The Disneyland Monorail isn’t going away even though new concept art for the Avatar themed land coming to Disney California Adventure leaves out the Highway in the Sky track that currently slices through the location for the Pandora attraction planned for Anaheim.
Walt Disney Imagineering is working on the way the Disneyland Monorail will interact with Disney California Adventure, according to Disneyland officials.
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Disneyland will transform a portion of the Hollywood Backlot area in DCA’s Hollywood Land into an Avatar destination experience at the Anaheim theme park.
Work will begin on the Avatar themed land transformation in early 2026 when the Monsters Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue dark ride closes to make way for construction.
New concept art shows visitors wandering through the water-centric Avatar land dominated by a towering ribbed rockwork wall with a cascading waterfall and cave-like tunnels.
The rib-like rockwork almost certainly hides an attraction building and Harbor Boulevard businesses.
Depending on the location and orientation, the Avatar rockwork could also shield the Disneyland Monorail that runs through the middle of the new themed land and would disrupt the carefully crafted storytelling environment.
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There are still plenty of unknowns about the new Avatar project that will take over portions of DCA’s Hollywood Land and push out into the existing Disneyland bus drop off/pick up area.
Disneyland has not yet announced if the Monorail will run through the Avatar destination or be rerouted around it.
Another big question: Whether the Disneyland Monorail will close during construction of the new Avatar land – which may not debut until 2028 or 2029.
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MiceChat has sketched out a rough path the Disneyland Monorail could take if Imagineering wanted to reroute the track around Pandora while preserving DCA’s Buena Vista Street bridge overcrossing.
“The leading solution is a reroute, possibly sending the track along the existing Disneyland entry path and crossing the esplanade before Downtown Disney,” according to MiceChat.