Moana: Journey of Water takes biggest step yet towards opening
By Brian Miller
Disney fans are beaming over the fact that a major development has taken place over the past several days as it relates to EPCOT's new interacive water spectacular. What is it? The walls have come down.
Fans have been posting images and videos of the area where once stood large blue wood barriers that blocked the views for guests. Stand on a bench to try and peek over, and a cast member was quickly there to ask you to get down.
Take a run from Magic Kingdom on the monorail and you get a bird's eye view but it lasted only seconds before you made your way into the station. Now, there are only those wooden rollaway planters with trees separating guests from the newest addition to EPCOT.
Once open, this magical and musical interactive attraction will allow guests to explore on their own, the world of water. The attraction is located to the right of World Celebration which remains under construction.
From World Nature, you can see the entry and exit points. Moana replaces the guest favorite water feature that used to sit outside the former Starbucks location as well as Cool Zone. Prior to being torn down, guests could marvel at the water fountain display that shot water from one container to another.
How the interaction will work within the Moana Journey isn't 100% known. Previous concept designs showed a world where guests could interact with water displays and a recent photo showed a child reaching over a fence to interact with a spout of water.
As with all new attractions, Moana: Journey of Water is expected to be a huge draw when it opens and should see considerable traffic early as it is the newest addition to the park since World Celebration turned into a construction zone.
There is no word, officially, yet on when the attraction will open but there has been some media walk throughs as well as cast member testing that has already taken place. With the walls down, speculation is that this new section could be open by the end of September or mid-October. Then again, it is Disney and they could open the area on an absolute whim.