Disney names Villains Land, casts an Audio-Animatronic Walt into Carousel of Progress, and confirms the Everest Yeti will move again
At the D23 Experiences panel, Disney confirmed Villains Land as the official name of the Magic Kingdom expansion, named both Piston Peak attractions, revealed Harrison Ford will model the Audio-Animatronic figure in Indiana Jones and the Myth of the Jade Serpent, and set a late spring 2027 reopening for Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress with Jamie Lee Curtis, Bryan Cranston, a new 1980s scene and an Audio-Animatronic Walt Disney. The Expedition Everest Yeti becomes a moving animatronic again after almost 20 years, and part of Monstropolis opens at Hollywood Studios in 2027.
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, and it is the project carrying the most weight, because of what it replaces. Rivers of America, Tom Sawyer Island and the Liberty Square Riverboat were opening-day features of Magic Kingdom, and all three closed to clear the ground. 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, and it debuts a ride vehicle built to drive over real terrain rather than glide along a smoothed track, so the bumps, drops and rock along the course are meant to be physical rather than simulated. 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.
Imagineers spent a chunk of the presentation on the setting: snow-capped peaks, geyser fields, mud flats and tree-covered trails, with buildings drawn in Parkitecture, the rustic architectural style the National Park Service developed for its lodges. The point of that style is that structures disappear into the landscape, which is a useful trick for a land sitting at the edge of a park guests can see across.
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.
The land's story starts with a corrupted wishing well sunk deep in a forbidding forest. Disney's villains have gathered around it to claim its dark magic, and each has raised a lair on the site. That premise gives Imagineering a way to put characters who have never shared a land into the same acreage without inventing a crossover plot, and it gives the place a single geographic center.
Two rides are confirmed. The first is a roller coaster set at Maleficent's mountaintop fortress, using ride elements Imagineers say they have never attempted before, which would give Magic Kingdom a genuine thrill coaster anchored to a villain rather than to a mountain. The second is a dark ride hosted by the Magic Mirror, the Evil Queen's mirror from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, pulling guests into a Mirror Realm populated by classic villains and built with practical set pieces and effects rather than a screen-heavy approach. It is a natural framing device for moving guests between villains without committing the ride to one story.
Imagineers also put a number on the ambition, comparing the land's footprint to Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, the roughly 14-acre land that opened at Disney's Hollywood Studios in 2019 and remains the largest single-themed expansion Walt Disney World has built. Magic Kingdom has not added anything close to that since Fantasyland doubled in size in 2012, and a construction footprint on that order argues against any near-term opening.
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, moved to Disneyland after the fair closed, and has run in Magic Kingdom's 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, and more besides. Jamie Lee Curtis and Bryan Cranston will voice the mother and father of the family that carries the show through the twentieth century, the refreshed version adds new time periods including a scene set in the 1980s, and an Audio-Animatronic figure of Walt Disney himself joins the attraction. Recasting the family is the most substantial change the show has taken in decades: it opened at the 1964 fair, moved here in 1975, and its last substantive rework landed in 1993, which is why its final scene has spent so long stuck in a version of the near future that stopped feeling near. Adding a 1980s scene finally moves the fourth act forward, and an Audio-Animatronic Walt puts the attraction's creator inside the attraction he personally shepherded. Disney has since narrowed the reopening to late spring 2027.
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 in a way no attraction has managed before. Ford is serving as the model for the attraction's Audio-Animatronic figure, which Disney says is the first time his likeness will appear on a Disney attraction anywhere in the world. The ride itself runs through ancient Maya ruins, past oversized bats, scorpions and, inevitably, snakes.
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 sits in the land's Pueblo Esperanza village and takes guests inside the Madrigal family's Casita during Antonio's gift day celebration, built around his gift of talking to animals, which is a deliberate thematic hook into the park it sits in. Disney says it will be a family attraction with no height requirement, which is a meaningful detail at a park whose headliners almost all carry one. Outside the Boneyard playground and the safari, Animal Kingdom 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 table service 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 specifics have since filled in. The show is "Welcome to Monstropolis" at the Glob Theater, hosted by Mike and Sulley. The table service is Harryhausen's, complete with a sushi chef Audio-Animatronics figure behind the counter, and the quick service is Archie's Scare Pig Pizza. Randy Newman, who scored the Monsters, Inc. films, has written an original song for the land, the first time he has composed a piece specifically for a Disney theme park.
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. Imagineer Ali Rubinstein says the updated attraction will shift its focus from human communication to human connection, carrying the story past the desktop computer the ride currently ends on and into the internet age. That is a reframing of the ride's whole thesis rather than a scene swap, and a wider brief than it has worked to before, since every version has ended on whatever the current technology happened to be and each of those endings has aged in public. The current version dates to the 2007 refresh, which brought the interactive descent and the Judi Dench narration, and a version of this project was announced in 2019 before being shelved. 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 Journey Into Imagination With Figment is being reimagined with both Figment and the Dreamfinder. The Dreamfinder, the red-bearded inventor who originally rode the Dreamcatcher alongside Figment when Journey Into Imagination opened in 1983, has been absent from the pavilion since 1998. The current version of the ride has now run for 24 years, nine years longer than the original it replaced, and Dreamfinder's return has been near the top of EPCOT wish lists the whole time.
The Buzz
This is the year Disney had to show its work. The 2024 round of announcements was concept art and promises, and guests have since watched construction walls go up at three of the four parks with no ride names, no ride types and no dates attached. This showcase answered instead of teasing: 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 outlets 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 late spring 2027, and part of Monstropolis in 2027, with the land opening in stages rather than all at once. 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. Magic Kingdom's Tomorrowland is the first place any of it becomes visible on the ground, because Carousel of Progress is the only announced project with a season attached to it, while Animal Kingdom carries the nearest-term disruption with Tropical Americas construction already having taken DinoLand out of the picture. We will update as Disney attaches opening windows to the rest of the board.