Disney World’s Epcot has been undergoing a massive transformation that, when it is complete, will drastically change the entire front half of the theme park. The biggest new addition to Epcot is the Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind roller coaster. The rest of us won’t get to ride it until next summer, but the President of Walt Disney World has been able to take it for a test drive, and he has been completely blown away.
Walt Disney World President Jeff Vahle posted some images to Instagram that were taken when he recently toured the show building for the new coaster, the first at Disney World to offer a reverse launch. Vahle is getting us hyped for the new coaster, his review of the experience after taking a test run is just three words.
I have three words: it is AWESOME!!!
While certainly nobody would expect anything less than a full throated endorsement of a new attraction from the guy who runs the show, it’s hard not to get excited when you see something like this. We all want Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind to be something amazing and so hearing somebody say that it is is still nice to hear.
Cosmic Rewind will mark the second Guardians of the Galaxy attraction in Disney theme parks, and the only one found at Walt Disney World. While Disneyland Resort recently received an entire Marvel themed land with Avengers Campus, a deal struck between Marvel and Universal Orlando Resort prior to Marvel being purchased by Disney limits what characters can appear in the Disney Parks.
The new roller coaster, along with everything else that was under construction at Disney World, was significantly delayed when the pandemic forced the closure of the parks. Even after Disney World reopened, construction was a very slow process to come back. A couple of the plans for the new updated Epcot have been postponed entirely, and there’s a good chance we’ll never actually see them. Other projects, like the Tron roller coaster at Magic Kingdom, have been delayed so long that Disney World has very nearly stopped talking about them entirely, beyond the occasional assurance that they will open, at some point, eventually.
2022 marks the 40th anniversary of Epcot, and the 50th anniversary of Walt Disney World will only be midway through its own 18 month celebration when next summer comes along, so it’s the perfect time to add a major E-ticket attraction to Epcot. Hopefully by next summer most of the other construction being done at Epcot will be complete, but at this point it’s still pretty hard to tell. Cosmic Rewind has been given a summer opening, and we can expect that, if at all possible the new attraction will be opening early in the summer as a way to draw the summer tourists back to the theme park resort.
