Planned closures are not uncommon at Disney World. Often, a ride or attraction closes for scheduled maintenance or refurbishment to keep it operating properly and safely for guests. Sometimes other areas of the parks, like a restaurant, close for the same reasons, even if the reason isn’t initially revealed.
A restaurant at EPCOT has recently been unavailable following an unexpected closure, and now both a reason and a reopening date have been announced. Keep reading to see which restaurant will be reopening, and why it closed in the first place. Mickey Visit brings you the latest Disney news and planning resources, including all the details we know about the 11 restaurants opening in Disney parks next year and a look inside a new major attraction coming soon to Disney World.
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Coral Reef Restaurant Reopening Date Announced
Coral Reef Restaurant in EPCOT is a sit-down restaurant in the Seas pavilion that serves mainly seafood. The biggest draw of this spot is the giant, wraparound fish tank, which is attached to the main aquarium in the pavilion, meaning there are hundreds of real fish and sea creatures swimming around the tank while you enjoy your meal. Despite this unique feature, Coral Reef Restaurant is not a very popular dining location at EPCOT. Before the closure, service had been scaled back quite a bit, turning this restaurant into a dinner-only spot when it had previously also served lunch.
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The restaurant closed on September 8. When this closure was first announced, there was no official reason given for why the restaurant was closing, which led to a lot of speculation. It is not like Disney to suddenly close a spot with no reasoning and no reopening date.
However, fans of Coral Reef Restaurant will be happy to hear that there is now an official reopening date listed. Coral Reef Restaurant is expected to reopen on November 4. Reservations are open for booking on that date. Disney has also released the news that the restaurant was closed for “planned maintenance.”
We might have an idea as to what that planned maintenance could entail. According to WDWNT, there are planters covering the entrance and the facade of the restaurant, and those planters could serve two potential purposes. One could be to deter guests from the area while the restaurant is closed, but the other could be to hide possible changes to the exterior. Nothing has been officially announced regarding this maintenance, so this is just an assumption.
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As previously mentioned, there had been limited food service in Coral Reef Restaurant prior to the closure. It is unclear if the restaurant will return to a full lunch and dinner service or resume the limited dinner service when it reopens.
When the closure was first announced, we originally thought that it was partially due to the annual EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival, which runs from August 27 to November 21 this year. The length of Coral Reef Restaurant’s closure coincides with those dates, and since the festival brings so much new food into the park, it was thought that guests would rather sample from the festival booths rather than dine at a sit-down restaurant. Since there is an actual reason for the closure, we now know that this was not entirely the case, although Disney might have chosen this time to close the restaurant with the festival in mind.
The Food & Wine Festival is one of the most popular festivals that EPCOT hosts throughout the year. Like the other festivals, it features food booths with limited-time menus scattered across the park. The Food & Wine Festival also has a concert series in the evenings. You can find the full schedule and lineup for those concerts here. Guests can experience the festival in its entirety with their park reservations.
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