Greetings from a wet, muggy, but slightly less crowded than usual EPCOT! The dreary weather has resulted in some mixed crowds, allowing us to get up close (but not too close) with some characters. We also had a chance to take a look at the construction of the Harmonious barges, amongst other construction projects around the park.

At the front of the park, Spaceship Earth and the recently-added Lucite pylons make for a grand entrance, though with the sun failing to shine for essentially the entire day the pylons don’t shine quite as bright as usual.

Early in the day, The Land Pavilion had an incredibly long line which extended nearly to the former Innoventions West building.

Inside the pavilion, though, things were curiously quiet and, dare we say, more empty than usual. The reasoning for the long line when there was plenty of space inside was a mystery.

Adjacent to The Land, Joy was out and had a new activity today — golf. She seemed to be a pretty solid golfer, judging by her reaction to the shot.

On the East side of the park, there was less in the way of entertainment and more construction. At Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, little has visibly changes since one of our updates from September as we still wait for the return of solar panels.

On the flip side, the Play! Pavilion continues near-daily work on the refurbishment of roof panels, with only a handful remaining to be replaced.

Elsewhere on the East side, Innoventions East’s demolition continues at a steady pace. Most recently, the former home of Electric Umbrella has been the focus of most of the destructive work.

More and more of Innoventions East is torn out day by day, such as the entire second floor of Electric Umbrella and the character gear wall a couple of weeks ago.

Taking a quick look at the West side, the exposed section of the portion which remains hasn’t changed much in the last several months.

At the opposite end of the structure, demolition has begun near the former home of The Art of Disney.

On a greener note, a portion of the Green Landing Family Play Zone has been opened, though only a small section which encompasses two benches in some secluded space. The play area itself remains unavailable for safety reasons.

Across the walkway, Flavors from Fire has added the 2020 Monday Night Football schedule to its signage. The booth reopened a couple of weeks ago, later than most of the Taste of EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival offerings.

Our one merchandise note for the day, if you’re in the market for a Dooney & Bourke Taste of EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival MagicBand then you’re in luck, as the Camera Center and Mouse Gear both had an ample supply.

Heading into World Showcase, the line for Frozen Ever After, despite the situation at The Land Pavilion, was shorter than it has been over the last several weekends.

The addition of queue markings well into the China Pavilion indicates that larger crowds may have been expected, but the weather kept some of those guests at bay today.

Further along in the World Showcase, more Frozen could be found in the form of the Frozen Promenade, a lovely cavalcade featuring Anna and Elsa — the latter of whom had some extra swagger today.

Given the wet weather, water art wasn’t really possible in EPCOT today, but leaf art certainly was. This foliage Mickey was found near the Germany Pavilion.

Beyond leaf art, even when the weather isn’t at its best there are still some nice sights to be found — and you can’t even see any walls!

At the border between the American Adventure Pavilion and the Japan Pavilion, new queues have been set up for the funnel cake stand and Kabuki Cafe since the issues we reported on in a photo report from last weekend.

Moving on to France, this Remy figure stands guard in front of the new France Pavilion expansion.

From the Skyliner, we see the usual steady progress as small details continue to be added to the project. Sadly, any kind of opening date for either the expansion or Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure have yet to be announced.

Another interesting sighting from the Skyliner was the progress on the construction of the the Harmonious barges, another project which has yet to be given any kind of official start date. Given the delays in constructing these barges, it’ll be some time before the show itself is ready.

Our final stop in the World Showcase is the U.K. Pavilion, where an elusive Mary Poppins could be found within the gazebo. Alice had been making a majority of the appearances as of late, so it was nice to see a bit of a rotation happening.

What wasn’t rotating, however, were the wheels on the car which chauffeurs Mickey and Minnie Mouse around as part of the “Mickey & Friends World Tour”. The vehicle experienced some ‘unplanned downtime’ part way into that tour.

Goofy quickly made his exit when it was clear the car wouldn’t be making its way around the rest of world showcase.

While Mickey and Minnie stuck around a little longer, eventually they had to make their exit.

A rare entry into our photo reports, this video shows what happens when characters have to bail on issues during a cavalcade. The Mickey and Minnie certainly keep the magic and entertainment going, even during a not-so-subtle exit.

The characterless vehicle remained on the side of the U.K. Pavilion walkway for some time, as cast members attempted to resolve the issues.

On a final, and more positive, note — Test Track, which experienced a good bit of downtime due to the weather, was up and running in the afternoon with a mere 30 minute wait time. Thankfully not all cars within EPCOT were experiencing the same challenges as Mickey and Minnie’s ride.

That wraps up our “world tour” of EPCOT today. For all of the latest happenings from Disney parks around the world, be sure to click here and follow @WDWNT on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news and information.