In a post on his Instagram, Joe Rohde, Disney Legend and former Walt Disney Imagineering executive designer and vice president, memorializes DinoLand U.S.A. at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. The last phase of closures for DinoLand occur today, February 1, 2026.
Joe Rohde Remembers DinoLand, U.S.A.
In the post, Rohde states that he will miss the “sly and droll sense of humor” of the land, and “the way in which it attempted to take a complicated subject like paleontology and turn it into a series of entertainment experiences,” stating the following:
I will never know how many people picked up on the Venn diagram of ideas in play. The old school professors defending outmoded ideas. The young students with challenging new theories. The corporate financiers and their amoral profit motive. The roadside America entrepreneurs and their simple non-academic love of dinosaurs for pure fun.
Despite the adventures and the fun nature of DinoLand, he also mentions the budget constraints that Disney faced when building the Animal Kingdom:
But on the other hand, the Land always had some conceptual weaknesses born of the struggle to just get a park open with what was at the time, a relatively low cost per square foot. For example, while the Dinosaur attraction is a thrilling zany zigzagging adventure…it’s not exactly calculated to appeal to the core market for dinosaurs, which is little kids. But if you look at the opening day menu for the park, you’ll see that it was the only thing approaching a thrill ride, and therefore we were obligated to increase the thrill component to balance the park menu. The original attraction name, Countdown to Extinction, probably broadcast that sensibility more successfully than the IP related title, Dinosaur, which, of course brought up associations with the CGI animated film.
In addition, the science of dinosaurs rapidly outstripped the representation of dinosaurs in the park. And since the park has a strong science basis we like to be as accurate as we can. But it wasn’t likely we’re gonna go back and put feathers on all our therapods.
He goes on to mention the progress on Pueblo Esperanza, assuring readers that current members of the Walt Disney Imagineering team are doing excellent work on the new Tropical Americas land which will in part replace DINOSAUR with an Indiana Jones attraction.
He ends by urging those in Animal Kingdom today to enjoy their time and take lots of pictures.
Are you at Animal Kingdom celebrating DinoLand, U.S.A. today? Share your pictures with us on social media.
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