Bonjour from EPCOT! It’s a a breezy and overcast Saturday here at construction central, which didn’t make for the most picturesque of days, but an overall more comfortable one on a busy weekend. Weather aside, we have a handful of interesting updates from the park, so let’s check out what we found.
Upon approaching the entrance to the park, banners remind us of the Taste of EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival, as they have every day since reopening. Today, however, a special surprise was in store for the festival.
We took a few extra moments to appreciate the flowery displays for the festival, found at either end of the walkway between Future World and World Showcase.
That surprise we mentioned earlier came in the form of two additional bottle prizes for Remy’s Hide & Squeak Scavenger Hunt, which joined the first two bottles that debuted earlier in the week. Today saw the introduction of a Minnie Mouse bottle, and as should be the case for all merchandise, a Figment-themed version.
Speaking of Figment, we noticed that ImageWorks got a bit of an overhaul of the displays to better facilitate guest traffic. The change was positive in our opinion, making the store a little easier to navigate.
Elsewhere on the shopping front, guests seeking out an Epcot Forever MagicBand, which debuted a little over a week ago, would find plenty of stock on hand at Pin Traders and Mouse Gear.
Mouse Gear also held another colorful item, these “Peace, Love, and Mickey Mouse” socks. They sell for $14.99 for a single pair, or $11.00 each when you buy two.
If shoulder plush is more your style of expression, the two newest ones, Remy and Figment, were plentiful around the park.
Of course, more human character interactions are available if that’s your cup of tea.
But those human interactions can be overrated — sometimes you’ve just got Remy on your mind.
Shifting gears to construction, it was a slow day at Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, as the job site tends to be pretty quiet on weekends.
On the other hand, over at the Play! Pavilion work was continuing on the replacement of roof panels, which has been a work in progress for quite some time.
The Innoventions buildings continue to be dismantled piece by agonizing piece, but we’re always hopeful for brighter days ahead — well, for Innoventions East at least, as the West building likely won’t be standing.
At some point, Space 220 will be a nice addition to EPCOT, and the continued work on the landscaping outside of the restaurant gives hope that the restaurant may only be a year delayed.
Next door, guests lined up for an expected 60-minute wait to ride Test Track. Temporary queue markings were added in anticipation of some serious crowds today, though it doesn’t seem they were needed during the day.
Part of the reason for that was that the ride experienced downtime throughout the day — perhaps due to the threat of rain.
Despite it being a relatively more pleasant day to be outside, as we mentioned earlier, World Showplace spent a good portion of the day close to capacity. The Nitro Cake Pop line was especially populated, and for good reason.
Nearly every food booth in the park was busy, though, even the open-one-day-a-week booth, Islands of the Caribbean.
Back at The American Adventure Pavilion, a new visor was added to the collection of older merchandise which was added to Art of Disney yesterday. The visor sells for $19.99 alongside a spirit jersey and tank top, amongst other items.
As we headed towards the exit at the end of our day, we noticed one of the Odyssey Pavilion logos is still missing a small piece of its design.
Despite that, maintenance is clearly continuing in other areas, as we see the cleaning of the monorail beam has been completed almost to the halfway point of the park. Few things in life are more comforting than a freshly-cleaned monorail beam.
We hope you’ve enjoyed our character and construction-filled adventure around EPCOT today. For all of the latest updates from Disney parks around the world, click here and follow @WDWNT on Twitter!