Construction on the Journey Into Imagination pavilion began in July 1981, only 15 months before the park was set to open. When completed, the pavilion would feature the dark ride attraction that was also titled Journey into Imagination, the Magic Eye Theater which showed the film Magic Journey’s, and the interactive ImageWorks area on the pavilion’s second floor.
Although the Journey Into Imagination pavilion was completed in Epcot Center’s opening day, inside the pavilion only Magic Journey’s was open to guests. Five days later on October 6, 1982 the ImageWorks area opened to guests<ref name= "E82"/>. Lastly, on March 5, 1983 the Journey Into Imagination attraction finally opened to guests. It would was not until the attraction opened that the pavilion was officially named Journey Into Imagination <ref name= "Martin"/>. Although the attraction had been more or less ready to go since the pavilion opened, Disney executives felt that Imagineers needed more time to work the kinks out. According to Tony Baxter:
{{“The show was ready to go, everything was running, and they made the call that the show was not perfected enough to guarantee the reliability they wanted,” <ref> Realityland: true-life adventures at Walt Disney World. David Koenig - Bonaventure Press – 2007 </ref>