James Alucobond
Well-Known Member
Official word is still autumn. It looks close, but never underestimate their will to string something along until their desired fiscal quarter.
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EPCOT Journey of Water featuring Moana coming to Epcot
- Thread starter Rteetz
- Start date
MagicHappens1971
Well-Known Member
I've done one drink in the 11 countries in ~6 hours. It can be done safely, but I guess it just depends on the person.
Phicinfan
Well-Known Member
I just booked a trip Sept 4-8 so bet it won't open til November
Casper Gutman
Well-Known Member
Do we expect the central plaza to open at that time, or will most of the walls come down?
James Alucobond
Well-Known Member
I have no inside knowledge of whether they will or won’t be taken down progressively, but my suspicion is that, while walls may be pushed back around Journey of Water, several of the planted islands, and the outer paths, the gardens will remain mostly off limits until very near the end. My rationale for this is that, if opened independently, a lot of the paths within them terminate in weird ways without access to Dreamers Point, the central five-ring logo, and the area where the Fountain of Nations stood, all of which are progressing more slowly than other elements of the revamp. Dreamers Point in particular gives an elevated view of the gardens, so I would imagine that at the very least would remain behind walls until the view is ready for prime time. But that’s all speculation.
The Wishing Tree was never spoken of again for a long time.
The fountain which was in all the concept art disappeared when new art showed the center of the hub to be a festival, light show, landscape feature.
Fear
Well-Known Member
It should not be visible to guests within the park. It will only be visible to Monorail guests.
It was plopped there likely because it needed some proximity to the fountains themselves.
James Alucobond
Well-Known Member
Y'know, thinking about it, using the Wishing Tree to activate the garden-facing space behind Journey of Water would have been a good idea to make that quadrant feel more alive on the World Celebration side. Since it was apparently an interactive synthetic fiber-optic tree of some kind, you could have put in an alcove in about the area indicated below with a retaining wall and some seating, plus filled out the surrounding plantings with a combination of real and synthetic fiber-optic flora.
Assuming they do things properly, it should also be minimally visible to monorail riders. Note that trees in the planted berm on the opposite side easily reach monorail window level and obscure the view of Guest Relations. There's no reason they shouldn't be able to do the same thing here to hide most views of the plant. We'll see whether or not they follow through.
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A 100th anniversary nighttime lagoon show to replace Epcot Forever which may happen before or after the walls.
Then there were projects put on indefinite pause which may happen: Coco retheme of Gran Fiesta; Mary Poppins attraction; Figment update or complete retheme; SSE update.
TTA94
Well-Known Member
I wish they’d at least still do the fountain. Wasn’t there at one point plans to put fountains in the water areas by the bridge going to WS?
EPCOTCenterLover
Well-Known Member
100th anniversary of Epcot?
Well, Epcot is Forever!100th anniversary of Epcot?
James Alucobond
Well-Known Member
Pretty sure that was in the super early art where all of Communicore was gone except for where Connections is now. The artwork was also kind of too abstract of a photobash to really be sure if they were permanent daytime fountains or part of a show or, well, even fountains at all and not just some artistic flourish.
Casper Gutman
Well-Known Member
The seeming lack of any kind of water feature in the central core is genuinely shocking and shameful. Eliminating the classic fountain and adding foliage feels almost like a lateral move in making the area less sterile.