Spaceship Earth Closure?

I’ve seen reports that Spaceship Earth is closing soon and expected that it would not be open when we go in March (15th-19th). However, yesterday was our fastpass selection day and I was able to get a SE fastpass for March 16th. Does this mean that the ride will definitely be open on that date or is it just that Disney has not decided on the exact closure date?

If the ride ends up being closed on the 16th any ideas about what will happen to our fastpass? Fingers crossed for an anytime fastpass! :crossed_fingers:

Good question. I’ve heard speculation that they won’t close SE until Space220 is open. Not that they are equivalent (ride vs restaurant) but that so much is a mess in EPCOT they want to at least be able to present an even tradeout of closings and openings.

We’re going in late March/early April and 2 weeks out from FP day…so I’m in the same boat (anytime FP would be AWESOME given the current tiering).

I doubt they would offer FPs if it was going to be closed then.

For example, Disney has not announced a closure for BTMRR at Magic Kingdom, but already there are a few weeks in May that the website shows times of operation, which means it will likely be closed for refurbishment. This will prevent the system from allowing FPs to be scheduled once the 90 day mark comes around. I expect an official announcement soon.

Of course, this is conjecture, but I’d be fairly certain Spaceship Earth will remain open for those days at least where you can still book FPs.

I am keeping SE in our May trip plan for now, but have a note that it might be closed, so put it as the very last ride of the day.

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Note that Club Level can book out 90 days, which means there are possibly FPs already booked for SE for your dates!

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I’d assume the same. I’ve been monitoring SE as well with a late March Spring Break trip coming. Has anyone experienced Disney ever making this kind of mistake and offering advanced FP’s for days that ended up being part of planned refurb and how they would handle this? It seems for other attractions the dates are solidly known beyond the FP window and FP’s are not available in the system, e.g. Muppets.

Just a heads up, if you look at the Disney World calendar, it has BTMRR listed as being refurbished. I was checking over the times for the days we are going it May and saw it noted. So I think that would be official. So, I’m keeping my eye out on the calendar for Spaceship Earth and haven’t seen it listed for refurb yet.

That makes it official, then, I guess. It wasn’t showing up officially before. Guess it is now! :slight_smile:

I noticed it last week. That does give me hope for SE though.

Indeed. I guess I’ll assume it is going to be open then! (At least for now.)

Disappointed by BTMRR though. I was holding out hope it was just a glitch/mistake in the system. My DS10 didn’t get to experience it in 2016 because were there in October when it was being refurbished. We were excited for him to be able to ride it this time…but alas, it isn’t meant to be.

We are sad as well as my kids and DH love it, however it is open our last day in the parks, so we are hopping over before closing to ride it. I don’t normally get park hoppers, but am so glad we did this trip. Between HS, Epcot and BTMRR, we will definitely use them.

My wife just reminded me…now granted this was in 2016, but just something to consider.

In 2016, Dinosaur was closed for refurbishment, but was scheduled to reopen on or just before the date we would be at AK. The system allowed us to book a FP for it.

However, when our AK day came, we were notified that it would not be open for that date, so they automatically gave us an “equivalent” FP at the same time of day (Expedition Everest) instead. This wasn’t really much use for us since we already had a FP for EE.

Whether they still do it that way or not, I’m not sure…but it sounds like if you have a FP for a ride that ends up being closed, they might just exchange your FP for another similar one at the same time. (Although, since people these days are getting anytime FPs, they might do that instead.)

Yes, they have done that before.

The SE re-do will take 2-3 years. It won’t be done by the 50th but they will want to try and get it done by Epcot’s 40th (2022).

The best guess is it closes pretty much the day after Test Track re-opens. Personally I would plan for that scenario but get an FP if I could and see it as a bonus if the ride was still open.

We had that happen to us as well. We booked FPs at 60 days for KRR and then they announced it’d be down for refurb and replaced our KRR FPs with ones for Dinosaur.

I’d definitely prefer an anytime fastpass if it ends up being closed. My fear is that they would give us Mission Space. We all hated that ride. If they have to choose one, I hope it’s The Seas with Nemo since we’re planning to ride that anyway!

We’ve had FP cancelled a couple of time at EPCOT, they always gave us an anytime, any attraction FP to replace it.

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I wonder if a CM can change it to something you would actually use?

My FP day is 2 weeks from tomorrow, I’ll probably get SE (if available) and deal with whatever happens if SE closes before the trip.

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Since this will be a major change to SE, do y’all think that WDW will give a decent amount of notice about the closure date so fans can flock to EPCOT and ride it one last time in the current set-up or will they pull a Great Movie Ride and close it in a few weeks after the announcement?

Just one silly guess, might they wait till the new Ratatouille ride opens this summer before closing SE?

They definitely want the renovation done before the 40th anniversary in October 2022.

This is exactly what I was thinking as well.

So Space Ship earth will be closed in August 2020? I should remove it as a fastpass option in my touring plans?

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Yes. It closes for like two years starting end of May.

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