5 Disney World Changes To Know Before Planning A Trip In 2026

In an interview circa 1956, Walt Disney described California's Disneyland as "a living, breathing thing that will need changes." While Walt never lived to see his massive "Florida project" reach fruition with Disney World's opening in 1971, these same words of his could also apply to that resort. Spread out over 28,000 acres, Disney World is almost twice the size of Manhattan. Once you've encountered enough "Pardon our pixie dust" notices, you'll realize there's almost always construction or renovation work happening somewhere in the resort. 2026 is an especially busy transitional year, as the resort looks further down the barrel of a five-year construction plan that could make Disney World unrecognizable by 2030 due to major changes.

While some of these changes are still a few years off, others have already gone into effect, and still others are happening on a smaller scale in 2026. These include changes to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, and Cinderella Castle (at the Magic Kingdom), Frozen Ever After and Soarin' Around the World (at Epcot), Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run, the Animation Courtyard, and Rock 'n' Roller Coaster (at Disney's Hollywood Studios), and the Tree of Life Theater (at Animal Kingdom). Meanwhile, long-running attractions like Tom Sawyer Island, Muppet*Vision3D, and Dinosaur have all closed in the last year to clear the way for future rides.

If you're considering a Disney World vacation in 2026, it helps to know how exactly these resort-wide changes might impact your trip. Here, we'll take a deep dive into incremental changes at each of Disney World's four theme parks, plus one other area that shouldn't be overlooked by vacation planners: namely, the greater resort, where all the official hotels are located. Looking to the immediate future, we'll examine how you might plan around ongoing construction and the temporary closure of select Disney World attractions in 2026.

The Magic Kingdom is the park that stands to undergo the most changes under Disney World's five-year construction plan. It's currently undergoing the largest expansion in its history, with two big developments on the distant horizon being a Villains Land and Piston Peak National Park. Piston Peak will be themed to "Cars," and unfortunately, this upcoming attraction means saying goodbye to some Disney World icons. The Rivers of America waterway has closed, taking Tom Sawyer Island and the Liberty Square Riverboat with it and leaving the area beyond Big Thunder Mountain walled off as a construction site.

For its part, the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride has been closed since January 2025. It's officially slated to reopen in spring 2026, but an amended construction permit suggests it could be behind schedule, with late spring or even summer looking like a safer bet for vacation planners. When it does reopen, it will have new trains, refreshed animatronics, and an updated Rainbow Caverns scene. If you need more weird incentive to board Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, some guests claim this popular Disney park ride helped them pass kidney stones.

While you can't go beyond Big Thunder Mountain just yet, you can go "to infinity and beyond" again when Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin reopens in spring 2026. A new robot character, Buddy, is joining the pre-show, and you'll be able to take aim at interactive targets in enhanced ride vehicles with video monitors and handheld blasters. Even the Magic Kingdom's central landmark, Cinderella Castle, is getting an update in 2026, with a fresh coat of paint returning it to its classic color scheme. While most of the visible painting was done by March 2026, the moat has been drained, and crews on aerial work platforms have been sighted around the castle.

In February 2026, Epcot updated the popular boat ride, Frozen Ever After, with new animatronic faces, bringing it in line with the quality of international "Frozen" attractions like Hong Kong's and Tokyo's. Gone are the old, outdated, rear-projection-mapped faces that made this ride's animatronic figures look similar to those in Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. Though Frozen Ever After usually has slightly shorter lines than Test Track and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, interest in the revamped ride could extend its wait times in 2026.

By Memorial Day — which falls on May 25, 2026 — Epcot visitors will be able to celebrate the nation's 250th anniversary with a new, limited-time, America-themed overlay of Soarin' Around the World. According to Disney Parks Blog, Soarin' Across America will showcase scenes "of the country's natural beauty and iconic cityscapes" as it takes guests on a simulated hang glider flight. Over in the American Adventure rotunda, the "Portraits of Courage" exhibit, featuring former president George W. Bush's oil paintings of veterans, will continue running through Fourth of July weekend. This means June, give or take a week, may be the best time to visit if you want to get in on Epcot's semiquincentennial festivities.

In theaters, Memorial Day weekend will also see the release of "The Mandalorian and Grogu," the first new "Star Wars" movie in seven years. Disney's Hollywood Studios is cross-promoting the film with a fresh Mando-themed mission aboard the Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run ride, beginning May 22. Outside Galaxy's Edge, the Star Wars Launch Bay walk-through closed in September 2025, and work is already underway to convert it into a new version of "The Magic of Disney Animation," the opening-day attraction it replaced. Coming in late summer 2026, "The Magic of Disney Animation" will bring a giant Sorcerer Mickey hat back to Hollywood Studios as its Animation Courtyard becomes the new Walt Disney Studios area.

There's good news and bad news for Muppets fans at Hollywood Studios in 2026. The bad news is that the beloved show, Muppet*Vision 3D, made its final curtain call in June 2025, along with the restaurant PizzeRizzo. This paves the way for a new Monsters, Inc. land to open at Hollywood Studios in the coming years. However, when the 3D show closed, it took with it a piece of Muppets creator Jim Henson's legacy, since that attraction was the last project he worked on before his death. The good news is the Muppets themselves aren't leaving Hollywood Studios for long. They're just moving across the park to Sunset Boulevard, but you'll have to wait until summer 2026 if you want to see them in their new gig as the stars of Rock 'n' Roller Coaster.

The previous version of Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, starring Aerosmith, closed in March 2026. At press time, Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler was still embroiled in a lawsuit, where he's been accused of grooming a "teen bride" as her legal guardian in the 1970s. Just as "Captain EO" coincidentally left Epcot following charges against Michael Jackson in the 1990s, the Tyler lawsuit certainly didn't help the case for keeping his band as the face of a fun ride at kid-friendly Disney.

Giving Rock 'n' Roller Coaster a Muppets makeover frees it from Aerosmith's tarnished image while serving as a consolation for Muppet*Vision 3D fans. Some visitors might not even notice the difference, since the ride will still have the same giant red Stratocaster guitar outside, albeit with a more psychedelic paint trim. That's exactly the kind of inattentiveness Muppet*Vision 3D once poked fun at, when it had Rizzo the Rat try to pass himself off as Mickey Mouse, saying, "Besides, they're tourists. What do they know?"

In 2026, fans of the DinoLand U.S.A. area will find Disney's Animal Kingdom severely diminished, dinosaur-wise. DinoLand and its last remaining attractions, including Restaurantosaurus and the opening-day Dinosaur ride, closed permanently in February to make way for Animal Kingdom's new Tropical Americas land. Scheduled to open in 2027, Tropical Americas is one of the reasons you may want to delay booking your Disney World vacation. It will feature a wood-carved animal carousel, the first-ever ride dedicated to "Encanto," and an Indiana Jones ride that, per Disney, is "unlike any of the existing Indy attractions around the world."

Animal Kingdom has a reputation for being a half-day park in some vacation-planning circles, and whether or not you agree with that, it's definitely down a few rides and will have construction going until 2027. As such, 2026 may be the year to skip Animal Kingdom — unless you're thinking every other Mickey-eared tourist will have the same idea, and you want to take advantage of the potentially low crowds. Some fans may still want to meet the star of "Bluey," the most-streamed show of 2025, when she and her canine sister, Bingo, roll into Conservation Station for a new interactive character experience in summer 2026.

One new attraction Animal Kingdom is already offering is the 4D show, "Zootopia: Better Zoogether." This show, which opened in November 2025, has replaced "It's Tough to Be a Bug" inside the Tree of Life Theater. Disney Tourist Blog calls it "Disney World's zoorst new attraction" of the 2020s, citing its "chaotic" and "downright disorienting" nature as a show clearly aimed at kids with short attention spans. That said, it's worth taking in the show at least once, if only to see the nifty new animatronic of the heavyset cheetah, Clawhauser. Then, you can decide for yourself whether the Tree of Life's new animal residents are better than a bunch of bugs.

Looking out over Disney World from the rooftop of Topolino's Terrace in early January 2026, you could see metal scaffolding around one of the giant winged statues atop the Swan Hotel. The view was the same from the Disney Skyliner, which closed for a week later that month (and will do so again in late January 2027). These are just two examples of how construction and refurbishments can affect hotel views and even your transportation options at the resort. The Swan and Dolphin are undergoing a $275 million renovation and expansion until late summer 2026, and they're not the only hotels where maintenance is being done.

Fort Wilderness is the perfect Disney World accommodation for RV camping, but don't be surprised if the sight of construction cranes intrudes on the campground, as work continues on the adjacent Lakeshore Lodge, opening in 2027. The Meadow Swimmin' Pool may also have limited seating amid nearby construction until mid-2026. For those planning a last-minute stay, several other resort hotels, including All Star Sports, Bay Lake Tower, Beach Club, Old Key West, and Yacht Club, all have pools closed for maintenance until late April or early May 2026.

Polynesian Village, Disney World's best resort for tropical tiki vibes, has increased its guest capacity with the new Island Tower, even as daytime construction activity carries on in its front entrance through 2026. The two other monorail loop hotels, the Grand Floridian and the Contemporary Resort, are undergoing phased refurbishments until 2027. On its website, Disney World notes that guests may "see or hear construction during their stay" or "need to take alternate paths of travel." The eyesore of renovation projects like these might burst the Disney bubble for some guests. However, it can usually be avoided by heeding the red warnings on hotel webpages and selectively booking other hotels, like Disney's Pop Century Resort, where the year-long room refurbishments have all been completed.