Hidden deep within “The Disney Monorail: Imagineering a Highway in the Sky”, a new book by Jeff Kurtti, Vanessa Hunt, and Paul Wolski, which looks back at the creation of the Disney monorail and its impact on transportation systems across the globe, lies a secret about the ever-changing future of EPCOT: a new Monorail Mark X attraction coming to the Play! Pavilion!
The book is set to be officially released on September 1, 2020, but review copies have been distributed, and thanks to Imaginerding on YouTube, we have a closer look at the art for the upcoming attraction:
The announcement is made on the very last page of the book, and features an EPCOT serigraph-type poster featuring three Mark X monorails. At the top, it says, “Next Stop… Play!” with the Play! Pavilion logo. Along the bottom, it says, “Monorail Mark X – Arriving at EPCOT in 2021” with the WEDway transportation logo in the right corner.
Of course, EPCOT has suffered a number of budget cuts and project cancellations in the wake of the theme park shutdown, but it seems this attraction, which appears in the concept art for the pavilion, is one we can actually look forward to.
In concept art for the Play! Pavilion, we can see the Monorail Mark X attraction facade, with monorail zooming through a tall WEDway building:
You can check out a full review of the “The Disney Monorail: Imagineering a Highway in the Sky” in this video by Imaginerding on YouTube:
Are you looking forward to the grand opening of the Play! Pavilion at EPCOT? Let us know in the comments, and stay tuned for future discoveries of even more attractions to come!
Disney has their priorities backwards. Instead of spending money on something useless like a Play pavilion, they could instead perform much needed maintenance on beloved attractions, or adding something that would actually be beneficial to the parks. Or, you know, bringing back the Wonders of Life pavilion with an upgraded Body Wars using the tech from the upgraded Star Tours. Or paying their employees a wage to live on. Or making Epcot the “educational” park again. While Cosmic Rewind is undoubtedly going to be a blast to ride, why is it in Epcot instead of Tomorrowland or any place in Hollywood Studios? I get that Universe of Energy was dated (and they got rid of an Ellen-focused attraction with good timing), but why couldn’t they just update the existing ride? With more focus on things like going green and global warming in today’s society, why did they get rid of an attraction that focuses on that? What will Cosmic Rewind teach us about the environment? Hell, even if they turned it into an IP, there’s one that makes a HELL of a lot of sense (which is probably why Chapek didn’t think of it)…and that is WALL-E. Also, they need to restore Test Track. Was turning it into Tron the condition of Chevrolet to sign on as sponsor? I highly doubt that Chevy would care if it was just a 20 minute video of pandas sleeping as long as they slapped their logo on everything and got paid royalties.