Disney World’s New Zootopia Attraction Opens This Week

By Garrett Martin | November 3, 2025 | 3:31pm

Attraction artwork courtesy of Disney

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Disney World’s New Zootopia Attraction Opens This Week

Zootopia: Better Zoogether is almost ready for its closeup. The new 4D show opens at Disney’s Animal Kingdom this week, on Friday, November 7. It’s located inside the Tree of Life Theater, the space inside the park’s major landmark, which was previously the home of It’s Tough to Be a Bug—an opening day attraction at the park based on Pixar’s A Bug’s Life. Sorry, Flik.

Better Zoogether is set on Zoogether Day, presumably a holiday celebrating the unity between predators and prey that drove so much of the plot of Zootopia. Like It’s Tough to Be a Bug, it’s a film inside of a theater rigged with various special effects; at different moments during that previous show, guests would feel like they were being poked by bugs, sprayed with acid, or stuck in the crossfire of an acorn battle, with little gusts of wind hitting their faces. At one point a gross stench was pumped into the room to simulate the smell of a stinkbug. That kind of thing. There was also an audio-animatronic interruption by a Kevin Spacey-voiced grasshopper, and you’ve got to think that was part of the calculus in ditching that show—along with Disney’s larger retreat from A Bug’s Life references, which were plentiful in the parks in the early ‘00s but pretty much gone entirely since It’s Tough to Be a Bug was closed.

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The new show preserves that combination of film, effects, and animatronics, but with the new focus on Zootopia (a very successful movie, natch) instead of Pixar’s most overlooked feature. You’ll see all kinds of animals celebrating Zoogether Day at locales from around their world, and occasionally feel wind or small sprays of water on your face. (Apparently the little jabs to your back, which were supposed to be hornet stingers in the old show, have been deactivated.) There’s also a new audio-animatronic, the cheetah Officer Clawhauser, whose cheery incompetence makes him feel like a cartoon animal version of a Police Academy character. At some point it turns into a crime story, with Judy Hops and Nick Wilde (the cop bunny and insufferably smug fox conman from the film) trying to solve some kind of mystery. I’m sure a sloth talllllllllllllllllllllllllllks verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwly at some point.

Early word from people who have already experienced it seems pretty mixed. Most seem to agree that the quality of animation in the film is high, and that it captures the tone and spirit of the original movie. Some have pointed out that it doesn’t really add anything new to the interactive elements of the 27-year-old theater, and actually removes some of the effects of the original show, while also having less audio-animatronics, and less complex ones than the impressive Hopper figure. I don’t know: I haven’t done the thing yet. I’ll let y’all know when I do.

This isn’t the first Zootopia attraction at a Disney park. There’s a whole land devoted to it at Shanghai Disneyland. Zootopia was also supposed to be the basis for one of the two attractions that were going to take over the Dinosaur section of Animal Kingdom, although plans changed and that whole area will now be devoted to Tropical Americas, with a new Indiana Jones ride in tow. Better Zoogether is the only American Zootopia attraction that has been announced, so if you (or your family) really love them crazy mixed-up animals, there’s a new attraction you might love. The general public can start enjoying it this Friday, November 7. And until then, here’s the official attraction poster.

Zootopia: Better Zoogether