The saga over World Celebration’s in-ground lighting at EPCOT may finally be over. Blog Mickey noticed that Disney is filling in the broken in-ground lighting tracks with concrete. This comes not longer after crews removed the troublesome lighting, which became notorious online for never really working after its debut.
In-ground lighting may not seem like the most interesting topic to follow at Walt Disney World, but this set of lights at EPCOT has been strangely fascinating.
World Celebration originally opened in December 2023. In just a couple days, the in-ground lights surrounding the area’s central planter stopped working correctly. Sections would be turned off or would be a static color rather than matching the lighting changes surrounding the area.
Remember, this is how the lights were supposed to work:
Unfortunately, the issues with the lights rapidly multiplied well beyond just some sections being off. The plastic coverings started pulling up and cracking. Water was visible in the lighting tracks. The lights either stopped working entirely or were switched off around this time.
Disney had to rope off certain areas to avoid guests from tripping. Screws were hastily used to stop the plastic coverings from sticking up.
The whole project went from disappointing to embarrassing. How could Disney – or the contractor they used – mess up a seemingly easy project so badly?
Remember, EPCOT used to be home to in-ground lighting for decades. That cool feature used fiber optic lights embedded in the concrete in the guest walkways. Those fiber optics were old technology, but they worked far better than whatever happened with the lights in World Celebration. Maybe Disney didn’t need to reinvent the wheel.
