Bitesize Orlando May 2026 – Issue 59

Completely refreshing and rewriting my Lightning Lane guide for Disney World went better than expected, so I’ve also had time to completely rewrite my website page for Lightning Lanes, making sure it’s up to date, while loading faster than the previous version.

Work has also started on my next big article, travel cards & Spending in Orlando. It’s going to answer all your spending-related questions, compare all the travel cards, and show you the pros, cons and costs of each. It’s a huge project, so it’s going to take a few weeks to research and lay out all the options, but it will be really helpful for first-time visitors.

Rock ‘N’ Roller Coaster has reopened at Hollywood Studios with a fresh Muppets theme, and the area has also received a refreshed snack stand outside the exit of the ride.

FØØD by Swedish Chef has replaced KRNR The Rock Station with new drinks and snacks that match the vibrant colour palette of the new attraction. Check out this new red churro-style treat with colourful sprinkles and a dark dipping sauce. The menu hasn’t appeared online as yet, but the new snack stand does have its own online presence.

Disney also shared a fun short clip of Statler and Waldorf in the new attraction, which is a fitting homage to the previous attraction. Check them out below.

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Disney has revealed some of the locations that will be used in the “limited-time” Soarin’ Across America overlay of the popular EPCOT attraction.

Debuting just in time for Independence Day, on July 2nd in California but already showing in EPCOT, Soarin’ Across America celebrates the 250th anniversary of the birth of the United States. Disney hasn’t said how long the overlay will last, but it’s likely going to be with us for a while.

Check out 3 images from the film showing off the stunning videography that the team have been able to pull off.

The new film sees us gliding above both urban and natural wonders from the vastness of Grand Canyon West and the rugged New England Coastline via the bayous of the Deep South and the Great Plains in the West.

“Each scene helps to create a portrait of what we believe makes America so special… It’s a tapestry of urban wonders, natural beauty, and iconic locations that celebrate the spirit of the nation and the 250^th anniversary of the United States.”

Tom Fitzgerald, Creative Director Walt Disney Imagineering

One of my pet peeves about visiting Magic Kingdom is the bottleneck getting in and out. If you drive, this is exacerbated by the need to negotiate Seven Seas Lagoon via monorail or Ferry Boat to get to and from the car park.

Disney has started work this month on assembling its fourth ferry boat, which is being shipped to a backstage area behind the Magic Kingdom over the next couple of weeks.

Teams will have to assemble and paint the pieces before the craft can enter service. This is expected to take around a year. The expansion is part of the wider investment in Magic Kingdom, receiving its biggest expansion ever over the next few years with the addition of a Cars land and, a little further out, Disney’s first land dedicated to its Villains.

Disney clearly expects these additions to require the infrastructure to deal with so many people wanting to visit, hence the 4th ferryboat entering service, hopefully in time for next summer’s increased crowds. Check out the Instagram embed below from noted theme park aerial photographer @Bioreconstruct showing the current sections being joined together backstage.

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Ferry Boats are named after people who have had a big influence over the resort since it opened. The new ferryboat, named the Meg Gilbert Crofton, will join three existing boats named:

• Admiral Joe Fowler
• General Joe Potter R
• Richard F. Irvine

Meg Gilbert Crofton started her career at Disney in 1977 as a marketing manager before working her way up to serve as President of Disney World from 2006 through 2013. Joe Fowler was an Admiral in the United States Navy before serving as a construction administrator in the early days of Disney World. He retired in 1977 and died in 1993.

General Joe Potter was the mastermind behind the Utilidoors still in use at the resort today. He was also responsible for utilities and drainage systems, and built them in just 3 years. He died in 1988. Richard F. Irvine, meanwhile, served as a senior figure at Walt Disney Imagineering until his retirement in 1973. He headed the design and planning of Disneyland’s original attractions, including “Haunted Mansion” and “Pirates of the Caribbean”. He died in 1976.

Last year, Disney announced that the classic Carousel Of Progress attraction in Magic Kingdom would receive a massive overhaul, it’s 4th since it opened with the park. Now we have a time scale and a few more details.

The attraction will close on July 5th with no opening date announced as yet, but it won’t reopen until 2027.

The first scene will feature a new Walt Disney animatronic, similar to the new one used in Walt Disney: A Magical Life at Disneyland in California. The refresh will also introduce new decades. The attraction will now start off in the 1960’s, where Walt left off, before jumping to the 1980s and closing with a finale set in 1995.

In true Disney style, expect plenty of easter eggs hidden throughout the refreshed attraction. Check out the new attraction poster unveiled as part of the announcement. For more information on the history of this beloved attraction, plus a glimpse at its future, head to the official Disney Parks blog post.

Disney has partnered with one of the largest mobile weather apps in the world, AccuWeather. The new initiative will bring hyper-localised weather reporting for Disney properties in the U.S.A.

The weather is always a big talking point, especially amongst first-time visitors yet to experience the humidity and rainfall in person. The new initiative will provide geo-fenced experiences not only for Disney World but also Disneyland in California, Aulani Resort in Hawaii and Vero Beach in Florida, plus Disney’s Hilton Head Island resort in South Carolina.

Disney weather check is already available in the latest update to AccuWeather and will bring the following benefits, completely free for guests.

• Geo-Fenced Experiences within Disney properties, aligned with Disney employee alerts, warnings, and the same advisories which are used to initiate safety protocols
• Custom hourly forecasts
• AccuWeather MinuteCast with hyperlocal forecasts for each park, including precipitation type, intensity, and start and end times, pinpointed to the user’s exact GPS location
• UV Index down to the tenths of a unit

“By integrating AccuWeather’s information and expertise with Disney Weather Check, we are continuing our commitment to providing the best guest experience possible.”

Greg Hales, Cheif Safety Officer and Worldwide VP of Disney Worldwide Safety Assurance

In a bigger picture move, Universal has confirmed via social media responses to questions that one of its most popular attractions will no longer be included with Express Pass as it looks to improve guest flow at the notoriously popular attraction.

Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure will no longer be included as an Express Pass attraction from July 1st. Not surprisingly, the news has not gone down well on social media, which has been lit up with many comments regarding the “shortsightedness” of the decision.

Many people are threatening to cancel their planned stays at premier resorts, specifically because they wanted to use the pass for this attraction. But herein lies the problem with this attraction, and Universal’s solution. 3 Premier hotels (Hard Rock, Portofino Bay and Royal Pacific) include unlimited Express Pass from the day you check in until the day you check out.

I bet that Universal’s internal metrics show that a big chunk of these passholdaers are opting to use their passes repeatedly just to access Hargid to the severe detriment of standby line guests. Universal can’t just stop unlimited rides for hotel guests while offering them to those who pay for passes. They would be in breach of their contract with Loews, which operates all onsite hotels on behalf of Universal.

The simplest answer, for now at least, is to take the attraction out of Express Pass so everybody has a fair shot of getting a chance to ride without multi-hour waits for most of the day. Without the pressure of filling Express Pass holders within a certain time frame, the standby queue should move a lot quicker than it has since the attraction was added to Express Pass offerings a little over a year ago.

Universal started the month with an official announcement that many people, myself included, had been waiting to hear for months. Lost Continent in Islands of Adventure will slowly be demolished around visitors over the coming months to make way for an entirely new land.

The fact that the land is being redeveloped was not the major highlight of the press release, however. As part of this redevelopment, the former Sinbad Theatre and Poseidon’s Fury show buildings are currently being demolished. The rest of the land will close in phases, but the real shocker for many fans was the announcement that Mythos, IOA’s number 1 restaurant and winner of multiple awards, will close permanently along with the rest of the land at some point in 2027.

Publicly available planning permits didn’t encompass Mythos directly, leading many people to deduce that it would be saved. It could be redeveloped to fit in with the new theming of the area, or it could be levelled to create a larger canvas for the new area.

Universal has been chipping away at Lost Continent for years, starting with a certain boy wizard in 2010, retheming the former Duelling Dragons suspended twin roller coasters to Dragon Challenge before permanently closing in 2017 and bringing Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure. The brilliant Eighth Voyage of Sinbad stunt show closed way back in 2018, before Poseidon was shuttered permanently in 2023.

Clearly, Universal has been working on this area for quite some time, but publicly, they have remained steadfastly tight-lipped about a replacement. Top contenders for the acreage are Pokémon and The Legend of Zelda. Both are enormous IPs with pulling power, and both are confirmed to be coming to Universal Parks at some point in the future. With a Nintendo land already in Epic Universe, Universal could opt to put Zelda there, but is there enough spare land to do it justice? Not around Super Nintendo World, there isn’t, and to build another Nintendo-based land on the other side of the park could fracture the immersiveness of Universal’s most ambitious theme park to date. We won’t know for sure until Universal makes an official announcement, but with cranes already flattening wide parts of Lost Continent and dirt moving behind the scenes, we may not have to wait for much longer.

Universal also chose to announce the temporary closure of its Classic Horror Make-Up Show in Universal Studios for a reinvention based on the original. The reinvention of this show is nothing new, with the current version being at least the third major iteration of the popular show.

Universal has confirmed that the new show, “will showcase a mix of classic and modern horror properties along with shockingly fun surprises — all while staying true to the comedic and irreverent spirit that guests know and love.”

The show closed on May 12th, just a week after the official announcement and will return later in 2026.

Mythos isn’t the only restaurant for the proverbial chopping block. Universal has also confirmed that Thunder Falls Terrace in the Jurassic Park area of Islands of Adventure will close permanently to be transformed into a full-service restaurant in early 2027. This could likely be to offset the lost capacity of Mythos closing.

I wasn’t a fan of Mythos personally and couldn’t find anything on the menu I would be willing to purchase, so this new Jurassic Park-themed restaurant has me very excited. The rotiserie chicken menu of Thunder Falls had its fans, but I wasn’t one of them, so for me, this is a big plus to look forward to on my next visit.

Universal has been testing what it terms “Effortless Entry” on and off for a while. Facial recognition is baked directly into Epic Universe’s infrastructure, and it works really well for Express Passes and lockers.

Universal is looking to take this one step further by allowing attendees of a trade conference, Premier Beauty, over the next couple of days, free access to Celestial Park from 5 pm. In order to limit guests from entering the Portals, facial scanners have been placed in the entrance archways, allowing cast members to be quickly alerted should they stray too far into the paid elements of the park.

For now, this is just a test, but it is one step closer to the rumoured open hub concept that has been talked about for a couple of years now. Financially speaking, it makes perfect sense to allow people to shop and dine, and it could also answer why Celestial Park has the lion’s share of restaurants with plenty of space to expand offerings if the open hub concept actually takes off.

For now, you can file this under rumours, but we could see an open hub format, at least in limited form, could be coming to Epic Universe in the not-too-distant future as Universal looks to test what does and doesn’t resonate with guests.

SeaWorld has announced the dates and modifications to its popular Electric Ocean summer spectacular, which will run from June 12th through September 7th.

Part of the offering includes revamped nighttime animal shows, including Shamu Celebration: Lite Up the Night, the always hilarious Sealions Tonite and Dolphins: Touch The Sky.

Concluding the warm summer evenings (weather permitting) will be SeaWorld’s signature Ignite fireworks extravaganza in the Bayside Stadium with a resident DJ kicking the party off with a family disco nightly, Club SeaGlow. This year, “Ignite” will feature more drones than ever before, creating images of sea creatures and ocean-inspired scenes. Rounding out this year’s entertainment lineup is a new show called Hydro Surge, a blend of Cirque-style visuals, acrobatics, dance and music.

Meanwhile, over in Busch Gardens, the Summer Nites spectacular continues this year with the addition of a brand new fireworks and drone show, called “Wild Skies”. The new show features 400 synchronised drones lighting up the sky over some of the biggest roller coasters in the world.

Complimenting the fireworks, there will be a new “Beach Bash” show and free beer for guests over 21 at the Serengeti Outlook restaurant. Check out the brief promotional video released by Bush Gardens below.

Busch Gardens has provided a media tour of the in-development Lion & Hyena Ridge habitat currently being constructed in the Edge of Africa section of the park.

Spanning 35,000 square feet the dual habitat is twice the size of the habitats its replacing. Habitat highlights include:

• Naturalistic terrain and elevated kopje-style rock formations
• Multiple enrichment zones offering variety and choice
• Rotational spaces allowing for dynamic social groupings and behavioural variability

Lions Henry, Hugo, Herman, Lou and Pascal will join the Busch Gardens family from the Oklahoma Zoo and Botanical Garden. Hyenas Cazi and Dazi already call the park their home.

Enrichment for the animals is a key part of the design, but guests will have improved visibility of up to 270 degrees thanks to multiple glass and mesh displays. Busch Gardens zoological team will have better access to the habitat over the old enclosures, plus a protected bridge has been built into the design to give guests a more immersive experience. Check out a brief video from the construction site below.

Following a somewhat disturbing online craze in the US and following a “Teen Takeover” event in late April, ICON Park has introduced a chaperone policy.

The policy can be initiated at any time, meaning anyone 17 and under must be accompanied by a parent, guardian or chaperone who is 21 years or older. A chaperone can look after up to 6 minors and must enter with the group and remain on-site for the duration of the visit, and be contactable by phone.

The teen takeover event saw 1000 teenagers descend on the entertainment complex on April 25th, leading to fights and general unrest. Over 50 deputies from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office were needed to calm the situation and disperse the gathering. 2 deputies and 9 teenagers, ranging from 13 to 16 years old, received minor injuries.

That’s it for this month’s highlights. Thanks for reading, and I’ll be back at the end of June with another update.