Puerto Rico’s presence was expanded this year at the 2014 Epcot Food and Wine Festival bringing not only many different flavors from the island to guests at Epcot, but also a bit of heritage and a look at the history of Puerto Rico. In a recent article published by Puerto Rican newspaper, Metro, details were divulged of the partnership that they’ve created with Disney. The island of Puerto Rico has signed a 3 year contract to bring the flavors of the island to the Epcot Food and Wine Festival, as well as the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival beginning in 2015 and running through 2016. For the Food and Wine 2015 display, they’ve already begun working on a design based on “El Yunque“, the second tallest mountain on the island and the only Tropical Rain Forest located within the United States National Forest System.
Various different companies from Puerto Rico including CC1, Yaucono, Club Caribbean, and Pan American Grain have invested over $700,000 to bring Puerto Rico to the Epcot festivals.
Also mentioned in the article is that Disney and Puerto Rico are currently in talks to bring a permanent addition of Puerto Rico to Epcot’s World Showcase. The addition of Puerto Rico to World Showcase would reportedly cost over $100 million that would be split over the course of 10 years (2017 – 2027) through a contract between Disney and the private companies involved.
We’ve seen in the past many attempts to add a new country to World Showcase, and all of them since Norway in 1988 have never made it off of the drawing board. A few years ago, a similar story about Brazil was posted on this very site. Of course, there is always the possibility that a Puerto Rico pavilion would never end up being built at Epcot, but the possibility is still there if the proper corporations actually come through on funding the project.
As the resident WDWNT Puerto Rican, I would be very excited to see my home island as a World Showcase pavilion. The heritage and architecture of Puerto Rico would make for a fantastic pavilion. For those familiar with Puerto Rico, El Morro would be an excellent choice to represent the Old San Juan area of the island in the pavilion.
What are your thoughts if Puerto Rico were to join the other countries at Epcot? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!
I have vacationed in Puerto Rico since I was in the sixth grade and think the addition would be fantastic=)
The beaches, Old San Juan, El Yunque and the people have kept us returning for 35 years!!!
A pavillion that serves mofongo & Medalla…sounds like a win win!!!
Loooove the idea maybe then everyone will be aware that we are part of the US……hope it becomes permanent we have a lot culture, music and great food to offer!
Ana, I feel it would do the opposite, as every other pavilion is a country, so people would think it’s a separate country. Sad, but true.
Please give DisneybyMark.com credit for this story as we broke it in English last Tuesday!
http://www.disneybymark.com/2014/09/30/a-puerto-rico-pavilion-at-epcot/
Until today, I had never even heard of your website… sorry man but I didn’t get this story from your website but thanks for letting us know about your article!
I Love Puerto Rico and I hope to see it happen in EPCOT!
I’m also Puerto Rican and I would love this, I also think PR has a lot to see that you can’t add in a pavilion so maybe have a boat ride that goes thru el yunque, old San juan, ponce ect.
Been to Puerto Rico once and loved it, I think it would be a great addition. New food and culture to explore.
Milo, I kind of agree with you. Aren’t all the present pavilions countries?
As others have pointed out, my first reaction on reading the headline was that PR is not a country, it is part of the US. (I actually got here through Richard Bilbao’s article at Orlando Business Journal – which, unlike this article, actually calls PR a country). It revived some frustration I felt reading an op-ed from several years ago lecturing the military about using a bombing range on PR – it included a line like “how can we be surprised that other countries hate us if we use their land as a bombing range?” Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I’m not the first to have noticed this.
Having said that, I wonder what it says about my desperation to see something new at Epcot that I kind of don’t care. I’m not even sure I’d care if Disney publicly promoted a new PR pavilion as a “country”, if that was the price of getting it. Of course, someone who is actually Puerto Rican might feel differently…
As a fellow Puerto Rican, I’m totally cool with it being called a country. I was also very careful with my wording in this article to ensure that I didn’t call it a country because in “theory” it isn’t.