The stabilization work was to support the floating mountain structures which are heavy and require specialized footings, but that is a minority of the land's footprint. The rest of the buildings, attractions and environment aren't anything excessive. The length of time to prep the area was because the show environment is essentially a second floor. There is a lot of infrastructure underneath.
Which was a feat of engineering in every building.
I was just going to say, the Epcot project was one of the largest construction projects undertaken - it was absolutely huge. They got site prep, new waterways and lakes, new tunnels and back of house, all of FW, including all custom buildings with never before undertaken engineering and technologies --- SSE? the team had an idea how to build that, but it was a guessing game that it would work. Universe of Energy had to have a perfectly level floor with a guide wire embedded at the exact depth (which kept breaking during construction) - even CommuniCore was something that didn't use standard construction techniques --- all of FW, plus all of World Showcase, which entailed new buildings and then facades on top of the buildings, then attraction installs, plus new monorail beams, plus a new station, plus new parking lots and roads...and on and on...and they accomplished that in the amount of time it takes to usually build one new land or sometimes single attraction now. You and I know why it takes so long, but have to give credit to the original teams who did what they did.
To me, I see things like the third track and the bathrooms taking so long because they weren't in any urgent rush to get it done. There was no need to go faster from Disney's perspective. Would I have liked to see it have gone faster? Absolutely. Nobody was beating down the door asking for a Tangled bathroom and they got the 3rd track open when it was needed imo (when everything else closed). It's just typical Disney in that they were spreading costs out over quarters.Frozen actually opened on the 21st and SDMT opened on May 28th. Other than that you're good
I'm still dumbfounded by how long that third track took
I think it only makes sense for people to be skeptical of the pace of construction at WDW today based on recent projects. We are probably more sensitive to timing because there has been a pattern of projects taking way too long. In reality it's still possible or even likely that the 2 Star Wars Lands open less than a year apart but the initial work makes it seem like DL is way ahead.
They honestly aren't going that much faster out there. All work is still for ROA/DLRR. The land is cleared and they aren't really rushing to get anything done with SWL.
like, like, like....
