Imagine walking into Epcot from the parking lot and walking under or through a giant hotel before you reach Spaceship Earth. If plans are approved, this may very well be the scene at the entrance area of Walt Disney World’s 35-year-old vision of the future.
If approved, the resort will stand at one of two proposed sites (seen above), either between The Land and The Seas pavilions in Future World, or directly over the entrance to Epcot, most likely connecting to the preexisting monorail station in some way. If the design located in front of Spaceship Earth is approved, it shouldn’t block the view of Spaceship Earth completely, but rather be used to frame the famous structure between towers or something of the sort.
It is no secret that the Walt Disney Company sees a lot of promise in the idea of resorts connected to or inside of the theme parks. This isn’t a new concept as Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel and Hotel Miracosta are already in existence (both opened way back in 2001), as well as the Disneyland Hotel at Disneyland Paris, which is sprawled out in front of the park’s entrance, requiring guests walk under it to enter the park. Disney has also already announced a Star Wars hotel that would in theory be connected to Disney’s Hollywood Studios, home of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.
The resort would be part of the ongoing expansion and re-imagining of Epcot, which is already announced to include a Guardians of the Galaxy roller coaster, a Ratatouille family ride, a space restaurant, and a new seamless Circlevision film for the China pavilion.
The hotel is still in the very early stages of development, which means it could end up in front of Spaceship Earth or off to the side, or maybe not even happen at all. Either way, should it happen, it will offer quick and easy entrance into Epcot from the front of the park and offer unparalleled views of Future World.
I would like a room with a nice view of the future world graveyard with the face tombstones for eternity! Hahahaha
This is funny!
Oh my goodness- I never once thought of those monuments as headstones until you said this. But ya know, they DO look like them now that I think about it! Great- I will never look at them the same way ever again! Thanks for that, btw. Hahaha!!!
You won’t have to look at them for long, as Disney has decided to remove them prior to the 50th anniversary celebration.
I’m not on board with this idea until I see a Polaroid.
I’m pretty sure this is just a charging station for Bob Chapek
Sounds gorgeous!
When I said I wanted people to be able to live in EPCOT, this wasn’t what I had in mind.
When I’m walking up to Epcot, I don’t want something blocking the view of Spaceship Earth. That’s such a beautiful and amazing sight, the centerpiece of the park.
Would love to see hotels on site A and site B!!!
At this point, I’d be fine if they put in a garbage dump as long as those horrible, concrete tombstones would be gone.
Ohhhh!!! my…
totally agree with you..
they’re hideous.
remember 80’s EPCOT. the fountain at the entrance and flowers around.
just perfect
I don’t hate this idea. haha. But I do think it would be better served if it was on Site B. I don’t think you want to disrupt the visual of walking into Epcot with Spaceship Earth in front of you. I think it’s a great spot for a hotel though… surprised this idea wasn’t implemented years ago.
Ew. If this is true, I hope to God these plans fail miserably.
Can you imagine how congested the front of the park will become if this goes through?
If this does wind up happening they had better install parking garages to accommodate the extra cars.
I think they need to stop building so many hotels. It is overcrowded enough as is and with all the addition of more of them and more DVC…..more people are coming. When I became a DVC member 10 years ago the parks were manageable.
You could do a lot more with lower wait times. There wasn’t even fastpasses and we could get on most rides in 20 min. So I’m not for this at all. They are going to get too big and things are going to start getting sloppy.
People aren’t going not stop coming, especially with Star Wars coming…
Of course people are going to continue to come. But it’s proven that the more opportunity for additional resorts and DVC purchases it will increase more than if you didn’t have the DVC. I love being a DVC member. But let’s face it if I wasn’t I would probably come once every 4-5 years versus the once a year I do now. I could never afford it if I wasn’t a DVC member. And there was less people before they started adding all these extra resorts. I even spoke with a cast member about this one time a few years ago about the increase of attendance since the increase of resorts.
More rooms, and less and less to do. No wonder my Disney stock sucks. Horrible idea until they refurb the parks, consider a 5th, and staff their existing parks appropriately to reduce huge crowds and lines.
What would you call all of the work in the parks now?
I would call the additional area Disney has added to their theme parks in the last 10 years barely a drop in the bucket. The increase of square footage of park space for guests to enjoy versus added rooms for revenue is what, 1 to 1,000,000? All they’ve added lately is mostly taking out decades old stuff, for newer promotionally related rides.
Our family enjoys the parks, but the cut backs are glaring, and the interest to have a bunch of rooms with less for people to do is getting silly. Just learned at Epcot, they’re opening all the holiday stands hour earlier, and closing hour and a half earlier to save on minimum wage cast members? Come on. Disney has lost their way with their theme parks being a spot of value for a great experience. Just getting cheap. And adding another and another hotel BEFORE bringing in drawing activities first is why Disney stock has done terribly, the food and wine was a ghost town compared to other years, Disney cutting staff members and Comcast/Universal and other theme parks are booming.
Very true. The ratio of added attractions versus attendance isn’t equal.
I have a source that this is true and likely site A. Renderings were seen from someone on the inside.
SO if they were to put it over the existing entrance, how would you get into EPCOT until it was finished?
Site A could have direct monorail access, effectively making it a monorail resort. It could also mess up the view of Spaceship Earth and where would the parking be? Unless they plan on taking some lots and making them hotel parking and building new lots (or actually using Wonder for parking) out by Imagine and Wonder to replace them, there will be parking issues. If they do that, they sure as s**t better start running the trams in the morning as the walk from Imagine/Explore (for some reason they park early folks in the farthest lots rather than closest) is enough of a trek as it is.
Site B would have a bus stop right there, but I’m not sure where they will put the parking. I would have said across the canal behind BCR, but the map from another article shows that as “wetlands”. If they just use Epcot’s parking lot for the park and hotel, that seems like a recipe for trouble.