Epcot Part 4: World Showcase East

Ever since the first time I visited Disney World back when I was just five years old I have always been fascinated with World Showcase. It is no stretch to say that it is one of my favorite areas in any of the Disney parks. Being able to experience the culture, history, traditions, and food of these eleven nations is an experience unmatched in any other theme park and one of the things that makes Epcot so unique. That being said, I feel that there is some room for improvement in World Showcase with the addition of new attractions, restaurants, and even a couple of entirely new pavilions.

Some people may think that there is not much room for expansion in World Showcase, but the reality is that there are several expansion plots, not only for the addition of new countries but also to add to the existing countries as well.



My vision for World Showcase is one where every pavilion has at least one attraction, one sit-down restaurant, and one counter-service restaurant. With these criteria, some of the existing World Showcase countries will need to receive more attention than others.

Mexico has everything that a World Showcase pavilion should: two sit-down restaurants, a counter-service restaurant, shopping, entertainment, and an attraction. In 2007 Mexico’s original boat ride, El Rio del Tiempo, was updated and given a new name and storyline. The new Grand Fiesta Tour staring the Three Caballeros was an attempt to make an attraction that would appeal more to children, but what was lost was the original attraction’s attention to Mexican culture, traditions, and history.

I would create a new boat ride more along the lines of the original. It would begin by introducing the Aztec and Mayan civilizations that once flourished in Mexico, showcasing their unique art, architecture, and customs. The next part of the ride would highlight many of Mexico’s natural wonders, which would be followed by a visit to Mexico’s beautiful coastline and beaches. The ride would finish with exploring some of the country’s biggest cities and a look at modern-day Mexico. This new boat ride would be a far better tribute to the country of Mexico than the current Grand Fiesta Tour.







In recent years the Norway pavilion has become overrun by the Disney princesses who have their own character dining at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall. The first thing I would do to this pavilion is remove the princesses. Even though this character dining experience is one of the more popular in Disney World, the princesses have no place being in Norway. I would restore Akershus to a regular sit-down restaurant, without characters, serving both lunch and dinner.

The Malestrom boat ride is an interesting attraction. With its audio-animatronic figures, detailed scenery, and even a small drop it is like the Norwegian equivalent of Pirates of the Caribbean. The problem with this attraction is that it is far too short and really lacks a coherent storyline.

I would expand and remake Malestrom into a boat ride centered on Norse mythology. Guests would now sail to Valhalla aboard their Viking ships to the halls of Asgard, the home of the Gods. Once there they will encounter many of the various Norse Gods including Odin (father of the Gods), Thor (the God of thunder), Baldur (the God of peace), Aegir (the God of the sea), Tyr (the God of war), and many others. Things go awry when Loki (the trickster God) fools us into trying to take one of the Golden Apples, the source of the Gods' immortality and perpetual youth. Guest then find themselves in a race to escape Valhalla, fleeing from Idun, Guardian of the Golden Apples, and the Valkyries, warrior maidens on flying horses. This ride would become a true E-ticket attraction with state-of-the-art audio animatronic figures and multiple drops.







China is a pavilion that I would not do too much with; it already has an attraction with its Reflections of China circlevision film as well as both a counter-service and sit-down restaurant. The only change I would make to the pavilion is with the Nine Dragons restaurant. With Chinese restaurants being so common, there is really nothing about Nine Dragons that makes it stand out; it is just a regular sit-down restaurant. I would convert it into a buffet-hybrid type restaurant comprised of different stations. Each station would highlight one of the eight culinary traditions of China including the bold and spicy flavors of Szechuan cuisine, the predominantly seafood Shandong cuisine, and the hearty Cantonese cuisine. At each station, in addition of a selection of pre-prepared items, diners would also have the option of selecting various raw ingredients to be prepared by a chef stir-frying on a wok right in front of them. This would not only help provide a greater and more varied selection of Chinese cuisine, but also help make the restaurant a more unique dining experience.

Moving away from China we cross a bridge into the African outpost. This area is actually one of the larger expansion plots around World Showcase and is more than big enough to be the home of an entirely new pavilion. One country that offers great potential for a new pavilion is Egypt. The pavilion would be one of the most visually impressive in World Showcase, with replicas of the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx. Inside of the pyramid would by an actually Egyptian archeological and historical museum, housing various treasures from the pharaohs’ tombs.





The pavilion would also contain an E-ticket attraction using a similar ride system of Dinosaur at Animal Kingdom. The attraction would be called Curse of the Pharaohs and would be housed in a building designed to look like the grand temples of Karnak, which was the most important place of worship in ancient Egypt.



Although similar in name and theme, this attraction would be totally different from Universal’s Revenge of the Mummy. The storyline for the ride is that guests are invited to join an expedition to a previously unexplored tomb, being dubbed as one of the biggest discoveries in the study of ancient Egypt. Guest start their journey through torch-lit rooms filled with hieroglyphics and then into a series of chambers containing immense treasures of incalculable value. Finally guests will enter a chamber with an ornate sarcophagus in the center of the room, but it is here that things take a turn for the worst. Guests then encounter a series of unfortunate events as they attempt to race out of the tomb and escape with their lives. Their escape will leave guests wondering whether or not these events were natural or supernatural and wondering whether or not the curse really exists.

This Egyptian pavilion would also include a sit-down restaurant. Egyptian cuisine is know for its kababs, meat and vegetables that are grilled on skewers. The concept for this restaurant would be that diners walk through an area designed to look like a market and select different types of meat, vegetables, spices, and sauces they want on their kababs. Diners then take their ingredients to a large open fire pit where a chef will place the ingredients they have chosen onto a skewer and they can watch as the kababs are prepared over the open fire. The pavilion would also have a counter-service restaurant that would be a bakery featuring a large selection of breads, which form the backbone of Egyptian cuisine, as well as numerous Egyptian pastries. The bakery would offer a variety of different sandwiches and guests would have the opportunity to select which type of bread on which they would like to have their sandwich.

Germany is a pavilion that was planned to have a ride when Epcot first opened, but for one reason or another it was never constructed. According to the Walt Disney Company's 1976 annual report, the Rhine River Cruise was to be “... a cruise down Germany's most famous rivers– the Rhine, the Tauber, the Ruhr and the Isar. Detailed miniatures of famous landmarks will also be seen, including one of the Cologne Cathedral.”



While a majority of the show building was never actually constructed, the load and unload area of the ride would have been located next to the entrance to the Biergarten restaurant. Today, this area is hidden behind a giant mural depicting the German countryside.



My version of the ride would be along the lines of what was originally planned and similar in style to the boat ride in Mexico. The ride would feature a dramatic score comprised of music from some of Germany’s greatest composers including Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, and Wagner. Guests would sail past scenes of some of Germany’s most enduring landmarks such as the Neuschwanstein castle, the Brandenburg Gate, the Cathedral of Cologne, and the Schwarzwald (Black Forest). The rest of the pavilion would remain the same with its various shops, and both a sit-down and counter-service restaurant.







Italy, like Germany, was also supposed to have a boat ride. This one was to be a gondola ride through various Italian scenes. Even though World Showcase is already heavy on boat rides, I think this idea is too good to pass up and there is something about gondolas themselves that would add extra allure to the attraction and make it somewhat unique. Guests would enter the attraction by first walking through a replica of ancient Roman ruins along the lines of what one would see today if walking through the Forum in Rome.



Guests would then board their gondolas and travel through scenes from some of Italy’s best-known cities, including Venice, Milan, Florence, Pisa, Rome, and Naples, and encounter some of the country’s most enduring landmarks.



Italian cuisine has so much to offer and it is for this reason that the pavilion features two sit-down restaurants. However, the pavilion is lacking a counter-service restaurant which I feel would be immensely popular. For this reason, I would first construct a counter-service pizza parlor adjacent to Via Napoli that would serve the same style pizzas as in the sit-down restaurant but with the option of ordering pizza by the slice. I would also construct a Gelateria (ice cream shop) and bakery that would offer a wide assortment of gelato as well as numerous pastries, such as biscotti, cannoli, and zeppole.

At the center of World Showcase is the American pavilion. The American Adventure is a classic and I would not touch it at all. The changes I would make to the pavilion would be with the dining offerings there. All of the other countries of World Showcase have great restaurants, but America is severely lacking in this category. The Liberty Inn counter-service restaurant does not do justice to American cuisine; burgers, chicken strips, and French fries are not the best that America has to offer. I would completely reinvent this restaurant into more of a food court-style eatery with divided into different sections each highlighting a different part of the country. There would be a New England section offering various seafood dishes, a Louisiana section featuring jambalaya and gumbo, a Southern Barbeque section with ribs, grilled chicken, a pulled pork, and a Hawaiian section offering dishes with a tropical flare.

I would also construct a new sit-down restaurant. Here guests would dine in an upscale, colonial-inspired dining room surrounded by antique furniture and paintings of the Founding Fathers; Guests will feel as though they are dining at Mount Vernon or Monticello. The menu would change each day of the week, highlighting a different regional cuisine each day. These changes would help make America a more complete pavilion and do greater justice to American culture and cuisine.

Stay tuned as we continue making our way around World Showcase with even more changes and additions.