Nearly five years after EPCOT traded its beloved Future World for a trio of new neighborhoods, Walt Disney World Resort has begun making low-key changes to two of the most divisive spaces in the park.
Why World Nature and World Celebration Draw Criticism
October 1, 2021, marked the official end of Future World at EPCOT, giving way to World Celebration, World Nature, and World Discovery. The new neighborhoods held onto classic attractions such as Spaceship Earth and Living with the Land, which was originally called Listen With the Land, but that wasn’t enough to win over every Disney Parks fan. Many felt the redesign wiped away the last traces of EPCOT’s original vintage character.
The complaints haven’t let up in the years since. Areas like the World Celebration Gardens and CommuniCore Plaza have been called out for already appearing worn and dated despite their relatively young age.
New Trees Signal Small Changes at EPCOT
This month brought the first real update to World Nature and World Celebration in some time — though it came in the form of landscaping rather than a full redesign. WDWNT reported on August 12 that Walt Disney World had installed three new palm trees in a World Celebration flowerbed located between the Imagination! Pavilion and CommuniCore Hall.
That spot has historically been reserved for temporary seasonal installations, such as the Rain or Shine Fruit Stand garden featured during the EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival. It was not previously home to palm trees.
A separate palm tree also went in over in World Nature, near Journey of Water, Inspired by Moana. It replaced a smaller tree in that flowerbed that didn’t survive a bout of freezing weather earlier this year.
This isn’t the first palm tree swap EPCOT has seen this summer. Disney planted the same species at the park’s main entrance back in July, also replacing older trees lost to the cold.
What do you think about the new neighborhoods at EPCOT? Share your opinion with Disney Dining in the comments!
