Walt Disney World has officially confirmed a lengthy ride refurbishment of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Magic Kingdom, starting in 2025 and lasting through 2026. Here’s everything we know about this Walt Disney World ride closure, timing for the downtime, our speculation about what they might entail, and more.
First, this Big Thunder Mountain Railroad closure is the third major refurbishment that we first covered months ago in Magic Kingdom Ride Refurbishment Rumors. It follows the month-plus closure of Peter Pan’s Flight over the summer, which resulted in a new scene with Tiger Lily and other Indians. (Beside the point, but I think that scene is really well done and fits the spirit of the attraction.)
Following this, Jungle Cruise closed for a multi-month refurbishment. This project was never formally announced, and its exact scope of work is unknown. At least, officially. Disney did file permits with a contractor that does underwater engineering, and Cast Members stationed outside the attraction have indicated that the project entails only routine maintenance to the waterway infrastructure. Pretty safe bet that’s what’s happening. As we covered in our post about that project, Jungle Cruise is now scheduled to reopen early.
The final major refurbishment of the trio is Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Our suspicion was and is that Walt Disney World was waiting for other pieces of the puzzle–the other refurbishments wrapping up as well as Tiana’s Bayou Adventure opening and operating reliability–before announcing the BTMRR closure. They were likely backed into a corner by those timeframes.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is still using a virtual queue with no sign of it going away anytime soon. Walt Disney World originally stated that the virtual queue would only be used during the “initial opening days” of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, and the ride has now been open for several months.
The good news is that Tiana’s Bayou Adventure’s downtime situation has been improving over the last month-plus. The ride still has downtime (and bad days), but it’s nothing like the 3+ hours of average daily downtime that the ride was experiencing pretty much every day over the first few months. It’s been much better since the start of September.
It’s to the point that we now fully expect Walt Disney World to retire the virtual queue for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure before the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad refurbishment starts. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise us to see the VQ retired any day now–especially with cooler weather right around the corner. But that’s not the point of today’s post.
Walt Disney World has now announced that Big Thunder Mountain Railroad will close for refurbishment on January 6, 2025.
The last day to experience BTMRR in its current form is January 5, 2025. The wildest ride in the wilderness is planned to reopen in 2026 with a little bit of new magic.
It’s also our understanding that Tiana’s Bayou Adventure will not receive a Winter 2025 refurbishment, which was standard for Splash Mountain. The attraction is still brand-new (or newly-redone), so this makes sense.
Taking BTMRR down for refurbishment at the same time that the work begins to fill in the Rivers of America and begin Cars construction makes sense.
With that said, one important thing to note is that we do not expect the Rivers of America, Tom Sawyer Island, or the Liberty Square Riverboat to close in early 2025. Based on what we’ve heard and the public permitting process, those closures are several months behind BTMRR, at best.
For a much more thorough discussion of when we expect to see those attractions and areas to permanently close, see When Will Rivers of America & Tom Sawyer Island Close at Magic Kingdom?
Regardless, work on Cars Land is likely to start at some point before 2026. Having Big Thunder closed while filling in the Rivers of America would certainly expedite the process and make construction easier. Not only that, but there will be a path that connects Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Frontierland with Liberty Square and Villains Land, so work on this can begin during the refurbishment.
The BTMRR year-plus closure has been an open secret for several months now–we first reported on it in mid-May.
After that, Walt Disney World filed a permit for “general construction” at an address corresponding with Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in Magic Kingdom. It’s worth noting that this permit was filed back in June when the project was expected to start at the beginning of August or September at the latest.
There are a couple of key details here that we can glean from the permit, with the first being that it has an expiration date of August 8, 2025. The default 1-year timeline is never noteworthy, but shorter or longer ones always are, as they’re extended or reduced purposefully. Meaning that there’s a reason for doing so. (With the start date of the refurbishment delayed, you can expect that permit to be extended by 6-8 months.)
In this case, that’s because the work is expected to take longer than one year–which aligns with the previous rumors about this project taking over one year and being significant in scale and scope. That means it’s not just a routine refurbishment, like BTMRR receives fairly regularly. (Those typically do not involve construction permits of any duration.)
It’s our understanding that this refurbishment has multiple moving pieces, and the biggest is likely encompassed by that permit.
The other key detail is that the permit is assigned to Coastal Steel, a company with a wide range of expertise and experience, from ride systems to steel fabrication and erection. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because you probably just heard about that contractor for the Test Track reimagining, which will also take about a year.
Outside of that reimagining, Coastal Steel has collaborated with Walt Disney World on several attractions. For example, Coastal Steel worked with Walt Disney World on a range of projects, from the construction of Expedition Everest and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train to Blizzard Beach, Mickey’s Toontown Fair, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, and TRON Lightcycle Run.
Based on previous rumors over the course of the last 6 months, it’s our understanding that Big Thunder Mountain Railroad coaster needs a significant refurbishment involving substantial work on the ride system and retracking. This long-planned project is viewed as preventative work that’s crucial to extend the useful life of the roller coaster, ensuring the ride’s longevity and operational status for decades to come.
While the ride has had a number of winter-time closures for several weeks to over a month in the last several years, the last lengthy closure was in 2016 when Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was down for 4 months in the late summer and early fall. Prior to that, BTMRR had multiple closures in 2012 for extensive work, installation of the interactive queue, as well as the Barnabas T. Bullion and Big Thunder Mining Company backstory.
It’s also our understanding that Imagineering has attempted to take BTMRR down for multi-month or year-long refurbishments a few times over the last several years, but park management pushed back every time. As a result, lengthy projects that were previously planned got truncated into weeklong routine maintenance.
Every version of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad has had extensive closures in recent years–except Magic Kingdom.
Perhaps most instructive is the BTMRR at Disneyland, which closed for a major renovation in January 2013. This project had a similar scope as what’s rumored for Magic Kingdom, with new ride vehicles, track replacement, repainting the mountain, and also restoring the Rainbow Ridge Mining Town.
That was originally scheduled to be completed by Fall 2013, but it wasn’t done until March 2014. By the time Big Thunder Mountain Railroad did reopen over a year later, its return came with much fanfare and new features–and a potential “blueprint” for other projects of this nature that we’re now potentially seeing with Haunted Mansion and Fantasmic at Disneyland. Sort of a quasi “Disney Vault” approach to excite fans.
I’d expect something similar with the Magic Kingdom version of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. A closure that lasted 14 months approximately one decade ago translates to at least 18 months when adjusted for construction timeline inflation. (A thing I made up, but you know what I mean–and that it’s a real Disney phenomenon!)
There’s no way Walt Disney World is going to close Big Thunder Mountain Railroad for between a year and 18 months and not have anything marketable to show for it when the attraction returns. There will likely be new lift hill effects, nighttime lighting, redone show scenes with Easter eggs and other historical tributes–something, anything.
Given the cost in time and money, I fully believe they’ll make it count and this won’t “just” be a closure for invisible work that “only” extends the life of the roller coaster. Walt Disney World has more or less confirmed as much with the vague line about added magic.
With a closure that’s going to last roughly a year, timing doesn’t make a huge difference. After all, it’s going to be down during every week and season, anyway. Not only that, but Walt Disney World has shown a willingness to close marquee attractions at popular times of the year. Look no further than Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster during spring break (twice!), Tower of Terror during spring and summer, and the upcoming Test Track closure from summer through at least the holiday season.
If at all possible, it might make sense to get the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad refurbishment done before October 2026. This is purely speculative on our part and a lot could change between now and then–obviously. However, we suspect Disney would’ve indicated if the plan were to have BTMRR back up and running by early or mid-2026. Between the scope of work on this project itself and the filling in of Rivers of America for Cars Land, downtime lasting into the second half of 2026 makes complete sense.
Summer crowds typically start winding down towards the end of July and drop off a cliff at the beginning of August. If this is a year-plus closure, it’s logical to have BTMRR down for the months of August and September twice than it does the months of October through December. But of course, that assumes they have a choice and can dictate timing–a bold assumption!
Ultimately, we’d expect more reimaginings and refurbishments of this nature for a couple of reasons. The first is that there was a lot of deferred maintenance and proportionately fewer closures in the last few years due to pent-up demand and budget cuts. So several attractions are overdue for refurbishments and will probably get them in the next couple of years.
Second, the money spigot is about to be turned on for Parks & Resorts, allowing for more projects of this nature to (finally!) happen. Sure, it’s not as exciting as brand-new attractions–and many of you may lament more rides being closed during your vacation–but refurbishments are very much a necessity for maintaining appropriate attraction standards and ensuring that breakdowns don’t continue to happen at a more frequent rate. So here’s hoping we see more on this front!
It’ll be interesting to see whether Walt Disney World scrambles to schedule more brief refurbishment projects in Magic Kingdom between now and January 2025. While this normally would not be the time for closures, it’s possible that Disney will want to get as many brief refurbishments out of the way before Big Thunder goes down for over a year. We’ll keep you posted!
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think about the lengthy ride refurbishment/reimagining of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad? Hope these classics are updated to ensure their longevity for decades to come? Do any attractions at Walt Disney World strike you as being prime candidates for ride reimaginings? Do you agree or disagree with our choices? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
