If you follow us on Twitter, you may have known that we were in Orlando last weekend prior to a cruise on the Disney Fantasy. One of the activities we did in Orlando was a helicopter tour over the parks with Air Force Fun. The flight took us over Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando Resort, SeaWorld, and more. Of course, I had to take photos while we were up there, including some unique views of construction going on at the parks! In this construction update, we are going to take a look at some of the construction going on at two of Walt Disney World’s parks, Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios.

Let’s start at Hollywood Studios, where there is less to see. Our friends at WildGravity Travels were the first to report the demolition of Catastrophe Canyon, which was a part of the park’s former studio tour attraction, a few weeks ago. Now, the attraction is completely gone.

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As you can tell from the pictures, Catastrophe Canyon no longer has a presence at the park. I don’t think we will see anything going on there until after the closure of the neighboring Lights Motors Action show (the large bleachers in the upper image) this April. Besides that, there was not very much going on at Hollywood Studios. The amount of activities at the park has significantly decreased as they prepare for new development within, but you still don’t see any development going on. Catastrophe Canyon is literally the only sign that anything is actually going to happen at the park anytime soon.

Over at Animal Kingdom, there was much more to see. The park is on the final stretch of major expansion. Rivers of Light, their new nighttime show, is set to open soon, and Avatarland is pretty far along even though it has an opening date set to be in 2017. Although I did not get a very good angle for shots of Rivers of Light, we flew right past Avatarland.

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The rockwork on Pandora’s floating mountains is pretty far along. It seems as if they will have the same level of detail as the rockwork in Cars Land at Disney California Adventure.

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I am not an expert on what is going on in the Orlando parks, but to me the building in the picture appears to be either a queue building or a gift shop. As the building continues construction, we will probably see it transformed into something resembeling a military base.

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In the above images you can really get a glimpse as to what the land is going to look like. A military base, with hangar theming already evident, and a beautiful chain of floating mountains next to the show building. It looks visually stunning.

In the images below, you can get a closer look at the military base area. To me, this section of the land sounds interesting but could be a complete failure. I’m still not sure if I actually want to eat in the mess hall of a military base.

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Although this has been noticeable for a while, the Avatar show buildings appear look almost as if they’re ready for use.

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The last couple of shots are included to give a perspective of the land from afar. It really stands out compared to the rest of Animal Kingdom in terms of size. and scope.
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What do you think of the Avatarland construction? Let us know in the comments and be sure to follow Theme Parks and Travels on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for more information! You can also subscribe to our YouTube Channel! Finally, as of now, Apple News should be working once again. Upon site transfer I neglected the feed, but now if you search “Theme Parks and Travels” in the app we should be found!


3 Comments

JohnWD · March 16, 2016 at 3:55 pm

Fantastic – thank you for sharing!! Still a lot to do to get the Land ready, but hopefully the rides are being installed as we speak.

Dave · March 17, 2016 at 7:24 am

incredible pictures thank you
the scale of this land is incredible

Cliffs are turning green at Avatar-land | The Disney Blog · March 23, 2016 at 8:10 am

[…] over to ThemeparksandTravels.com for amazing aerial photos of the Avatarland […]

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