EVOLVING
Epcot

In a film made in the fall of 1966, shortly before Walt Disney’s death, the patriarch himself outlined the scope of what was then known as the Florida Project but which would eventually become the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando. The ambitious project included a theme park similar to Disneyland in California, hotels, motels, entertainment, even an airport.

But it also took advantage of the one thing Disney did not have in California: space. With a piece of land twice the size of the island of Manhattan, the Florida Project could afford its lofty goals, including the loftiest Disney described.

“The most exciting, by far the most important part of our Florida Project — in fact, the heart of everything we’ll be doing in Disney World — will be our Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow,” Disney said. “We call it ‘Epcot,’ spelled E-P-C-O-T. Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.”

The city would take up a large portion in the center of the Florida property, taking cues from new and emerging technology coming from American industry. It would solve the problems of modern cities, creating technology and constantly testing and demonstrating new ideas. It would exist to serve and keep happy the residents who live, work and play there.

“That’s what Epcot is, an experimental prototype community that will always be in a state of becoming,” Disney said. “It will never cease to be a living blueprint of the future, where people actually live a life they can’t find anywhere else in the world.”

Of course, his vision was never realized in the way he expected, but Epcot still holds a special place in the hearts of many. It was the last big idea that Walt Disney himself touched and helped shape and guide.

Now, 54 years later, the theme park is undergoing a sea change. Disney announced the park’s “transformation” last year at its D23 fan club meeting, drawing excitement and some trepidation about the “Disneyfication” of a park that, at its core, wasn’t intended to be “Disneyfied.”

From city to theme park

After Walt Disney’s death, the Florida Project was turned over to Disney’s Imagineers, then known as WED Enterprises (inspired by the initials of Walter Elias Disney).

Len Testa, president of Disney planning website TouringPlans.com and co-author of the “Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World,” pointed out that Epcot-the-city was very much ahead of its time. The master plan for the city, today housed in the University of Central Florida’s Harrison “Buzz” Price archive, mentions things like modular, low-cost housing; networked homes; renewable energy sources; automated warehouses; and self-driving electric cars.

They are all familiar ideas today, but Walt Disney dreamed them up a half-century ago.

“It was really futuristic,” Testa said. “It was sort of like Jeff Bezos meets Elon Musk meets I.M. Pei or [Ludwig] Mies van der Rohe — some sort of architecture-technology blend. And it was ambitious. It was huge.”

After Disney’s death, the Imagineers crafted two different proposals for Epcot-the-park, Testa said. One was like a permanent world’s fair with nothing but pavilions featuring different countries and their heritages. The other was a more science- and technology-driven world’s fair, with industry displaying the latest advances in technology and how it would be helpful to humanity.

They married the ideas, and Epcot-the-park was born.

The park had two distinct sections: World Showcase, with pavilions representing countries around the world, and Future World, with pavilions dedicated to topics like communication, agriculture and transportation.

“The thing is, like a world’s fair, this wasn’t just someone’s artistic statement,” said Robert Niles, editor of ThemeParkInsider.com. “This was a commercial enterprise, and Epcot attractions, many of them, were designed with specific sponsors in mind, and indeed, because of specific sponsors. Outside influence has always been part of the dynamic of Epcot, which makes sense, since this is essentially Disney’s nonfiction theme park. Or at least, that’s the way it was founded.”

Take, for example, the Universe of Energy, a pavilion sponsored by Exxon. Using a combination of film and animatronics, the attraction took visitors on a journey exploring different forms of energy, particularly renewable sources.

The attraction would eventually be rethemed to Ellen’s Energy Adventure, starring Ellen DeGeneres, Jamie Lee Curtis and Bill Nye. That attraction closed in 2017 to make way for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, an enclosed roller coaster attraction currently under construction.

The transformation

Last year, Disney announced sprawling changes to Epcot, which many agreed was in need of an update.

In the World Showcase portion of the park, a Mary Poppins attraction will be added to the U.K. pavilion, and a new nighttime spectacular, “Harmonious,” will debut this year. This coming summer, the attraction Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure will open in the France pavilion. The France, Canada and China pavilions have all gotten new film attractions.

The Future World section of the park will no longer be Future World.

Instead, it will be split into three distinct “neighborhoods”: World Celebration, World Nature and World Discovery.

World Celebration will include Spaceship Earth, which will be given a new narration and musical score, among other upgrades; a new three-level pavilion that will serve as headquarters for the park’s many festivals, which have become more common in the past decade; a transformed entrance plaza with a new fountain and pathways; and Dreamers Point, a view of World Showcase featuring natural environments and a statue of Walt Disney.

World Nature will include the existing pavilions the Land and the Seas with Nemo & Friends; a new interactive water experience, Journey of Water, inspired by the film “Moana”; and a new film in the Land pavilion, “Awesome Planet,” which debuted last month.

World Discovery will include the Guardians of the Galaxy coaster; the Mission: Space pavilion that exists today; a new restaurant, Space 220, that will be presented to diners inside as a space station orbiting the Earth; and the new Play! pavilion, featuring games, activities and experiences.

The latest plans for Epcot are on display in a preview center named Walt Disney Imagineering Presents the Epcot Experience, at the Odyssey Events pavilion in the park.

Ian Ford, CEO of Undercover Tourist, an OTA focused on discounted theme park tickets, hotels and rental cars, said, “I think of it as a refresh and an updating and a reaching out to some of the younger demographic, but I think also it’s kind of a testament to not having to change too much.”

Ford said he believes the transformation will modernize the park.

Dennis Speigel, CEO and founder of International Theme Park Services, said, “As a longtime resident of the industry and participator of about 50 years, I think it’s absolutely the right direction that they’re going in.”

The problem with the future

Disney’s reimagining of Future World will help solve a problem that has plagued not only Disney but the entire theme park industry since the first future-themed area was introduced.

Edward Marks, founder and co-CEO of the Producers Group, said “They literally put pressure on [theme-park operators] to maintain a certain level of inventive technology. They must constantly be inventing things or demonstrating new inventions at all times, which is a massively tiring process and a never-winning situation.”

Or, as Niles put it, “The future has this nasty habit of becoming the past.”

Niles said Disney solved that problem neatly at Disneyland Paris.

Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom both have lands called Tomorrowland, which largely holds vaguely science fiction-themed attractions based on things like Buzz Lightyear and “Star Wars.” But in Paris, Tomorrowland is actually Discoveryland and showcases the future as once imagined by the likes of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne.

Now, with the removal of the Future World moniker entirely, Disney has somewhat solved the Epcot problem, though it will still need to update its future-looking attractions, Niles said. He pointed specifically at Spaceship Earth, which is slated for a renovation.

Speigel said he thinks Disney’s transformation plans, as presented, will help solve the future issue.

“I think these things have legs and longevity,” he said. “I think they work in favor of still kind of protecting the Future World, but do it in a way that makes it entertaining and not with quite the burnout factor.”

Intellectual property everywhere

Over the years, many of the corporate sponsorships that once proliferated in Epcot have fallen by the wayside. Some still exist, such as Chevrolet’s sponsorship of Test Track, but many more have been replaced, often in the form of Disney’s own intellectual property.

Testa recalled that, “Especially after the Great Recession, a lot of companies looked at the amount of money that Disney was charging for a sponsorship, and they couldn’t rationalize it in the context of that business environment.”

As the park has changed, Disney has progressively introduced more and more of its trademark intellectual property into attractions. In a park that shunned even Disney character meet-and-greets in its earliest days, that has left some fans wanting.

Perhaps the most jarring was the shuttering of the boat ride attraction Maelstrom in the Norway pavilion in 2014 to make room for retheming the ride to Disney’s “Frozen” franchise.

Marks posited that the Frozen Ever After attraction drew so much ire because the addition of “Frozen” into Norway made no sense. The films take place in the fictional land of Arendelle, not Norway.

“I think as long as [a new attraction] holds onto the root of what its intention was, it makes sense,” Marks said. “Frozen doesn’t do that. Frozen is almost thumbing its nose at the entire history of Epcot.”

But in the court of popular opinion, and outside those groups of fans yearning for the Epcot of old, Frozen Ever After was a huge win. The ride has remained massively popular in Epcot since its 2016 opening, regularly drawing lines with wait times in excess of an hour.

“I think that once they made that decision and saw that it worked, the old guys — us Disney purists, if you will — at some level had to step back and go, ‘Yeah, it makes sense’ because it’s the evolution of the project,” Marks said.

Disney noticed the payoff, but its next intellectual property-based attractions coming to Epcot, like Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure in France, are viewed differently by many Epcot fans because they fit better in their environments.

Testa said he could “see that ride going into France. It fits into the overall aesthetic. It’s a movie about France — it’s a good movie about France — and frankly, Epcot needs kids rides. The thing that bothers me is when they’re forced in.”

In Testa’s mind, the forthcoming Guardians of the Galaxy coaster lands squarely in the forced category. He’s also concerned that the messages of Future World’s pavilions of the past are getting lost; like the new film “Awesome Planet,” which talks about the science behind climate change but unlike its predecessors, offers no solutions. Instead, it forces in a storyline related to the television show “Modern Family.”

Whenever a change is introduced in the Disney parks that upsets fans, Marks said he is reminded of Walt Disney’s vision for the parks: They are never done, never complete; they will continually be developed and changed.

Disney also has such a large fan base that it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to please everyone with additions and changes. But Marks said he believes that the fan base is also a resilient one.

“What I mean by that,” he said, “is they’re very open-minded to unique experiences in the Disney space.”

Intellectual property-based attractions also attract a core Disney audience in children, a phenomenon that Ford said he has witnessed with his own children, who enjoy and are attracted to the intellectual property used throughout the parks.

“With nostalgia and history, you’re always going to have people who don’t necessarily want everything to be completely timeless, and honestly, who’s to say they’re wrong?” Ford said. “That is their experience. To me, I like a balance of both. I like harmony. You have to increase your relevance.”

In the meantime, fences

With all the changes coming to Epcot, so too have come the construction fences. On a visit to the park in December, the author of this report spotted fences before even entering the park, ostensibly blocking the view of work on the entryway. The fences continued throughout Future World.

For Disney, a large-scale project like the transformation of Epcot means juggling construction with guest satisfaction.

“I think Disney is pretty much the best at that,” Niles said. “That said, best is still fairly inconvenient for people. They manage to keep the park open, they keep the guests flowing through it pretty well, but yeah, it can be ugly at times.”

Disney also doesn’t have an offseason in which to complete large-scale projects, Niles said, since the park is open all year.

“I think a lot of fans will consider, if not putting off a visit, maybe emphasizing the other parks on their visits until Epcot’s good to go,” he said. “And then you’ll see crowds cycle back around to that.”
Construction in the parks has proven to be cyclical.

For example, Disney’s Hollywood Studios was recently the park lined with construction fences as Disney made way for the 2018 opening of Toy Story Land and last year’s opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.

Before that, Animal Kingdom was under construction for the 2017 opening of Pandora: The World of Avatar. And before that, it was the Magic Kingdom’s turn, in preparation for the 2012 opening of New Fantasyland.

Marks said the internet fundamentally changed the way theme parks bring about new attractions.

“The internet came along, and the industry’s ability to keep their new projects secret went away,” he said.

Plus, by openly working on new projects, it could entice guests to keep coming back to the park.

That change has come to destination parks as well as to regional parks, Speigel said.

“I think it’s helped both those categories — destination and the regionals — build their attendance, because they’re creating interest,” he said.

For his part, Testa posited that the massive amount of construction going on at Epcot could have been avoided, at least to some degree, had Disney funneled money into more refurbishments over the years.

Instead, in the past decade, the company has been more focused on introducing festivals to the park, such as the Epcot International Festival of the Arts and the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival.

Setting guest expectations

Travel advisors express excitement about Epcot’s future, among them Sue Pisaturo, president of Small World Vacations in Washington Township, N.J. (No. 54 on Travel Weekly’s 2019 Power List).

“Is there construction now?” she said. “Yeah, but this was Walt’s dream, to have Epcot always evolving, always on the cutting edge of what is going on in the world, especially in Future World. It’s worth it.”

Pisaturo polled her travel advisors, and the consensus was that the construction at Epcot wasn’t really coming up in the trip-planning process. On its website, Small World Vacations keeps a list of refurbishments for clients to reference. And any client who books $2,000 or more Disney travel with Small World is automatically given a free subscription to TouringPlans.com, Pisaturo said.

That enables clients to plan their trip in as detailed a manner as they would like, with their travel advisor acting as a resource when needed.

“The data they have is invaluable,” Pisaturo said. “We get all kinds of different guests. Some people want to know at 10:02 where they should be, and some people are like, ‘What? I should show up before 10?’”

Michelle Allen, owner of Travel Magic in Basking Ridge, N.J., takes a slightly different tack when talking to clients about construction at Epcot.

“I definitely tell my travelers of the construction going on right now,” she said. “Some don’t care, but for others, it’s a deal breaker. If this is a one-and-done vacation, we may postpone, but if they don’t care, we map out their day the best we can to avoid as much inconvenience as possible.”

In post-trip calls with clients, Allen said, she hasn’t heard many complaints about Epcot’s current state, largely because their expectations were set early in the process.

The Epcot that could have been

Both Speigel and Marks run companies dedicated to theme park consulting and development. So what would they do if Disney approached them and offered them a blank slate to redesign Epcot?

Speigel said he would like to return more to the park’s roots and create a dedicated area at which innovations could be cycled in and out every year or two, introducing people to new technologies.

“I can remember when I went to a world’s fair, that’s where I saw the world’s first speakerphone,” he said. “The line was half a mile long to get into this phone booth and call your parents … and say, ‘Hey, we’re on speakerphone!’”

Marks said he would take a different approach. He would shrink the lagoon around which World Showcase is built because he believes it is too big.

“It makes for a giant park,” he said, “and it makes for a lot of walking, in my opinion, for no reason.”

As an example of enlightened use of waterways in parks, he cited Tokyo DisneySea as a place that uses them particularly well. But he added that a suggestion to shrink the lagoon, or even use part of it for some kind of undersea attraction, would draw too much public backlash to be worth the effort.

Marks is a fan of adding additional intellectual properties to World Showcase, such as Ratatouille in the France pavilion and Mary Poppins in the U.K. space.

He said it also helps solve one of the park’s problems: People are willing to stay late in Epcot because it’s known for a higher level of cuisine than the other theme parks, but how do you get guests there earlier to add a half-day to their stay? New attractions help do that, he said.

He is also a fan of Epcot’s transformation as a whole.

“It’s time, and I’m glad they’re doing it,” Marks said. “It’s weird to say that the Disney Company is brave to be doing a renovation to a park that was built over 30 years ago, because that’s not brave, that’s strong business acumen. We just need to be prepared, and it’ll probably be as spectacular as everything else they do. I’m ready for it.”