Bitesize Orlando December 2024 – Issue 42

Welcome to your last update for 2024. It’s going to be a little quieter than usual because the parks have been focussing on Christmas all month but Universal, as always, filed a permit the day before Christmas Eve all but confirming a long-standing rumour that has become an open secret. More on that in a bit but before we get into the main news of Bitesize Orlando December 2024 I want to share a quick update on what I have been up to this month with the website.

At the end of November, I finished my research for one of the most in-depth articles I have ever written. All year, I have been tracking UK Orlando ticket package prices to identify pricing trends and let you know when the best time to book your tickets is.

The article is about 75% complete. It will take a couple of weeks to lay it out, but I hope to have it live for you before the end of January. As always, keep an eye on my Facebook feed, which will be updated when it is live. If you haven’t yet bought your tickets for 2025, don’t panic, you haven’t missed the best opportunity to get them at the cheapest price of the year. Keep a look out for the article to find out when that is.

Further ahead, I also have some ideas for updates for the park overview pages and a new section dealing with one of the most polarising topics: DAS, or Disability Access Service, in Disney and Universal. Recent accommodations and approval process updates have caused a lot of turmoil for visitors, and I want to explain exactly who the system is for and why so many people are now being denied.

Let’s start the news on a positive note. Disney has confirmed more details of the Tropical Americas expansion in Animal Kingdom.

Dinoland U.S.A. will close in phases in the coming months as the entire area is rethemed and expanded into the Tropical Americas.

Early in December Disney confirmed that one of the main attractions in Dinoland U.S.A., DINOSAUR will remain open during 2025 for guests to enjoy.

This makes sense from an operational perspective seeing as Animal Kingdom already suffers from a lack of top-drawer attractions despite replacing Camp Minnie Mickey with Pandora: The World Of Avatar in 2017 which continues to attract huge crowds.

By the end of 2025, DINOSAUR will be surrounded by construction walls as work carries through from what is now a backstage area to more accessible parts of the park that will be closed off. If you are visiting in 2025, you will still have a chance to ride one of Disney’s most ambitious family dark rides before it closes to be re-themed to an Indiana Jones experience a la Disneyland’s Indiana Jones Adventure.

While the confirmation that DINOSAUR will remain open for at least another 12 months is welcome, it does leave me slightly worried that the new Indiana Jones theme taking over the attraction will not be as comprehensive as I had hoped.

“Indiana Jones Adventure” has been operating in Disneyland since 1995. DINOSAUR opened with Animal Kingdom in 1998 and is based on the same technology behind Indiana Jones Adventure so the re-theme makes perfect sense. We know the mechanical parts of the attraction won’t be changing much but I was hoping that Disney would ‘plus’ the Animal Kingdom version seeing as the original attraction will be 30 years old by the time DINOSAUR closes.

I love DINOSAUR and I love Indiana Jones Adventure for different reasons. Yes, they are almost identical attractions with wildly different storylines and thematic styles. Despite being the original, Indiana Jones Adventure surpasses DINOSAUR in (almost) every way but I don’t want to see a direct clone of the attraction put into Animal Kingdom.

I appreciate what Disney tried to do with DINOSAUR but technology has come on leaps and bounds since Indiana Jones Adventure opened as ‘Temple Of The Forbidden Eye’. Hopefully, Disney will take time to add a new storyline and almost certainly upgrade the audio-animatronics but the timeline will be challenging. Hopefully, Disney won’t drop the ball as much with this re-theme as they did with Tiana’s Bayou Adventure in Magic Kingdom.

January 6th is turning out to be quite the day in Disney World. Not one but 3 popular attractions are closing simultaneously on the same day for various lengths for their annual refurbishment.

The biggest closure will see Big Thunder Mountain Railroad closing for more than a year as Disney Imagineers start work behind the scenes to bring Disney Villains’ land to life. The work has coincided with Big Thunder Mountain which, as one of Magic Kingdom’s more popular attractions, has been long overdue for a proper refurbishment. The 12+ month closure will allow engineers to inspect the track, possibly replacing some key components of the ride system to increase the longevity and uptime of one of Magic Kingdom’s biggest draws.

The extended closure will also give imagineers greater access to the entire section next to Big Thunder that will become the gateway to the new Villians land plus start work on infilling the Rivers Of America to bring the new Cars attraction to life.

Going back to Animal Kingdom, Kali River Rapids in the Asia section will be closing for its annual refurbishment after next week. Your last day to enjoy this attraction will be January 5th. The attraction closes on the 6th and will re-open sometime in March.

Annual refurbishments of water attractions in January are nothing new. All park operators use the cooler winter months to refurbish water-based attractions when they are naturally not as popular. Universal will be doing exactly the same in Islands Of Adventure over the next couple of months.

An exact opening date for Kali River Rapids hasn’t been announced but you should expect it to re-open before the Spring Break crowds descend on Florida from mid-March onwards. Also, remember that Triceratop Spin in Dinoland U.S.A. will close permanently from January 13th as part of Dinoland’s transformation into Tropical Americas.

A not quite as popular attraction in EPCOT will also be closing for a short period. Gran Fiesta Tour in the Mexico pavilion closes on January 6th for its annual maintenance. The attraction is scheduled to reopen on March 15th, just in time for Spring Break. If rumours are true this could be one of the last closures for Gran Fiesta Tour before we see a Coco re-skin of the attraction in the near future.

As one of only three attractions in World Showcase, Gran Fiesta Tour’s closure will put more pressure on Frozen and Ratatouille attractions both of which are wildly popular in their own rights.

Disney has confirmed the dates of the popular EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival. In 2025 the event will run from March 5th until June 2nd. I have already updated my EPCOT crowd calendar page to highlight the new dates.

2025 marks the 30th year of the popular event which is very popular with local annual pass holders so expect weekends to be busier than usual in EPCOT in March especially as this is the 30th anniversary year of the event.

Along with the dates, Disney has confirmed the first set of musical acts that will take to the America Gardens Theatre stage in front of the American Adventure for the Garden Rocks Concert Series. The following is just a preliminary list with more acts and dates being confirmed in the coming weeks.

• March 7 & 8 – Tommy DeCarlo (former lead singer of Boston)
• March 9 & 10 – Air Supply – 50th Anniversary Celebration
• March 14 & 15 – Blue October
• March 16 & 17 – Rick Springfield
• March 21 & 22 – Herman’s Hermits starring Peter Noone
• March 23 & 24 – 38 Special
• March 28 & 29 – Jason Scheff (longtime singer of Chicago)

Universal couldn’t close out the year without dropping one final bombshell for us all to mull over the Christmas and New Year festivities.

Universal filed new publicly available water drainage permits on December 23rd for the area that is currently home to “Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit” plus a small area of backstage parking. Noted Orlando blogger and permit detective extraordinaire Alicia Stella of Orlando Park Stop dropped the bombshell news in an article on Boxing Day.

No official announcement has been made but these plans specifically state “Remove existing attraction and replace with proposed attraction.” in the project description, all but putting the final nail in the coffin of Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit; Orlando’s most polarising and, in my opinion, painful roller coaster experience.

UPDATE: Universal appears to have been caught off-guard by the water permits being found so quickly. Their only official word is a reply to a question on an X (formerly Twitter) thread on December 27th asking about the future of HRRR.

Hello! Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit will close in early September 2025 to make way for a new experience. More details will be available at a later date. #AskUniversal

— Universal Orlando Resort (@UniversalORL) December 27, 2024

The plans do show the new attraction will be larger and construction will also include 2 new buildings; one where the overflow queue now sits for Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon and the other taking over part of a backstage parking area behind Stage 24 (used for filming of The Flintstones in 1994 and Jurassic World in 1997). The working studios part of Universal Studios would lose 50- 70 parking spaces once construction starts reflecting the shift of production work to other studios and a reduction in overall working studio space needed at Universal Studios Florida.

Intamin, filed a Notice of Commencement for work at Universal Studios back in October. They are currently working down the road in Epic Universe putting the finishing touches to Hiccup’s Wing Gliders in. They also constructed two of Islands Of Adventure’s most popular roller coasters, Velocicoaster and Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure.

They are in the middle of the challenging construction of Universal Studios Hollywood’s Fast ‘N’ Furious: Hollywood Drift coaster, scheduled to open on a steep parcel of land between the top and bottom lots in 2026. Speculation on the internet has been rife that Orlando could be getting its own twist on this roller coaster concept.

If a version is coming to Orlando it would help dilute development costs somewhat but Universal could quite as easily give us something brand new. Part of Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit sits on an area of the park that was home to the “Ghostbusters Spooktacular” show, an opening day attraction that closed in 1996. The facade of the iconic firehouse in Ghostbusters, still stands as part of Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit.

Neighbouring ‘Race Through New York’ is hardly a crowd-puller; it’s a C-rate attraction at best. I preferred Twister: Ride It Out, a truly innovative attraction, not a reskin of age-old technology. Putting a Ghostbusters-themed roller coaster here could open up this area to a Ghostbusters mini area in the future if they choose to replace Race Through New York with a Ghostbusters dark ride or show but my 80s fanboy is getting way ahead of itself.

There is one other option that seems obvious given the Minion-sized takeover of the park entrance. The Minions could be adding to their attraction count plus an increase in acreage of Minions Land but I’m not the only visitor that hopes that won’t be the case.

If a version of the Hollywood Drift roller coaster does end up being built, the current Fast ‘N’ Furious attraction would be opened up for development as it is unlikely Universal would keep such a low-rated attraction with a brand new roller coaster based on the same franchise not even 2 minutes walk away. The future is looking exciting for this area of the park whatever Universal choose to go with.

Legoland Florida has closed their world famous water sports stunt show after nearly 100 years of performances dating back to the 1930s before even Cypress Gardens opened on the same land in 1939.

Cypress Gardens went into administration in 2009 before Legoland acquired the land and the brand in 2011. Legoland updated the ski show with a stunt theme and storyline that continues the tradition of water ski shows on Lake Elouise.

The final performance was held on December 30th after an initial announcement about the show’s demise early in December. Legoland Florida hasn’t commented on the reason for closing the longest continuously running entertainment production in the world, instead focusing on the upcoming opening of the new Sea Life Center.

A spokesperson for Legoland Florida also confirmed that Legoland will soon announce a new attraction that has been in development. The water ski team has announced a plan to host a free water ski show on the third Saturday of every month on Lake Silver in Winter Haven.

Beginning January 6th 2025, Kennedy Space Center will move to a completely cash-free operation to allow for “a smoother, more secure guest experience.”

For visitors who do not or choose not to use a debit or credit card, Kennedy Space Center has been installing Visa prepaid debit card kiosks around the center including the Saturn V Center. The kiosks will allow visitors to transfer funds onto a pre-paid Visa card for free and use during their visit.

Kennedy Space Center is the second major tourist operator in Florida to go to a cashless system after Seaworld owner International Parks And Resorts transitioned its parks to cashless operations earlier in 2024.

That’s it for this month’s short update. I hope you have a fantastic and enjoyable New Year. I’ll see you at the end of January with my first update of 2025. In the meantime keep a look for my new article on when and where to get the best value Orlando theme park tickets. I’ll leave you with a little spoiler; the cheapest time isn’t Black Friday or New Year sales. Don’t worry, you haven’t missed your best opportunity to snag the best value ticket packages for 2025 yet.