The year's D23 this was a pretty good event if you’re a Walt Disney World fan. What's exciting is that there are so many new attractions coming to Disney World over the next several years. Unfortunately, alongside new attractions, we often get the closing of older, often beloved rides and shows. Fans have been hit with various closures at Disney World over the past few months, most notably the news that Muppet*Vision 3D is, in fact shutting down. Now, another attraction's closing date has been revealed, but there's good news, too.
The Rivers of America are being replaced by Cars attractions at Magic Kingdom, a new Monsters Inc. land is taking over the Muppet Courtyard and, now, we know a little more about Dinoland U.S.A.’s transformation into a Tropical Americas land at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Fans have known that their favorite ride, Dinosaur, was going to be closing, but exactly when that would happen is unclear. In this case, there’s actually some good news Disney has now confirmed that the dino attraction won’t be closing in 2025.
Disney’s Animal Kingdom Won’t Close Dinosaur Until 2026
An announcement from Disney World today featured a list of everything guests can expect from the resort in 2025. This included the new version of Test Track, as well as the new lounges at Epcot and Magic Kingdom. It also specified that, in reference to Dinosaur, “2025 is your year to visit before it goes extinct!“ This would seem to confirm that Dinosaur will remain open throughout 2025, likely closing in 2026. This is pretty good news under the circumstances, as it means if you’re a fan who wants to experience the ride again before it’s gone, you now have over a year to do so.
At D23, last August, Disney Parks chairman Josh D’Amaro confirmed that the transformation of Dinoland U.S.A. into the new Tropical Americas land would be done in phases, and indicated that Dinosaur would be one of the last pieces of the old land to be replaced, but that still didn’t give us much idea what that meant. Construction is set to begin at Animal Kingdom early in 2025, but it looks like it will be at least a year before that work will need to include Dinosaur.
Indiana Jones Is Coming To Disney’s Animal Kingdom
While losing Dinosaur is certainly a bummer, it has to be said that what will be replacing it is pretty exciting. A new Indiana Jones attraction will take over the Dinosaur space. While Dinosaur uses the same ride vehicle and track technology as the Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland, we’ve been told that the new ride will be an original concept, though it may still reuse the same infrastructure.
Dinosaur is an opening day attraction at Disney’s Animal Kingdom and, so while the ride may be showing its age, there are certainly many people with nostalgic memories of it over the years. The fact that we all now have a year to ride it one last time gives those people plenty of time to plan a trip to Disney World to pay their last respects.
