The Mystery of the Wonders of Life pavilion at Epcot

This week, there has been lots of buzz on twitter about the Wonders of Life pavilion in Epcot. The talk online has specifically revolved around the two old rides inside the pavilion, Body Wars and Cranium Commamd. This has come about after @wolfanbase released images on twitter showing that a lot of both rides still remained inside the building. The pictures show that Cranium Command has remained relatively untouched since it closed 11 years ago. Pictures have also been released showing the remains of Body Wars. More of this ride has been removed than Cranium Command, but an incredible amount still remains intact. It certainly looks like both rides could run again after having a little bit of work done on them.

The story so far

In more recent years, the Wonders of Life pavilion has been used as the Festival centre. In February of this year it was announced that the pavilion would no longer be used during festivals at Epcot. Over the last few months a lot of work has been done on the roof of the pavilion. This has led to lots of online speculation regarding the possibilities of new attractions being built inside the pavilion.

The fact that Disney would leave large portions of two rides untouched for nearly 11 years after they closed definitely seems strange to me. However, maybe this shouldn’t be that big of a surprise since Disney left River Country untouched and abandoned for many years after it closed in 2001. It is however, still puzzling as to why Disney would just close down attractions and never remove them. It has always felt strange that these rides were never replaced. Especially when considering that Epcot is certainly not a park with an abundance of rides. 

For the rest of this article, I would like to try and discuss three possible reasons why Disney would have not removed these two attractions from within the Wonders of Life pavilion.

1. Cost 

Removing both attractions from inside the pavillion would definitely come at a cost. Therefore, if Disney had no plans for the pavillion when they closed down the rides, it would have made more financial sense to Disney to simply switch of the lights and hide the attractions behind a curtain. It’s also possible that due to these attractions being built inside the pavilion, it could cause the removal of these attractions to be more expensive. Removal could also be more difficult in comparison to simply removing a ride from a standard show building. It could even be the case that removing these rides could affect the pavilions structure itself.  There may also be limited access into the building for larger vehicles required to remove the two large attractions.

2. Parts 

Another reason I could see for not removing these rides is that it was an easy way of storing spare ride parts on site. I’m sure that lots of the parts used in these two rides can be found in many other attractions at Disney World. For example, parts of Body Wars may have been used over the years to replace broken parts on Star Tours when necessary, as the two ride systems are very similar. This, in my opinion, would definitely be a strange way to deal with old rides. However, the fact that these rides closed down years ago but still remain inside the pavilion is already strange in itself. Therefore, I do feel that this idea is certainly a possibility and should definitely be considered when speculating on why the rides have not yet been removed.

3. Sponsorship 

Most Disney fans believe that the main reason why the attractions within the Wonders of Life pavilion closed was due to a loss of sponsorship. The pavilion was sponsored by MetLife. It is believed that MetLife initially spent $100 million to build the pavilion. The company continued to sponsor the pavilion until 2001. The withdrawal of sponsorship in 2001 happened very fast and took Disney somewhat by surprise. From that day onwards, Disney never invested money into updating the Wonders of Life pavilion. Disney were never able to find a new company to sponsor the pavilion.

In 2004, the pavilion started to only open at certain times of the year. This continued until January 1st 2007 when the pavilion finally closed down for good. Maybe, Disney kept the rides in the hope that they would be able to find a new sponsor. I doubt that Disney are still actively looking to gain a sponsor for these rides today. However, I do think it’s possible that they could have been searching for a new sponsor for several years after the rides closed. My guess is that by the time Disney gave up looking for sponsors, they had probably pretty much forgotten about the existence of these rides and just decided that it was easier to simply hide the attractions away from guests at the park.

The Future of this mystery

The whole story regarding the Wonders of Life pavilion is definitely one of the stranger, yet most fascinating stories I have come across regarding recent Disney park history. It will certainly be interesting to see if Disney acknowledge these recent findings. It would be fascinating to find out from Disney themselves the reason why these attractions never got removed.

If you love the Disney parks then please check out our article on the changes planned for Splash Mountain.