One of All in WDW’s biggest supporters is also one of our fellow (TouringPlans.com) Lines chat-room friends, @mkayo44. She reached out this past weekend while we were in Orlando with a plea for help. mkayo44 alerted us to the fact that the three famed red phone booths in Epcot’s U.K. Pavilion seemed to be “off the grid”.

For those that don’t know, those three phones …

… get a lot of service, and I’m not talking about just being a novel backdrop for a photo shoot. Countless parents have had a blast with their children over the years by having their friends or family call one of those three numbers – thereby enabling their kids to answer the phone to “talk to Mickey” or even “the Queen of England”.

Being the “detective” on the scene, mkayo44 asked me to find out if Disney had “turned off” the phones.  So, the first thing I did was try to call all three numbers myself. If you don’t know them, they are:

1-407-827-9862 (phone on the left)
1-407-827-9863 (center)
1-407-827-9861 (right)

See?

mkayo44 is right. The phones are completely out of service. So, I went to Guest Services to inquire. What I was told was that the phones are under re-furbishment and that there is no estimated date of completion. Hmm. Really? Look at the picture, above. I took that the day of the “investigation”. Do you see any re-furb going on?

The only thing Mrs. All in WDW and I can speculate is that there is an upcoming re-furb to that area of the pavilion and the phones have been turned off in preparation for it. Or, the phone lines, themselves, are what is getting re-furbished.

At any rate, we’ll have to keep an eye (or, an ear) out. When will the phones be put back into service? Will they? Clearly, this “case” isn’t closed!