Is a Big Thunder Soft Open Coming Soon? ‘Cause WE SEE PEOPLE!!

We spotted Cast Members riding Big Thunder Mountain in the Magic Kingdom this morning!

We lingered for a while and saw several trains with and without passengers head up this path. You’ll remember that we saw the newly painted trains testing with weight simulators a few days ago – you can read about that and see some video here.  It seems that those tests went well, because we have moved on to actual humans!

But that’s not all we saw!

The walls are lower and we were able to snap the refreshed signs, too. Big Thunder has been closed since January of 2025 and even this small signal of new life has us so excited!

We even got to see a refreshed wall. Who knew some rocks could bring so much joy?!

We observed trains running with small numbers of passengers positioned in different cars. This train only held one Cast Member. Could this mean we might see a soft open ahead of the scheduled reopening date of May 3rd? It happened with Buzz Lightyear, so we remain hopeful.

Check out video from this morning:

Photos & Video: Amy Schinner