EPCOT Announced: Mary Poppins Attraction in UK Pavilion

[A Noble Fish]

Small World to Epcot is a good idea. Here's an idea....

Step 1: gut Imagination and turn it into a "Unity" Pavilion. Put IASW in the Imagination show building. Also, reroute the Soarin queue so that Soarin is part of this Pavilion (I think this is a Grassey idea). Use the theater for a Zootopia show that celebrates the progress that we have made in diversity. This would be a great pavilion for "World Celebration"

Step 2: Expand the "Play" pavilion to a "Imagination and Play" Pavilion. Build a new Figment ride with Dreamfinder off the back of the Play pavilion.

Step 3: Tear out the IASW load building to widen the walkway. Use the IASW show building as queue and load for two attractions: A tangled ride and a second attraction. Build the show buildings for these attractions behind (to the north) the current IASW show building.

Sorry for going on an armchair rant.

IASW at Imagination would be walk-on all day and close early at EPCOT for almost the entire year. At Magic Kingdom, it's always busy.

A unity pavilion isn't a bad idea, but that would be a botched execution.

The only thing that makes sense is creating a new, modern Imagination replacement, and replacing the speedway with a Tomorrowland sub-land/ride.

 

[FigmentJedi]

If anything, Small World in Play Pavilion would make more sense. Lean on the "children of the world" and toy aesthetics to be about getting the world to peacefully play together. Put a new Tower of the Four Winds in front of the Wonder Dome as a throwback to both the Fair and the old DNA tower.

 

[jt04]

If anything, Small World in Play Pavilion would make more sense. Lean on the "children of the world" and toy aesthetics to be about getting the world to peacefully play together. Put a new Tower of the Four Winds in front of the Wonder Dome as a throwback to both the Fair and the old DNA tower.

Interesting idea and there is space to expand the pavilion. Could have a smaller footprint than the original and use trackless instead of boats. The throughput of MMRR is impressive.

 

[BubbaisSleep]

About time we get an interesting carousel or one that goes outside the box ( or circle ). Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk has taken the title since it was open over 100 years ago. There's been pretty second story ones since but I'm shocked we haven't seen an interactive one since SCBB.

 

[Rich Brownn]

Interesting idea and there is space to expand the pavilion. Could have a smaller footprint than the original and use trackless instead of boats. The throughput of MMRR is impressive.

You'd never get up to the throughput of the boats though. Remember, IASW was designed for the NYWF which saw 55 million in 12 months vrs the 18-20 WDW/DL gets. Capacity was everything at the fair if you wanted people to see your pavilion. The biggies (GE, GM, Ford) had capacity of 3,000 people or more per hour! And there were still long lines.

 

[PJBuckeye]

Did someone activate the "move 'it's a small world' to Epcot' beacon?" My spidey sense was tingling.

I cited you

 

[Creathir]

There's a good chance they have been waiting to see how guests react to mmrr before deciding what to greenlight.

I highly doubt that.
Projection based attractions have been around for years now, I cannot imagine they do not have a solid understanding of what the guest satisfaction is or is not with a ride incorporating the technology.

 

[Rteetz]

There's a good chance they have been waiting to see how guests react to mmrr before deciding what to greenlight.

Yeah... no...

 

[Disone]

This reeks of the Cheapek.
No news is not good news.

I don't disagree. I suspect if there are not shovels in the dirt within the next few months, the project joined the mainstreet theatre. There is construction on Epcot resorts blvd, between BC and BW. While it is not the attraction, it may be a project that requires completion before the Poppins project can start.

 

[dreamersnight]

If the experience is not a huge thing, construction could start in the next few months for an opening in 2022 for the 40th anniversary of Epcot. So i am not worry about

 

[Goofy213]

Seems like Rat has not taken that long. How long have they been working on it? That's a pretty complex ride system, and from rumors Poppins isn't. I know Rat is a clone, but hopefully they fixed some of the mistakes they made in France on this one. Needless to say that Rat has not been as long as a project as Star Wars, Pandora, or even the smaller project of SDMT. 2022 is not unrealistic for Poppins if it was started after Rat opens, which according to sources will be in the next couple months. Furthermore look at the work that was done with MMRR, most of the set peices were made months in advance in a warehouse. Most of Poppins could already be constructed and waiting for a home to put it in. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Rat and MMRR were relatively short in construction time even with the amount of detail they put into them. If the same goes for Poppins we may just be somewhat surprised.

 

[WildRide]

If it is a new tech carousel, it would be nice if it had various scenarios from both movies. Would help with replay value.

 

[Robbiem]

Let's compromise. If Imagination 1.0 doesn't return, put IASW in there. I realize there would be logistics changing it to a boat ride.

i guess you could make small world an omnimover or trackless. Yes itwoul be the same happiest cruise but it could be good to do a new spin on a classic

 

[Homemade Imagineering]

i guess you could make small world an omnimover or trackless. Yes itwoul be the same happiest cruise but it could be good to do a new spin on a classic

Personally, I wouldn’t want IASW to go into Epcot, especially in a space that has a ton of future potential at the moment. IASW has always been a castle park staple, and while it does fit Future world’s theme, it feels extremely unnecessary to move it to Epcot, but instead give it updates similar to Tokyo’s IASW for the 50th. Imagination doesn’t deserve to be replaced by any existing attraction that would have to be moved. If Disney is smart, they’ll stick with a dreamfinder and figment concept of some type, no matter the budget. Now of course we all have our opinions about imagination’s future, and that’s okay. Just wanted to throw mine out there

 

[DreamfinderGuy]

So what’s the deal here? Cancelled? Halted? Delayed? Does anyone know?

 

[UNCgolf]

So what’s the deal here? Cancelled? Halted? Delayed? Does anyone know?

Well it's definitely delayed considering they never even started construction. I wouldn't be surprised if it's cancelled, though.

 

[PJBuckeye]

So what’s the deal here? Cancelled? Halted? Delayed? Does anyone know?

Assumption at this point is that any project that hasn't began construction is on hold, including Poppins. This could eventually be a blessing. From all reports, the current plan was scaled back. Perhaps, we will receive something better in the future.

 

[danlb_2000]

Seems like Rat has not taken that long. How long have they been working on it? That's a pretty complex ride system, and from rumors Poppins isn't. I know Rat is a clone, but hopefully they fixed some of the mistakes they made in France on this one. Needless to say that Rat has not been as long as a project as Star Wars, Pandora, or even the smaller project of SDMT. 2022 is not unrealistic for Poppins if it was started after Rat opens, which according to sources will be in the next couple months. Furthermore look at the work that was done with MMRR, most of the set peices were made months in advance in a warehouse. Most of Poppins could already be constructed and waiting for a home to put it in. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Rat and MMRR were relatively short in construction time even with the amount of detail they put into them. If the same goes for Poppins we may just be somewhat surprised.

Site work appears to have started around October of 2017. So we were looking at around 2 1/2 years to build.

 

[UNCgolf]

Seems like Rat has not taken that long. How long have they been working on it? That's a pretty complex ride system, and from rumors Poppins isn't. I know Rat is a clone, but hopefully they fixed some of the mistakes they made in France on this one. Needless to say that Rat has not been as long as a project as Star Wars, Pandora, or even the smaller project of SDMT. 2022 is not unrealistic for Poppins if it was started after Rat opens, which according to sources will be in the next couple months. Furthermore look at the work that was done with MMRR, most of the set peices were made months in advance in a warehouse. Most of Poppins could already be constructed and waiting for a home to put it in. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Rat and MMRR were relatively short in construction time even with the amount of detail they put into them. If the same goes for Poppins we may just be somewhat surprised.

Rat didn't have to be designed first, though. They were just cloning a ride that already existed. MMRR did have to be designed, but they were also using an existing building (and one that was basically already a large warehouse rather than something that needed significant retrofitting) as opposed to constructing something from the ground up with all the site prep etc. that entails.

Considering they apparently never even decided exactly what they wanted to build for Poppins (other than the Cherry Tree Lane facades), they'd have to actually finalize a decision and then build the whole attraction and facade from scratch. I would expect it to take longer than Rat or MMRR.

 

[Purduevian]

Rat didn't have to be designed first, though. They were just cloning a ride that already existed. MMRR did have to be designed, but they were also using an existing building (and one that was basically already a large warehouse rather than something that needed significant retrofitting) as opposed to constructing something from the ground up with all the site prep etc. that entails.

Considering they apparently never even decided exactly what they wanted to build for Poppins (other than the Cherry Tree Lane facades), they'd have to actually finalize a decision and then build the whole attraction and facade from scratch. I would expect it to take longer than Rat or MMRR.

I think you would be surprised at the amount of design work needed to clone a ride. Site differences, building code differences, weather differences, and guest flow differences would all take a long time to sort out. I'm not saying it's as complicated as designing a new ride from scratch, but it's not just Ctrl+C and Ctrl+v