Not a single flying elephant can be seen flying over Fantasyland at the moment. Many children may have asked their parents recently where Dumbo has gone. Afterall Dumbo, the Flying Elephant has always been one of the childrens’ favorite attraction all over the park (and keeping the relatively low capacity in mind, one of the most crowded). But, as already reported, the attraction is currently down for a major rehab and is not expected to open before July 3rd. However, guests visiting the Park periodically or checking our prior news updates may spot that the work is making progress.
Friday painters could be spotted all over the queue area, the steel structure above it as well as down in the dry water canals to apply fresh paint. However, most paint work seemed to be near completion. Also the tent roofs have already returned to the queue area and the prepared turrets for the tent structure are already on-site, placed under drapes in the queue area.
The most impressive progress happened over night from Friday to Saturday though … while on Friday only the bare mechanics of the center piece of the attraction was the sole element of the ride on-site, but Saturday magically several of the arms needed to hold the single Dumbo vehicles were put back into their place. But so far none of the vehicles themselves had returned.
The ongoing work at Dumbo also impacts other parts of Fantasyland. To repaint the waterways around the attractions base has made it necessary to drain the waterways not only around Dumbo but further on. Since most of the waterways across Fantasyland are interconnected a whole stretch from the “fountain” in Adventureland, past Peter Pan’s Flight, around Dumbo all the way to the Tea Cups has been drained at the moment.