Tag: permits

New Permits Reveal Star Wars Hotel Scope and Connection to Hollywood Studios

Disney recently filed permits with the South Florida Water Management District that reveal new details about the size and scope of the Star Wars Hotel as well as how guests will be entering Hollywood Studios directly from the resort.

Walt Disney World confirmed back in may that the hotel will be located just east of World Drive, on the south side of Hollywood Studios, but now with these construction plans we get real sense of exactly how the hotel will fit in to the surrounding area.

Disney has said that hotel will be “seamlessly connected” to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. According to the recently filed permits, guests staying at Walt Disney World’s Star Wars hotel will drive from Hollywood Studios’ parking lot over a drainage canal to get to the main hotel entrance.

Guests staying at the resort will use a special pathway to enter the theme park that will take them between the two attractions in the new land.

This first-of-its-kind resort will combine luxury with complete immersion into an authentic Star Wars story. Guests’ journey through space will start when everyone departs together for a multiday Stars Wars adventure by boarding a starship alive with characters and stories that unfold all around them during a voyage through the galaxy.

“It’s unlike anything that exists today.” Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Chairman Bob Chapek said. “From the second you arrive, you will become a part of a Star Wars story! You’ll immediately become a citizen of the galaxy and experience all that entails, including dressing up in the proper attire. Once you leave Earth, you will discover a starship alive with characters, stories, and adventures that unfold all around you. It is 100% immersive, and the story will touch every single minute of your day, and it will culminate in a unique journey for every person who visits.”

Disney has not released details on the new resort will open, but we do know the Star Wars-themed land at Hollywood Studios will open in late fall 2019.

July 5, 2018
New Documents Raise Questions About A Possible Name Change For Epcot

With the massive changes and reimagining of Disney’s Epcot, could the park also be getting a new name? Recently some official documents have come to light that show a new name for the park.

In the documents, the park is referred to as “Epcot World Center.” This is just pure speculation at this point, but it’s based in some pretty sound reasoning. These are official documents and for legal reasons names are usually extremely accurate.

Paperwork to alter Epcot’s parking lot was filed by Disney earlier this month. The plans shift parking to the east making room on the west side for new buildings and an 84-acre lake. It is suspected that these new buildings are the rumored Epcot entrance resort and it looks like the company has settled on area behind Living Seas pavilion for the resort.

Source: Blog Mickey

There is no official word on the possible resort, but an equally interesting fact is the possible new name found on these documents first reported by Blog Mickey. They saw the name after they zoomed in on the images and it certainly begs the question… Does Disney have some sort of name change in mind?

On the documents, the name is located in Future World right over spaceship earth, so it would seem it refers to the entire park and not just the World Showcase. It’s really a small change and Epcot is still in the name, but it certainly wouldn’t be the first name change for the park.

When the park first opened in 1982 it was known as “EPCOT Center”. Then in 1994 and 1995 the parks name was changed to “Epcot ’94” and “Epcot ’95” respectively. The annual name change didn’t last long and since that time the park has been known simply as “Epcot”.

It’s not immediately clear how “Epcot World Center” as a name, would tie into Future World, but perhaps with the addition of The Guardians of the Galaxy Roller Coaster and the rest of the changes coming to the park, it will make more sense once the entire park has gone though its full reimagination.

It’s kind of nice to see “Center” back in the name and it’s a far better name than some of the recent names that had been thrown around for a possible Hollywood Studios name change. Disney has since put the rumor to bed stating that “Disney’s Hollywood Studios name will remain the same for the foreseeable future“.

Though the name on the documents hardly seems an accident we will still have to wait and see if there is any official word from Disney about a name change.

February 16, 2018
New Tron Coaster Permits at Disney’s Magic Kingdom

Walt Disney World is always moving forward and recently filed permit applications show they are doing just that with their Tron Coaster plans for the Magic Kingdom. The Park will get its version of the “Tron” ride next to Space Mountain, said Bob Chapek, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, during D23, the official Disney fan club, in July in Anaheim, Calif.

Days after filing permits for a Ratatouille ride, Disney has some more attraction plans on the books. New permit documents filed Nov. 20 show the location of a planned Tron coaster in Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland.

A concept map for MK2 — the working title for Walt Disney World’s Tron coaster — shows it will be adjacent Space Mountain on its north side.

The coaster will be modeled after Tron Lightcycle Power Run at Shanghai Disneyland. The coaster-style attraction invites guests to board a train of two-wheeled Lightcycles for a ride through Tron’s high-tech universe.

Orlando-based design firm Heery International Inc. is listed on the designs. Illinois-based engineering firm Professional Service Industries Inc. is conducting geotechnical work on the site.

In a letter to Walt Disney Imagineering, an engineer from Professional Service Industries noted,

“At this time, we have no information on the building size and column/foundation loads. Additionally, there is no information on the finished grades of the floor slab. We would expect foundation loads to be moderately heavy and similar to other attractions in the area.”

The permit for the Tron coaster is bundled into a permit for The Main Street Theater (labeled “MK1”) that will occupy most of what is now a parking lot southwest of the Carousel of Progress and behind the shuttered Galaxy Palace Theater.

This falls in with Walt Disney Co.’s plans to invest in more projects around its Orlando theme parks in the coming year.

November 22, 2017