I found this on miceage... This photo, snapped while looking backwards on the big lift hill of Expedition Everest, shows a lot of activity in an unused area north of the Everest installation. Until recently, this was unused forest, but now has been cleared. There's no word yet on what this is. Could it be the Landry restaurant (which now has a name: Ying and Yak), promised to be themed to the Himalayas? And yet I assumed that would go where Chakranadi Chicken Shop and the McDonald's Fries stand were located, opposite Kali River Rapids. After all, that area is now behind construction walls, though there is no sign of activity over there. Or, intriguingly, could this be brand new development, not yet announced? There's long been a rumor that the next land to be added to DAK would be Australia, and might even include a walking path to connect Rafiki's Planet Watch (Conservation Station) with the rest of the park, without needing to use the train. Either way, this development is positioned to one side of Kali River Rapids and "behind" the queue for Everest, so it's hard to imagine how it will be accessed. Perhaps in the area near the FastPass issuance at Everest? If so, that will create a major bottleneck, similar to Disneyland's Adventureland, with thousands of people squeezing through a small space and moving in multiple directions. Actually, Epcot has a bottleneck like that already, in the Land Pavilion - at the staircase near Soarin' that is also the exit to Living with the Land. Clearly, we'll watch this development and pass along whatever we learn. I'm hoping it really is Australia. DAK has come a long way with Everest and Nemo, and, although it took a full two years, I've finally warmed up to the particular kind of theming (realism as dirt-poor rather than realism as idealism). With a new land, this place could easily vault closer to the top of my list. And should Beastlie Kingdomme ever be built on the other side of the park, DAK really would be my park of choice.
Hmm... we'll have to keep an eye out for this when we ride EE next month... something about that image just doesn't ring true. ; Maybe it's the apparent "oops, we didn't really mean to blow up the forest" method of clear cutting in the foreground... or the proximity of that major road to the construction zone (wouldn't really help with "maintaining the illusion" that they're fond of)... but I'll try to remember to see if we can see anything from the location mentioned.
