Walt Disney World continues making progress on the Cars and Villains Lands in Magic Kingdom, with one of the defining features of Piston Peak National Park taking shape: a waterway replacing the Rivers of America. New aerial photos reveal the first vertical retaining wall that’ll divide the new landscape. Here’s the latest, plus our commentary about what’s next.
As a quick recap, the Rivers of America, Tom Sawyer Island, and Liberty Square Riverboat all closed back on July 7th of last year. Walls went up along a portion of the waterfront in Liberty Square and Frontierland, and crews started by draining the former Rivers of America. All the while, the waterfront boardwalk has remained open.
Demolition of Tom Sawyer Island took from roughly October through December. With the land cleared, early 2026 has mostly been a matter of site prep and grading. But we’re also starting to see the eventual ‘natural’ contours of Piston Peak National Park taking shape. Let’s take a look!
There are several topics we touch on with each Magic Kingdom construction update, and we’ll revisit those again deeper in the post. However, we want to first zero in on the major visible development, which answers questions previously posed by last month’s construction update.
As you’ll see in the aerial images below, all courtesy of friend-of-the-site bioreconstruct, the go-to source for aerial theme park photography, there’s a new vertical retaining wall that’ll separate the new Piston Peak National Park landscape from the existing Frontierland.
In between, you should see what looks like the snaking shape of a smaller stream, smaller than half the size (maybe one-third or even one-quarter?) of the previous guest-facing Rivers of America waterfront in Liberty Square and Frontierland.
As a refresher, here’s the (exaggerated) Fun Map of Piston Peak National Park:
One of my big hangups with this whole Cars project has been losing the waterfront. Paving paradise to put up a parking lot. Replacing the tranquil waters and a lush area that offered a lovely escape from the crowds and chaos of Magic Kingdom and a lovely, decompressing view…for almost the exact opposite of that.
As you can see from the Fun Map, there’s a rushing river that runs between Frontierland and Piston Peak National Park, along with a number of water features throughout the land. Notably, there’s also a waterfront promenade on the existing Frontierland side of the map.
What’s been unclear is the size of this water feature. Is it a rushing river or a small stream? Fun Maps are infamous for exaggerated features, and it would make sense that Walt Disney World would want to emphasize the water and that they are not, in fact, paving over paradise to put up a parking lot. Exaggerated or not, even the Fun Map shows a smaller river/stream/water feature than a similar representation of the Rivers of America would’ve depicted.
Against that backdrop, we’re seeing this water feature take shape via construction. Here’s a series of new mid-March 2026 aerial photos, starting with higher level shots of the entire project site and getting closer to what I’m dubbing the new Creek of Piston Peak (rolls right off the tongue!):
Aligning with the Fun Map and our expectations, the future Creek of Piston Peak is being formed by the vertical retaining wall that’s rising in the parallel to the Frontierland promenade and extending up across from the entrance of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
This entire area where the former Rivers of America was located is below-grade, hence the retaining wall in the first place. This will form the boundaries for the basin that becomes the stream. Basically, this should be what delineates the Creek of Piston Peak water feature and the mountain covering a show building, or the actual Piston Peak.
Our expectation is that construction crews will work on this wall for another two to three months, and then infill and grade the Piston Peak side, before doing work on infrastructure and utilities, and then forming foundations. All of that will happen before the project actually goes vertical in the meaningful sense of the world.
As we’ve been saying for a while, Piston Peak going vertical before the end of 2026 will be a win. And once that happens, it’ll move quickly. There’s a lot of work to be done before that, though. For reference, Tropical Americas took about 10 months to go from this point to vertical construction, and that site didn’t need nearly as much grading.
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.’
Continuing along, we’ll take a quick look at the Villains Land project site. Not a whole lot has changed here since last month; more land clearing has happened to reveal the full project site as a few trees that are presumably being transplanted remain.
The big development since the last update came late last month via the Magic Kingdom Bigger & Bolder Villains Land Rumor: Emperor’s New Groove Coaster, Maleficent Mega E-Ticket, Hades Dinner Show & New Third Ride! In that lengthy post, we covered full details of the alleged changes the land, plus our assessment of whether each change passed the smell test.
Only a day after that, a New Walt Disney World Permit Revealed Changes to Villains Land Show Buildings, But Not Scrapping of Previous Plans. That shows a slight tweaking of the show buildings, but it’s our strong belief that’s more a nature of the respective permits and not due to substance changes to the land.
Regardless, those permits coupled with visible land clearing suggest the boundaries of the project site. We had assumed that one show building would be nestled behind Haunted Mansion and “it’s a small world.” However, it appears that the show building for the indoor dark ride will only extend behind IASW.
With all of this, it’s as if we’re slowing piecing together a mystery. And as with any good one, there are bound to be a few surprise plot twists, turns, and misdirection along the way. In other words, don’t view anything you see or read as the gospel. We’re bound to get some (potentially a lot) of this wrong along the way as more is slowly revealed. (Please, Disney, give us a scale model at D23!)
Above is a fresh look at the Haunted Mansion Mystery Project. Or rather, projects, plural.
As we can now see from the scrim around the mansion facade, one of these projects is simply routine maintenance to the building exterior. But we’re more interested in what’s happening behind the current queue and building entrance.
We previously speculated that this could be an extended queue (a la Disneyland) or that Disney is moving the entrance for crowd flow purposes. The most fun explanation is a new dining experience, a la Haunted Mansion Parlor on DCL. Given that food and alcohol sales generate revenue and queues do not (directly), we’d never bet against a bar.
It’s also notable that the aforementioned permits both have the current land clearing as a future structure, which makes a queue seem less likely. Again, time will tell. Also as a reminder, there will be a pathway connecting Haunted Mansion to Big Thunder, and separating Piston Peak from Villains Land, which will more or less be located at the lower edge of the above image.
I’ve mentioned this before, but we continue to get questions, so I’ll reiterate that this project is pretty unobtrusive to the guest experience…so far.
This could soon change with the anticipated closure of three carts along the current Frontierland thoroughfare: Big Al’s, Westward Ho, and Churros. Our expectation is that these kiosks are being removed to allow for crowd flow behind parade viewing on that side of the pathway.
The reason that would be necessary in the first place is, presumably, because the Frontierland waterfront promenade or shortcut will need to close soon for construction. Either a replacing of the boardwalk or because of proximity of construction on the Creek of Piston Peak and keeping ample distance between guests and that work. That could be more disruptive than what we’ve seen to date.
Otherwise, an ugly construction zone is not really visible from within Frontierland or Liberty Square at this point. And we’re not really concerned with that until this project actually goes vertical. So probably not until this Christmas or 2027.
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, but it largely fades into the background. This is not a gigantic crater that commands guests’ attention or forces you through a maze of construction walls. It’s only prominent along the waterfront promenade, where blend-in-brown scrims replace what was once a lovely view.
In other words, this is absolutely nothing like the Giant EPCOT Dirt Pit. Now, progress grinds to a half or if this drags on for ~5 years or 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 current construction n Magic Kingdom.
A retaining wall is rising along Frontierland for for Piston Peak National Park.
Site preparation also in progress for Villains land. The few trees remaining at center of the site are being transplanted. pic.twitter.com/9W7qCmf5XC— bioreconstruct (@bioreconstruct) March 19, 2026
Ultimately, I have to admit that seeing the Creek of Piston Peak taking shape got me excited. It’s no secret that I think Walt Disney World made a mistake in removing the front half of the Rivers of America. I was fine losing the back half of Tom Sawyer Island, but felt–and still feel–that more of the project site should actually been Beyond Big Thunder.
But what’s done is done. There’s no turning back time, so at this point, I’m really curious to see how Imagineering pulls this off. If they can manage to make Piston Peak National Park feel like an extension of Frontierland. If they can add breathtaking new visual features and a stunning landscape, a rushing river, etc.
I still have my misgivings about this project, to be sure, but at this point, I’m cautiously pessimistic bordering on cautiously optimistic. I really want to see Imagineering pull this off, making lemonade out of lemons and proving the haters like myself wrong. Nothing would bring me greater joy than admitting that; being able to say “I told you so” is literally the worst possible outcome here.
My other hope is that Walt Disney World continues to allocate as many resources as possible towards the Beyond Big Thunder expansion. Get these projects moving as fast as possible, with cranes on site to commence vertical construction by Late 2026.
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. Speaking of which, see our updated 5-Year Plan for Walt Disney World New Lands & Attractions, which covers anticipated opening timelines.
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Your Thoughts
Thoughts on the vertical retaining wall dividing the Creek of Piston Peak and the National Park itself? What about the Haunted Mansion Parlor? Villains Land rumors or anything else covered here? Excited or disappointed that the Cars and Villains Lands are replacing Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island? 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!