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Thursday, October 8, 2015

Theme Park Thursdays: Walt Disney's EPCOT


It might be called "Walt Disney World", but the resort as built was nothing like Walt Disney originally planned. He did want to build one theme park, but the place he called 'EPCOT' was supposed to be a real city. Sadly, Roy Disney was never sold on EPCOT's viability as a real city so the first thing he did was cancel his brother's plans and build the project that he wanted. But how would things have looked if Walt Disney's plans had materialized?



Guests to the park Walt called Disneyland East, would have parked their cars in the southern part of the property near Kissimmee. After getting out of their cars, they would have been whisked onto high speed monorails, enroute to the theme park that would have been built exactly like DISNEYLAND except with "more water". But first, they would have passed through the very real city named EPCOT. As they looked out of their windows, a voice would have told them about the marvels of EPCOT, a master planned community of tomorrow that they could tour while they were in Central Florida. (After they visited Disneyland East, of course.)



Sadly, none of these plans came to fruition, though the park that eventually became Magic Kingdom was located in the same place Walt had placed it in. Mr. Disney only visited the site once; here's the only known picture of him onsite. He would pass away before construction began.