I recently visited Disney’s Animal Kingdom to check out the progress on all of the new projects in the park, so here are some newsworthy photos of what’s happening at Disney’s “wildest” theme park:

The floating mountains of Pandora: The World of AVATAR visible from the parking lot

Riverside Depot opened on Discovery Island recently

New Monstro and Figment ceramic figures on sale

Some of the little details in the store are really cool

The store sells mostly pins, toys, home-goods, and smaller souvenirs

What was the Art of Disney a few years ago is now just filled with toys, mostly Star Wars

Disney Outfitters next door has now closed for remodeling

SPOILER ALERT

The construction walls for AVATAR don’t say anything, but at least they show something now

Work continues on Tiffins on the backside of Pizzafari

The spotted dogs are now out on Kilimanjaro Safaris

They were very active, running around and being playful





Construction continues on Rivers of Light, debuting this spring

Here we see moving lights with waterproof domes have been installed

The Thirsty River Bar opened recently, replacing the old FastPass distribution for Everest

The bar serves a number of pre-made food and drink items

My camera didn’t want to focus for some reason…

Lots of stickers decorate the bar

The Ole Elephant Foot IPA was quite good

The Himalayan Ghost was nothing special, had very little flavor

The Khumbu Icefall might be my new favorite drink at Disney World. Very sweet and just the right amount of alcohol, not bad for pre-made.

I also got one of the pre-packaged turkey sandwiches…

It was cut in half the wrong way and barely stayed together, but it was good. Why was I in Dino-Rama? Because there is nowhere to sit and eat and drink at the Thirsty River Bar…

It’s still Christmas here…

Guests apparently are having a hard time finding Dinosaur, there are several of these signs up in Dinoland

The speakers for the Rivers of Light seating area are being installed now

Peep holes were put in the construction walls, yet the walls still don’t tell guests what is coming…

Not sure if this is new, but all of the food stands on Discovery Island were named and received menu updates at some point…

With Disney Outfitters gone, Island Mercantile is now selling just apparel

The store’s selection has been pretty much the same since 1998, so this is a bit of an adjustment

We have to wonder what exactly will happen to Disney Outfitters during the remodel if all of their merchandise is now here.