If you’ve ever been to Epcot during Festival season, you know how bad of a bottleneck the old Rose Walk pathway between Future World and World Showcase could be. Disney realized this, and back in June, they closed off the path to widen it and redesign it from the ground up. They’ve made quite a bit of progress since our last update. Let’s see how it’s coming!
A good portion of the concrete for the main pathway has been finished already.
They’ve also put down pretty large swaths of concrete to the side of the path, presumably for booths and such during the festivals.
They also started work on some mysterious round concrete forms. We’ll get a better look at those in a minute.
From the monorail, we can see the site much better. You can see they’ve built up several curved walls or curbs on the left side of the path there. I think they’re going for a winding, wandering garden feel, judging by the curved smaller pathways.
It appears as though the goal here is to, obviously, have a much wider central path, but also to add lots of walkable, explorable space that can be used for various purposes during the Festivals.
Here we can see those round concrete forms again.
Further back is the new building foundation I noticed last time. It’s coming along nicely, and looks like it will be a decently-sized permanent structure. The foundation is pretty deep.
This photo really gives you a good view of the whole path. It’s starting to come together!
The other part of this area that’s under construction is on the other side of the pond. This area is used as the butterfly garden during the Flower and Garden Festival, but also for several food booths during Food and Wine.
Most of the booths are already set up, and it looks like landscaping just needs to happen around them.
The main pathway that hugs the pond is also being replaced, and presumably widened. It looks like here, where the path connects closer to Imagination, it might be split into two paths, an upper and a lower, which could add some interesting visual interest to the area, in addition to helping control crowds.
But of course, all this is speculation only based on what I can see!
They’re hard at work every time I’m here, no doubt on a hurried schedule in order to get most, if not all of this construction finished in time for the 2019 International Food and Wine Festival which begins at the end of August. I think they can make it, but it might be close.
We’ll keep you updated on this project as it continues, although hopefully it won’t continue for too much longer!