Disney's Most Festive Park Needs to Become More International

So the Walt Disney Company is about to have a brand-new CEO in the coming months as Bob Iger is set to step down very soon. But the intriguing part is that the newest boss actually has a lot of experience on the theme park side of things, which wasn’t the case with Iger and Chapek. Josh D’Amaro clearly wants to focus on improving the theme parks themselves, as the reputation of the Walt Disney World parks has taken a bit of a hit in recent years.

Of course the Disney experience remains the most popular among theme parks in the entire world, but the image of quality among the parks and rides and entertainment hasn’t exactly been the strongest. Galaxy’s Edge, Toy Story Land, and especially the new layout of Epcot has been met with soft reception and a bit of disappointment. D’Amaro has already started making waves by increasing the budget and expectations for the Villains Land opening in Magic Kingdom, which is a good step forward as the newest chapter of the Theme Park Wars takes off with Epic Universe.

Disney will have to deliver stronger experiences, especially as Nintendo continues making waves in the Universal theme parks and might even offer more in the coming years. Side-note, adding Pokemon and Legend of Zelda to the Islands of Adventure would be an absolute game-changer. I think the park that needs the most fixing as it has the most potential is actually Epcot.

Epcot has become a festival park, with something extracurricular happening almost year-round. The year begins with Festival of the Arts, extends to Flower and Garden, and after a short break you have the extended and expanded versions of Food and Wine and Holiday Festival seasons on the tail end. For the record, all of these events are fun in their own right. The variety of dining and drinking, especially during Food and Wine Festival, is quite unique even in a country as diverse as the United States. You have the World Showcase already, and then add dozens of countries and regions with their own specialties and it becomes a nice way to experience cultures of spots you otherwise wouldn’t be able to explore.

Why not expand on this idea even further?

The Millennium Village building still exists. The World Showcase still has space for at least five more countries. The front of the park no longer carries the Future World moniker, instead becoming a mix of World Nature, World Celebration, and World Discovery----so why not expand the concept of the Showcase and add more countries to be represented in these areas? Not saying any of the additional countries have to be permanent, but instead on a yearly rotation period to give more countries an opportunity for their Disney appearance.

Take for example, the Seas Pavilion. Why not one year dedicate the Coral Reef and aquarium portions to animals/cuisine found in Australia? In the Land Pavilion, why not dedicate the theater to movies of a specific country, and then even having Soarin’ fly over some of that country’s popular terrain? With today’s drone technology, you can make epic sweeping footage with less effort than 20 years ago when Soarin’ first debuted.

As for the Imagination Pavilion, you can use this area to showcase the art scene past and present for different countries or different parts of the world. Diversity should be the name of the game for a park like Epcot, a park that has survived and thrived because of variety within the World Showcase and the events hosted there. Test Track, Mission: Space, and Soarin’ aren’t exactly the draws they used to be (in Soarin’s case, that’s a fixable problem), but the passholders and cast members tend to spend time at Epcot regardless simply because it’s an environment of diverse inclusivity, where you can encounter several cultures simultaneously (albeit, a bit sanitized, but hey gotta keep the vibes high, right?).

It is time for Epcot to double down on its diverse festive ways. It is time to see a Brazil pavilion, then give us Spain, India, Australia, Nigeria, maybe even Russia (…that one may have to wait for after Putin stops being in power…) as new lands to explore and learn more about. I think the World Showcase’s thematic ways should extend to the rest of the park as Epcot is operating without Future World.

Epcot always has my strongest recommendation, especially when the festivals are in full swing. But I believe in order to maximize the festive vibes, it is time for Epcot to have more pavilions, more variety, and more focus on global diversity moving forward. This would make the park more entertaining, more cultured, tastier, livelier, and would also simultaneously introduce U.S. citizens young and old to the giant vast world that we know very little about.

P.S. La Cava Del Tequila might be one of Disney’s best places to have a drink, especially because their avocado margarita is one of the best cocktails in the entire state, not just Orlando.