EPCOT's The Seas Pavilion to Resume Normal Operating Hours for Summer 2025

13 days ago in "The Seas with Nemo and Friends (Pavilion)"

Posted: Monday May 5, 2025 2:00pm ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

Beginning May 27, 2025, EPCOT’s The Seas with Nemo & Friends pavilion will once again operate on the same schedule as the rest of the park, following several months of closing early at 7 pm.


The change is now reflected in Disney’s official park calendar, showing that both the aquarium and the attraction will remain open through regular park hours, usually 9 pm, starting Memorial Day weekend. Until now, The Seas pavilion had been closing earlier than the rest of EPCOT, with reduced evening access for guests.

Disney has not provided an official explanation for the earlier closures, but they coincided with construction activity within the pavilion and a temporary closure of the manatee exhibit. That exhibit recently reopened with new rescued manatees, as part of a shift toward short-term rehabilitation in partnership with the Manatee Rescue & Rehabilitation Partnership (MRP) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).

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    spectromagic0413 days ago

    I think that’s the new showtimes for the foreseeable future. There’s been a lot of small cuts with hours in the past couple weeks. Main Street Bakery closes 30 minutes before park close. Also Pecos Bill now closes 30 minutes earlier now 90 minutes before park close instead 1 hour.

    Cooldip13 days ago

    No one has mentioned that “Canada Far and Wide” has only been open 10am to 8pm the last few weeks.

    Jambo Dad13 days ago

    The Nemo overlay is such a lousy and cheap overlay. This is a pretty big aquarium that carried its own story for 20 years - like Haunted Mansion or Pirates. It seems only the Oriental Land Company had a good idea of how to balance IP and origin final stories anymore.

    Comped13 days ago

    In my mind this confirms its was a construction thing... And not demand based.

    DCBaker13 days ago

    According to updated operating hours, The Seas with Nemo & Friends and the pavilion will once again remain open until park closing beginning May 27:

    V_L_RaptorMar 01, 2025

    Digging the lighting, but I will never forgive the loss of that sunset mural.

    castlecake2.0Mar 01, 2025

    Not sure if this is new or not but digging the lighting

    Streetway AgainFeb 20, 2025

    I mean it’s good the seas is getting fixed, but realistically with an update, what much can you really do? The pavilion needs a better ride, but honestly idk what much more you can do with seas with Nemo. It wasn’t built to be a dark ride with show scenes really, and I don’t know what other aquatic ip’s there are. And as much as I love 80s Epcot, I don’t know how much of a draw the seacabs would be. Though I do think seabase alpha could be a good premise for a really good dark ride+post show. With the right leadership, I’d be ok with the living seas getting the Tokyo space treatment, if it wasn’t just another IP dump. I honestly wonder if that happens to any future world pavilions eventually? There’s only so many times you can totally retheme something as opposed to update. Probably not. Fun to dream tho.

    castlecake2.0Feb 18, 2025

    Something to do with that, they have sensors that monitor the light intrusion in the tanks

    Grantwil93Feb 18, 2025

    Id assume maybe they have like a Day/Nighr cycle with the lights in the building? And after 11pm till maybe 7am or something the tank lights are off. Considering most of the fish in there are surface to shallow dwelling species. Idk though. Maybe less about sleep and more about consistency of an indoor environment.

    ToTBellHopFeb 13, 2025

    Fish don’t really sleep. I’m not sure closing at 7 pm helps them chill more, and if it did, why were they okay with chill-deprived fish over the last decade? Monsters.

    DarkMetroid567Feb 13, 2025

    too be fair it’s very hard to tell what is and isn’t a joke on this forum lol

    Grantwil93Feb 13, 2025

    I think it's funny that there are giant construction walls in there and speculation still persists. I literally just asked a CM out front of the ride at night and they said it's just cause of construction going on behind the walls and above the main tank. The crews need more time cause the fish need to sleep. This was done as a multi month temporary thing rather than closing the pavilion outright for a month. At least, that's what they said and that checks out to me. I personally wish it was something more exciting 😅

    HauntedPirateJan 19, 2025

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