Casita's Tallest Tower Goes Up in Steel at Tropical Americas
The tallest tower of Casita, the house from Encanto that will form the facade of Antonio's Fiesta de Encanto, is now standing in steel at the Tropical Americas construction site in Disney's Animal Kingdom. Crews are also roofing El Carrusel de los Animalitos and building the artificial mountains that will screen the ride's show building.
The tallest tower of Casita is now standing in steel at the Tropical Americas construction site in Disney's Animal Kingdom, and the shape of the house from Encanto has become legible from across the park. It will serve as the facade of Antonio's Fiesta de Encanto, the land's headline new ride.
Casita Reads as a Building Now, Not a Frame
The change is most obvious on the approach from Discovery Island. Looking past the land's future entrance archway and the carousel, the steel framing behind them now carries Casita's tallest tower. It is not finished, but the silhouette that guests will eventually recognise from the film is there.
Anyone who has followed the concept art and Walt Disney Imagineering's physical model of the facade will spot how closely the steel is tracking the design. The mountains that will screen the ride's show building from view are also progressing, which is the less glamorous half of any Animal Kingdom project and usually the half that determines whether a land feels enclosed or exposed.
The sequence from here is standard for a Disney facade: once the framing is topped out, crews enclose the structure, then apply themed paneling, roofing and paint. That last stage is where a steel skeleton becomes a Colombian house, and it is typically the longest phase visually because the detail work happens surface by surface.
El Carrusel de los Animalitos Is Getting Its Roof
Alongside the ride building, crews have been adding roofing to El Carrusel de los Animalitos, the land's carousel. Most of the wide roof that guests will see from the walkway is now covered in paneling. The central tower on top of it is still open.
The carousel is the piece that will do the most work in setting the tone of Tropical Americas at ground level, because it sits close to the entrance and will be visible before anything else. A roof going on is a good marker of progress on a structure that has to look finished from every angle in a walkway rather than from a distance.
What Tropical Americas Replaces
Tropical Americas is being built on the footprint of DinoLand U.S.A., which closed to make way for it. The land is themed to Latin America and will include Antonio's Fiesta de Encanto, using Casita as its facade, alongside the carousel and reworked walkways.
For Disney's Animal Kingdom, this is the largest change to the park's geography since Pandora opened in 2017. DinoLand had been the park's least-loved section for years, and replacing it with an Encanto anchor gives Animal Kingdom something it has never had: a land built around a currently popular animated film with a family audience.
The Buzz
Casita is the single most recognisable thing being built in Tropical Americas, and until this week it was steel that could have been anything. A tower going up changes a construction update into a first look, and it is the first point at which a guest walking through Disney's Animal Kingdom can stand on Discovery Island and see the house from the film taking shape.
Next Comes Enclosure, Paneling and Paint
There is no opening date for Tropical Americas or Antonio's Fiesta de Encanto. What the current state of the site tells you is roughly where the project sits: the ride's facade is being framed, the carousel is being roofed, and the artificial mountains that hide the show building are still going in.
The visible milestones to watch for next are Casita's framing being enclosed and the first themed paneling appearing on it, plus the central tower of El Carrusel de los Animalitos getting covered. Both are the point at which the land stops looking like a building site with a crane in it and starts looking like a place.