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Dreamfinder is returning to EPCOT with Figment, nearly 28 years after his last ride through Journey Into Imagination
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Dreamfinder is returning to EPCOT with Figment, nearly 28 years after his last ride through Journey Into Imagination

Michael Travels
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Disney wrapped its D23 showcase by sending a man in a royal blue tailcoat, a curly auburn beard and a top hat back onto the stage, holding a small purple dragon. Dreamfinder was back, and it turns out his ride is coming back too.

A performer in full Dreamfinder costume, a royal blue tailcoat with black lapels, a pink and teal paisley waistcoat, white gloves, a long curly auburn wig and beard and a dark navy top hat with a bright blue band, holding a plush Figment in a yellow shirt lettered FIGMENT, against a dark navy stage curtain.
Neil Patrick Harris in the Dreamfinder costume, holding a Figment plush, in the image Disney released with the announcement. Image: Disney

What Disney announced

Disney Experiences Chairman Thomas Mazloum made it official in the closing moments of Horizons: A Carousel of Progress, the Disney Experiences showcase at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event presented by Visa. Blog Mickey places the moment at the Honda Center on Saturday, August 15.

"We are taking a new journey into imagination at EPCOT with Dreamfinder and Figment!" Mazloum told the crowd, per Disney's own account of the night. "I'm so happy to share this news tonight. We know how important this is to you. We've heard you, and this is one more way we're putting you in the center of everything we do."

Host Neil Patrick Harris set up the reveal by walking out in the Dreamfinder costume with a Figment plush in his arm. Disney's post says the Imagination news was "the only thing host Neil Patrick Harris asked for! Aside from unlimited churros during the event."

Nobody had been set up for this one

Blog Mickey sets out why the reveal stood apart: the whole showcase was pitched as a status update on things Disney already announced back in 2024, which makes Imagination the odd one out. In Blog Mickey's words, "Disney had not previously teased the project."

The same costumed performer with a white gloved fist raised beside the brim of his blue top hat, the plush Figment held at his side in his other hand, standing in front of a large blue and white stage screen.
Harris in the Dreamfinder costume, gloved hand raised beside the top hat, Figment at his side, in front of the showcase screen. Image: Blog Mickey

Who Dreamfinder was

Journey Into Imagination opened at EPCOT on March 5, 1983, and Dreamfinder was its host: a bearded inventor whose machine, the Dream Mobile, brought Figment into being. The two of them then carried riders through scenes built around Art, Literature, Performing Arts and Science. Disney's own description of the character has him collecting "sounds, colors, ideas, anything that sparks the imagination."

He stayed with the ride for 15 years, from its 1983 debut until 1998, and the 1999 overhaul dropped him entirely. The replacement, Journey Into Your Imagination, ran only from 1999 to 2001 before Disney swapped it again for Journey Into Imagination With Figment, which is the version still running today.

Figment, meanwhile, never went anywhere

The pavilion stalled but the dragon did not. Figment has been the mascot of the EPCOT International Festival of the Arts since its first season in 2017, and a novelty popcorn bucket sent him viral all over again in 2022. Fans have spent years asking for the other half of the pair back.

Two men on a brightly lit stage: at left the performer in the blue Dreamfinder costume and top hat holding the Figment plush, at right a man in a black suit and open collared black shirt wearing a headset microphone, raising a fist and smiling, with blue confetti falling and audience silhouettes along the bottom edge.
Harris as Dreamfinder at left, Disney Experiences Chairman Thomas Mazloum at right, as confetti falls over the showcase stage. Image: Blog Mickey

What Disney did not say

A fair amount, as it happens. Blog Mickey reports that there is no concept art, no opening timeline and no word on how much of the existing attraction gets rebuilt. WDW News Today adds that Disney gave no timeline for the change and no closure date for the ride running now. The new attraction does not have a public name yet either.

That is a normal place for a reveal this early to stop. It does leave the two questions fans will actually argue about wide open: how much of the pavilion changes, and whether the current ride closes before its replacement is ready.

Elsewhere in the same showcase

Imagination was not the only EPCOT item of the night. Disney also announced a reimagining of Spaceship Earth, revealed on stage by Imagineer Ali Rubinstein, who appeared alongside YouTuber Mark Rober. Disney says the update will bring the attraction "into the internet age and beyond" and move its story from human communication toward human connection. And at Disney's Animal Kingdom, Mazloum announced a fix for a long running sore point: "We're bringing the Yeti back to life inside Expedition Everest at Disney's Animal Kingdom!" Neither of those came with a timeline either.

Sources

Image credits: Dreamfinder and Figment portrait by Disney. Stage photographs by Blog Mickey.

Mentioned in this story

Check out our guides for more on each place in this story:

Journey Into Imagination With Figment Spaceship Earth Expedition Everest - Legend of the Forbidden Mountain

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