Epcot- Guardians of the Galaxy Construction Update

Construction Update- Guardians of the Galaxy 

Not due to open until 2021, the new indoor roller coaster at Disney World's Epcot Center is under full construction at the park.  It's shockingly obvious  that this new attraction is doing some heavy editing to the pavilion that once hosted 'The Universe of Energy' and 'Ellen's Energy Adventure'.

The most obvious, and jarring, change to the pavilion is the now missing solar tiles which once covered the roof. It gave Energy the 'glowing' look it was famous for over the years, blindingly bright in the Florida sunshine. We've no idea if these will return or if something new will be added to the roof area. As of now, it's rather a blank concrete slate that holds no real hint of what's lurking in the future.

Moving past the roof, the outward appearance of the building hasn't changed. At least not until you look behind it.

I present to you, the newest 'Epcot Eyesore' which is the ride building for Guardians of the Galaxy. It's.. shocking how big and overly obvious it is, at least in it's current state. Hopefully Disney will do something (ANYTHING) to disguise this thing. Painting some type of designs upon the sides, dressing the area of up with trees.. something!

Because not only is it achingly, painfully dull to look at, it completely mucks the monorail view of Epcot. Passing by this thing, all you can think is 'Why is that even there?'.

On the more positive side of this eye-sore, you can see where the coaster will be entering the ride building. I'd go so far as to speculate this is a likely lift-hill that we're looking at. While we can be sure if it will  be a launched lift or a more traditional chain-style, currently it's not enclosed but I'd expect that part will come soon. Currently, you can see any visible track under the small 'roof' area currently slanting into the building.

At least the next parts are far more exciting.  From a view on a nearby bench, you can see into the Energy building and since today was surprisingly breezy, the 'no peeking' flaps were moving about enough that we could snag several photos of the gutted interior.

The back end of the building is completely gone, open now for construction equipment. Inside you can see supports and some track already assembled, taking shape into the new coaster. From the view we had, nothing is completed enough to have themeing elements involved yet beyond some cherry-picker and scissor lifts.

Another good peak inside, while not very visible due to the screening, are several curving track pieces. These seemed to be a banked and descending in a curve . Beyond that we weren't able to get a very good look at the track layout, nor even the shape of the track to see how the 'spinning cars' will play into the attraction.

While we weren't able to get a good look at it, we do know this coaster is a Vekoma design.

Over a year ago the 'prototype' train for this new style coaster was spotted. I say 'prototype' as Vekoma has never built a spinning-car coaster before, but considering their current deal with Disney, they'll likely hold the market on this new style and type of coaster for the normal 10 years.


That's all we've got for now, with the opening date not until 2021, we've got plenty of time to keep an eye on this project!