It’s time for this week’s Disney park news and rumor roundup! A lot has happened over the past few days so let’s get right to it!
A whole slew of Future World closures were announced yesterday as part of the Epcot entrance / spine redesign. All of Innovations East (including the Character Spot, Club Cool and Fountain View Starbucks) will be demo’d; as well Pin Central, and sadly, the Fountain of Nations. Electric Umbrella and Mousegear will each close for lengthy renovations / re-imaginings. Our friends over at Disney Tourist Blog sum up everything well in this post here. The Fountain of Nations is by far the biggest blow here.
The Main Street Electrical Parade is returning to Disneyland Park (yet again…) for the summer. Meanwhile, Walt Disney World has been without a night parade for nearly 3 years with no replacement in sight. Make no mistake about it, this is Disney’s response to low crowds (ironically) caused by the opening of Galaxy’s Edge. We again refer you to the Brickers as Tom does a great job discussing exactly why this parade is returning, and what it means for the rest of the summer at Disneyland.
With the track nearly complete, construction has began on the show building for the Tron Lightcycle coaster coming to Magic Kingdom. Construction has moved swiftly on this project and we would not be surprised to see an early 2021 opening. Check out Blog Mickey’s post here for a bunch of construction photos of the highly anticipated ride.
The first set of narrators for the 2019 Candlelight Processional has been announced. The list includes familiar names like Neil Patrick Harris, Gary Sinise and Whoopi Goldberg among others. Dining packages are now available as well and we highly recommend booking one if seeing the show is a priority for you. New this year, payment is required upon making the reservation. I assume this is to deter people from making several reservations for the package then cancelling last minute.
In celebration of the upcoming live action Lion King release, Jiko has debuted a new pre-fixe Circle of Life dinner menu, as well as live music performances inspired by the film. Josh over at easywdw (A Great Site!) recently visited the Animal Kingdom Lodge restaurant and shares his thoughts on this new option here. Jiko is one of our favorite WDW restaurants so we recommend checking it out even if you elect not to go the pre-fixe menu route.
While on the subject of the new live action Lion King, check out these cast photos released yesterday comparing the voice actors to their film characters. WDWNT has posted all of them in one place for you to enjoy! Not really news worthy, but still some really cool pics!
Finally, new Disney character bus wraps have been spotted at Walt Disney World. While the new wraps are pretty neat in their own right, rumor is they are part of a new updated bus fleet for the resort. This would be a welcome addition as many of the current buses are pretty beat up.
Photo by @mickeyviews on twitter.
That will do it for this weeks news and rumors roundup. We will be back tomorrow with a special 4th of July post… featuring a glorious 3 hour finale of course!
Bye for now!
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