Epcot's Gateway Gifts closing for short refurbishment next week

Jan 08, 2020 in "Gateway Gifts"

Gateway Gifts overview
Posted: Wednesday January 8, 2020 2:44pm ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

Epcot's Gateway Gifts will be closing for a brief refurbishment next week.

The gift shop located underneath Spaceship Earth on the eastern side will close from January 13 through to January 18, reopening to guests on January 19 2020.

This will complete the remodel of the stores by Spaceship earth, with the Camera Center on the western side already back in operation after its refurbishment.

In other gift shop news, the Gift Stop store, located outside of the main entrance near to the bus stops will have its final day of operation on January 18 2020.

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dmc49317 hours ago

World Celebration checking out Main Street tonight

Epcot82Guy1 day ago

Coming soon to EPCOT... The Disney long-term fan base survey results Activation... sponsored by Teflon.

Cmdr_Crimson1 day ago

If Electronic Forum still existed at Epcot it would surely be fans fists a flying....Found this old brochure on eBay...Oh, we would have TONS of things to talk about..

Cmdr_Crimson1 day ago

First off...They thought it wouldn't fit the idea of the plaza and that's a whole load of ape spit.. I too agree miss Innoventions plaza then whatever they are calling it now.. And that pic of the holes..

Mickeynerd171 day ago

Why couldn't they have just refurbed the original fountain and expanded the fibre optics in the concrete? Why do we have this instead? Someone take me back to 2018 I won't complain about pin traders anymore. 🫠 Sorry if this is a repost, I just saw it.

Basil of Baker Street2 days ago

It feels incomplete.

Epcot82Guy2 days ago

I enjoy it, but it feels like a nice lead in to nothing. It would be like the Hub with no Castle. It's a lovely backdrop setting missing an icon or reason to exist. The fountain helped with that originally along with the original, open concept, symmetrical architecture. And, I'm not saying it needs a single iconic thing. But, then it needs a number of compelling components to discover. It doesn't have either, sadly.

Bocabear2 days ago

We were all underwhelmed with it when it finally reopened... It just doesn't add up to much, and we were noticing that while there are trees, most of the areas that were shaded were just the plant beds themselves... if you were on the walking/public areas they were still completely unshaded. That might have been the time of day we were walking through... maybe later in the day it is not as bad? But overall the area felt lackluster and uninteresting... Certainly not like a world class theme park....it felt neither inspirational or fun... Just like an office park... as if designed by people who had never actually been to a theme park, and had no direction other than a modern corporate non-descript space.

dmc4932 days ago

The Starlight streaming announcement jogged my memory, didn't they claim way back that they were going to release the new Epcot loop on streaming services?

Disgruntled Walt3 days ago

Spent quite a bit of time in Future World (never forget) this past week, and it's very meh. Why couldn't they have simply put the gardens in alongside the fountain? And please put the old music loop back into rotation. The new one is fine, but it's so dang repetitive.

HMF4 days ago

I think the song Big Yellow Taxi would best describe EPCOT's situation today.

Bocabear4 days ago

Spencer's Gifts? lol...I think most of them are gone now too..... Last time I saw one in NC, it was all sex toys.... Not the Spencer's I went to as a kid....

Incomudro5 days ago

I agree, even though fiber optics were an older tech, they still looked more modern. Additionally, fiber optics which were all the rage back then - lots of fiber optic lamps sold for home use - has more or less vanished now. Everything old is new again. My twin son's for instance have never seen a fiber optic lamp as far as I know. I'm certain they would find one to be really cool if they saw it now, and not dated.

James Alucobond5 days ago

I think it’s also worth noting that, while they did malfunction, their malfunctions were nowhere near as obvious because of how they were designed. I am continually baffled by their decision to design things in such a way that one light being out or off-color is extremely obvious while not dedicating the resources necessary to maintain them.