The dust from Epic Universe’s debut has barely settled, and already Universal is expanding their new park with additional dining venues set to open in early 2026. But don’t think that Disney is taking their competitor’s growth spurt lying down, because Mickey’s empire is striking back. In the short term, Walt Disney World is banking on a refreshed EPCOT E-Ticket and fresh live entertainment to woo summer guests; and in the longer run, the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District recently green-lit growth plans for a fifth major theme park (and a doubling of WDW’s annual visitors) by 2045. Of course, this great big beautiful tomorrow will come at a cost, and the latest loss beneath the grinding wheels of progress strikes straight at the heart of the Magic Kingdom.
While Walt Disney World hasn’t built a full new land, much less an entire park, since the pre-pandemic opening of Galaxy’s Edge, an ambitious slate of upgrades for all four parks was announced at 2024’s D23 Expo, and the first few are finally coming to fruition. Disney Starlight, the Magic Kingdom’s first brand-new nighttime parade in decades, begins running twice nightly on July 20. The newly reimagined Test Track officially opens two days later. I haven’t yet seen the former, but I was invited to a press preview of the latter’s latest iteration. Following the industrial 1999 original and the Tron-esque 2012 version, this third take on Test Track tries to take a page from the World of Motion dark ride that stood on that spot throughout the 1980s by tearing down the tacky scaffolding that obscured the building’s unique cylindrical architecture and reopening windows within the queue, both for daylight and for previews of the ride vehicles.
Test Track’s track remains identical, but the scenery alongside it has been rebuilt with impressively detailed sets (with a few conspicuous dead spots) depicting city streets, suburban garages and a forested freeway. Test Track has also gained a few fantastic video projection effects, and fleeting fan-servicing nods to Buddy Baker’s “It’s Fun to Be Free” theme song. However, the update abandons any attempts at interactivity or education, from the queue, which no longer offers any preshow or information about the concept cars on display, through the post-show, now strictly a Chevrolet showroom. It’s still exhilarating taking hairpin turns at 65 mph, but I no longer understand our purpose in the storyline, being a passive consumer, and making this more “Test Track 2.5” than the generational advancement I’d hoped for.
Sadly, these new arrivals are accompanied by the exit of some old favorites. The June 7 closure of MuppetVision 3D at Disney’s Hollywood Studios to make way for a Monsters Inc. area made national headlines, as former Orlando resident Heather Henson (youngest daughter of Muppets originators Jim and Jane Henson) was the last guest to enter her late father’s final creation. Last Sunday’s shuttering of Tom Sawyer Island and the Liberty Belle riverboat, along with the Magic Kingdom’s entire Rivers of America area, didn’t garner nearly as much media attention, but the loss of those landmarks — all key to Walt Disney’s original conception of the park — is potentially even more impactful.
There’s great anticipation for the off-roading Cars adventure coming to Piston Peak, where the Twain-inspired oasis of twisty tunnels and claustrophobic caves now stands (especially since the latest concept art preserves a significant stretch of waterfront) and the Villains Land promised beyond it. Even so, that hasn’t stopped TSI superfans (some of whom I suspect haven’t set foot on its shores in years) from protesting its removal online, so I asked the one person on Earth who should care more about Tom Sawyer Island’s extinction than anyone.
On the morning of June 18, I had the honor of watching as Disney Legend Tom Nabbe took his final raft ride over to the attraction he helped build and manage. Seventy years ago next week, 12-year-old Nabbe attended Disneyland’s opening, then went back the following day to get a job selling park newspapers. A year later, he convinced Walt Disney to cast him as Tom Sawyer on the then-new attraction, and worked there until he outgrew the role and moved into operations. That turned into a career that took him to the construction sites of both Walt Disney World (where he opened the monorail and Florida’s TSI) and Disneyland Paris.
As one of Disneyland’s last living opening-year employees, who literally grew up around Tom Sawyer Island, you’d expect Nabbe to be bereft, but he isn’t merely philosophical about the area’s future; he’s enthusiastic. “There’s a lot of memories here, but conversely, if you look at the acreage here — and this comes from the operations management side of the business — what they’re going to plan in the future, the guest capacity for this acreage is going to go up,” Nabbe told me after his farewell float across the river. “If they do as well in the development of Piston Peak as they did in [New] Fantasyland … if they do half as good on that, I’ll be very impressed with the end results.”
In fact, Nabbe expressed only one regret about his last visit. “I wish they would have let me drive, because I could have,” says Nabbe, who recalls piloting jazz greats Louis Armstrong and Al Hirt across the Rivers. “I could have reached that raft right in there, no problem whatsoever.”
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This article appears in Jul 9-15, 2025.