Disneyland announces opening dates for the return of Fantasmic!, Disneyland Railroad and Rivers of America

The long wait will soon be over.

For nearly 19 months visitors to Disneyland have had to suffer with 14 percent of the parks attractions closed to allow construction to begin on Star Wars Land. Now, those areas will re-open this summer with new experiences.

Disney publicity photo

Fantasmic!, the big nighttime spectacular which tells the story of Mickey Mouse and his vivid imagination, will re-open on July 17, 2017, the actual 62nd anniversary of the park.

On July 29, the Disneyland Railroad and the Rivers of America attractions, such as the Mark Twain Riverboat, Sailing Ship Columbia and Davy Crockett Explorer Canoes – will reopen.

All of the attractions have been closed since Jan. 10, 2016.

“Fantasmic!,” according to a Disney news release, will add new scenes to the show with characters from “Aladdin,” “Tangled,” “The Lion King” and “Pirates of the Caribbean.” One sequence will feature Aladdin and Jasmine discovering “A Whole New World” as they float on their flying carpet over a bed of fog on the Rivers of America.

The Disneyland Railroad will now travel across the rocks on a trestle that extends out into the Rivers of America. For the first time there will be a left-hand turn on the journey. The dioramas of the Grand Canyon and Primeval World have been restored with some added enhancements. A new Columbia Gorge section highlighted by five waterfalls.