Almost every year we hear a different rumor about a new nighttime spectacular coming to replace Epcot’s Illuminations: Reflections of Earth, but we have our strongest signs yet that this year’s rumor may in fact be true. Epcot’s World Showcase Lagoon could soon seen a new nighttime show.
Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID) is the government entity that allows Walt Disney World to operate mostly apart from the Florida county governments it physically belongs to. Most of the plans for updates and additions to the parks and resorts go through this board, so Disney World fans tend to pay close attention to what the RCID approves.
At this week’s RCID meeting a multi-million dollar budget was approved to provide electrical upgrades to the lagoon. It would provide a new pipe from the American Adventure pavilion into the lagoon, $1.8 million for ‘electrical upgrades,’ and more than a half-million for various equipment, engineering, and inspection work.
With Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge forecast to bring a huge bump in attendance to Walt Disney World in late 2019, this new show could siphon off some of the guests from Disney’s Hollywood Studios at night, spreading around the crowds.
Disney has already announced a makeover for Epcot’s core future world buildings and guest flow through the area. The concept art is pretty vague, but it does show some additional fountains that could also be a part of what ever new show comes to the larger World Showcase Lagoon.
There’s no timeline for the EPCOT Future World project. Disney and RCID often work years ahead on major projects, but the whole point of RCID is they can rush things forward when they have to. So we could have a new show when EPCOT finishes their remodel of Future World’s core or they could rush it to completion to help with expected crowds from Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.
The original Illuminations debuted at EPCOT in 1988 with the Reflections of Earth edition debuting in 1999. Do you think it’s time for a new nighttime show in EPCOT’s World Showcase Lagoon? Will you be sad to see Illuminations: Reflections of Earth go?
Just viewed this show the other night. Because we did not have front row, rail side viewing, we basically saw almost nothing. Most of the show seemed to be very low down on the water. My family was about 4 people back from the front row. I am 5′ tall. I expected more to be seen high up for all to see like in California at CA Adventures World if Color water show.
I stood on tip toes, and bobbed around left and right to gain glimpses of animated projections down low on an earth structure on the water. But couldn’t view but more than a section here and a snippet there.
I understand people get a rail side spot up to 2 hours before the show starts. But when you only have one day in the park those 2 hours are too precious to be spent reserving a spot for the show.
A new show that sprays water well over 50′ in the air and projects animations on the spray for all to see by just looking up would be most welcome.
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