Disney Imagineers Testing Tropical Americas Themed Finishes at Animal Kingdom Construction Site

Gallery / 3 Photos
Tropical Americas Themed Finish Mockups - Animal Kingdom Construction Aerials

Posted: Saturday February 28, 2026 10:35am ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

New aerial photos from @bioreconstruct on X give us a closer look at work underway on themed finish mockups for Tropical Americas, the upcoming land at Disney's Animal Kingdom. The images show activity at the WDI project office compound established near the site to support the expansion.

Tropical Americas Themed Finish Mockups - Animal Kingdom Construction Aerials

The mockups you can see laid out across the compound are a standard part of Disney's design process. Before any themed finish gets applied at full scale on the actual job site, Imagineers use smaller test pieces to confirm colors, textures, and materials are hitting the right look.

Tropical Americas Themed Finish Mockups - Animal Kingdom Construction Aerials

Tropical Americas Scale Model

Looking at the photos, several elements stand out. One mockup appears to match the archway entrance to the land seen in previously released concept art. Others show what look like tropical rainforest rock and vegetation sculptures - these could be destined for the playground area or form part of the interior theming inside the Encanto-based attraction.

Tropical Americas Themed Finish Mockups - Animal Kingdom Construction Aerials

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Rteetz8 hours ago

I feel this is sort of what they wanted with the lanterns in the original Rivers of Light concept but the tech wasn't there yet. I think it would work very well in AK.

marni19718 hours ago

I’ve not heard about DAK. I’ve been following the drone development for Paris over the last year. They’ve done a lot of R&D plus the amphitheater in Orlando is just wasting away. And a bit of an eyesore.

davis_unoxx8 hours ago

What you think about drones coming to AK? @marni1971 Fascinating the info put out today with Aquatic drones at Disney Adventure World!

HMF1 day ago

Just saw Hoppers and it would have been a FAR better IP to fit in the Tree of Life theatre than Zootopia.

Charlie The Chatbox Ghost1 day ago

Islands of Adventure now has a reference to Dr. Seeker lol

Brer Panther1 day ago

I'm sure there'll be at least one animatronic of each Encanto character. They'll likely just stand there flailing their arms like the ones in Tiana's, though. Another thing worth mentioning is that Peter Pan and Pooh both move through the scenes quicker than Tiana and Runaway Railway do, so you don't really notice that the scenes don't have seventy-three animatronics in them. Well, actually, some of them do. Pooh has Tigger and Gopher talking to the riders. In Disneyland's Alice in Wonderland ride, some of the characters (like the Doorknob and Tweedledee and Tweedledum) do talk to the riders as well. I honestly don't mind that, it helps bring you into the story. By contrast, in Little Mermaid you just roll by the characters singing and not interacting with you at all (aside from Scuttle), which makes you feel like you're just watching the movie. Frozen's main problem is that the story sucks, as folks on Tumblr have said it's basically a meet-and-greet masquerading as a ride.

Nickm20221 day ago

completely agree! while obv not a copy they should build rides the same size of Pooh or Peterpan where they eat a lot of ppl but are smaller rides, esp TL and DHS would benefit from those greatly

James Alucobond2 days ago

There are many modern examples that don’t interact with the guest. What is rarer is to see them operating on a loop. They almost always trigger now as a result of the ride vehicle approaching.

_caleb2 days ago

It's interesting that so many are calling for the tea party approach to AA scenes. It's been a long time since they adopted the interactive approach, where AAs acknowledge and "interact" with guests rather than acting as if we aren’t there, hasn't it? Some of this may be due to generational preferences, but I believe both approaches are valid and can be useful in the right circumstances. I generally think audiences expect our presence in a scene to be part of the story (I partly blame Universal for this), which helps build tension and create the feeling that the action is happening to us, rather than just to the characters as we watch.

Basil of Baker Street2 days ago

I'm sure you are correct. Just a shame they cant get a simple C/D built for a reasonable amount.

lazyboy97o2 days ago

Most everything has to be a marquee attraction that will drive visitation because their project costs are so out of control.

Basil of Baker Street2 days ago

I'm of the opinion that one of Disney's biggest mistakes in the parks is feeling the need to create E tickets which seem to end up with lower throughput. Give me a high capacity C and and D for the price of a E any day.

FigmentFan822 days ago

Any photo updates?

eddie1042 days ago

Wow I actually agree with you. But this point constantly gets overlooked when Tiana’s is brought up because they hate that Disney had to replace a “classic” attraction for it.