If you look at a satellite map of Walt Disney World right now, you will see an unprecedented amount of dirt being moved. As we head into the highly anticipated 2026 D23 Expo in Anaheim, three of the four Florida theme parks are actively choked by construction walls as Disney pours billions of dollars into its next generation of immersive lands.
Over at the Magic Kingdom, ground has officially broken on both the sinister Villains Land and the massive Cars-themed expansion in Frontierland. At Disney’s Animal Kingdom, the demolition of Dinoland U.S.A. is well underway to make room for the Encanto and Indiana Jones attractions of Tropical Americas. Meanwhile, Disney’s Hollywood Studios is in the thick of building its first-ever suspended coaster for the new Monsters, Inc. land.
Because those massive, landscape-altering projects are already well underway, the spotlight for this year’s D23 theme park panel inevitably shifts to the fourth gate: EPCOT.
With the successful, high-profile reopening of Test Track 3.0 in the summer of 2025, and the center of the park finally free of construction walls thanks to the completed World Celebration gardens, EPCOT looks great on paper. However, two of the park’s most iconic, historic dark rides are desperately aging. Both Spaceship Earth and Journey Into Imagination with Figment are begging for a massive overhaul.
According to theme park insiders and industry predictions, EPCOT is likely to get only one major ride update announced at D23 this year. And unfortunately for hardcore Disney purists, it is not the ride they really want.
Here is why Disney is actively prioritizing a Spaceship Earth refurbishment over Figment, and why—given the massive spending happening across the rest of the resort—EPCOT actually deserves to get both.
The Brutal Reality: Spaceship Earth Needs It More
If you ask any diehard EPCOT fan which ride needs to be completely gutted and rebuilt from the ground up, the answer is almost universally Journey Into Imagination with Figment. The current iteration of the ride is widely considered a massive thematic downgrade from the legendary 1983 original. Fans have spent over two decades begging Imagineering to bring back the Dreamfinder and restore the Imagination pavilion to its former glory.
But fans are likely going to be disappointed when the D23 Parks Panel kicks off. Industry analysts strongly predict that the spotlight will instead fall on the giant golf ball at the front of the park.
Disney is expected to announce a massive, multi-year reimagining of Spaceship Earth officially—and from a purely logistical standpoint, it makes total sense.
Dusting Off the 2019 Blueprint
We already know Disney wants to update Spaceship Earth because they technically already announced it. Back at the 2019 D23 Expo, Disney formally revealed “Spaceship Earth: Our Shared Story.” The park’s grand icon was slated for a massive refurbishment, including brand-new show scenes, an entirely new musical score, updated narration, and a dynamic “Story Light” to guide guests through the history of human communication.
That project was ultimately delayed indefinitely and effectively killed by the 2020 park closures. Disney was forced to slash its capital expenditure budgets, and Spaceship Earth was left to operate in its current, aging state. Announcing a revived, perhaps modified version of this project at the 2026 D23 Expo allows Disney to finally finish what they started without reinventing the wheel conceptually.
The Reliability Crisis
Beyond the outdated thematic elements, Spaceship Earth is suffering from severe mechanical fatigue. The ride system is ancient. While Disney has performed a few short “duct tape” refurbishments over the last couple of years to keep the omnimovers rolling, routine maintenance can only do so much. The attraction is experiencing increased downtime, and the infamous backward descent into the dark feels more like a budget cut than a grand finale.
Spaceship Earth is the park’s thesis statement and its undisputed visual icon. Having a high-capacity attraction with near-perfect uptime at the very front of the park is absolutely vital for EPCOT’s crowd flow. Disney simply cannot afford to have its flagship ride constantly breaking down while thousands of guests pour through the front gates. Fixing Spaceship Earth isn’t just about upgrading the animatronics; it is an urgent operational necessity.
The “Singles and Doubles” Strategy
Disney Imagineering is currently leaning heavily into a “singles and doubles” strategy for Walt Disney World. With billions of dollars already committed to building Villains Land, Tropical Americas, and Monsters, Inc. from scratch, there is simply not enough capital remaining to build a billion-dollar mega-land at EPCOT right now.
Instead, Imagineering is taking existing, popular attractions and giving them high-budget, highly marketable overhauls.
We saw this exact strategy executed successfully with the transformation of Splash Mountain into Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and, most recently, with last year’s Test Track update. Test Track 3.0 reused the existing multi-story ride track and infrastructure, allowing Disney to focus its budget entirely on thematic “window dressing” and a sleeker aesthetic.
Spaceship Earth perfectly fits this strategy. It is a highly efficient way to market a “brand-new” experience without the staggering cost of a ground-up build. Conversely, fixing Journey Into Imagination the way fans actually want it fixed would require entirely gutting the pavilion and starting from scratch—a massive expense Disney likely isn’t ready to shoulder in 2026.
The Wildcard: Could EPCOT Actually Get Both?
While all signs point to Spaceship Earth taking the EPCOT spotlight at this year’s D23 Expo, there is a compelling argument that Disney should also announce an overhaul of Journey Into Imagination.
With so much money flowing into Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios to prepare them for the next decade of operation, EPCOT shouldn’t be left behind with just one ride update. If Disney truly wanted to win over the hardcore fanbase at D23, it would announce a timeline for Spaceship Earth’s long-overdue “Shared Story” reimagining. At the same time, Journey Into Imagination is simultaneously greenlit for a complete, ground-up creative rebuild.
Why Figment Might Be Pushed to 2027
However, if Figment doesn’t get a single mention in Anaheim this year, fans shouldn’t completely lose hope.
Depending on the scope and scale of the Spaceship Earth project, Disney might want to strategically stagger the closures so EPCOT doesn’t lose too much ride capacity all at once. Knocking out Spaceship Earth first ensures that the front of the park is a high-capacity sponge for morning crowds. Once that is operating smoothly, Walt Disney World would have the capacity to take the Imagination pavilion offline for a year or two.
Furthermore, pushing the Figment announcement off a year could mean saving it for the 2027 Destination D23 event, which takes place right in Walt Disney World’s backyard. Announcing the triumphant return of the Dreamfinder to a hometown crowd of Florida locals and Annual Passholders would generate a deafening roar of approval that a California crowd simply couldn’t match.
While everyone is crossing their fingers for a massive Imagination Pavilion overhaul, prepare yourselves for the reality of theme park budgets and logistics. When the executive team takes the stage this August, the biggest news for EPCOT will almost certainly involve thanking the Phoenicians.
