In an unexpected surprise, Walt Disney World reopened Spaceship Earth to guests this evening, ending its multi-month refurbishment at EPCOT. This covers details of the soft opening, which is occurring a full week ahead of schedule!
As background, Spaceship Earth temporarily closed for a routine refurbishment beginning August 25, 2025. When announcing that closure over the summer, Walt Disney World declined to share a specific return date, but did indicate that Spaceship Earth was expected to reopen in late 2025.
Given that plus rumors at the time, the prevailing expectation was that Walt Disney World would reopen Spaceship Earth around the start of the EPCOT International Festival of the Holidays on November 28th, which kicks off the busiest month-plus of the year at the park.
Instead, Walt Disney World announced earlier this month that Spaceship Earth would reopen on October 25, 2025. The timing didn’t make a ton of sense, as Spaceship Earth was reopening after the busy Columbus Day/Fall Break window but far before Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, etc.
Fast-forward a couple of weeks from that announcement, and Spaceship Earth has soft opened as of October 18, 2025.
Because this is a soft opening, it means that Spaceship Earth could be closed without notice at any point in the next week. (But that can happen with any attraction–unexpected breakdowns are a common occurrence, especially with rides that are overdue for refurbs, like SSE was!)
It also means that, at least for the time being, Spaceship Earth is not posting a wait time in the My Disney Experience app. The attraction still does not show operating hours on Disneyworld.com. However, that could change at any point–potentially as soon as tomorrow. Soft openings from refurbishments often ‘transform’ into early reopenings once it’s clear no additional downtime is needed. An overnight calendar change could result in a posted wait time, etc.
Spaceship Earth received routine work during the closure, meaning maintenance and generalized upkeep as opposed to a fully-fledged reimagining or any material changes. This should come as no surprise, as Walt Disney World repeatedly referred to the project as a “routine” refurbishment and did not state or suggest that there would be any enhancements, story changes, etc.
We aren’t on the ground at EPCOT tonight, but reports across social media confirm all of this. The show scenes saw no material changes, the interactive features and screens on the ride vehicles appear unchanged, and there aren’t any effects that were fixed or otherwise changed.
In other words, there are no changes to Audio Animatronics or the substance of the attraction, and certainly no “Story Light” or new show scenes. This was exactly as expected, both due to the tight timeframe and its routine nature, which was Disneyspeak for saying it won’t encompass major substantive changes.
One slight surprise is that Spaceship Earth’s refurbishment did not entail the restoration of broken effects, an improved descent, upgraded cameras, or show scene lighting. There were rumors swirling that Disney would swap out the screens on the ride vehicles for OLED, which had previously occurred with a test vehicle. It doesn’t sound like that happened, either.
With that said, we do know that something happened during the refurbishment beyond just basic TLC because Walt Disney World filed construction permits.
One of those was assigned to Engineering Design Services, a firm that “specializes in the technical backbone of themed attractions.” That suggests Spaceship Earth received infrastructure work on its underlying ride system.
Even though it’s disappointing that there were seemingly no visible improvements or enhancements to Spaceship Earth, the attraction badly needed the invisible kind of maintenance, too. So that’s good news!
The other good news is that the fully-fledged Spaceship Earth ride reimagining might still be on the horizon. This not even 2-month refurbishment doesn’t close the door on a reimagining in the short or medium-term. If anything, it increases the odds.
While we have no insider information, our suspicion is that this is similar to the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster refurbishments over the last couple of the years. Those occurred in two phases and addressed the underlying ride system without reimagining the roller coaster.
That laid the groundwork for the switch from ‘Starring Aerosmith’ to ‘Starring the Muppets’ to occur in a more condensed timeframe in 2026; that project can now focus on the thematic window-dressing as opposed to the underlying infrastructure.
It’s been our understanding for a while that Walt Disney World has refurbishment and reimagining projects lined up for EPCOT. The first of those was obviously Test Track, which reopened from its year-long reimagining earlier this summer. Test Track 3.0 is a smash success, averaging the highest wait time (75 minutes) at Walt Disney World in the last month. This increased popularity could bode well for the prospects of other ride reimaginings.
We’ve been hammering on this point since even before the Spaceship Earth refurbishment was announced. And now, just in the span of a little over a week, Walt Disney World has announced upgrades coming to Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure over the coming months (including a brief closure in November to remove 3D) and that Frozen Ever After is being enhanced with next generation Audio Animatronics of Anna, Elsa, and Kristoff.
All of this does seem to reinforce the animating idea behind that ‘pieces of a puzzle’ approach, which was similar to what was done at Magic Kingdom last summer and fall before the last year-plus Big Thunder Mountain Railroad closure.
Our hope is that Walt Disney World is taking a phased approach to an overhaul of Spaceship Earth as was done with Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. Start by accomplishing infrastructure work during the off-season, then bring the ride back online during peak season dates, knock out other quick-hit projects that won’t take as long, and then close Spaceship Earth for the year-plus reimagining sometime in 2026.
It’s probably wishful thinking, but we sincerely hope that’s what’s happening with Spaceship Earth. That Walt Disney World recognizes that Spaceship Earth badly needs more than just routine maintenance, and did this refurbishment to lay the groundwork for a fully-fledged reimagining.
Alternatively, the plan might be to accomplish a ‘duct tape’ refurbishment of Spaceship Earth to keep it coasting through 2026 and 2027, during which time Journey into Imagination finally gets the year-plus ride reimagining treatment. If we’re really daydreaming, might as well throw that in as the best-case scenario!
As you might recall, Spaceship Earth’s “Story Light” reimagining was announced at the 2019 D23 Expo after over a year of rumors. In late February of the following year, Imagineering revealed that Spaceship Earth would close a couple of months later. Before that could happen, all of Walt Disney World closed due to COVID and remained closed until mid-July. When EPCOT reopened, Spaceship Earth returned with it.
When EPCOT reopened after its four month closure, Walt Disney World had quietly removed concept art and scenes from the Epcot Experience overview video and released this statement: “As with most businesses during this period, we are further evaluating long-term project plans. The decision was made to postpone development of the Mary Poppins-inspired attraction and Spaceship Earth at this time.”
That was the last official update on the Spaceship Earth reimagining. Obviously, a lot has changed in the last ~5 years.
The concept for the eventual reimagining of Spaceship Earth will surely ‘evolve’ from what was previously announced. It’s been over 5 years since the Spaceship Earth reimagining concept was developed, and a lot has changed since then–from leadership to budgets to technology.
While there could be elements of the Spaceship Earth: Our Shared Story project that come to fruition, it’s also likely that there are major changes to what’s planned. About the only thing we can be certain of is that the descent will be overhauled.
Hopefully, Spaceship Earth’s descent actually have show scenes again, rather than resting on the crutch of screen-based interactivity. Honestly, I’d be fine if Disney didn’t even touch the first three-quarters of the ride aside from swapping out the narration, screens, and maybe updating the woolly mammoth hunt scene. It’s really just the ending that needs help–and a lot of it.
Ultimately, we’re still left wondering when the inevitable Spaceship Earth reimagining project might happen. Test Track is finished and is proving to be a smash success and the two World Showcase headliners are getting TLC in the next ~6 months, but there’s nothing else on deck for EPCOT between mid-2026 and 2027.
The reimagining of Spaceship Earth could then be part of a second phase of the EPCOT overhaul, joining Journey into Imagination and [insert whatever else is on your personal wishlist here]. With nothing announced at Destination D23, it doesn’t seem like either of these projects are on the horizon in the near term, but we’ll keep you posted as more becomes known!
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Your Thoughts
Excited that Spaceship Earth has reopened a week ahead of schedule or do you wish it had stayed closed longer for actual substantive upgrades and enhancements? Thoughts on when the reimagining project will actually occur–if at all–now that the Frozen Ever After and Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure projects have been announced? Do you agree or disagree with our thoughts here? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
