News New Park Entrance coming to Epcot

marni1971

Park History nut
Premium Member
I'm still in my denial phase on this and Cosmic Rewind since they're so ugly and so easy to fix. I've moved to acceptance for Harmonious, sadly.

With the skyliner views in particular, the vertical height is already there on the show building to not require a complete buildout of structures. They could literally just plaster a more dimensional facade along the front and side and no one would be able to see the lack of roofing or interior structure.
I know that. You know that.
 

TikibirdLand

Well-Known Member
Okay, wait a minute. I have to be missing something here.

How in the world can you do a Hogwarts Express solution at WDW linking EPCOT, DHS and the hotels they have linked?? Seriously?
you could put the busses on a dedicated path, maybe something thin that you could raise off the ground. IIRC, Bob Gurr designed something like that back in the 50's. It would be so cool!
 

jt04

Well-Known Member
Soarin' would definitely be last on my list. I'd sooner lop off the top of the Dolphin triangle and topple the Swans.

Swalphin has a certain French aesthetic I can accept. I have only ever noticed them when deliberately looking. I was more concerned at the time about the intrusion of non-Disney projects on property. But they've grown on me.
 

marni1971

Park History nut
Premium Member
Swalphin has a certain French aesthetic I can accept. I have only ever noticed them when deliberately looking. I was more concerned at the time about the intrusion of non-Disney projects on property. But they've grown on me.
That’s possibly why I accept them. The whimsical design to me kind of fits in with the romantic expression of Showcase.

I first saw them completed in June 1990 when brand new with minimal landscaping around them and Gateway. They just seemed to... fit. Despite seeing the park without them too.
 

jt04

Well-Known Member
Because that is not it's main function. The skyliner was made to take people from those resorts to the 2 parks to eliminate buses from those routes. It was not meant as a direct line from Epcot to DHS, for that they have the walking path.

I just think they could have handled it more creatively. Just my opinion.
 

Phicinfan

Well-Known Member
Break them up into segments. Small skyliner runs and short light rail segments.

What doesn't make sense is the convoluted means to get from DHS to the Epcot entrance compared to the point to point "crows fly" distance. It is a very strange solution. IMO of course.
I don't live in the area, but I assume what they did was due to ride-away capability and reducing the amount of traffic interference. I will also laugh if you think there is any way they would install light rail, when it is a given they won't expand the monorail system they have now.

What I am looking for is the next step, what that will be to tie in DAK.
 

Phicinfan

Well-Known Member
you could put the busses on a dedicated path, maybe something thin that you could raise off the ground. IIRC, Bob Gurr designed something like that back in the 50's. It would be so cool!
Granted, but you have to remember the drive for this was to eliminate busses. So a dedicated bus line would not meet that need.
 

EeyoreFan#24

Well-Known Member
Granted, but you have to remember the drive for this was to eliminate busses. So a dedicated bus line would not meet that need.
I guess the argument could be made that increasing the efficiency of the fleet would decrease the overall fleet need, but overall I agree it’s just prolonging the overall goal of bus elimination.(or as close as possible)
 

James Alucobond

Well-Known Member
Swalphin has a certain French aesthetic I can accept. I have only ever noticed them when deliberately looking. I was more concerned at the time about the intrusion of non-Disney projects on property. But they've grown on me.
That’s possibly why I accept them. The whimsical design to me kind of fits in with the romantic expression of Showcase.
My opinion is probably unfairly colored by the fact that I work in a Michael Graves-designed building on a daily basis, so I can safely be ignored on the matter.
 

HauntedPirate

Park nostalgist
Premium Member
That’s possibly why I accept them. The whimsical design to me kind of fits in with the romantic expression of Showcase.

I first saw them completed in June 1990 when brand new with minimal landscaping around them and Gateway. They just seemed to... fit. Despite seeing the park without them too.

Of the list of visual "irritants" present in and around Epcot, the Swan and Tuna are not on that list, for me at least. Nor is the ToT.
 

J4546

Well-Known Member
ha I ask because they are digging out around the west side of the basement, which of course got me thinking how cool it would be if they made an access point to the basement that was reconfigured to a walk through attraction that simulated a massive cavern system
 

sedati

Well-Known Member
That’s possibly why I accept them. The whimsical design to me kind of fits in with the romantic expression of Showcase.

I first saw them completed in June 1990 when brand new with minimal landscaping around them and Gateway. They just seemed to... fit. Despite seeing the park without them too.
Sorry, what now?
Whimsy in EPCOT? Is it really MK2.0 after all? Elsas a problem, but maybe a fifty foot monochromatic troll statue looming over the Norway pavilion would be A-O.K?
Swan and Dolphin decimated any sense of scale in World Showcase, as did Yacht and Beach Club. The hotels are fine, but the views from inside the park are and have always been horrendous (I too saw them bare and new.) Swans as big as the Eiffel Tower? What makes those hotels worse is the we can see normal sized windows on normal sized floors standing behind buildings with diminished effects in play. Our brain is basically confronted with a background element that reads as larger than the foreground.
Any windowless structure is better though neither would be best.
From the outset I have always found the forced perspective ratio too severe in World Showcase especially for the sheer size of the lagoon. In Magic Kingdom these elements work because we are amongst them- except for the far larger castle we aren't seeing the standard 10:9:8 three story buildings from half a mile away. Things only got worse when the trees around them matured and the whole thing looked even more like a bunch of miniatures. The resorts were the final blow to any visual cohesion. There's so much furur now, but the nails were in the coffin thirty years ago. Build a mountain range, otherwise I don't know if the promenade can ever look right again.
 
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sedati

Well-Known Member
Don't worry. The handpie fountains will save us from suffering the inhumanity of disproportionate sense of scale by blocking all things all the time.
When the tower was being built (1887) for the Paris Centennial Exhibition in 1889, many thought it was an eyesore. It was originally
only supposed to stand for 20 years.
A group of writers (of course) and artists started complaining and referred to the Tower as “the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower.” One critic called it “a lamp post stuck in the belly of Paris” and another referred to it as “a giant ungainly skeleton.”

Adding such a structure to the lagoon pays homage to Parisian history and architectural contrasts- it just kinda... fits.
;)
 

wdwmagic

Administrator
Moderator
Premium Member
Original Poster

'Points of Light' in place on the underside of Spaceship Earth for EPCOT'S 'Beacons of Magic' show​

Spaceship-Earth_Full_42329.jpg
 

Kamikaze

Well-Known Member
Break them up into segments. Small skyliner runs and short light rail segments.

What doesn't make sense is the convoluted means to get from DHS to the Epcot entrance compared to the point to point "crows fly" distance. It is a very strange solution. IMO of course.
So in one post you both asked for 'small segments' of a transport solution and complained about non-direct segments of a transport solution.
 

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