Progress City, U.S.A.

It took some time, but this is a biggie. Survey says…

#2 – Rethink EPCOT. Completely.

Smell that? That’s the smell of potential!

It’s been a while since I last did one of these. The delay was, in part, because not only is this particular topic very near and dear to my heart, but it’s also one for which there are no easy solutions. It’s also a situation for which I actually have a number of very specific ideas and suggestions, and I didn’t want this to devolve into just another fanboy blue-sky sandbox exercise. The fact remains, though, that the problems that face EPCOT Center, that have hampered its development, and the things I’d like to see done there in the future take up the largest amount of pondering on Disney parks that I do on a regular basis. So with the disclaimer that I’m aware that I’m far too invested in this subject for my own good, here are my thoughts on EPCOT.

My obsession with EPCOT has a lot to do with timing. My first trip to Walt Disney World happened at the age of five, and we arrived in Orlando only a few short weeks after EPCOT had opened. From that point on, EPCOT was my favorite of the Disney parks. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ve probably heard me base at least some of my rants against the “received wisdom” of Disney marketing in the fact that, as a child, many of my friends and I were far more “enchanted” with EPCOT than with the Magic Kingdom. When I hear latter-day Disney propagandists admit that kids just hated EPCOT before it got “exciting”, my bile starts to curdle.

My seminal Disney experiences occurred concurrently with EPCOT’s golden age, and I feel that I fell right into the “sweet spot” temporally to be completely won over by the park. Had I been a Disney fan of an earlier age, I might have grown up with Walt’s original idea of EPCOT-as-city in my head and been crushed by what was, to be honest, a massive but well-intentioned cop-out by later management. One of the interesting revelations I’ve had from digging deeper into Disney history is the realization that a lot of the public was really let down by the announcement of EPCOT Center as a theme park – people seem to have been really anticipating a city of the future and they spent a lot of time in the early 1970s pushing Disney managers for details about when it would be built. While years of corporate spin has tried to present EPCOT Center as “Walt’s greatest and final dream”, that’s just simply untrue. For many Disney fans at the time who knew the truth, this must have been a hard pill to swallow. But seeing as the only EPCOT I’ve ever known was EPCOT Center, I was able to be blown away by it without any preconceptions whatsoever.

The flip side of this is had I become a Disney fan later, I would have only come to know EPCOT during its long downward slide under the Eisner regime. Depending on where I came in, I wouldn’t have known the original Spaceship Earth, or Horizons, or World of Motion, or Journey into Imagination… I wouldn’t have known the thematic consistency of early EPCOT Center, a concept reflected in even the iconography of the pavilions themselves. I also wouldn’t have known that heady sense of excitement about things to come that was incorporated in all of EPCOT’s promotional material from that time. There were no more exciting words then than “Coming Soon” – Equatorial Africa, Spain, Israel; or Horizons and The Living Seas, to be soon followed by “Space” and “Life & Health”. A great deal of EPCOT’s potential in my mind comes from those original unrealized concepts that promised amazing and mind-blowing things to come.

Promises, promises – Circa 1983

The story of why EPCOT started off with such a unified vision but never reached its full flower has been touched on here before. Growing up, I had always wondered with irritation why Disney just didn’t get it all done at the start – why we had to wait for those extra pavilions, or the Germany pavilion’s boat ride, or the expansion of the Japan pavilion. The truth is that EPCOT barely – just barely! – opened on time as it was. The story of EPCOT’s breathless 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week rush to opening day is a harrowing one. Some key elements of the park did, in fact, open late. Many others were delayed in an attempt to concentrate resources on key attractions for opening day. We’ve mentioned a few of these delayed attractions – the rides for Mexico, Germany and Italy were all shelved at one point due to time constraints, with the Mexican boat ride only being reinstated when it became apparent that the park would need its ride capacity on opening day. The shortened construction cycle led to El Rio Del Tiempo being only half of its original planned size. Many other attractions remained delayed for a “Phase II” that never came.

Lost in Phase II purgatory: the Venezuela pavilion

One key myth perpetrated by revisionist Disney publicists is that EPCOT was somehow unsuccessful upon opening or poorly received by the public. This can be seen even in officially sanctioned media like the Travel Channel “Modern Marvels” episode about Walt Disney World. The fact of the matter is that EPCOT was a smash success, with record crowds far exceeding Disney’s own estimates. Press coverage from the time is almost uniformly positive, with the most oft-repeated criticism being that guests wanted more – more rides, more restaurants, more shops, more shows. The park was so swamped with guests that its amenities proved inadequate, and long lines only became worse when compounded with the technical issues that arise in any new theme park of such an advanced nature. EPCOT was slammed with an unprecedented wave of visitors, all who wanted more; thankfully, Disney had plans for just that.

Upon its opening, Disney continued work on the few Phase I attractions that had yet to open – key among these being the Journey Into Imagination ride – while immediately beginning work on the park’s Phase II. Loans were secured to underwrite tens of millions of dollars in new attractions and additions. Horizons was well on its way to its 1983 opening, and construction began on The Living Seas as soon as United Technologies signed as a sponsor in summer of 1983. That same year, the Kingdom of Morocco would open its pavilion in World Showcase – the first of many intended Showcase pavilions for Phase II. Additional restaurants were added to Communicore, France and China, and a second restaurant was planned but never built in Italy. The sponsorship search continued for Space and Life & Health, and Disney heavily promoted upcoming pavilions for Equatorial Africa, Spain, Israel, Venezuela, Denmark, and Scandinavia. So what happened?

It’s easy to mistake the abandonment of EPCOT’s Phase II as another instance of management failing to follow though on their promises, but that’s not the case here. The groundwork for Phase II was in place, but in 1984 there was a sweeping change in management that brought Michael Eisner and Frank Wells to Disney. Eisner’s primary concern, by far, was the motion picture and television divisions of the company. Eisner wanted to be a media mogul, and while his concerns about the under-performance of Disney films at the box office were well-founded, his massive shift in the company’s direction came at the expense of the theme parks. Eisner admitted the parks would continue to expand, but at “pre-EPCOT” levels. That first year, Disney wrote off more than $40 million worth of canceled theme park projects at the behest of the new management team.

I often see people who claim insider knowledge from that era state that Eisner “hated” EPCOT. It’s said that Eisner, who didn’t grow up attending theme parks and seemed to look down on them, saw EPCOT as an expensive blunder. I have no idea if any of that is true, but it’s clear by his actions after arriving at Disney that, at the very least, Eisner did not understand EPCOT whatsoever. Attempts to drive up attendance at the park without major further investment gave the appearance that Disney was grasping at straws, and this would only become more apparent as time passed.

A circus?? Surely this must be THE FUTURE!! (Photo: Jeff Lange)

EPCOT’s drift into chaos began almost immediately; it can easily be seen in 1987’s Daredevil Circus Spectacular. The expansions that did arrive after Eisner’s arrival were legacy projects; The Living Seas had broken ground in 1983, 1988’s Norway pavilion was a descendant of the pre-Eisner plans for a Scandinavia pavilion, and even 1989’s Wonders of Life was an adaptation of the “Life & Health” pavilion that had been under design since the mid-1970s.

So deep was Eisner’s ambivalence towards EPCOT that, for a time in those early years, Disney considered selling off EPCOT in part or in whole to another company. In what would be a scheme to raise a lot of quick money for – what else – expanding film production in California, Disney would sell EPCOT or its individual pavilions and then either lease them back or manage and operate them under contracts similar to the arrangement by which Disney operates Tokyo Disneyland. While this scheme to raise a quick billion dollars never came to fruition, the fact that Disney management was willing to seriously and publicly discuss the potential divestment of EPCOT shows the lack of regard the park was given at the time.

There followed a period of stagnation, interrupted only when the Future World sponsors’ contracts needed to be renewed in the early 1990s. The Land and Spaceship Earth received overhauls; while Spaceship Earth got a new narration and an incongruous new ending, The Land had two of its smaller attractions replaced. The film Symbiosis was replaced with Circle of Life, the first of many attempts to insert characters into the park’s attractions. The wonderful and catchy Kitchen Kabaret was also closed; its replacement, Food Rocks, was so cheaply executed that I once thought it would certainly be the all-time nadir of Disney attractions. I was wrong.

The cohesive sense of design that once tied Future World together really fell apart in the mid-1990s. Communicore, which once served to tie the concepts of the individual pavilions together and serve as an outreach resource to guests, was replaced with the crass trade show displays of Innoventions. These exhibits were crammed into the Communicore buildings, closing off sightlines and guest traffic flows, removing the natural light and open vistas that had characterized the buildings, and taking no advantage of the buildings’ pre-existing design. The public areas of Future World slowly filled with odd bric-a-brac that only created clutter and visual contradictions.

In the future, sightlines will no longer exist (From EPCOT Central; read their fantastic rundown of the many, many unsightly visual intrusions that must be scourged from EPCOT)

The attractions themselves changed, removing many of the futuristic concepts they once embraced and abandoning the iconography that once linked all the pavilions together. The Universe of Energy became Ellen’s Energy Adventure, becoming less informative and relying more on the use of familiar celebrities and humor – a tactic also employed in the then-new Honey, I Shrunk the Audience. The World of Motion closed for several years as Imagineers replaced it with Test Track; the result was an uninspiring mild thrill ride/car commercial with critical reliability and technical issues. Horizons closed, opened, and closed again; it was finally allowed to fall apart in plain sight of guests before its eventual demolition. World Showcase remained untouched since 1988. Then things really went off the rails.

Journey Into Your Imagination. A name that will send shudders down the spine of any EPCOT fan. The completely unnecessary closure of an EPCOT classic – and the single EPCOT fantasy dark ride in the true Disney tradition – led to this abomination, and the public response was so universally negative that Disney was actually forced to close it again a few years later. Horizons was torn down and replaced with Mission: Space, an expensive simulator ride which made many guests ill and resulted in a few deaths (all from pre-existing conditions, but still bad for publicity). So troubled was Mission: Space, that Disney was programming other attractions to print out free Fastpasses for the ride just a couple of years after its opening.

Recent additions show no rhyme or reason, or adherence to any unified concept for the park. Soarin’, the only successful attraction from California Adventure, was imported to The Land despite any real reason for it to be there. The entirety of The Living Seas has been re-themed to center on animated characters from Finding Nemo; while its dark ride segment is appealing, it merely retells the story of the film without adding any insight about the actual seas and their inhabitants. The same criticism could be aimed at Mexico’s Gran Fiesta Tour, a character-based ride overlay that missed the potential provided by the fantastic Three Caballeros by focusing on yet another “character hunt” instead of having anything to say or show about Mexico itself. A recent overhaul of Spaceship Earth, while laudable for its needed technological upgrades, has been criticized for “dumbing down” the attraction’s narrative and for its still-unfinished ending.

So, the park remains a hodgepodge; many layers of mismatched design from different periods collide in guests’ senses, and the lack of meaningful new additions becomes more glaring when you realize that there are no announced projects in the pipeline for at least the next several years. At the very least, though, this gives Imagineers and fans a chance to pause, examine the situation, and ask – what should happen to EPCOT?

John Hench was one of the Imagineers who worked heavily on the creation of EPCOT Center in the 1970s and 1980s, and from his writings one gains the impression that he was among the most scholarly of Walt’s original team. Hench seems, in his interviews, to be a very thoughtful person who was concerned not only with what works in themed design, but why it works and what that says about us as a species. One of the better-known ideas that Hench often spoke of involves the roots of Mickey Mouse’s popularity; Hench believed that the circles that underlie Mickey’s design tapped into an inherent human predilection towards that form. Humans, or so Hench thought, had an evolutionarily conditioned positive response to roundness; roundness meant safety and nurturing, while sharp angles meant danger. Hench saw Mickey’s triumph in public popularity over his angular rival Felix the Cat as a microcosm of this effect.

Mostly, though, Hench hated contradictions. The success of Disneyland, in his eyes, stemmed from its lack of contradictions. Every area of Disneyland grew out of a pure notion of a specific time and place that resonated deeply with the collective unconscious. In Disneyland’s Main Street, Hench said, they took everything iconic from mid-American small towns of that era and stripped it of contradictions, especially the contradictions that had crept in since the time it’s meant to depict. There never was a real small town like that, but there’s an element of truth in it that strikes a chord with visitors and is somehow true to all those Main Streets without being really at all accurate.

This must be the first goal of any EPCOT renewal – the elimination of contradictions, be they visual, thematic, or content-based. EPCOT must once more be seen as a whole, not an unrelated smattering of parts without relation to each other or to the whole. The pavilions must share similar goals, if not necessarily similar approaches; a shared and stated purpose would give this park a clear identity for the first time in decades.

These contradictions now run throughout the park, on a number of scales. They can be as small as selling pirate merchandise or Crocs from push-carts in the Innoventions breezeways or featuring Aladdin in the Morocco pavilion to something as large as the fact that Soarin’ has no relation to the rest of The Land. The cacophonous buildup of years of poor choices (a Coca Cola carwash in front of Test Track?) lies in layers over the park, and must be stripped away completely.

This does not, necessarily, mean a complete reset to EPCOT Center, Day One. While obviously I’m more a fan of the original EPCOT than its current incarnation, that doesn’t mean we haven’t learned anything in the last twenty-seven years or that the original park was perfect. For one thing, as I’ve mentioned, it was under-built to handle the initial rush of guests. Another element that received some criticism even at the time was the influence and effect on the pavilions by their corporate sponsors. Disney needed corporate participation to fund the park; the necessity of pleasing the sponsors was critical to EPCOT’s existence and often influenced the narratives of the pavilions. Where in GM’s World of Motion ride was the push for mass transit or alternatives to the internal combustion engine? Exxon’s Universe of Energy, though spectacular, has been biased in favor of fossil fuels in both its versions, and tends to gloss over any real potential for alternate forms of energy production. The Land was originally intended to focus on ecology and the world’s biomes, until sponsor Kraft signed on and shifted the pavilion’s message to nutrition and food production.

Exxon’s Energy Exchange made it clear where their bread was buttered (Disneypix.com)

In most of these examples, the problem came from a lack of meaningful exploration of cutting-edge ideas or alternatives that would mean real change for the future. By showing a future full of shiny, high-tech automobiles, World of Motion essentially punted on the idea of meaningful advances in the way we travel and just showed us a more glossy and streamlined version of our current modes of transportation. With the exception of Horizons and, to an extent, The Living Seas, truly groundbreaking ideas were not prominently embraced in the actual attractions, and if they existed at all they were often relegated to post-show areas or exhibits in Communicore.

The most glaring element missing from the original Future World attractions, as much as I loved them, was a slight deficit in humanism and a lack of global perspective. EPCOT grew out of the mid-century World’s Fair tradition, in which technology was viewed as a solution in itself to humanity’s problems. Personally, I grew up immersed in this mindset and still find it engaging. What the last several decades has taught us, though, is that technology in and of itself will not solve our problems for us, but must be promoted and applied wisely, efficiently, and equally if it’s to benefit everyone. EPCOT emerged from a very suburban worldview, where having a push-button kitchen wizard that cooks your rump roast with RADAR means real progress. What this picture misses is the fact that if someone on the other side of the world doesn’t have access or the means for RADAR, roasts, or even kitchens, those distant problems might eventually find their way to your doorstep. This global outlook was not completely absent from early EPCOT, of course; the technologies discussed in The Land might eventually prove critical for ending famine and providing economic growth in arid or resource-poor areas, and Horizons was centered on human adaptation to future lifestyles. But this idea of interconnectedness should be present in all Future World pavilions, as it will eventually be necessary to achieve the futuristic view that the park was built to embrace.

It’s this vision of the future – and what it means for people worldwide – that has often been lost in the years since EPCOT’s debut. As the years passed, many said that the Future World pavilions had become outdated and, like even the best futurism, this was often true. The critical failure in these arguments, though, is that the elements that had become outdated were mostly superficial; a dated-looking polyester jumpsuit or outmoded color scheme are trivialities and easily changed. The fact that’s often missed is that the ideas and problems addressed in the pavilions are just as relevant, if not more so, now as in 1982.

One thing that struck me repeatedly during last year’s presidential race was how often the critical issues being discussed had a direct connection to something that had once been addressed in EPCOT’s pavilions. Energy policy, transportation and its infrastructure, the environment and ecology, and universal access to information technology were all at the fore. Topics that were on the back burner of public discussion when EPCOT opened are often headline news these days; computers are no longer slightly mystical items reserved for the academic elite, and the public is now versed in subjects like the need for alternative energy, the problem of pollution and global warming, and the search for new modes of transportation.

In this regard, EPCOT is now actually behind the curve. Look at Universe of Energy – so much has been done in recent years to explore new possibilities for energy production and to understand the hazards of continuing our current path; we’ve seen An Inconvenient Truth become the highest-grossing documentary ever, and fuel cells and passive solar become fairly familiar terms. While I find Ellen’s Energy Adventure amusing and fairly entertaining, it’s also backward-looking. With everything that’s changed in the world since its 1996 debut, the Energy pavilion once more needs to embrace and evangelize cutting edge technologies that guests might one day be able to use on a daily basis to reduce our dependence on a carbon-based economy.

Disney must do this with each pavilion. While they seem to just cast about desperately for a character or gimmick to put into each attraction, they really just need to look at the fields of study the pavilions were intended to address and look at how relevant they’ve become in the real world. Energy’s importance has been discussed. Transportation has become a critical issue for both personal and mass transit, and the way these problems are dealt with both inside and between cities. The Land already has its greenhouses, which are fantastic, to address the need for more efficient methods of food production in areas where water is scarce – including the American west – and the necessity of finding creative ways to reduce our needs for harmful chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The Seas are also a vital topic of interest; key areas include pollution and the role of the seas in global warming, the best ways to exploit the seas’ resources without exhausting them, and the sheer possibilities and excitement afforded by exploration in this uncharted realm.

Space is a subject with vast, awe-inspiring potential that Mission: Space fails to exploit. The current attraction would serve, perhaps, as an adequate preshow to a fully-conceived space-based attraction that could truly convey the excitement of space exploration and the possibilities it holds for advances in various life sciences, materials science, and resource exploitation.

Now you’re talking: A rendering for a previously proposed Space pavilion from the 1990s

An even more relevant issue is now completely ignored in the park; the closure of Wonders of Life now looks patently absurd, as health issues have come to the forefront of public debate. Issues such as healthy lifestyles and preventative healthcare are a necessary part of the future that EPCOT was built to portray. EPCOT was intended to tackle these issues in an engaging and public way; Disney can continue to retreat from this idea and just provide an odd assortment of vaguely “discovery” themed attractions, or they can do the hard work and pull it all back into focus.

The trick, of course, is how to present these critical ideas and themes without becoming preachy, dry, or unentertaining. It’s an incredibly difficult proposition, of course, but it’s possible; Walt himself always believed the best way to inform was through entertainment, and that’s been proven time and time again. Look, again, at Horizons – it presented many glimpses at the technologies that will influence our future without becoming didactic or boring. Each attraction need not provide a full education on its specific subject matter, but it should give a sense of the possibilities ahead and allow guests an entry into the material that could spark further interest.

So far, I’ve focused mostly on the Future World pavilions. This is because the ideas promoted by that part of EPCOT are so much more abstract and difficult than those illustrated in World Showcase. Future World is also far easier to get wrong, as a failure of any of its parts or in achieving some sense of cohesiveness can happen easily if Imagineers take their eye off the ball. World Showcase, in comparison, is pretty easy to get right.

It also helps that the Showcase, for the most part, has actually improved over the years. This is merely my observation, but I feel that elements such as the food and entertainment have become slightly more authentic as the cultural horizons of average Americans have widened due to greater exposure to different nationalities. It seems as if these elements have become more varied in the pavilions as well; it seems that there’s always some performance happening in World Showcase at any time.

This doesn’t mean that Showcase is without need for improvement. Obviously, as any fan would tell you, it needs to be expanded. There is a thirty year backlog of unbuilt pavilions, with the last addition coming a full twenty years ago. More than that, though, there needs to be a renewed focus on the cultures of the individual nations beyond mere shops and restaurants, or especially character greeting experiences. Rides and films are always welcome, of course, but they should actually reveal something about the countries themselves rather than serving as venues for character-based promotions or cheap thrills. Aside from these more expensive options, other types of cultural features should be considered. The small museum galleries in Norway, China and Japan are always interesting diversions, but should be expanded or refreshed more often. This idea could be expanded to other pavilions as well. But beyond static displays or ride attractions, there’s room to explore new concepts. I’ve always pictured something like an incense-filled room in Morocco, with a storyteller spinning yarns from the nation’s past while in-theater effects enhance the tales. Films are great too, but must be kept fresh – the Norwegian film is about fifteen years overdue for a reshoot.

There are many fixes that could be made to EPCOT piecemeal, but I think the best way to do it is to build a dedicated team of Imagineers who understand the big ideas behind the park, and let them craft a single coherent refreshed design for the park. I also think that there should be a designated creative lead on the park; this person must be both aware of EPCOT’s history and enthused about its future. The “all at once” concept worked well in 1982, and it’s necessary now to strip the park of those contradictions we mentioned before. A team of Imagineers who see EPCOT’s potential, rather than seeing as some corny, stodgy snoozefest to be made fun of, could craft a message for Future World and insure a consistent level of thought and design throughout World Showcase. They could tie the ideas of the park together, remove the current feeling of isolated and unrelated experiences, and give the park the thesis it needs.

The Prologue and the Promise

“Cypress Point, located between Fort Wilderness and the Contemporary Resort Hotel, will offer guests a ‘rustic’ WDW vacation.” (Disney)

To start with, I have a few notes. First, this post was originally going to be another Neverworlds piece, but I went back and forth on that (for reasons that shall become apparent) and instead I’ve elected to label this an Elseworld – an alternate, unrealized version of a Disney attraction that we later received in a different form. The other point I’d like to make is that I was initially very smug, thinking that I was delivering unto the web the very first widely-known rendering of the Cypress Point Lodge. A single Google search deflated my ego, though, as Brian Martsolf’s excellent Disney World site had beat me to it. He also scooped me on some other renderings that I had for upcoming stories. Martsolf!!!!

In any case…

Cypress Point Lodge will be a medium-sized hotel facility, located on the south shore of Bay Lake near our Fort Wilderness Campground Resort. Encompassing 550 rooms and 50 log cabins on the beach, Cypress Point Lodge will offer a romantic notion of a turn-of-the-century hunting lodge secluded in a deep forest. Neither the trees nor the buildings dominate the entire area; but blend together in a natural harmony.. One can almost hear the crackling fireplace and feel the large wooden beams offer a haven of security and comfort.

Cypress Point Lodge will also include: two restaurants, a pool, extensive beach, and lake dock. Guests will commute in and out of Cypress Point Lodge by watercraft.

- Walt Disney World Eyes & Ears, 4 November, 1982

As Walt Disney World’s first decade came to an end, Disney executives were looking ahead to the 1982 debut of EPCOT Center. Knowing that a second gate would extend guest stays and increase demand for lodging, management decided that it was time to expand Disney’s lineup of hotels. Original opening-day plans in 1971 had called for the quick construction of three new hotels to join the existing Polynesian and Contemporary resorts; by 1975, the Asian, Venetian and Persian hotels were to have debuted on the shores of the Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake. By the turn of the decade, however, these resorts had yet to see the light of day.

The reason for this reluctance to build, despite the fact that Disney’s existing hotels were constantly and completely booked year-round, was Disney’s extremely cautious Chairman, E. Cardon Walker. Disney’s original expansion plans were scheduled to begin with the opening of the Asian Resort in 1973 – later pushed to 1974 – but by the time construction was to begin, the first gas crisis of the 1970s had hit. Management’s concerns mirrored those of today, but despite a dip in attendance at the parks, the Disney hotels remained packed.

Other hotels and motels in the area, though, were not so lucky. Many of these businesses had swooped in overnight in the wake of Disney’s arrival in Orlando, hoping to strike it rich like the low-rent hotels that surrounded Disneyland in Anaheim. The result was a sudden oversaturation of the market, which was probably doomed to collapse regardless of the Arab oil embargo. Many of these properties never even opened; some were left unfinished, and some closed immediately upon opening because they could not keep enough guests to pay off their construction loans.

This spooked Walker, who abandoned the bold existing plans for expansion and vowed not to build another major hotel on property for many years. Instead of the ornate and highly-themed Asian Resort, 1973 instead found Disney opening the very small and inexpensively-themed Golf Resort. Despite overwhelming guest demand, it was the last Disney hotel to open for fifteen years.

The ensuing years would see expansions to the Polynesian and Golf Resorts, as well as the slow roll-out of the Villas at Lake Buena Vista. But when construction of EPCOT Center was underway, Walker and others knew that it was time to start building new hotels. Sometime around 1980, it was announced that three new hotels would be built at Walt Disney World to coincide with the opening of EPCOT Center. The first was the Grand Floridian Beach Resort, to be built on the former Asian Resort plot. The Mediterranean Resort was next, giving a new name to the original Venetian Resort project. This was, of course, never built, despite Michael Eisner giving the concept a third try in the 1990s.

The final new resort, and the reason for all this folderol, was to be called the Cypress Point Lodge. As mentioned in the citation above, it would be a medium-sized hotel with 550 guest rooms and 50 cabins on the shore of Bay Lake. The theme of the resort, and the reason that this unbuilt hotel doesn’t belong in the realm of Neverworlds, is quite similar to the Wilderness Lodge which opened in 1994. The Cypress Point Lodge was a different design, but it shared a theme and was intended for the same plot upon which the Wilderness Lodge was built fourteen years later.

The front facade and arrival area of the Cypress Point Lodge. Rather like the little brother of the Wilderness Lodge.

The origin of the Cypress Point Lodge is somewhat mysterious. Jim Hill claims that it was always intended to be built as the sixth Disney resort, after the Polynesian, Contemporary, Asian, Venetian and Persian. According to Hill, it was to be the first hotel built in Walt Disney World’s “Phase III”, which would have lasted from 1981-86. I’ve seen little from this period to corroborate this fact; the Lodge isn’t mentioned by name in a Walt Disney Productions annual report until 1981, although the three new hotels are referred to without elaboration in 1980. I can find nothing from the 1968-71 period that mentions the Lodge, although aerial photos from the time show that the site intended for the Lodge had been cleared for some purpose by 1971. In fact, in early plans (pre-1971), the site that would later be intended for the Cypress Point Lodge was originally designated for a campground area.

In the Walt Disney World souvenir guide from 1973, it’s mentioned that a “Lodge” would be built at Fort Wilderness to house guests, but it’s unclear if this would have been our Cypress Point Lodge or rather an extension of the western town that was then planned for development around what is currently Fort Wilderness’s Settlement Outpost. I’ve always assumed that it was the western town idea that eventually evolved into the aborted Buffalo Junction/Wilderness Junction project in the 1990s.

It’s interesting that the Cypress Point Lodge would have also featured separate cabin areas; this would have given the area a more villa-like aspect, and it’s also possible that those cabins eventually morphed into the Wilderness Junction concept and then the Wilderness Lodge DVC property. This is all speculation, though.

The Cypress Point Lodge model in 1980 (DisneyPix.com)

What we do know is that by 1980, the Cypress Point Lodge had been included as part of the large model of the Walt Disney World property that occupied the post-show area of the Magic Kingdom’s Walt Disney Story attraction. I don’t know how long the model remained on display, but the hotel was widely touted as a much-needed expansion of guest capacity as late as 1982. In articles both before and after EPCOT Center’s opening that October, Card Walker and others mentioned the three new resorts coming to Walt Disney World. I have yet to find a mention of the hotel in 1983 or after, but that’s probably because all funds were diverted for the completion of EPCOT Center’s Phase I attractions. By then there began to be a shakeup in management, and Michael Eisner arrived in 1984 to change the course of Disney history.

This is one case, though, where Disney fans might have won out. The Cypress Point Lodge does indeed look quaint, and it would be nice to have those cabins on the beach, but it’s hard to deny the grandeur and beauty of the Wilderness Lodge. Architect Peter Dominick’s take on Yellowstone’s famous Old Faithful Inn is a masterwork of design, and I would be hard pressed to say that the Cypress Point Lodge would have been an improvement.

One final, interesting note – one common complaint about the Wilderness Lodge is that, unlike other deluxe hotels in the area, it does not have monorail service. Yet the original plans for the Cypress Point as well as the Mediterranean Resort called for them to both center around boat service. Then again, in 1980 no one at WED would have anticipated the need to get from Bay Lake to Animal Kingdom!

Things are far more bustling after dark in Neverworld’s UK pavilion

Most of the Disney stalwarts who read this blog have probably seen the above rendering before. A second look reveals many differences between EPCOT’s United Kingdom pavilion as built and the above conceptual painting. The pavilion as depicted is much larger than the real thing; note the pub’s second story and the extra floors the artist added to the other buildings. But most prominent is what lies towards the rear of the painting – the large Victorian building patterned somewhat after London’s long-lost Crystal Palace.

This building, planned but not built for EPCOT’s 1982 opening, was to contain one of World Showcase’s less-famous unrealized attractions. Inside would be a reproduction of a Victorian music hall, where guests would be treated to a comedic show. Yet even though the music hall was not built for opening day, it was still on Imagineering’s to do list; mention of the show was made in Richard Beard’s 1982 classic, Walt Disney’s EPCOT: Creating the New World of Tomorrow:

One side of the square remains open, the future site of a show still being created by the Imagineers. Early in the planning there was talk of a tour presentation, to be housed in an old English railroad station. The idea metamorphosed into an Elizabethan-type dinner theater, from which it evolved into a Victorian music hall. That’s where it now stands – if a genius can be found to successfully bowdlerize the rough-and-tumble British vaudeville style for a family audience.

That’s pretty much all that Disney fans knew for years – just that the idea had been planned and never realized. The concern for sanitizing the vaudeville humor is indicative of Disney at the time – remember that the company was extremely nervous about debuting the sale of alcohol at EPCOT – and I’m sure that management would have nixed things at the time that would go unquestioned today. Even more peculiar is that the idea seems to be a natural; it’s a fun concept and it wouldn’t require the huge investment of a ride attraction.

Had they pursued the dinner theater idea, it would no doubt have been a success. World Showcase restaurants are consistently busy, and even with the expansion of dining on property it remains difficult to this day to get dinner reservations. Walt Disney World’s other vaudeville-derived dinner show, the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue, has been a success for more than thirty years despite its remote location and lack of promotion, and continues to pack in guests despite its rather steep price tag. So why didn’t the U.K. get its attraction? An answer, at last, can be found in this letter from the Autumn, 1987, issue of The Drama Review. It was written by Professor Laurence Senelick of Tufts University, who served as a consultant on the project.

To the Editor:

Steve Nelson’s comments on the World showcase at Disney’s EPCOT Center in Florida [T112] are very well taken. As supportive evidence, I can offer my own experiences as a consultant there. Several years ago I was brought down to Disney World to advise on a Victorian music hall intended to be the performance feature of the ersatz England component of EPCOT. It soon became clear that what was required was not so much my professional expertise, but my imprimatur, as a specialist on music halls. The architects had already drawn up their plans, and when I was shown the blueprints and elevations, I pointed out that the bar was in the wrong place, the spatial relationship of audience to stage was distorted, and the overall effect less that of a British variety theatre than of a saloon in a Hollywood horse opera. It turned out that one of Disney’s executives had attended just such a “reconstructed” music hall in San Francisco, and wanted to see it cloned in Orlando.

Drink was a major element of music hall ambience, both economically and culturally, but the Disney people were very nervous about encouraging alcoholism and wanted to play down the availability of beer. Perhaps it could be near-beer or even camouflaged soft drink? Anything approaching a real music hall performance should last at least half an hour, to allow a variety of turns to show their stuff. But Disney policy is to keep the guests in motion: most indoor presentations at the park last under ten minutes. That would also prove problematical if food was to be served in the atmosphere of the early song-and-supper rooms. There would be no time to prepare, order, and consume the mutton chops, baked potatoes, and deviled kidneys which I suggested as the authentic fare of those haunts. But in any case, such comestibles were too heavy for a tropical climate and tourists accustomed to fast food.

As to the performance material, the Disney executives shied away from the bawdy and the working-class, preferring a generalized “Gay Nineties,” “bicycle-built-for-two” repertory or, in other words, the Disney version of Mary Poppins. To demonstrate to me the problems inherent in “rough” material, they took me to the closing banquet of a convention of insurance agents held at the Disneyworld hotel. There the entertainment was a musical revue of songs and dances drawn primarily from Broadway shows. Although the cast was quite young, well-scrubbed, and clean-cut, resembling nothing so much as a well-drilled high school talent show, the Disney staff worried that this new undertaking was too racy, for in some of the numbers the cast portrayed gangsters and their molls or gamblers and B-girls. Skirting even this close to an admission that the world was not a Norman Rockwell cover filled them with trepidation, and they were greatly relieved when none of the insurance men or their wives walked out.

Needless to say, when EPCOT opened, a Victorian music hall was not among its attractions. The English performance feature at present is an open-air, burlesqued Shakespeare which bears little relation to any traditional British popular entertainment. But it has the benefits of being rapid and nonconsequential, catching the visitors on the hoof, and confirming their belief that Shakespeare is something remote, antiquated, and ripe for kidding. “Reconstruction,” in a serious dramaturgical or performance context, is the last thing on the mind of the Disney enterprise.

Professor Laurence Senelick
Director of Graduate Studies
Tufts University
Department of Drama and Dance

While Disney was obviously never going to build something so letter-perfect as to completely satisfy someone with specific expertise in this area, and I doubt even the most detail-oriented and culturally-aware Imagineer would push for deviled kidneys, this is still a rather amusing window into a far more cautious era at Team Disney. A few years ago I emailed Dr. Senelick for details, and he elaborated somewhat:

It was clear from the beginning that the powers-that-be had no concept of what an authentic Victorian music hall (not dance hall) was all about. They had conceived something like a saloon in a Western. I believe my letter makes obvious that they did not want alcohol or even the audience sitting down for more than 5 minutes at a time. I was also struck by the fact that no one on site or in Orlando was allowed to make even the simplest decision without getting approval from the head office in Cal. first.

It’s a shame that Disney management wasn’t more adventurous at the time; this attraction would definitely have been a boon to World Showcase. It’s also regrettable that they weren’t more willing at the time to delve into greater realism for their food and entertainment offerings. I’ll admit that I give Disney a lot of grief, but when you look at the Animal Kingdom’s Africa and Asia areas it’s clear how far they’ve come in terms of offering guests a wide variety of experiences that they might not find at home.

Of course, this gentrified EPCOT of 1982 was also a product of its time; there’s a reason that the Italian restaurant has always been World Showcase’s most popular offering, and that’s because middle America has had the longest experience with that cuisine. Mexican and Chinese food were fairly familiar at the time, but you couldn’t just go out and find an Indian or Thai restaurant as easily as you can today. While you can understand why Disney managers wanted to keep things familiar and non-threatening, their thinking does seem pretty provincial and timid these days. I especially enjoy the part about executives worrying about the dinner show (which I assume to be Broadway at the Top) being too racy. I’m sure Hannah Montana probably would put it to shame.

The Imagineers in the “good old days” obviously weren’t perfect – the “Gay Nineties” show they conceived sounds pretty cheesy and, in fact, frightfully inauthentic – but the general concept of this attraction is still a good one. Were Disney to attempt it today, it could be realized in a way that would be far more authentic both in content, surroundings and menu. Even the alternate concept discussed by Beard – that of a Shakespearean dinner theater – would be interesting.

What’s more, this is a concept that would realize a profit – something necessary to get a greenlight these days. The old concerns about churning people through every ten minutes could be abandoned, and the idea could be turned into something more akin to the Hoop-Dee-Doo – extended dinner shows at night, at a premium price. The space could be used during the day for shorter presentations, and take reservations for the evening performances. Heaven knows that with the constantly-packed World Showcase restaurants, EPCOT could use a new dining location. A fairly authentic dining hall experience, complete with dinner and a show, would be unique in the Florida parks and would definitely enliven the rather stagnant pavilion. And, for once, it could be executed better today than in 1982. Perhaps it’s an idea whose time has come?

Just skip the deviled kidneys…

In honor of that old Highlights magazine standby, take a look at this lovely rendering of EPCOT’s Italy pavilion and see if you can tell me what’s wrong with this picture:

Do you see it? Have a look at this Imagineering model for the pavilion:

For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, let me make it clear by comparing these circa-1982 pavilion designs with a picture of the modern day Italian showcase:

Kind of hard to miss it now, isn’t it? It appears that somewhere between concept and execution, some of our pavilion went missing. And indeed it did – that Renaissance style facade you see looming in the rear of the pavilion would have served as gateway to the second phase of the Italian pavilion. A phase that was designed, announced… and never built.

It’s often observed in Disney fan circles that the Italian pavilion is the weakest of World Showcase’s offerings. While many of the other pavilions also lack attractions, they make up for that somewhat with other points of interest. Even the underdeveloped United Kingdom pavilion has its winding streets and gardens (and pub), and attractionless Morocco has its elaborate theming and sprawling layout. Italy has a shop, a nice but undistinguished restaurant, and… a shop. It’s a bit of a letdown, considering Italy’s thousands of years of rich heritage, art and history, so one can understand why guests might be perplexed to enter the pavilion only to find its central plaza lined on two sides by nothing but plain walls and hedgerows. Answers, but not solace, might be found in this passage from Richard Beard’s 1982 book about the creation of EPCOT Center:

Few buildings remain perfectly preserved as they were when new. Over the centuries, landlords change; one year they are prosperous, and they build on additions. The next year they’re a little short of funds, so they tear down part of the structure and sell the stones.

In a sense, the Italy pavilion itself is a victim of this cycle of fortune; the area which was to represent Southern Italy – not to mention a splendid replica of Roman ruins – may not be completed until 1983.

- Walt Disney’s EPCOT: Creating the New World of Tomorrow, 1982

Beard wasn’t kidding about the reason for the delay in the pavilion’s expansion; as EPCOT was nearing the end of its three-year construction period, time and money were running short. The park was greatly over-budget, and its massive scope and groundbreaking technology made the October 1st, 1982 opening date seem highly optimistic. Strapped for cash and manpower, Disney management canceled the construction of four attractions in World Showcase, reserving them for the park’s intended second phase. Only when they realized that these changes had dangerously reduced opening-day ride capacity did they fast-track the construction of a single high-capacity attraction, Mexico’s El Rio Del Tiempo, to open with the rest of the park.

Another conceptual rendering of the pavilion; note that the Campanile di San Marco was still depicted in its original site on the opposite side of the plaza

After the park opened, the money earmarked for expansion was focused on opening Horizons, the ride portion of Journey into Imagination, construction of the Moroccan pavilion and preparation for The Living Seas. Before management could return their attentions to World Showcase’s Phase II attractions, the sweeping changes of 1984 arrived and Eisner’s agenda took precedence. Aside from Norway’s opening in 1988, World Showcase was never heard from again.

The Italy pavilion as it was to be, 1982

Details about what was intended for the Italy expansion are scarce. Beard mentions the walk-through of Roman ruins, but more interesting though equally obscure was the planned centerpiece of the expansion. This little-known attraction was to be a dark ride, wherein guests would board gondolas for a boat ride through various Italian scenes. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Guests would enter the attraction through an arch on the west side of the plaza. After the ride, they would exit towards the rear of the pavilion where they’d emerge in the midst of the aforementioned Roman ruins.

This wasn’t the extent of the additions, though. Disney documentarian Martin Smith has done a yeoman’s job of tracking down information about the expansion, and created some fantastic visualizations of what could have been.

Footprint of the Italy expansion, by Martin Smith

In the image above, we see the two sections of expansion. The area surrounded by white would contain the ride show building and its Roman facade. The green outline would be a two-story structure, with the ride’s entrance and queue on the ground floor and a second restaurant upstairs. The blue line is an arched overlook which would connect the new restaurant building with Alfredo’s.

Overhead view of the Italy pavilion, facing east

Italy pavilion with restaurant building overlay, by Martin Smith

This area where the second restaurant was to be built is currently occupied by only a hedgerow and a single gate, as can be seen in the below image which was taken in Google Earth. Once one knows what was intended for this space, its absence seems glaring:

The area in question, looking northwest

The expansion was intended to connect with the extant construction shown above, as can be seen in this Imagineering model:

Imagineering model of the Italy pavilion, under construction. Note the funky circular feature in front of the American Adventure

The model above suggests that the restaurant building was intended to be built first, as the Roman section does not appear (there seem to be a few crumbled columns on the western facade, though, so perhaps that section was Roman as well). One can see from even the partial model that the expansion would have really drawn the pavilion together, and made it a much more interesting space than it currently is.

Will the expansion ever come to light? There’s no telling if Disney is even trying to recruit sponsors for this sort of thing anymore, and relaxing, scenic dark rides without franchiseable tie-ins aren’t exactly en vogue in Burbank. Even if Team Disney’s attentions were to return to World Showcase, the empty yet completed show building behind Japan will likely receive the first attention, followed probably by the partially-completed ride space in the German pavilion. But if there’s some Italian corporation out there looking for some good exposure to millions of guests each year, pick up your phone and call WDI. Wouldn’t this look nice in World Showcase?

Composite image of known and rumored additions to the Italy pavilion, by Martin Smith

Thanks to Martin Smith for the excellent renders of the Italy expansion, and if anyone has information about this obscure piece of EPCOT history please let me know.