Disney Just Answered One of the BIGGEST Burning Questions About the New Cars Land in Magic Kingdom

If you’ve missed the news, Magic Kingdom is changing!

Tom Sawyer Island and the Rivers of America are going away, and the cars are pulling in! While we are eager to see the changes ahead, we have been left with some questions about how Cars fits into the Magic Kingdom, more specifically, Frontierland. Disney Imagineers have officially responded.

In case you missed it, Cars is coming to Magic Kingdom! Frontierland will be changing by removing Tom Sawyer Island and the Rivers of America to replace them with Piston Peak! 

Piston Peak is the official name of the new area being added to Frontierland, and it’s inspired by the National Parks of America. It’ll feature two new attractions as well as lots of seating and (inevitably) shopping. While we are excited, it hasn’t entirely removed the question of how this IP fits into the Wild West.

First, Disney Imagineers explained that it isn’t off the hub and you will be able to access it through Liberty Square. If you work your way through Liberty Square into Frontierland, you will notice different elements like Colonial America, Upstate New York, the Midwest with the Golden Horseshoe, the “North Woods” cabins, the southwest states, New Orleans thanks to Tiana, and Arizona with Big Thunder Mountain. 

The stories all work together to create Frontierland, and once you consider the stories, the National Parks of America do fit into this area. The new area adds to the threads throughout the land. A good example of how they utilize threads to work in new stories is Pandora – The World of Avatar in Animal Kingdom. 

The theme of Animal Kingdom is the conservation and preservation of nature, and Pandora works within that thread when you remember the theme of the films and not necessarily the setting. The story is that they are in a new world where they are trying to preserve their planet as it’s being destroyed. (If we’re doing a super quick summary, that is.)

Disney is attempting to do the same thing with the new Cars Land. If the setting isn’t the story, then what is the backbone for Frontierland? What is that common thread? Disney Imagineers say it’s “chasing your dreams in the American wilderness and writing your own folktale.”

Throughout Frontierland, miners are trying to strike it rich, Tiana is trying to create the perfect Mardi Gras, and the Country Bears are trying to entertain the audience. So, how will the Cars be chasing their dreams? Within Rally Race, the larger of the two attractions, they’ll be trying to have the “fastest lap in the west.” 

So while it might not be obvious if you don’t know the stories, there is a thread that ties all of them together. In the past, the settings were more clearly defined as you strolled through the park; however, as Disney continues to grow and evolve, so do the settings and stories.

We are sad to see Tom Sawyer and the Rivers go; however, Walt Disney said it best when he said, “Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we’re curious, and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” Will we pretend that moving forward is always easy? Nope. We’ve honestly shed tears of the loss of the Muppets Courtyard (which closes officially on June 8th, 2025).

So while we are excited about the new Cars area and how it evolves the story, we’re still a bit sad over what we have to lose. One thing we know for sure is that we are glad to hear how the new area will fit into Frontierland when it finally debuts. Currently, there is no expected opening date for the new land.

If planning with all of these changes sounds stressful, let someone else do it for you! If you’re looking for a travel agent to help with your vacation, we recommend our friends at Mouse Fan Travel. They’re experts in the field with over 20 years of vacation planning experience, and they can help take a bunch of the stress out of the entire booking process for you!

As always, be sure to keep following AllEars for more Disney news and updates.

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How do you feel about the changes? Tell us in the comments! 

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