New construction photos show the entrance archway for Tropical Americas taking shape at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, with heavy rockwork underway and the mountain range surrounding Pueblo Esperanza visible for the first time. Walt Disney Imagineering released its newest video, “We Call It Imagineering,” about parkitecture, and there is a slew of new information about how the Imagineers are working on these new elements with the foresight of the Florida weather. Now, we can start seeing these elements being installed.
This builds on what we’ve tracked so far on this beat, including our look at Casita’s construction progress and the full animal lineup reveal for El Carrusel de los Animalitos at D23 2026.
The new entrance archway sits at the very front of the land and stands roughly 25 feet tall once finished. Its rockwork is well underway, built up in layers of cast stone that already carry Animal Kingdom’s naturalistic look, complete with weathering and color variation worked into the surface. A “Tropical Americas” sign is now installed directly into the rock face at the archway, replacing the generic wayfinding signage that’s marked this construction zone for months. This entrance sits near Casita and the new carousel, placing it right at the heart of Pueblo Esperanza.
Behind the archway, the mountain range that surrounds Pueblo Esperanza, “The Village of Hope,” is now visible rising above the construction walls, still wrapped in scaffolding and netting as the rockwork continues. Encanto translates to “charm” in Spanish, and that theming is showing up throughout the land, with Casita’s own structure now taking shape near the base of the new mountains.
Elsewhere on site, structural steel framework is going up for what looks to be one of the land’s rooflines, alongside village-style buildings with gabled roofs already sheathed and wrapped for weatherproofing. It’s still early enough in this phase that a lot of what’s visible is steel and scaffolding rather than finished theming, but the scale of the rockwork already underway gives a clear sense of how detailed this entrance is going to be once the walls come down.
NEW VIDEO: The first-ever Encanto attraction is a masterpiece in the making. Join Drew the Disney Dude for a 21-minute look at Walt Disney Imagineering’s next instant classic. If you want to know more about what Imagineering is doing right now. Drew is on the ground reporting everything at Disney’s Animal Kingdom’s newest land.
