EPCOT New Play Pavilion to replace Epcot's Wonders of Life

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doctornick

Well-Known Member
Bocabear said:
Agreed...there was a lot of beautiful square footage that could have been put to much better use.
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Sure. And another piece of beautiful square footage that was underused was the WoL pavilion which thankfully they are returning to regular guest use.

Now just add some rides/shows to the rest of the space there to make it complete.
 
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Disney Maddux

Disney Maddux

Well-Known Member
doctornick said:
All kidding aside, um, yeah... I don't think East was very busy at the time of closure. A few M&Gs that had some lines, but stuff like the Piggy Bank adventure or Where's the Fire were always dead when I walked through there in recent years.
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Lil correction, Piggy Bank and Where's the Fire were in the other side that closed in 2016. The building on the WoL side had Stormstruck, Habit Heroes, and Sum of All Thrills.
 
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doctornick

Well-Known Member
Disney Maddux said:
Lil correction, Piggy Bank and Where's the Fire were in the other side that closed in 2016. The building on the WoL side had Stormstruck, Habit Heroes, and Sum of All Thrills.
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That's correct. I said "East" but I meant "West" which is the one that was torn down and people are complaining about them not re-using.
 
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doctornick

Well-Known Member
UNCgolf said:
Having something in the WoL pavilion is certainly better than leaving it empty, but what a terrible misuse.
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What is going to be there now is probably going to be similar in scope to what was in the main building of WoL in the past (albeit not health themed). The bigger difference is the lack of the ride and shows. I really think if they would put a ride in the Body Wars space and/or a new show in the Cranium Command theater, it would very much enhance this pavilion and the side of the park. If I understand things correctly, those spaces are just being left empty and aren't being used for Play!
 
UNCgolf

UNCgolf

Well-Known Member
doctornick said:
What is going to be there now is probably going to be similar in scope to what was in the main building of WoL in the past (albeit not health themed). The bigger difference is the lack of the ride and shows. I really think if they would put a ride in the Body Wars space and/or a new show in the Cranium Command theater, it would very much enhance this pavilion and the side of the park. If I understand things correctly, those spaces are just being left empty and aren't being used for Play!
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That's really what I mean -- they're not using any of the attraction space.

I also think the health themed stuff in WoL was more interesting than anything they've shown/suggested for the Play! Pavilion (not to mention it actually made sense in EPCOT in a way Play! does not), but the lack of anything going in at Body Wars and Cranium Command is laughable.
 
TrippedUp

TrippedUp

Active Member
UNCgolf said:
That's really what I mean -- they're not using any of the attraction space.

I also think the health themed stuff in WoL was more interesting than anything they've shown/suggested for the Play! Pavilion (not to mention it actually made sense in EPCOT in a way Play! does not), but the lack of anything going in at Body Wars and Cranium Command is laughable.
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It was previously stated that operations wouldn't turn the attraction space over to imagineering, so it was off the table. I think we all kinda hoped that meant cranium command might yet live again, but its pretty clear from bio's aerials that those spaces were reconfigured as an operations support area, with a third floor being built in the simulator hall to... store stuff.

I'm going off nothing here, but I have a feeling Imagineering didn't fight too hard on account of those are tiny show buildings. Anything you put in there wouldn't be a prestige project like the various enormous cubes we have at each park now. So they kick the can down the road and hope to level the spaces and go Soarin' on it at a later date.
 
DoleWhipDrea

DoleWhipDrea

Well-Known Member
I mean, I'd still love a ride like this, though I'd want them adjusting the attraction vehicles to seat parties together:

1639467881124.png


I don't hate IP, but I'd like a non-IP and relaxing attraction taking me to outer space. Disney became so desperate to replace slow attractions with thrill rides that they forgot about balance...
 
UNCgolf

UNCgolf

Well-Known Member
DoleWhipDrea said:
I don't hate IP, but I'd like a non-IP and relaxing attraction taking me to outer space. Disney became so desperate to replace slow attractions with thrill rides that they forgot about balance...
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It's a mistake I've seen other companies make (video game companies have had some gigantic failures chasing the newest trend, ignoring the fact that different people enjoy different types of games). I think they believe the market for thrill rides is higher than for slow, dark rides, which is probably true, and so they need to focus on building more thrill rides -- but there are two problems with that.

The first problem is specific to Disney, in that they're generally considered a family park and have lots of young kids visiting. It doesn't align especially well with a significant part (almost certainly the majority) of the market base to build attractions that small children can't ride.

The second is that although thrill rides may have a larger overall fan base, not everyone prefers them to slow rides, and there are plenty of people who don't like them at all. When you're selling something like a theme park, you want to appeal to as many groups as possible. If you replace every slow/dark ride with a thrill ride (Disney isn't going to do this, but hypothetically for the sake of argument), you're going to lose all the people who prefer the other attractions, and you won't make up the difference in new attendance both because there are already people who come for the existing thrill rides (i.e. you're not tapping into a completely new market) and because people that solely want big thrills already have better options at other parks.
 
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CJR

CJR

Well-Known Member
Not sure if this means anything, but the other night, it did look like work was going on inside. The lights were all on inside the pavilion with what looked like blue screens visible from the outside. I didn't take a photo as I noticed it in passing and we were already late leaving the park. If anyone happens to catch it though, definitely post a photo. It looked very interesting and seemed like it might be further along than it appeared to be.
 
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Gran Fiesta

Well-Known Member
I'm assuming this won't be open for the 40th? It looks like they are hurrying GOTG and I'm assuming Journey of Water is next (I hope at least to get rid of the walls).
 

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