EPCOT 2018 Plan: The Realistic Version

Today is the next part of my new plans for the Walt Disney World Resort, following the pair of Magic Kingdom plans posted in October. These are my for fun, hypothetical plans for how I would expand and improve the 4 parks of the Resort. I last published plans for these parks 2 and a half years ago, and a lot has changed. New attractions have opened and are coming soon to the parks, and I think I have improved as a designer as well. Plus the maps are a jump in quality.

For each of the parks, I am actually planning to do multiple versions that explore different goals. At the least, I plan to do a realistic plan that looks at what I think could really be done in the next few years and a dream buildout plan where I go full bluesky with no limits.

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This post is my attempt at a realistic plan for the expansion of EPCOT over the next few years. I will be incorporating the recently announced additions to the park as well as a couple strong rumors and some of my original ideas. So that means that in this plan, I am embracing characters and IPs in the park. That is not exactly what I think is the ideal situation for the park, but I am going with it for this plan. I am going to try to make the best of it though by making sure that any use of characters reflects the theme and message of the pavilion first, and expresses the IP second.

When trying to put together these plans, I tried to put together my overall concept of the park, its meaning, and its organization to help me understand what I wanted to do. It is more applicable in the final dream plan, so I will mention it more then. For this plan, the important part of the concept is the idea that World Showcase highlights human culture and where we come from, while Future World highlights human achievement and where we can go. Everything in the park should align to that big idea in some way.

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This plan starts with a major addition outside of the park that is so frequently rumored that I would basically consider it confirmed. A midsized hotel is added outside the park, split into two halves and mirrored along the central axis. I knew that I wanted to the hotel to be symmetrical, but I also did not want it to block the central view in the entrance sequence of the park. I wanted it to be able to look into the park but not intrude on the park. But there was plenty of land on either side for a split concept, so I thought I could make it work.

Each side is 3 towers of approximately 5 floors and they are connected with a Peoplemover that arcs around and stops at the monorail station. What is more futuristic than an interhotel transportation system. The pivot building on each side flares out at the bottom to create a small atrium void at the base (Image 1). The east side includes the lobby, restaurants, and service facilities for the hotel, plus the bus stops and an elevated walkway to the hotel parking lot. There would be a table service restaurant on an upper level that looks into the park. The pool is on the roof of the farthest east tower and features an infinity edge that looks into the park (Image 2).

Inside the park entrance, the biggest change in my plan is a complete rethinking of the central spine of the park. Basically, the whole area inside of the Monorail loop is redeveloped. That may seem extreme for a realistic plan, but the imagery from D23 showed exactly that, so I count it as something that could happen and have no problem pursuing the idea.

Before Spaceship Earth, the Leave a Legacy stones are removed. Under Spaceship Earth, the path and queues are reconfigured to direct traffic predominately to the left, towards the newly defined undulating main path that winds through the center of the park and towards World Showcase. The idea behind this path is to make the center of the park more organic and free flowing, and also to frequently redirect the line of sight to the various landmarks of Future World. The path to the right of Spaceship Earth is also still there and accessible, but it is not emphasized as the main path. The main path features embedded fiber optics along the full length in order to create interesting and dynamic patterns at night and to mark it as the spine of the park (Image 1). The existing fiber optics in the park are some of the most futuristicly magical elements of the current design, so I thought it should be expanded and emphasized.

In the central Hub area of the park, there are a couple of big changes. The two buildings on the west side, the pin trading hub, all the canopies, and the current Fountain of Nations are demolished, plus Electric Umbrella and its outdoor seating areas are removed from the remaining building. The west buildings are replaced with a smaller bakery and meet and greet building on the north side, and a new large counter service building to the south. The restaurant has an elevated 360 degree dining area that looks to all of Future World and serves a more diverse and health based menu.

The east side buildings are split into their two halves by removing the covered path between them to open up the view. The existing north building on the east side would hold a new attempt at a science and technology showcase style area, called Innovations. I think for this to work, it has to feature the true top level companies of science and technology. It needs Microsoft, Apple, SpaceX, Tesla, Google, and the like to really work and really engage guests. If those kinds of sponsor/participants could not be found, I don't know if it would be worth including. Those companies would have highly interactive exhibits that show the future of technology. The south building remains as retail.

At the very center of Future World is a new large fountain, built with modern water fixtures to put on more involved and impressive shows. A stage is built along the fountain and a open viewing area is to the south. The rest of the central area is composed of redefined paths and gardens. It is very important to emphasize vegetation in this plan. There would also be smaller fountain systems installed in the other pools of Future World so that the kinetics of water could envelop the land. Plus, formal fountain shows each night could move through and include the fountains across the whole land so that guests are right in the middle of the show.

There are a couple other additions to Future World outside of this redeveloped spine.

On the east side, Guardians of the Galaxy replaces Energy just like in real life, the Test Track canopy is removed, the space restaurant is added to the right of Mission:Space, and the jetpack spinner from Shanghai is build in front of Mission:Space to add some additional kinetics to the area (Image 2). My hope is that Guardians has some way to tie into the idea of Energy, or at least something technological so as to align in some way to the message of the pavilion/park (Image 4).

The west side has a pair of new attractions at the Imagination pavilion. I am following another rumor here and adding Inside Out to the pavilion. The dark ride is completely replaced with an animatronics based dark ride trip though the world of the mind, featuring the varied settings from the film and explaining the power of imagination. The theater is replaced with a 4d interactive movie about Dream Production in the mind. The dream that we see production of features the return of Figment as an interactive character. The other addition to this side is a "water teacups" style ride, that would actually be a trackless aquatopia system (Image 3). The freely moving vehicles can load around the edge, start moving in the style of a tea cups ride, but then start to make more varied spinning patterns.

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Moving on to World Showcase, this plan adds one whole new country and new attractions to a few existing countries. In this plan, all major additions are IP based.

First, a proper facade for the World Showplace is added, built of brick and glass. If this is to be used nearly year round, it should have a more presentable face that the current painted facade.

In the UK, a Mary Poppins dark ride is added at the rear of the pavilion. Replacing the gazebo is a large "carousel" that acts as loading for the attraction (Image 4). Carousel horse vehicles leave the circle and travel through the park and into the showbuilding for a jolly trip through an English park.

France includes the really happening Ratatouille trackless dark ride (Image 3).

America gets some large additions, but not as attractions. I and many others have felt that the food representation of the land is very very lacking. While every other country has a sit down restaurant at the least, America just has a boring counter location that is not very good. So in this plan, I am adding both a feature table service restaurant on the left side of the pavilion that serves a menu of national favorites, and a renovated counter service on the right side. The right side is also another significant change for the country. I've always felt it was very flat, the least dimensional of all of World Showcase. So I have redeveloped the right side into a kind of narrow street that leads back in the pavilion, based Elfreth's Alley in Philadelphia, the nations oldest residential street (Image 2). The counter service is divided up into multiple little shops with different menus and multiple themed dining rooms. I think this would add a lot of interest and culinary diversity to the pavilion.

In Mexico, the boat ride is rethemed to Coco as the rumors suggest. I actually think this would be a really good update based on how well the film reflected the culture of Mexico. Additionally, taking a cue from how the Frozen meet and greet expanded the footprint of Norway, I am expanding Mexico with an outdoor town square area to the right of the main building (Image 1). The facades would lead into the interior space seamlessly, so it is really more like one bigger town. Here would be a more permanent location for a Coco themed band, retail, meet and greet, and more cultural space.

The new country for this version of the plan is located next to Germany. I had a lot of options here for what country to pick, but I knew that the IP tie in was important. I also wanted to make sure to pick something diverse from the rest of the countries already there. And I also did not want to immediately pick one of the obvious choices that are frequently rumored. So no Brazil or Spain. I decided on Saudi Arabia because of its economic and cultural significance, the fact that the Middle East is under represented in World Showcase, and because it is a more reasonable setting for Aladdin, so it no longer has to be tied to the Morocco Pavilion.

The setting for the pavilion is Jeddah. The front 'icon' along the promenade is a rough approximation of King Saud Mosque, specifically the tower and archway entrance which is reformed into a gateway arch into the land. Inside is cultural space along with retail. Beyond is a courtyard with fountain bounded by a recreation of the Nassif House, a former royal residence, library, and museum (Image 2). Inside is the table service restaurant as well as a small amount of museum space. Past that building, the rest of the land is formed of a marketplace (Image 1) and smaller authentic facades and alleys (Image 3). The market is the remaining retail, a small snack location, and also the entrance to the main attraction. Through a carpet weaver shop, guests can ride a magic carpet across the landscapes of Saudi Arabia and Agrabah. The attraction would be a suspended flying carpet dark ride, and would use the characters of Aladdin to reflect authentic Saudi Arabian settings.

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That covers my attempt at a realistic plan for EPCOT. It totals a new hotel, a redesigned spine, a new country, 9 new attractions, and a few new restaurants.

Next week will be the next plan in this series. It will be a fully built out, ambitious plan that includes full use of characters and IPs in nearly every pavilion. That idea is a reaction to the direction the parks are going. It will be built upon the elements added in this plan, but also with a ton of new stuff. Then the following week will be the third and final post, the full dream plan. So check back next week!

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Image Credits

EPCOT Hotel

1. https://www.flickr.com/photos/lohasteru/35272794493/

2. https://www.flickr.com/photos/111748974@N02/12478329015/

3. https://www.flickr.com/photos/lohasteru/35947759581/

4. https://www.flickr.com/photos/timevanson/8348282333/

Future World

1. https://www.flickr.com/photos/brettkiger/10797911266/

2. https://www.flickr.com/photos/frikitiki/28144160170/sizes/l

3. https://www.flickr.com/photos/aloha75/8602271723/

4. Disney concept art

World Showcase

1. https://www.flickr.com/photos/frenchhope/3355452567/

2. https://www.flickr.com/photos/john_vosburgh/6731471513/

3. Disney concept art

4. https://www.flickr.com/photos/55267995@N04/9488873507/

Saudi Arabia Pavilion

1. https://www.flickr.com/photos/michael-anncerniglia/19266433709/

2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nassif_house_Jeddah.jpg

3. https://www.flickr.com/photos/pedronet/3975135102/