Inside the strange ‘British’ theme park in the US – and what it gets wrong about the UK
A STRANGE UK-themed park in America has been mocked by Brits, who have pointed out some pretty basic errors they have made in trying to appear British.
The United Kingdom Pavilion is part of the World Showcase at Epcot at Disney World, Florida and is supposed to represent all four nations of the United Kingdom.
Red phone boxes, fish and chips and traditional pubs can all be found in the fake UK and British Tiktoker KT Franklin (@ktfranklin) visited recently, to see how accurate it was.
In a video she shared from the park, she said: “Going undercover as a Brit in America. We’re going to the UK Pavilion today, which is basically England, made by Americans, and it’s in Florida.”
Firstly, KT pointed out some things the UK Pavilion got right about the UK, namely the food and pub options it provided.
She continued: “The first thing you see when you walk in are a bunch of fish and chip shops and also a bunch of pubs, which is pretty accurate, but it’s crazy because these buildings are all like mock buildings.
“They’re not even real buildings, but it looks so real.”
She then visited the “sportsman” gift shop, which sold some t-shirts with some Monty Python slogans printed on them.
It also sold some authentic UK treats that KT said she hadn’t seen elsewhere in America.
She said: “The first thing you see when you walk in are a bunch of shirts with like, ‘let’s not bicker and argue about who killed who’ and ‘keep calm and buy shrubbery’ on them.
“I was really impressed with the sweet range, though.They had fruit gums. They also had Jammie Dodgers. They had Aero. I was really impressed.
“I’ve not seen some of these things in a while, so I was excited to see it.”
However, the shop also sold Guinness t-shirts, which plenty of people pointed out is Irish rather than from the UK.
Another thing that the park gets right, according to KT is the accents of the people who work there.
She claimed that Disney actually specifically hires British people to work in the UK Pavilion, to make sure they’re authentic.
She said: “I bumped into this absolutely lovely girl who was working there and asked her some questions.
“I couldn’t tell if they were Americans putting on accents, because the accents are pretty good and I got some inside information for you guys.
“It turns out that Disney will fly out people from the UK to do the UK Pavilion, which is really cool. I think that’s really awesome that they do that.”
Finally, KT the pavilion’s fish and chips to see if they were up to scratch, but it turns out they were missing a vital ingredient.
She explained: “I was initially very disappointed because they didn’t have vinegar at the fish and chip shop, which made no sense.
“What am I going to put on my fish?”
However, despite the fishy faux pas, their efforts were good enough to warrant an eight out of 10 from KT, who said that the fish was “very crunchy”.
Other Brits were baffled by some of the things they had seen in the video, with one saying: “It couldn’t look less English if they tried.”
Another wrote: “No vinegar is such a crime omg.”
A third added: “Sorry but that is not what the UK looks like.”
However, others revealed that they had very authentic experiences at the park when they visited.
One wrote: “Went there about 13 years ago. Went into one of the pubs and the person who brought us our food was from about 10 minutes from where we lived. Authentic!”
Another argued: “They’ve done a really good job of the pub there.”
Meanwhile, this little known theme park is one of the best in the UK.
And this is the cheapest theme park in the UK.