This is An Important Clarification About Disney’s Major Closures Today For New Rides

Today, there was a major closure at Magic Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World in Florida to make way for new attractions. There's an important clarification about these changes.

This huge change that just happened at Magic Kingdom could understandably cause some confusion due to the park's overlap with Disneyland's attractions in California. Keep reading for what you need to know…

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Clarification About Disney's Major New Closure

There are some huge new additions in progress for both resorts right now, including a bold new expansion at Magic Kingdom that will further differentiate the park from its counterpart in Disneyland, California.

With the amount of overlap between Disneyland Park and Magic Kingdom, some may be confused upon hearing that the Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer's Island would be permanently closing, wondering if this is the case for both Disneyland and Disney World.

This closure is just happening at Magic Kingdom at Disney World in Florida. As of today, July 7, the Rivers of America section of the park (including the Liberty Square Riverboat and Tom Sawyer Island) has permanently closed to make way for construction to introduce a new Cars-themed area and a new Villains Land in a reimagined section of Frontierland. The Disney World Railroad will also be impacted during construction. Instead of doing its full loop around the park, the Frontierland Station will close, and it will go back and forth between Fantasyland and Main Street, U.S.A. stations.

Again, the major closures are only happening at Walt Disney World in Florida and not at Disneyland in California. We've seen lots of questions and worries in comments so we had to address this. 

Yesterday, during the last day of operations, the wait times for the river attractions hovered around only 15 minutes. We don't know if this really indicates anything about popularity, as the rides have a very high capacity. Disney also handed out wristbands for the final riverboat voyage earlier in the day to avoid craziness around that trip.

We are already seeing this change reflected on the Disney World map. Despite knowing about this change, the absence of the Rivers of America is a little bit of a shocking visual nonetheless!

We recently received more details about the Cars-themed area called Piston Peak that is replacing part of the Rivers of America.

This area will include two rides—one will be a thrilling rally race through the mountains across mountain trails, past geysers, and through mudholes, and the second will be a family-friendly attraction. You can read about the inspiration for the land and concept art recently revealed here.

There is also a Villains Land that will be coming that will be located behind the new Cars attraction in this area. We don't have too many details about this expansion yet, other than that it will introduce two major attractions, as well as new dining and shopping.

There are also a few major new additions currently under construction for the other parks at Disney World, including a Tropical Americas land coming to Animal Kingdom and a Monsters, Inc. land coming to Hollywood Studios—you can read about those in our guide to new rides at Disney World.

While the change to Rivers of America aren't coming to Disneyland Park (phew!), there are some new rides coming to Disney California Adventure. One of these new additions does involve the closure of a classic attraction, which will be permanently removed to make way for a new Avatar Land coming. This Avatar Land, based Avatar: Way of Water and upcoming Avatar films, will introduce a new Avatar attraction highlighting the beauty and dangers of the natural wonders of Pandora.

Construction is also underway for an expansion that will double the size of Avengers Campus and introduce two new rides, including an “E-ticket” Avengers Multiverse ride and a ride inspired by Tony Stark. You can see details about that expansion in our separate article here.

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At Disney California Adventure, there is also a new Coco boat ride coming, which will take guests on a journey with Miguel to the Land of the Dead. Imagineering is drawing inspiration from classics like Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean for the ride, which will feature the latest Audio-Animatronics technology. We recently got new details about where in the park this will be located , along with new artwork.

You can see our guide to new rides coming to Disneyland for a breakdown of all of the rides in development and our analysis of when these new rides will likely open at Disneyland.

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