Walt Disney World continues racing towards construction of the Piston Peak ‘Cars’ area of Frontierland and Villains Land, reaching a major milestone: full demolition of Tom Sawyer Island. Months after the Rivers of America closed over the summer, new aerial photos reveal that every structure on the extinct attraction is gone as of the start of Christmas at Magic Kingdom. Here’s the latest, plus our commentary about what’s next.
Let’s start by quickly bringing you up to speed with what’s changed between summer and today. The Rivers of America, Tom Sawyer Island, and Liberty Square Riverboat closed back on July 7th. For our tribute to the aesthetics and artistic value of this area of Magic Kingdom, see Why the Rivers of America is Worth Saving. The sentiment there is part of an overarching and ongoing fan debate about Walt Disney World that extends far beyond this one decision.
Along with these permanent closures, “shuttle mode” operations of the Walt Disney World Railroad have now begun. This is due to the temporary closure of the Frontierland Station, which is occurring to accommodate construction. The staging areas and the construction sites are on opposite sides of the railroad tracks, hence the closure. This means you can no longer experience the Grand Circle Tour of the Walt Disney World Railroad for (probably) the next few years. I wouldn’t be surprised if Frontierland Station doesn’t reopen again in the 2020s, but honestly, I’m just happy to have the trains at all.
Since then, crews have been working to drain the Rivers of America. That was easier said than done, as storm season resulted in it being refilled a few times. But crews finally won their battle against Mother Nature, who is apparently a big fan of the RoA, with an assist from industrial water pumps. Construction walls, scrims and scaffolding now line the walkways in Frontierland and Liberty Square, making it difficult for guests to see into the project site.
With views from ground-level now mostly blocked, we take to the skies above Magic Kingdom for a glimpse over the construction walls. These overhead photos & video come courtesy of eye in the sky photos from friend-of-the-site bioreconstruct, the go-to source for aerial theme park photography…
Let’s start with a high-level establishing shot.
This isn’t a great view of the construction, but it’s a stunning shot right down Main Street USA, complete with a monorail passing and even daytime lighting. I haven’t the slightest inkling about the challenges posed by taking photos from a moving helicopter, but cannot imagine that this is an easy one to capture. Probably roughly equivalent to the Helmsman in Pirates of the Caribbean timed perfectly to a lightning strike. Kudos to bioreconstruct on this one.
Oh, and we do get a peekaboo view of the construction site on the far upper left. You can even see one of the laydown yards beyond Big Thunder that’ll support Cars and Villains land construction.
Here’s another view from behind Magic Kingdom, roughly behind Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. This shows the Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island demolition, but also the final laydown yard that we’ve been watching make progress as it plays catch-up to the other ones.
We’ve covered these laydown yards and drainage requirements extensively as part of the permitting process for this project over the course of the last year-plus. As a refresher, the permit for all of this was issued by the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) in Winter 2025, giving Imagineering until February 17, 2030 to redevelop the area.
The underlying SFWMD permit is massive in scale and scope, encompassing over 300 acres around Magic Kingdom and beyond. However, the actual project site only being about 14 acres–the entirety of it and then some is visible in the photo above. I suspect some fans might mistakenly believe this expansion is larger than it actually is based on the permits and aerial photos to date. The laydown yards and total permit area are much bigger than the new lands, even if this still is the largest expansion in Magic Kingdom history.
We don’t have new November 2025 photos of the other laydown yards, presumably because those haven’t progressed much (if at all). Above is a look at the others as of last month.
You can scroll back and forth and see how these look side-by-side. As another refresher, these gravel laydown yards are in low-lying areas to the northwest of the Rivers of America, necessitating site prep work to make them usable. There are three gravel laydown yards in total around the northwestern perimeter of Magic Kingdom.
Two are beyond the berm, meaning outside of Magic Kingdom guest areas, with the third laydown yard within Magic Kingdom along the northwestern banks of what’s currently the Rivers of America. These gravel laydown yards will be used for construction equipment, heavy machinery, materials staging, earth-moving, etc.
Work on the laydown yards started in late spring. Above is an even higher level view from over the summer back before the Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island closed.
As you can see, major progress has been made since Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island closed. The final staging area and project site has had most of its trees removed, and is catching up to the others. Another big development is the installation of project team trailers on the middle laydown yard.
This is very similar permits for a trailer park and staging area behind Kali River Rapids in support of the Tropical Americas project last spring. They also repurposed the former Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser behind Disney’s Hollywood Studios into field offices for the Monstropolis expansion there.
Here’s a closer look at the former Rivers of America, which has now had all structures demolished.
This means that Superstition Bridge, Fort Langhorn, Harper’s Mill and Potter’s Mill, Aunt Polly’s Restaurant, the buildings for the caves, and everything else. It’s all gone. Only scattered trees remain.
The right half of this will become the Piston Peak ‘Cars’ land (basically the south island of Tom Sawyer Island), while the area that’s beyond Big Thunder will become Villains Land. That’s the portion of this project that is true park expansion.
Zooming in a bit, here’s the south island of Tom Sawyer Island and the lower loop of the Rivers of America within the normal field of view inside Magic Kingdom.
This also shows the scaffolding and scrims that are up along the Rivers of America waterfront promenade. These are in the drained riverbed, so the “shortcut” walkway to Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and Big Thunder remains open. There are other areas of proper construction walls along the rest of the waterfront.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by just how unobtrusive this project is thus far. You can see the walls when first entering Liberty Square, but the way that the brown scrim is set back along the shortcut means it doesn’t stick out from the main thoroughfare of Frontierland.
It helps that there’s a good amount of foliage between Frontierland and the former Rivers of America or current project site. The result when you’re walking through this section of the park, perhaps to visit future UNESCO World Heritage Site, Grizzly Hall, you don’t really notice all that much. Blend-in brown living up to its name.
The construction site is there, obviously, but this is not a gigantic crater that commands guests’ attention. Mercifully, it is absolutely nothing like the Giant EPCOT Dirt Pit. Now, if this drags on for ~5 years with minimal progress and the end result is something akin to the ride version of CommuniCore Hall, you can expect my tune to change.
Here’s another angle on the south island.
In the middle of the island, there are massive mounds of dirt. I was on the ground in Magic Kingdom yesterday, and these are about the only thing that’s visible over the walls. You can see the absence of the mills that used to poke up above the walls and the remaining trees, but that’s about it. Otherwise, just the new dirt mounds.
The next step is likely using those massive mounds to infill the former Rivers of America waterbed.
There’s probably some remaining clean-up to be done on the islands themselves, but the point is that the land clearing won’t be done down to the riverbed level. Rather, the former waterway will be brought up to the former island’s level. That’s going to require a lot more dirt, so expect more massive mounds to appear as the project progresses.
In addition to that, crews will need to install infrastructure and utilities, and do a lot of invisible work before vertical construction can begin. Tropical Americas took about 10 months to go from land clearing to the beginnings of vertical construction.
Our best guess is that the Piston Peak National Park ‘Cars’ land is closer to a full year away. Honestly, I’d be surprised and impressed if we see this go vertical by Christmas 2026. I’d love to be wrong and have this work kick into a higher gear, but these projects are always slow-going…until they’re not. The vertical stage is what goes fast. This happens time and time again, and yet, fans constantly question why things are going so slow…and then why projects have ‘sped up.’
Here’s a look at demolition on the north island. The far right side is also right around where a new walkway will connect Big Thunder to Haunted Mansion. It’s difficult to see, but a new construction wall within the Big Thunder project site has been installed, either to protect the attraction or for future use once the ride reopens within the next few months.
The walkway definitely will not be completed (or even started) before Big Thunder reopens. It wouldn’t make sense to do so, as it’d block access to the Cars construction site. We do expect prep-work to begin on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad side since it’ll be easier to accomplish that while the roller coaster is closed.
One of my bigger questions is what Walt Disney World plans to do with the remaining mature trees on Tom Sawyer Island. It would be nice if there were a way to transplant these for future use.
I’m not exactly an expert on tree relocation costs, but I do know that mature trees are “prohibitively” expensive (or so they say about projects with price tags in the billions of dollars and excessive bloat). This is why so many recent projects have looked barren, and to their detriment, if you ask me.
Epic Universe is the biggest and best recent example. That park will look great when some of its vegetation fills in, but that’s going to take a few years. Given that Piston Peak is supposed to be a national park, it’d be nice if that included lush landscape and mature trees. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t visited any U.S. National Parks with a bunch saplings that looked like they were planted yesterday.
Finally, here’s an aerial video of the progress on the Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island demolition:
Ultimately, it’s good to see these ‘Beyond Big Thunder’ projects kicking into high gear ahead of the holidays. This further underscores that Walt Disney World did not just choose to close the Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island this summer to save on operating expenses. From the above aerial photos, it’s very clear that serious work has already happened, with infill to accelerate in the coming months.
I’m still not pleased that Walt Disney World opted to go this route as opposed to an abridged Rivers of America (retaining the south island and waterfront) plus pure park expansion, but it’s going to happen and there’s nothing we fans can do to change the course of this Piston Peak project except at the margins.
Accordingly, I would love nothing more than for this project to move as quickly as possible, with cranes appearing on site to commence vertical construction by late 2026. Get this done quickly to minimize the guest impact and have Piston Peak open ASAP. As far away as it seems today, both Cars and Villains land opening before 2030 would be a huge win.
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Your Thoughts
Thoughts on Disney demolishing Tom Sawyer Island and moving forward with infill on Rivers of America? Excited or disappointed that the Piston Peak National Park is replacing Rivers of America? Given that this is going to happen regardless at this point, do you hope it’s full steam ahead so we don’t have to endure a repeat of the Giant EPCOT Dirt Pit fiasco? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback—even when you disagree with us—is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
