Something HUGE is happening in Disney’s Animal Kingdom, but we bet you already knew that. We’ve been following the construction of Pueblo Esperanza, a new Tropical Americas-themed land, since DinoLand U.S.A. started closing in phases, but now that ALL of DinoLand has closed (Goodbye, DINOSAUR), work on the new land is taking a huge step forward.

Model of Madrigal’s Casita

The one thing we’re most excited about is the Encanto ride, which will bring the Casita from the film to real life! Inside, there will be a cool ride themed around the movie…and we can hardly wait. In the meantime, though, we keep checking construction at the site of the new land, and construction on the ride is coming right along.

So all of DinoLand U.S.A. is now surrounded by construction walls, but you can’t miss the construction of the Madrigal casita, which looms over the walls. The first few levels of the Casita have already been built.

Let’s see how it’s looking

We also saw a lot of equipment on each level of the casita, as workers continue to do their work on it. It doesn’t SEEM like a lot has changed since we last checked, but there really has. Note that this is just what we can see…there’s a lot that has been developed in and around the Casita, too, as we’ve seen in aerial photos.

Equipment on the floors

In concept art and the model of the land, we’ve seen that the Casita is about three levels tall, with a few towers. Of course, we don’t always get EXACTLY what’s in the concept art, but it looks like most of the basic beams and structure of the building are in place.

©Disney

There are also plenty of cranes and construction vehicles on site as work continues on the ride’s building.

Crane

Being able to see all the progress being made on the ride and new land keeps us going since we’ll have to wait for 2027 to see it all for ourselves. For now, we’ll just keep an eye on construction and keep you updated, so stay tuned to DFB.

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What do you think of the construction so far? Let us know in the comments!