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. Almost immediately thereafter, walls went up along a portion of the waterfront in Liberty Square and Frontierland, and crews started working to drain the Rivers of America. That was easier said than done, as storm season resulted in it being refilled a few times.
Construction walls, scrims and scaffolding then went up along all of the walkways in Frontierland and Liberty Square, making it difficult for guests to see into the project site. That’s when demolition of Tom Sawyer Island began in earnest, back in early October. By the start of the Christmas season, the structures were all gone, with only trees and the island itself remaining. Now there’s nothing left of Tom Sawyer Island.
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 view is from outside Magic Kingdom, roughly behind Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. This shows the large expanses of dirt where Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island once were, as well as 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.
We’ll circle back to the SFWMD permit in a minute, and how the progress we’ve seen to date mirrors what’s been previously covered in these filings. Before that, we want to start by covering a few new updates as of December 24, 2025.
The first is that the project site has expanded to an area of land behind “it’s a small world” and Haunted Mansion, north of Fantasyland (lower left in the above photo). This is undoubtedly for Villains Land, which has a more nebulous layout and footprint than Piston Peak, which has clearly-defined boundaries (and a layout) between Haunted Mansion and Big Thunder.
Aside from one piece of detailed-yet-vague concept art, we know far less about Villains Land. We don’t know the attractions it’ll feature, where they’ll be built, or just how far the land will extend in each direction.
Based on this land clearing–and the fact that there are already large show buildings up here, it’s probably safe to assume that another show building will be built behind Haunted Mansion and “it’s a small world.” That’s just the safe bet–and logical layout for the land.
The second is that this has largely switched gears from a demolition to an earth-moving and site-prep project. There’s still a bit of debris and tree removal to be done where the north island once stood, but it’s mostly dirt (and maybe some gravel) at this point.
It’s like a throwback to the Giant EPCOT Dirt Pit that we ‘enjoyed’ covering for the better part of 5 years. Only this one is even bigger! The other difference here is that this isn’t just a Massive Magic Kingdom Dirt Pit, but also a Massive Magic Kingdom Mound of Earth (rolls right off the tongue).
Suffice to say, there’s more variety to the terrain in this project site. There’s an area of darker dirt where the south Tom Sawyer Island complex once stood. This massive mound will be leveled as part of the grading phase of the project that will form the foundation of level ground for the Piston Peak Cars Land.
The third is that we’re starting to see the project site(s) encroach on both Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Haunted Mansion.
As noted above, Piston Peak will essentially be to the south of these attractions, where the main Tom Sawyer Island complex once stood, along with the guest-facing half of the Rivers of America. A large walkway between Haunted Mansion and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad will form the northern boundary Piston Peak, providing a path between those two existing attractions and a connection to Villains Land.
With Big Thunder Mountain Railroad slated to reopen in Spring 2026, it’s expected that construction crews will start on the groundwork for this pathway soon–creating a second set of walls within the current walls around Big Thunder. In looking at the aerial photos, you can get a rough idea of where these will need to go before the ride can reopen.
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. But prep-work should begin on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad side since it’ll be easier to accomplish that while the roller coaster is closed.
The next step is likely using those massive mounds to infill the former Rivers of America waterbed. The former waterway will be brought up to the former island’s level, which is going to require a lot more dirt, so expect even 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 Piston Peak is close to a full year away from going vertical. Honestly, I’d be surprised and impressed if we see steel rising above the construction walls 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.’
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 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. With that said, the photos here don’t even do full justice to the project site plus staging areas, as we don’t have a single photo that shows all of the land that’s already been cleared or is being cleared.
As a refresher, there are three laydown yards 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 the former Rivers of America. These are used for construction equipment, heavy machinery, materials staging, earth-moving, etc.
(As an aside, is it just me or does Big Thunder look like a toy plopped onto the dirt in the above photo? This is more like Andy’s Backyard than Toy Story Land!)
There are also project team trailers on the middle laydown yard.
This is very similar to the trailer park and staging area behind Kali River Rapids in support of the Tropical Americas project last spring. Or the repurposed Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser for the Monstropolis expansion at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
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. It’s only prominent along the waterfront promenade, where the brown scrims replace what was once a lovely view.
Otherwise, this 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.
Finally, here’s an aerial video via bioreconstruct of the progress on the Cars and Villains Land project:
Aerial video of site preparation for Villains land and Piston Peak National Park in Magic Kingdom. As seen from 3100 feet in a chartered helicopter. pic.twitter.com/c9xeI48GWf
— bioreconstruct (@bioreconstruct) December 24, 2025
Ultimately, it’s good to see the Cars and Villains Land projects kicking into high gear ahead of the holidays…and truly going Beyond Big Thunder with the latest aerial photos, showing the project site expanding behind Haunted Mansion and “it’s a small world.”
Work has been impressively (visibly) fast up until this point, with a lot accomplished since the summer closure of Tom Sawyer Island and the Rivers of America. However, the next few months should involve infill and land grading, followed by utilities and other groundwork for vertical construction.
Given that, we’re probably nearing the phase of the project where there isn’t much visible progress for a while. Similar to what happened with Dino-Rama over the spring and summer before “explosive” progress became visible over the last month. This won’t be because Walt Disney World has “slowed down” the speed of the Cars or Villains Lands; it’s simply the nature of the beast.
My hope is that Walt Disney World continues to allocate as many resources as possible towards the Beyond Big Thunder expansion. I would love nothing more than for these projects to move as quickly as possible, with cranes appearing on site to commence vertical construction by Fall 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!