I am, excited to see it all completed alongside the hub which should look gorgeous at night, especially with a glowing SSE in the background the lighting on Connections and Creations and having them all synced up. Should be gorgeous, especially with all the greenery.
Somebody fact check me, but I think the original version of this attraction was to be a non IP, "edutainment" attraction about the journey of water, then sometime later the Moana IP was slapped on it, and all the references to Moana added.
It's going to be a nice place out of the direct sunlight to check my Genie+ app to see where my NEXT LL will be.
I hope so too, as a fan of old school Epcot, I admit the park has needed a face-lift for a long time. I just personally don't see this as a draw for park goers. I see it as something they'll walk past or walk through quickly, say "oh that looks nice," before heading straight to whatever "real" attraction (Gaurdians, Test Track, Frozen) they're wanting to do there.
Perhaps a long time ago before plans were solid. But the plans with the Festival Center included Journey of Water with the exact same layout. The only differences in that quadrant were a flyover behind the attraction to access the Festival Center and a slight extension of the building on the southern edge of Journey of Water to fill out the space slightly where the path toward The Land bent downward instead of cutting straight across.
It would never have been approved without IP.
I think it will be a fun little walkthrough. Not everything has to be top tier attraction.
We can agree to disagree.
I don't disagree, Disney doesn't need every attraction to be a thrill ride or even a ride at all. Or even a show. I very much enjoy the more ambient, immersive attractions that you can explore.
Theres nothing to disagree with.
There really wasn't any cohesion, though. Journey of Water was always a self-contained walk-through with both its sole entrance and exit facing The Seas near Coral Reef Restaurant. There's actually more connection between Communicore Hall and the center of the park than in the tabletop design since it has a two-sided stage that can play omnidirectionally and allows guests to pass freely from the gardens toward Imagination. In the plans above, you can see that the Festival Center as originally designed was actually completely cut off from the center of the park by a planted berm.
Eh, Moana is great. So I'm in.
It's a very well done movie, I agree. One of Disney's best I'd say.
I suppose I may have misinterpreted what Disney's original plans for Epcot's makeover for this area then.
It's easy to be confused since art like this came out along the way too, where every part of the original CommuniCore was leveled aside from the current location of Connections. Also, we didn't initially have access to the site plan, and Journey of Water was especially difficult to read in some of the artwork.
It was in the original plan without Moana and Moana was added later.
They also featured the model of this in the Epcot preview area inside The Odyssey pavillion that further gave me the impression it was all part of one big cohesive area.
