s guests to recognize the eras being depicted.
I don’t think every historical attraction needs to begin within living memory to be relatable.
Kids somehow manage to understand Haunted Mansion without having grown up in a Victorian mansion. Pirates of the Caribbean does not require firsthand experience with 18th-century piracy. Main Street U.S.A. does not need a Starbucks drive-through to explain itself.
Good storytelling makes an unfamiliar period understandable.
Carousel already did that.
And Then There’s Walt
The new show will begin with a Walt Disney Audio-Animatronic in a scene inspired by the television program in which Walt introduced Carousel of Progress before the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair.
I liked this idea when Disney first announced it.
I still think it could work.
But with the scale of the rest of the rewrite, I’m more cautious about it now.
There is a subtle danger in turning an attraction created by Walt Disney into an attraction about Walt Disney.
Walt’s presence is already everywhere in Carousel of Progress. He developed the show. His optimism powers it. The Sherman Brothers wrote the song for him. The attraction’s faith that technology could make ordinary life better is inseparable from Walt’s view of progress.
He doesn’t need to become another piece of intellectual property.
In our earlier article I joked that perhaps Walt himself was Disney’s newest IP. I would rather that joke not become the organizing principle of the attraction.
There is a version of this refurbishment that could be wonderful. The Walt introduction could provide historical context. The physical sets and Audio-Animatronics could look better than they have in years. The future scene could finally imagine a future again.
There is also a version that emerges as a slick nostalgia show about 1969, 1985 and 1999 and has less to say about progress than the attraction it replaced.
Disney says it intends to preserve the family, practical sets and “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.” I’m glad.
I will be considerably happier if the heart of the attraction survives along with them.
Villains Land Is Still Coming
Beyond Big Thunder Mountain, Disney is developing its large Villains-themed land with two major attractions plus dining and shopping.
This is one of the projects I am genuinely curious about.
A Villains land gives Imagineering a broad theme rather than requiring it to reproduce one specific movie location. The artwork shown so far suggests Disney is thinking about architecture and atmosphere rather than simply lining up character façades.
D23 this weekend may tell us considerably more.
EPCOT: Comparatively Quiet, Which May Be a Good Thing
After years of walls and demolition in the center of EPCOT, 2026 is almost restful by comparison.
The major attraction change is Soarin’.
Soarin’ Across America Is Here
Soarin’ Across America debuted May 26, replacing Soarin’ Around the World at EPCOT.
The ride system is unchanged. The new film flies over American scenery and landmarks as part of the country’s 250th anniversary.
I like the basic idea.
Soarin’ is a ride built around the sensation of flying over landscapes. Changing the film periodically is almost the ideal way to refresh it. Disney can create something new without ripping down the pavilion and starting over.
We’ve been considerably less enthusiastic about EPCOT’s larger transformation.
When we visited Journey of Water Inspired by Moana, I liked the attraction more than I expected. It is interactive, educational, attractive and a pleasant place to cool down.
My problem was everything EPCOT demolished and all the years of construction required to arrive at a park whose central redevelopment ultimately produced surprisingly little new attraction capacity.
Journey of Water is a good attraction.
I still miss the Fountain of Nations.
Hollywood Studios: Disney Is Putting Some “Studios” Back While Erasing Part of Its History
Hollywood Studios has spent most of its life trying to decide what it wants to be.
It began as a functioning production facility and theme park. Over the years, Disney stripped away most of the studio infrastructure and many of the attractions celebrating filmmaking, then filled the gaps with individual franchise lands.
Some of the 2026 changes oddly move the park a little closer to its original identity.
Others continue the purge.
The Muppets Have Taken Over Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster
Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets opened May 26.
Aerosmith is gone. The Electric Mayhem is now trying to make it across Hollywood for a concert, with the familiar launch and indoor coaster serving as the ride underneath the new story.
I’m sure it is fun.
My objection was never that the Muppets couldn’t make a funny roller coaster.
It was what Disney traded for it.
We Already Said Goodbye to Muppet*Vision 3D
Before it closed, we made a last-chance visit to Muppet*Vision 3D.
It was old. Some of the technology was showing its age. It was also pure Muppets: terrible puns, chaos, practical effects, Statler and Waldorf insulting everyone from their balcony, and the peculiar warmth underneath Jim Henson’s comedy.
More importantly, families could experience it together.
Muppet*Vision was one of Jim Henson’s final projects and retained his direct creative fingerprints. Disney removed it to make room for Monstropolis and moved the surviving Muppet presence to Disney World’s most intense roller coaster.
We later explained why we think moving the Muppets from 3D glasses to G-forces misses the point.
A small child who loves Kermit could watch Muppet*Vision.
The same child may not meet the height requirement for Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, let alone want to go upside down in the dark.
The new attraction may be entertaining on its own terms. Its existence doesn’t make Muppet*Vision less of a loss.
The Magic of Disney Animation Opens September 14
Here is a Hollywood Studios development I find much easier to like.
The Magic of Disney Animation opens September 14 in the reworked Walt Disney Studios area.
Disney says the experience will include animation-focused activities, drawing, character encounters and spaces inspired by the animation process. The building itself takes cues from the Roy E. Disney Animation Building in California.
There is something almost revolutionary in Disney putting an attraction about Disney animation into Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
The original park let guests see actual animators working. Disney gradually removed most of that production identity.
I’m not expecting the new experience to recreate the old working studio. But animation is a subject worthy of an attraction in its own right. It does not need to pretend that the art form only exists as a delivery system for characters Disney can sell.
Disney has more details about The Magic of Disney Animation here.
Monstropolis Is Going Up
Meanwhile, construction continues on the Monsters, Inc.-themed Monstropolis.
Structural steel is already rising.
The centerpiece will be a suspended coaster based on the door-vault sequence from Monsters, Inc., including what Disney says will be the first suspended coaster and first vertical lift on a Disney ride.
This could be spectacular.
It is also being built where Muppet*Vision and the surrounding Muppets area used to be.
Both statements can be true.
Animal Kingdom: The Replacement Sounds Good, but 2026 Visitors Get the Construction Walls
DinoLand U.S.A. permanently closed February 2, taking DINOSAUR, Restaurantosaurus and the remaining land with it.
I have mixed feelings about DinoLand.
The Chester and Hester carnival section always felt underbuilt compared with the astonishing environments elsewhere in Animal Kingdom. But DINOSAUR was a substantial attraction, and the larger land had its own weird logic and history.
Now it is gone.
Tropical Americas Is Coming in 2027
Disney is replacing DinoLand with the 11-acre Tropical Americas area, Pueblo Esperanza, scheduled to open in 2027.
The plans sound promising.
There will be an Indiana Jones attraction, an Encanto ride through the Madrigal family’s Casita, a carousel featuring Disney animals, a large restaurant and other spaces. Disney has emphasized that Imagineers are drawing from the architecture, landscapes and cultures of Central and South America rather than simply assembling two IP rides next to one another.
Former Imagineer Joe Rohde has noted that a Tropical Americas concept fits ideas the Animal Kingdom team considered going back to the park’s early development.
That gives me some hope.
Animal Kingdom is at its best when the fictional material sits inside a convincing place. Pandora works because it feels like an ecosystem rather than a pair of Avatar rides dropped on concrete.
If Pueblo Esperanza gets that same level of environmental storytelling, it could be a worthy addition.
In 2026, though, Animal Kingdom has lost a major ride before the replacement is ready.
The Pattern: Disney Keeps Trading Places for Attractions
Looking at all four parks together, I keep coming back to the same concern.
Disney is very good at building rides.
A Disney park needs other things too.
The Rivers of America weren’t merely the location of the Liberty Belle. They were scenery from a dozen different viewpoints.
Tom Sawyer Island wasn’t merely an attraction with an hourly capacity. It was somewhere a kid could wander into a cave and a tired parent could sit down.
Muppet*Vision wasn’t simply an old 3D film occupying real estate needed for a newer ride. It was a piece of Henson’s work that nearly anyone in the family could experience.
Carousel of Progress isn’t merely a rotating theater containing four sets that can be swapped for newer decades.
These things create texture.
We’ve seen the same instinct elsewhere. The original Country Bear Jamboree survived, thankfully, but Disney replaced its oddball country repertoire with Disney songs. We wrote at the time about the opportunity Disney missed with the Country Bears.
None of this means Disney should freeze the parks in 1975.
Disneyland itself was never frozen. Walt changed attractions constantly.
But Walt also understood that a park was an environment.
The train, riverboats, monorails, PeopleMovers, fountains, landscaped areas, background music, architecture and places to explore gave the parks motion and depth between the E-tickets.
If every old thing has to defend itself solely by how many guests it can process per hour or how useful its characters are to the current franchise portfolio, the park gradually becomes a collection of excellent rides connected by gift shops.
That would still be entertaining.
It would be considerably less interesting.
So Is 2026 a Good Year to Visit Disney World?
There is plenty to see.
If you haven’t been recently, Big Thunder is refreshed. Buzz Lightyear is better. Soarin’ has a new film. Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster has the Muppets. The Magic of Disney Animation opens in September.
There are also some significant holes in the lineup.
- Carousel of Progress is closed until 2027.
- DINOSAUR and DinoLand are gone.
- The Rivers of America, Liberty Belle and Tom Sawyer Island are gone.
- Muppet*Vision 3D is gone.
- Monstropolis, Piston Peak and Tropical Americas are active construction projects.
For a first-time visitor, there is still an enormous amount to do.
For someone who knows these parks well, 2026 feels like arriving halfway through a renovation.
If you’re trying to make better use of the attractions that are open, we’ve also just updated our guide to every Disney World and Disneyland Single Rider line in 2026.
D23 Starts Now
This article has an unusually short shelf life in one respect.
D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event is taking place August 14-16, and Disney’s Horizons: Disney Experiences Showcase streams Saturday, August 15 at 7 p.m. Pacific / 10 p.m. Eastern.
The entire presentation is themed around progress, appropriately enough. Disney says it will build on the projects announced in 2024, with Imagineers discussing Piston Peak, Tropical Americas, Monstropolis, Villains Land and other projects.
Disney has already installed a huge Piston Peak model, new looks at the Encanto and Indiana Jones attractions, Monstropolis material, Villains Land pieces and even costumes from the new Carousel of Progress at its D23 Imagineering pavilion.
You can follow the official D23 streaming schedule here.
We are going to wait for Disney to make the announcements before telling you what Disney announced.
It shouldn’t be a revolutionary editorial policy, but here we are.
A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow—Hopefully
I don’t dislike change at Walt Disney World.
I want Disney to build things.
I want Imagineers to get budgets large enough to create places nobody has seen before. I want the parks to have new attractions worth planning trips around. I want old rides to receive the kind of attention Big Thunder just received instead of slowly deteriorating.
And some of what is coming looks genuinely exciting.
Tropical Americas could be beautiful. Villains Land could let Imagineering do something strange and atmospheric. The Monsters coaster could be spectacular. Piston Peak may contain great rides.
My concern is the accumulating cost.
We went to Tom Sawyer Island one last time because Disney had decided a quiet island and a river were expendable.
We went to Muppet*Vision one last time because Disney decided Henson’s theater was the place Monstropolis needed to go.
Now Carousel of Progress is dark while Disney replaces the first 60 years of its story with the 1960s, 1980s and 1990s.
Each decision can be defended individually.
Taken together, they tell us something about what Disney believes a modern theme park should be.
I hope the company remembers that the best Disney parks were never simply collections of rides.
They were places where a river could be worth keeping even if you didn’t ride the boat.
Where an island could be worth keeping even if you spent an hour doing almost nothing.
Where a slightly dated theater show could be precious because the person who created it was Jim Henson.
Where progress meant looking toward the future without having to erase every trace of the past.
D23 will show us plenty of Disney’s great big beautiful tomorrow this weekend.
I’m hoping there is still room in it for some of what made yesterday worth saving.