Theme Park Scope

If you’ve got a Disney World trip coming up this fall, grab your planner, because a handful of attractions are heading into refurbishment around November.

Some are quick refreshes, one is an entire water park, and one has been closed since the summer and is getting a total makeover. Here’s the lineup, in order of how soon you need to care.

Vacation Fun, the Mickey Shorts Theater at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, closes October 28. Disney says it plans to reopen later this year, though there’s no exact date yet. This is its third closure of 2026, which means if you keep showing up to see Mickey shorts and finding the doors closed, you are not imagining things.

Tiana’s Bayou Adventure at Magic Kingdom closes starting November 2, which makes November 1 the only open day in November. The Tiana’s Bayou General Store closes the same day. This is the ride’s first refurbishment since it replaced Splash Mountain, and Disney is calling it routine, so I wouldn’t expect big changes. Disney expects it to reopen sometime in December. If you’re traveling for Veterans Day or Thanksgiving week, this one is going to be closed for you, so it’s worth knowing before you build your Magic Kingdom plan.

Now for the water parks. Slush Gusher at Blizzard Beach is closed in November. It’s the 90-foot, high-speed waterslide near Summit Plummet, and the rest of Blizzard Beach stays open. Typhoon Lagoon is closing throughout November and the months after that, and Disney is encouraging guests to head to Blizzard Beach instead. Pool day plans just got a lot simpler: Blizzard Beach is your water park for now.

And then there’s the big one. Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress has been closed since July, and the update is bigger than a fresh coat of paint. The reimagined version is slated to open in late spring 2027, and Disney announced the casting at D23 during the Disney Experiences Showcase. Bryan Cranston voices Father and Jamie Lee Curtis, a Disney Legend, voices Mother. The ride is getting four brand new acts. Act One starts in the 1960s with the 1969 moon landing. Act Two jumps to the 1980s, where Sarah shows off her latest kitchen appliances and gadgets. Act Three takes place on New Year’s Eve in 1999, and Act Four shows a possible future. There’s also a new Walt Disney Audio-Animatronic, similar to the one at Disneyland’s Walt Disney: A Magical Life.

That’s a big swing for an attraction with real history. Carousel of Progress debuted at the 1964 New York World’s Fair, then moved to Disneyland in 1967 before settling into Magic Kingdom in 1975, and it’s the attraction Walt Disney himself was closely involved in. Its theme song, There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow, was written by the Sherman Brothers, and that tune has been stuck in plenty of heads for decades. Giving the whole show entirely new scenes instead of just tweaking the old ones is a bold choice, and a stretch that runs from the moon landing to New Year’s Eve 1999 is going to be a fun walk through history for anyone who remembers those moments.

Closures are never fun when they land on your favorite ride, but I’d rather have a freshly polished Tiana’s than a tired one. The Carousel of Progress update is the one I’m most curious about, because new acts, a moon landing opener, and a Walt Disney figure in the pre-show could make a classic feel like a different ride entirely. And if you have a water park fan in the family, Blizzard Beach is a perfectly good plan B. Check the My Disney Experience app before you go, since closure and reopening dates can shift.

Which of these closures hits your trip the hardest? Tell me in the comments, and keep coming back to Theme Park Scope for all your Disney World updates!