PHOTOS - Center of Future World now closed and eastern bypass walkway opens

Feb 16, 2020 in "EPCOT"

Future World East bypass walkway
Posted: Sunday February 16, 2020 9:54am ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

The center of Epcot's Future World is now completely closed off as the final locations in that area close and a new eastern bypass walkway opens to guests.

Guests are being directed to use the newly created walkways on each side of Spaceship earth, with the right hand-side leading to The Seas, The Land and Imagination!, and the left-side walkway between Guest Relations and Gateway Gifts leading to Mission: Space and Mouse Gear.

Along with large signs around Spaceship Earth, Cast members are holding signs and advising people on the best walkway to take.

Heading past Gateway Guests, the new concrete design is in place on the ground - replacing the pink color with a stone concrete.

Guest Relations is as far as you can go before hitting a row of walls.


A sharp left turn takes you towards the Guardians of the Galaxy construction site.


The walkway ultimately puts guests by the new Mouse Gear and into Future World East.

The old breezeway is walled off.

New FastPass+ kiosks have been installed by Test track, and near to Nemo in Future World West.


With the closure of Electric Umbrella, Sunshine Seasons offers burgers, the Epcot Experience now serves chicken nuggets and salads, and the Taste Track kiosk will offer burgers and fries near to Test Track, although this is not yet open but expected soon.

Click the gallery for more pictures of today's Epcot Future World changes.

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Disstevefan11 day ago

Does that mean no Water filtration plant behind the scenes tour?

James Alucobond1 day ago

Looks like they’re finally adding plantings behind the Journey of Water pump facility to conceal it from the monorail. Hopefully that means they’ll reconfigure the meet and greet queue soon, but we shall see.

UNCgolf2 days ago

I'm just curious. I think it would be nice if there was some separation but I haven't been there since the new hub was opened so I don't have a good sense of where everything is in relation to everything else. It also depends on what the entertainment actually is. The Encanto sing-along they're opening with, e.g., has the potential to be pretty annoying for people elsewhere in the hub if it's really loud (that's the kind of thing that works better in a theater or something similar IMO), but other things might not be.

KeithVH2 days ago

Well, that definitely looks like local city park quality level work . . .

MisterPenguin2 days ago

I thought we were criticizing Disney for the lack of live entertainment...

UNCgolf2 days ago

I wonder how loud it will be. I think they could potentially overdo it and kind of ruin the whole area with noise pollution; I'm sure not everyone in the garden area is going to want to have to listen to whatever is happening on the stage.

tparris2 days ago

Large speakers/sound system being installed on the ceiling above the stage in CommuniCore Plaza.

tparris2 days ago

Gotcha. I’m no expert in that field, so that’s good to know.

James Alucobond2 days ago

Pretty sure they can at least stain and treat it the same way the surrounding concrete is treated in order to better conceal it.

CntrlFlPete2 days ago

cool!! I plan on telling folks that the strange floating rectangle of triangles is an abstract titled 'The Borg ship that assimilated Heihei'.

tparris2 days ago

It’s concrete, they can’t exactly just paint it. What they should have done is cut out the immediate surrounding area and replace it in sections. I would think the intentional cracks all over the ground would make it relatively easy to blend in new sections with the existing ones.

Andrew252 days ago

Hoping they paint it soon... but I'll take this over the ugly wooden boxes

HauntedPirate2 days ago

tparris2 days ago

The temporary boxes around the bases of the circular light fixtures just outside Connections Cafe have been removed, revealing the new bases. They look fine, however the obvious imperfections and different color where they shaved off the “mounds” really bothers me. That part doesn’t look good at all imo