Worst mistake in Epcot history

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

Honestly there's been a lot of changes that I'm not a fan of at EPCOT so it was hard to choose.
I'm not a fan of The Seas With Nemo and Friends (or whatever its called).
While I like Mission: Space the rest of my family doesn't so I don't go on.
I will say I enjoyed TT better than World Of Motion but I hate TT 2.0.
I wish Kitchen Cabaret/Food Rocks was still around although I do enjoy Soarin Around the World (wasn't that where the show was?)
I liked Innoventions when it had a lot of physical things to do like the bikes and the hot/cold poles.
I thought I'd be more upset about Maelstrom changing to FEA but honestly its a fun ride.
I enjoy this version of Figment although I also enjoyed it with Dreamfinder.
I wish ImageWorks was still up on the second floor with the rainbow tunnel and pin tables.
Illuminations into Harmonious is probably the hardest pill to swallow though.
I understand that not all changes can please all people though so I take what I like and I leave the rest.

 

[TikibirdLand]

So many changes have turned out to be disappointments huh? I'm not sure I care which one is worst, it's the count that tells.

We're unsure about communicore/fountain because it's unfinished. But their decision to back off on the original plan is typical cost cutting that has marred so many potentially great additions over the years. I actually thought the platform overlooking the park was going to be fantastic, well until they filled the lake with metal anyway. I also think there's supposed to be a new fountain which is potentially great.

There are some bright spots, the rat ride and expanded "paris" was a solid addition. GotG is going to be great (whether or not it fits) and was not diminished by cheapskates.

Solid attractions need to please AND EAT crowds. Rat seems to just barely meet that. Will GotG please them? I think so (as much as rollers would). Eating crowds? Maybe better than TRON. Like Ellen's Energy Adventure? Definitely not. They killed all the dark rides in Future World and never replaced them with people eaters. But, it's where we are...

 

[HauntedPirate]

If only there could have been somewhere at DHS where some Pixar stuff could have been built...

 

[Patcheslee]

I have a personal grudge against Mission after being stuck on it lol. Never got to experience Horizons so it'd be nice to do.

 

[the.dreamfinder]

The repeated lie that “Epcot Center was a failure” was a pretty big mistake as everything done to “fix” the park ruined it.

 

[the.dreamfinder]

I have a personal grudge against Mission after being stuck on it lol. Never got to experience Horizons so it'd be nice to do.

 

[wdwmagic]

For me it was the decision to abandon the Epcot concept and turn the park into MK 2.0

 

[ToTBellHop]

I went with Imagination because it was the start of decline, but I always hoped they’d fix it (and they could have). Recent updates have made the misguided vision for the park into a permanent change.

Why, again, did we lose Fountain of Nations?

 

[HauntedPirate]

I went with Imagination because it was the start of decline, but I always hoped they’d fix it (and they could have). Recent updates have made the misguided vision for the park into a permanent change.

Why, again, did we lose Fountain of Nations?

Because... reasons. And Bob.

 

[James Alucobond]

While I think many decisions have been misguided or the product of misallocated funds, I will always have a bigger problem with things that actively make the park a less beautiful place to inhabit. So, it’s Harmonious for me. Journey is just a ride I can skip, Mission: SPACE is perfectly fine and actually has a lovely facade, and while the center of the park is currently a wreck and waste of resources, I’m sure it will be attractive to walk through. The barges are an unavoidable disaster.

 

[Lilofan]

I have a personal grudge against Mission after being stuck on it lol. Never got to experience Horizons so it'd be nice to do.

Try getting stuck on Test Track in your ride vehicle on the outside track backstage in Epcot roasting under the broiling sun until the mechanics came to rescue you.

 

[trainplane3]

I went with Imagination because it was the start of decline, but I always hoped they’d fix it (and they could have). Recent updates have made the misguided vision for the park into a permanent change.

Why, again, did we lose Fountain of Nations?

Agreed. Imagination would've been timeless but still needed updates for effects and AA's. Still would've been the parks "Small World" to this day. Massive misstep for the park.

Floor boy said Epcot was too hot and trees will fix it even though DHS is by far the worst park for concrete wasteland and cooking its guests.

 

[ImperfectPixie]

Agreed. Imagination would've been timeless but still needed updates for effects and AA's. Still would've been the parks "Small World" to this day. Massive misstep for the park.

Floor boy said Epcot was too hot and trees will fix it even though DHS is by far the worst park for concrete wasteland and cooking its guests.

I find AK to be the worst for trapped heat and guest-cooking.

 

[Heppenheimer]

I went with Imagination, because there's such a huge gap in quality between what was and now what is. Plus, depending on how you count it, the original iteration of the Imagination pavilion had 3 to 5 different attractions- the actual ride, Image Works, Making Memories (you could count that as separate or just the pre-show for the 3D film), Magic Journeys/Captain Eo, and you could even consider the fountains and waterworks outside as a separate attraction (do they even still have those?). What do we have now with Imagination, an extremely underwhelming ride and kind of an Image Works?

I was never that impressed with Horizons (to each his own, but I found it too redundant of the overall theme of Epcot), and although I'm not wowed by Mission Space, I at least find the concept well executed, even if the concept itself isn't that great.

 

[Virtual Toad]

A virtual tie between Figment and Horizons, but I voted Horizons because it best portrayed the park’s over-arching mission statement: that a better world through imagination, innovention, and cooperation was possible and worth striving for. The true embodiment of Walt Disney’s optimism for the future.

We used to do the rest of EPCOT first and save Horizons for last because it was the perfect final chapter, the exclamation point at the end of the day that perfectly punctuated everything else.

All the classic EPCOT rides and the park’s original vision worked so very well to touch the heart and feed the soul, which as a previous poster rightly stated, were both ripped out when JII and Horizons were removed. In the end, losing both was a fatal one-two punch. Without those two attractions, the park lost its way, its mission, its unique identity, and as we see now, its own future as well.

How desperately we need a dose of utopian optimism these days. Having a true EPCOT to feed and inspire would be so very good for the world in more ways than we realize.

 

[Patcheslee]

Try getting stuck on Test Track in your ride vehicle on the outside track backstage in Epcot roasting under the broiling sun until the mechanics came to rescue you.

I wouldn't rather that than dealing with a husband having an asthma attack and unable to reach the inhaler in his pocket while having kids in another pod beating on panels and screaming like they are being murdered.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

For me it was the decision to abandon the Epcot concept and turn the park into MK 2.0

I'd like to amend this by saying "abandon the Epcot concept and turn the park into Iger-era MK"

IMO, MK was also at its peak when EPCOT Center was as well (no coincidence).

Making Epcot like MK now unfortunately does not mean adding things like House of Magic, Dreamflight or The Diamond Horseshoe.

 

[TwilightZone]

As much as I hate the Imagination change, I voted mission space, because at least YOUR Imagination and Figment didn't kill two people.

 

[Sir_Cliff]

I think it has to be Imagination. A great case can be made for Horizons being the superior attraction in many ways, but the original Imagination was the kind of attraction that deserved to be held up alongside Pirates and Mansion as an all-timer, the kind of attraction that would be replicated in parks the world over. Whereas Horizons would necessitate updates, the original Journey was a ride that could essentially remain the same, just with some effects tweaking, for as long as Disney wanted it to remain. Figment remains a park icon to this day largely off the strength of an attraction that hasn't been around for over twenty years now, that's how impactful it was.

I very much agree with this reasoning for choosing Imagination as their biggest mistake. They had a classic attraction in JII with an appealing character and classic song that just needed some technical updates as almost all attractions do over the years, and they destroyed it. What they did is a little like if they had of gutted a hypothetical single version of the Haunted Mansion in 1989 and replaced it with a shorter, watered down, and demonstrably worse version hosted by a comedian best known from their work in the 1960s. Now they're left using the fond memories and remnants of the original attraction to market the park despite the fact the attraction isn't there anymore and the one that replaced it isn't very popular.

Horizons was a loss but would have required a lot more updating and I'm not sure had as much potential to become a timeless classic as JII. Illuminations also had to end some time and Harmonious can be more easily replaced and presumably will be at some point. Hell, they could probably bring back ROE in fairly short order if they really wanted to.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Where the HECK is World of Motion?!?!?! That’s the answer. Like ripping out Disneyland’s Pirates.

Really, the destruction of WoM, Horizons, and Imagination (and Kitchen Kabaret) can’t be separated. All sprang from the same completely misguided sense of corporate panic and foolishness and all were replaced by massively inferior attractions. Nothing afterwards can come close to that miscalculation, since it effectively destroyed EPCOT and subsequent mistakes have just been rearranging a hollow, meaningless shell.