Walt Disney World has officially started a lengthy ride refurbishment of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Magic Kingdom, with the attraction now closed 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. (Updated June 8, 2025.)
This Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (BTMRR) refurbishment is the third major project at Magic Kingdom over the last year. It follows the completed closures of Peter Pan’s Flight and Jungle Cruise, as well as the transformation of Splash Mountain into Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. The final piece of the puzzle is the refurbishment and plussing of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
Even with BTMRR now closed, expect to see plenty of other ride refurbishments at Magic Kingdom in 2025-2026. It’s far from the only project on the horizon in Magic Kingdom, with Astro Orbiter and Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin also receiving work, and more likely beyond that.
June 8, 2025 Update: Let’s start with the latest official update, which is that the final sections of new track appear to have been installed! Of course, we don’t have complete visibility into the attraction since it has tunnels and interior sections, but the exterior is finished.
We can also infer that this is the case given that crews have largely moved on to refurbishing the town of Tumbleweed and doing other work on thematics. Visible work on and around the track hasn’t happened in at least the last week, which is yet another sign that the track is finished–or at least 90% of the way there.
In addition to this, there’s a yellow vehicle on the track that’ll be used for ride envelope testing and to double-check rider reach and clearance, weight loads, ride dynamics, track alignment, as well as functionality of the ride system, including sensors, braking systems, lift hill mechanisms more.
Before you get too excited about this signaling that Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is way ahead of schedule and will reopen early, we’d warn you that we’ve been down this road before. For reference, TRON Lightcycle Run started push-pull testing with a ride envelope vehicle approximately 13 months before that attraction opened.
Granted, its debut was purposefully slow-rolled for strategic reasons, but the point is that this stage is tedious and time-consuming, and for good reason–it’s essential to ensure safety standards are met and the attraction obtains operational clearance. The difference between TRON and Big Thunder is that Magic Kingdom operations wants this attraction back up and running ASAP.
It’s nevertheless worth underscoring that this is not a routine refurbishment or maintenance. Disney essentially rebuilt the roller coaster on top of its thematic foundation, and it’ll need to go through the paces of a new roller coaster as a result. It’s not just going to be ready to roll when it looks finished, so we’d caution against getting excited if you have trips in the coming months.
Not only that, but Walt Disney World just announced Closing Dates & Details for Rivers of America, Tom Sawyer Island & Liberty Square Riverboat. Although a completely separate project, its early stages of construction will involve laying the foundation for a path between Big Thunder and Haunted Mansion. We’d expect that to progress to that point towards the tail end of this closure.
Speaking of timelines, Walt Disney Imagineering recently filed a new construction permit for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. This permit is for “general construction” and is once again assigned to DPR Construction, the main contractor handling structural work on the project.
What’s most notable here is that the permit lists an expiration date different than the default one-year timeframe. That’s not surprising, as several permits have done this to seek extensions, which has formed the basis for our belief about the target completion date. What’s odd here, however, is that they specified an end date of April 15, 2026. That’s only a few days shorter than the default would’ve been.
This almost feels random, as if someone filling out the permit simply filled in a date that’s roughly a year into the future–perhaps under the erroneous assumption that they couldn’t leave that field blank. The other possibility is that the new project target completion date is April 15, 2026. But if that’s the case, why even bother with specifying the expiration date? It would’ve defaulted to a few days longer than that. Not like work is required to be finished on that exact date.
Point being, this permit does not change our view on the likely completion date of this project. What we’ve heard suggests leadership wants this project done sooner rather than later, and that it will not be one dragged out unnecessarily to spread costs into multiple fiscal quarters. Watching progress bears this out, too. We shall see–although BTMRR looks like it’s ahead of schedule, there’s still a lot of time-consuming ‘less visible’ work that remains to be done in the later stages.
Prior to this, Disney filed a permit last month to “install set elements.” That Notice of Commencement was assigned to longtime Walt Disney World collaborator, Icarus Exhibits, Inc.
Icarus Exhibits previously worked on a wide variety of projects, including installing show scenes and sets in Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, TRON Lightcycle Run, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, and throughout Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. They’re also working on Zootopia: Better Zoogether.
This particular construction permit is noteworthy because it signals that the massive Big Thunder Mountain Railroad project is now moving beyond track replacement and infrastructure updates to focus on thematic elements. This likely includes restoring show scenes and the “new magic” planned for BTMRR. We would’ve largely expected the refurbishment to happen prior to the reimagining, but it appears there’s going to be overlap. We’d stop short of calling this a milestone since the track replacement is still underway, but it’s been flying along.
Now for the speculative part of this. We can’t help but wonder whether there’s been a greater sense of urgency (and there definitely has) with the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad project because Walt Disney World wants the ride to reopen ASAP. There are a few possible reasons for this.
The first is that Frontierland has become a dead zone. This is probably partially what pushed Walt Disney World to ditch the virtual queue for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure last month. Although that ride has become more reliable of late, it’s not completely clear to us that its record is good enough to offer a standby line. It’s possible that park operations wanted to make the change, regardless, to help redistribute crowds and draw people–and not just those who scored boarding groups–deeper into Magic Kingdom.
The second related reason is that Tiana’s Bayou Adventure still does suffer from reliability woes. Having Big Thunder Mountain Railroad open could act as a release valve for demand in the event of downtime. It could also allow Walt Disney World to take Tiana’s Bayou Adventure completely offline for a winter refurbishment next year, as it’s our understanding that it (already) really needs a few weeks to a month of scheduled downtime–and not just overnight maintenance.
Finally, it’s possible that Magic Kingdom has another major ride reimagining on deck, and is eager to get that done. Specifics don’t really matter, though. The salient point is that something is on deck, the clock is ticking, and that management wants/needs Big Thunder Mountain Railroad back online as soon as possible.
How soon is that? I haven’t the slightest idea as to what’s actually possible. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad reopening by Christmas is probably optimal from the perspective of operations, but that doesn’t mean construction crews can hit that target (assuming it is the target). The next big project starting in Winter January 2026 is likewise probably ideal. Just to reiterate, all of this is purely speculative on my part–trying to piece things together and make sense of it all.
Honestly, I’m not sure whether Big Thunder Mountain Railroad can realistically reopen before mid-March 2026, which was the target date suggested by previous permits (see below). While progress is moving quickly, I’ve seen enough past roller coaster projects that flew along during the installation stage, only to slow tremendously during test & adjust. It’s entirely possible that happens again here with BTMRR, and the project fans once thought was ahead of schedule ends up falling behind.
What follows are previous updates to the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad project tracker…
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad closed for refurbishment on January 6, 2025. The wildest ride in the wilderness is planned to reopen in 2026 with a little bit of “new magic,” according to Walt Disney World.
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. That major permit for that project has now been approved, and construction is now underway backstage. It’ll start on-stage in July 2025.
These projects lining up makes sense. 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.
Previously, Walt Disney World filed a ‘Notice of Commencement’ construction permit with Coastal Steel as the contractor, and general construction as the scope of the work. Coastal Steel has received a lot of work from Walt Disney World over the years, and is also the contractor for the Test Track reimagining. It’s our understanding that the BTMRR refurbishment has multiple moving pieces, and the biggest is likely encompassed by that permit.
It’s worth noting that this project was delayed and there was a previous Notice of Commencement filed for Coastal Steel that had an expiration date in August 2025. At the time, it would’ve been over 14 months into the future, suggesting a year-plus closure. That comported with rumors (at the time) about this project taking over one year and being significant in scale and scope.
Back when this was just a rumor, it was an open secret that this would be a track replacement taking somewhere between one year and 18 months to complete. The second permit assigned to Coastal Steel has an expiration date of March 13, 2026. That should reinforce that this is still a year-plus closure.
If you feel like you’re having déjà vu all over again, it’s because this is now the second construction permit with an expiration date of March 13, 2026. The first was filed back in October and assigned to DPR Construction, another frequent collaborator with Disney.
That duration is notable because the default expiration is one year. That’s what most projects without fully-defined timelines get. Walt Disney World only changes the default expiration on purpose, extending or shortening it as projects dictate.
The default 1-year timeline is never noteworthy, but shorter or longer ones always are, as they’re extended or reduced for a reason. That’s always the case, but it’s doubly so when two permits have the exact same March 13, 2026 expiration. That’s not a coincidence.
In our view, this new permit offers a massive clue as to when Walt Disney World wants Big Thunder Railroad to reopen. We already knew this would last into 2026, but now there’s a more specific target date in mind: Spring Break. Having a drop-dead date of March 13 makes perfect sense, as that’s a Friday that normally aligns with the start of Osceola and Orange County student recesses.
Obviously, this is a lengthy construction project and one that’s subject to change. That’s still over a year into the future and delays are always possible–if not probable, so it’s premature for Walt Disney World to announce an opening date that far into the future. (To that point, this project is shaping up to be very similar to the last overhaul of BTMRR at Disneyland, which had a lengthy delay–see below.)
Nevertheless, it makes sense for Walt Disney World to target March 13, 2026 as the reopening date. It should go without saying, but a target date is just that–a target. It’s not guaranteed, but rather, the goal for Imagineering and its contractors to complete the project and reopen the ride. If the project isn’t able to be completed by Easter (April 5, 2026), there’s a decent possibility Walt Disney World pushes it back even further–to the start of summer season around Memorial Day 2026.
Based on previous rumors, 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.
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!
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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!
