Animal Kingdom Closes a Land for Avatar

The little land named Camp Minnie-Mickey, located in the lower left corner of Animal Kingdom theme park, has closed for good to make way for Avatar to eventually move in.  This is something that was expected, and considering that the area only existed because of larger budget cuts made ages ago, it is actually surprising that it made it this long.

Aside from cute little displays like the one above, really Camp Minnie-Mickey served as a place in the wildlife themed park to hold character meet'n'greets.  There was also the theater for the lively Lion King themed show that utilized old parade floats - honestly the popularity of that show probably helped the area hold on for so many years (15 or so if you can believe it!).

Fear not, though, as the Festival of the Lion King will return later this year in a brand new theater built in the more appropriately placed Africa section of the park.

With the Camp now a memory, Animal Kingdom can start the heavy lifting in order to get Avatar in the door.  There's really a ton of open space for the project - see above - Camp Minnie Mickey only took up a small portion of a rather large undeveloped area.  Fans of the park will remember that this area was once destined to become home to the Beastly Kingdom, a home for mythical animals that had a lot of us drooling.  In the end the mythical will find its way to the spot after all, just not how most folks assumed it would happen all those years ago!

Both Orlando Attractions Magazine and LaughingPlace have nice galleries up of the final days of both Camp Minnie Mickey and the Festival of the Lion King in its original home.