NEWS: A Disney World Ride Is Temporarily CLOSING in January

There are going to be some big closures in Disney World in 2025!

Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Next year, parts of DinoLand, U.S.A. begin to close as the land gets transformed into the Tropical Americas. Also, we have the scheduled closures of Tom Sawyer Island and the Liberty Square Riverboat as construction begins on the new Cars attractions for Frontierland. But what about seasonal refurbishments? Well, we’ve got some of those on the way too!

The Disney World website has been updated to show that Kali River Rapids will close for its seasonal refurbishment on January 6th, 2025. It’s listed as temporarily closed through the end of the calendar, which currently goes out to mid-February.

Kali River Rapids

It’s not uncommon to see Kali River Rapids close during the winter months for maintenance. As a water-based ride, it typically requires more regular refurbishments than the dry attractions. We also noticed this phenomenon with Splash Mountain in the past, so we’ll be interested to see if Tiana’s Bayou Adventure has a winter closure in the future.

Kali River Rapids

These refurbishments typically only last a few weeks, and the rides often reopen before the busy Spring Break season kicks off in March. We’ll have to wait and see what the Disney World calendar says as we get more dates available.

Kali River Rapids

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this closure is that part of DinoLand is scheduled to close permanently on January 13th, 2025. On that date, TriceraTop Spin will close, as well as Chester & Hester’s Dinosaur Treasures and the Fossil Fun Games. This means that for several weeks, we’ll have multiple attractions closed in Animal Kingdom.

Dinoland, U.S.A.

So if you’re going to Animal Kingdom in January and February, you may notice higher wait times for the attractions that remain open, and heavier crowds throughout the park as there will be fewer spaces to disperse to. We’re interested to see how the DinoLand closures will affect Animal Kingdom in the long term. Thankfully, they’ll be permanently closing the land in stages to do construction.

Animal Kingdom

We’ll make sure to keep you in the loop if any more closures are announced, so stay tuned to DFB for the lates!

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