Last year at the D23 expo Disney announced a compete overhaul coming to Epcot’s Future World area. To make way for all the new attractions Disney began to shut down many shops and character greetings in the fall. I took a recent visit for the Festival of the Arts and was surprised to find that Future World was nothing but walls.
Walking into the park the first thing you see is a wall up just before the main park symbol the Spaceship Earth sphere. They also had this makeshift wall of bushes closing off traffic to the left of the ride.
The main fountain behind Spaceship Earth is behind walls and Innoventions are all closed for construction. The meet and greets that were found here have been moved to the area by Journey into Imagination with Figment. The Starbucks has also been relocated.
The Starbucks is now right at the beginning of World Showcase before entering the Canada pavilion.
The Electric Umbrella closed this month leaving Sunshine Seasons in the Land pavilion the only quick service restaurant in Future World.
In front of Mission Space there is a wall up where they are finishing construction on the new Space 220 restaurant which is due to open any day now.
In January a new film called Awesome Planet debuted inside the Land pavilion. It runs about 10 minutes long and has special effects to go with the film such as wind and water and is narrated by Ty Burrel (Phil on Modern Family).
The wall up in front of the Guardians of the Galaxy ride doesn’t hide much of the building at this point. The ride is not set to open until 2021 but since the ride is inside we won’t see much in the way of progress.
Here you can see the Innovations building that used to house Club Cool is being deconstructed.
The Ratatouille ride is set to open this summer in the France pavilion. From the skyliner you can see a lot of progress has been made and the building facades are in place and so is the fountain.
All the walls in Future World did also make it a bit harder to get around the park as only certain parts were open. Test Track is currently undergoing a refurbishment but the other rides in the area are all still fully operational.