Encanto Ride Quickly Taking Shape at Animal Kingdom’s Tropical Americas

Written by Joshua Posted December 23rd, 2025

Bioreconstruct, everyone’s favorite aerial photographer, recently took to the skies and shot some beautiful photos of Tropical Americas’ construction in Animal Kingdom. To say crews are moving quickly is an understatement. Casa Madrigal is quickly coming to life.

Less than three weeks ago, Imagineers revealed that the first piece of steel had gone vertical in the new Encanto-themed ride building. That milestone is now a distant memory. The progress over the last 18 days is extraordinary. Disney is shedding its reputation for taking years to build new attractions.

So what can we glean from Bio’s photos? As always, I chatted with Aahs n Oohs before writing this article. His insights are below:

Aerial photo of the Encanto-themed ride building's construction — Photo courtesy of Bioreconstruct

“The center section is somewhat open. There are blocks by the telehandler, but they don’t look like the other footers (they don’t have anchor bolts). They’re also not in line with the other vertical supports, so they may be for something independent of the building structure.”

Steel has gone vertical in a big way in Animal Kingdom's Tropical Americas — Photo courtesy of Bioreconstruct

Even more interesting is what he thinks is coming to the building’s center:

“There are mounting points for beams to cover the area at the top of each column, but not midway up the column. This will be a large open room. This appears to be a multi-story open area for a show scene, maybe Antonio’s room or the atrium of the Casita.”

Circles highlight mounting points on steel beams in Animal Kingdom — Green circles highlight mounting points on the steel beams. No mounts appear in the red circle. Photo courtesy of Bioreconstruct.

Finally, we’re looking forward to how this concrete pit will be used. It’s not giving much away yet, but Aahs thinks it could house a lift mechanism. That tracks, seeing how the steel reveals a multi-story attraction.

A concrete pit in Tropical Americas — Photo courtesy of Bioreconstruct

He also wonders about a below-grade Audio-Animatronic. I asked him if it could be used for a water element. Aahs gives that a 10% chance.

Bio snapped a photo of the pit in early November, before the area around it was backfilled.

A recessed concrete slab and columns in Tropical Americas — Photo courtesy of Bioreconstruct

That concrete box will soon disappear behind steel, which means we’ll likely be waiting until ride previews to learn exactly what’s going on. Imagineers are allowed to have their secrets, I guess. The good news? We won’t have to wait forever for that to happen.

Casa Madrigal, and the rest of Tropical Americas, debuts in Animal Kingdom in 2027.