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A Cracked Stone Tablet Reading Tropical Americas Is Now Carved Into a Column at Animal Kingdom, and Not at the Main Entrance
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A Cracked Stone Tablet Reading Tropical Americas Is Now Carved Into a Column at Animal Kingdom, and Not at the Main Entrance

Michael Travels
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Since DinoLand U.S.A. closed for good in February, the walk past it has offered guests a lime green construction wall and whatever they could catch over the top of it. On Monday that changed, in a small way that is worth the detour.

A cracked stone block reading TROPICAL AMERICAS has appeared on one of two columns that will frame a side entrance to the land. WDW News Today, which published photos on August 24, calls it the first marquee or signage of any kind for Tropical Americas.

Close view of a carved stone tablet reading TROPICAL AMERICAS on a block standing proud of a column face, with cracked plaster around it and scaffolding poles crossing the frame
The tablet is a stone block projecting from the wall face, its lettering set inside a double-lined border. The pale plaster around it has been deliberately broken away to expose rough grey aggregate, and a crack runs down through the lettering. Scaffolding poles still cross the column. Photo: BlogMickey.com

What it actually looks like: the lettering is cut in thin capitals into a block of faux stone that stands proud of the column's plaster face, inside a framed border. BlogMickey describes cracks running "through the surrounding concrete and even the tablet signage itself," with chipped, distressed edges on the column. Disney has said nothing about the design, but it matches the ruins-style look BlogMickey says Imagineers have applied elsewhere in Pueblo Esperanza.

It is on the side path, not the main entrance

This is the part longtime Animal Kingdom watchers will find odd. The tablet is at the land's secondary entrance, on the connector path from Asia, in the stretch by Expedition Everest and the Finding Nemo theater. WDWNT notes the same, placing the signage near Expedition Everest.

Wide view of a scaffolded stone column carrying the Tropical Americas tablet, seen over a lime green construction wall with a crew member and heavy equipment behind it
The column, still caged in scaffolding, shot over the green construction wall that hides its base. A crew member in a hi-vis vest and hard hat stands at left beside a white pop-up canopy, with mounds of excavated orange soil, a yellow boom and colored shoring frames behind. Photo: BlogMickey.com

BlogMickey has photographed this same column since early August, first as bare hand-sculpted rockwork and then with test paint swatches on it, and calls the tablet the latest stage of that work. A second column of the same design stands nearby, still boxed in by scaffolding on several sides. The two will frame the entrance together.

Guest-eye view from a park walkway framed by tree branches, looking over a lime green construction wall at the scaffolded secondary entrance column with the Tropical Americas tablet
The secondary entrance seen from the walkway, framed by an oak trunk on the right. The tablet is readable on the scaffolded column at center. The green wall in the foreground carries butterfly and moth decals and a small framed placard reading IT'S EVEN BIGGER ON THE INSIDE?! Photo: WDW News Today

Africa and Asia keep their signage at the front door

BlogMickey makes the comparison that gives the find its interest. By its account, most Animal Kingdom lands hold that level of signage back for a single spot, the bridge linking the land to Discovery Island. It puts Africa and Asia at that crossing, where the carved wooden doors and the marquee above the Asia bridge both sit, and calls a sign like this one at a secondary entrance "somewhat unique."

The Africa land entrance at Animal Kingdom, two tall carved wooden doors with AFRICA carved across each one, guests walking away from the camera on reddish paving
For comparison, the Africa entrance: two tall carved wooden doors, AFRICA raised in relief across one band of each door, at the primary crossing from Discovery Island. Guests walk through toward a thatched Harambe rooftop in the distance. Photo: BlogMickey.com

Meanwhile the main entrance has no carved marquee yet. The green wall there carries only a printed placard with the land's name, and behind it the entrance buildings are still going up in trusses and steel.

Where the land stands

What used to be DinoLand U.S.A. is being rebuilt around Pueblo Esperanza, a fictional village that will serve as the anchor of Tropical Americas, and Disney still has the land down for a 2027 opening. Per WDWNT, the theming push is only a few weeks old, with the mesh mountains and the rockwork both further along than they were in July.

Disney revealed the attraction names at D23: Indiana Jones and the Myth of the Jade Serpent, El Carrusel de los Animalitos (The Carousel of Animals), and Antonio's Fiesta de Encanto.

Worth knowing: Disney has published nothing about the sign. No spokesperson or Imagineer is quoted in either report, so the description of the tablet rests entirely on photos taken from the guest walkway.

Sources

Image credits: BlogMickey.com and WDW News Today, as captioned.

Mentioned in this story

Check out our guides for more on each place in this story:

Animal Kingdom Expedition Everest - Legend of the Forbidden Mountain Indiana Jones and the Myth of the Jade Serpent

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