Epcot’s Lost Switzerland Pavilion
The Walt Daily
Epcot’s Lost Switzerland Pavilion
Hi everyone! You've probably heard stories about Epcot World Showcase countries that never came to be. One of those countries was Switzerland. The Switzerland Pavilion first came into talks in 1982, soon after Epcot Center opened. It would have been situated between the Italy and Germany pavilions, and themed to a Swiss Alpine village. Like other World Showcase pavilions, there would have been shopping and dining. Passes would have included a music box and clock shop, a candy store, a store for wood carvings, and an apparel shop. Each shop would have details that would give off the personality and vibe of what a quintessential Swiss village would look like. The pavilion would also have a restaurant with seating for 230 guests. The facade of the restaurant would be a row of alpine village houses. But the real draw for the restaurant would have been its second floor location with perfect views of the East Coast Matterhorn Mountain. Yes, the Switzerland pavilion would have had a recreation of Disneyland's Matterhorn. The concept art had its standing 192 feet tall with an indoor bobsled coaster attraction. There were two storylines in the works for the mountain. The first would have been you participating in a bobsled training camp and competition that would get out of control. The other storyline was that guests would enter dark caverns full of bats and then reach an outer space like portion of the mountain before returning back to the loading area. Sounds like it would have been a pretty cool pavilion. But despite all of these ideas, talks between Disney and the Swiss government fell through in the latter half of the 1980s. And Disney was not able to secure a sponsor for the pavilion. Now, the Switzerland pavilion is just another piece of lost Disney. (upbeat music)