Disney names Villains Land and confirms Expedition Everest's Yeti will move again
At the D23 Experiences panel, Disney confirmed the official name of Magic Kingdom's Villains Land, named both Piston Peak attractions, revealed Harrison Ford will appear in Indiana Jones and the Myth of the Jade Serpent, and set a Spring 2027 reopening for the Carousel of Progress with Jamie Lee Curtis and Bryan Cranston. The Expedition Everest Yeti will become a moving animatronic again after almost 20 years.
Disney has given its next wave of Walt Disney World projects names, casts and, in two cases, dates. At the D23 Experiences panel, Imagineers confirmed that the new Magic Kingdom villains area will officially be called Villains Land, named both rides coming to Piston Peak National Park, revealed that the Expedition Everest Yeti will move again after almost 20 years frozen in place, and set a Spring 2027 return for Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress with Jamie Lee Curtis and Bryan Cranston voicing the parents. All four theme parks are on the list.
Magic Kingdom: Piston Peak National Park gets its two rides
Piston Peak National Park is the Cars land rising on the western edge of Magic Kingdom, on the ground formerly occupied by Rivers of America, Tom Sawyer Island and the Liberty Square Riverboat. That was an opening-day stretch of the park, and it closed to make room for this. Disney has now confirmed the land will hold two attractions.
Miss Fritter's Daredevil Spin-Along is built around a school-bus-sized animatronic of Miss Fritter, the demolition derby bus from Cars 3, with Disney describing the ride as her "wildest demolition derby." An animatronic at that scale is a serious commitment for what reads on paper as the land's smaller, family-scale attraction.
Cars Ridge Run Rally is the bigger of the two. Riders climb Piston Peak itself, then take a bumpy descent down the mountain before reaching Geyser Field, an area Disney says will feature water elements. That combination of an off-road climb, a rough ride down and a geyser basin at the bottom puts it closer in spirit to a rally course than to the slot-car racing of Radiator Springs. It also gives Magic Kingdom something it has lacked since the Rivers closed: a reason to walk all the way west.
Villains Land is the official name, and Maleficent gets a coaster
The villains area planned for Magic Kingdom finally has a real name. Disney announced it will be called Villains Land, deliberately matching the naming convention of Tomorrowland and Fantasyland rather than taking a more elaborate in-story title. For a project that has been discussed under placeholder language since it was first teased, the plain name is itself the news. It slots the area into the park's original grammar of lands.
Two rides are confirmed. The first is a thrill roller coaster featuring Maleficent, which would give Magic Kingdom a genuine thrill coaster anchored to a villain rather than to a mountain. The second is a dark ride centered on the Magic Mirror, the Evil Queen's mirror from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and a natural framing device for moving guests between villains without committing the ride to one story.
Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress returns in Spring 2027
The most concrete date of the presentation belongs to the oldest attraction on it. Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress, which closed last month for a major renovation, is set to reopen in Spring 2027. The rotating theater show debuted at the 1964 New York World's Fair and has run in Tomorrowland since 1975, making it one of the last attractions at Walt Disney World with Walt's own fingerprints on it.
The renovation brings new voices. Jamie Lee Curtis and Bryan Cranston will voice the mother and father of the family that carries the show through the twentieth century. That is a notable pair of names for a show many guests treat as air conditioning with a soundtrack, and it suggests Disney is treating the closure as a restoration with real money behind it rather than a paint-and-patch.
Key Details
- Magic Kingdom: Miss Fritter's Daredevil Spin-Along and Cars Ridge Run Rally confirmed for Piston Peak National Park; Villains Land confirmed as the official name, with a Maleficent coaster and a Magic Mirror dark ride
- Carousel of Progress: Reopens Spring 2027 with Jamie Lee Curtis and Bryan Cranston as the parents
- Animal Kingdom: Indiana Jones and the Myth of the Jade Serpent replaces DINOSAUR, with Harrison Ford in the role; Tropical Americas adds Antonio's Fiesta de Encanto; the Expedition Everest Yeti becomes a moving animatronic again
- Hollywood Studios: Monstropolis opens in 2027; the Monsters, Inc. door coaster opens at a later date
- EPCOT: Spaceship Earth is refurbished for the first time in almost 20 years; the Imagination Pavilion is renovated with the Dreamfinder and Figment returning
Animal Kingdom: Harrison Ford joins an Indiana Jones ride, and the Yeti moves again
Disney confirmed that the attraction replacing DINOSAUR at Disney's Animal Kingdom will be called Indiana Jones and the Myth of the Jade Serpent, and that it will be the first Indiana Jones attraction ever to feature Harrison Ford himself as the character. That distinction matters more than it might sound. The Indiana Jones attractions built to date have worked around Ford's absence with stand-ins, silhouettes and audio, so putting the actor in the ride puts the character back on screen in a way no attraction has managed before.
Elsewhere in the park, Tropical Americas, the reimagining of the former DinoLand U.S.A. area, will hold two Encanto attractions. Disney detailed one of them. Antonio's Fiesta de Encanto takes guests inside the Madrigal family's Casita during Antonio's gift day celebration, and Disney says it will be a family-friendly ride with no height requirement. That fills a real gap in Animal Kingdom's lineup. Outside the Boneyard playground and the safari, the park has very little for the smallest guests.
Then there is the confirmation longtime fans have waited almost two decades to hear. Imagineers said the Expedition Everest Yeti will become a moving animatronic again. The figure has been a stationary element lit by a strobe since the earliest years of the ride, which opened in 2006, and that workaround became one of the most discussed pieces of unfinished business at the resort. Disney has not said when the Yeti comes back to life, but confirming that it will is the first firm word in years.
Hollywood Studios: Monstropolis opens in 2027
Monstropolis will open to guests at Disney's Hollywood Studios in 2027, bringing the world of Monsters, Inc. to the park as a full land rather than a single ride. Disney says the area will include a new theatre show, a restaurant, a quick-service location, a gift shop and a Monsters University Alumni Club. That is a slate built for spending an afternoon, not for standing in one queue.
The land's roller coaster runs on a separate timeline. Disney leaders described the Monsters, Inc. door coaster as launching riders 40 feet into the air in four seconds before sending them into the vault, and confirmed it will open later than the rest of Monstropolis. That staging is worth planning around, because a 2027 trip gets the land, the show and the food, but not necessarily the coaster.
EPCOT: Spaceship Earth's first update in almost 20 years, and Figment's return
Spaceship Earth will officially be refurbished for the first time in almost two decades. Disney says the updated attraction will shift its focus from human communication to human connection, which is a reframing of the ride's whole thesis rather than a scene swap. The current version dates to the 2007 refresh, and the geodesic sphere has since become the most recognizable object at EPCOT, so any change to what happens inside it carries weight.
The Imagination Pavilion is also being renovated, and it is bringing back both Figment and the Dreamfinder. The Dreamfinder, the bearded inventor who originally rode the Dreamcatcher alongside Figment when Journey Into Imagination opened in 1983, has been absent from the pavilion since the ride was overhauled at the turn of the century. His return has been near the top of EPCOT wish lists ever since.
The Buzz
This one is moving because it is the rare D23 update that answers questions instead of teasing them: an official land name, two ride names for Piston Peak, an actor attached to an Indiana Jones attraction, a reopening season for the Carousel of Progress, and a straight confirmation on the Everest Yeti. Orlando's WFTV Channel 9 reported the details out of the D23 Experiences panel, and the Yeti and Dreamfinder confirmations in particular have carried the story well past the usual announcement cycle. Both are long-running fan grievances that Disney had gone years without addressing directly.
The dates Disney still has not given
Two firm windows came out of this panel: Carousel of Progress in Spring 2027, and Monstropolis in 2027. Everything else is confirmed but undated. Piston Peak National Park, Villains Land, Indiana Jones and the Myth of the Jade Serpent, Antonio's Fiesta de Encanto, the Spaceship Earth refurbishment, the Imagination Pavilion overhaul, the Monsters, Inc. door coaster and the Everest Yeti all have names and descriptions attached, but no opening date, and in several cases no closing date for the work either.
For anyone planning a trip, the practical calendar has not really changed yet. Rivers of America, Tom Sawyer Island and the Riverboat are gone, DINOSAUR is closed, and Carousel of Progress is down until Spring 2027 at the earliest. What guests gained at D23 is certainty about what is coming back and what it will be called, not a date to book against. We will update as Disney attaches opening windows to the rest of the board.