New Aerial Photos Show Encanto Queue Area Taking Shape at Disney's Animal Kingdom

14 days ago in "Tropical Americas"

Gallery / 3 Photos
Encanto Attraction Queue Construction - Aerial Photos, February 28 2025

Posted: Saturday February 28, 2026 11:06am ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

New aerial photos from @bioreconstruct show construction crews at Disney's Animal Kingdom have shifted focus to the queue area at the front of the Encanto attraction show building.

Encanto Attraction Queue Construction - Aerial Photos, February 28 2025

With the steel framework complete on the main show building, work is now advancing on the queue space. This area will house both standby and Lightning Lane entrances and queue for the ride.

Encanto Attraction Queue Construction - Aerial Photos, February 28 2025

The photo below show steel beams being staged and installed at the front section of the building.

Encanto Attraction Queue Construction - Aerial Photos, February 28 2025

Inside, guests will join the Madrigal family on the day Antonio receives his gift - the ability to communicate with animals. The attraction takes place inside Casita, the family's magical home.

Encanto Attraction Model

The Encanto ride is part of Tropical Americas, an 11-acre expansion at Animal Kingdom that also includes a new Indiana Jones adventure and an animal-themed carousel. The land centers on Pueblo Esperanza, a Latin American-inspired town with an open-air market and a large quick-service restaurant.

Tropical Americas is scheduled to open at Disney's Animal Kingdom in 2027.

Tropical Americas Scale Model

Aerial Photos: @bioreconstruct

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Rteetz7 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.

marni19717 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_unoxx7 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.