A Day at Epcot

A few weeks ago, my wife Laura and I headed to Walt Disney World for our summer vacation. This was the first Disney-exclusive vacation we had taken in a year and a half. Well, it was almost Disney-exclusive; we did stop to visit family on the way there, as well as on the way back home. We had decided that this trip would be rather relaxed, and we didn't try to plan out every minute of every day. We stayed in one of our favorite places, the Super 8 Kissimmee Lakeside motel. Probably not the highest class place around, but it is perfectly fine for us, especially with how little time we spend in the room. It had two important features - a swimming pool and a free continental breakfast. And it is not that far from the parks, especially if you use some of the back roads. Plus, at under $40 a night, you can't beat the price.

Even though we weren't trying to plan everything ahead of time, we did spend a little time beforehand discussing where we would go on our first day of park visiting. You see, that day just happened to be our 8th wedding anniversary. Laura's favorite park is Animal Kingdom, and mine is the Magic Kingdom, but we decided we didn't really want to go to our favorites on the first day. Laura had given some broad hints that she would like to do something special for our anniversary, so I made a call and got us a preferred seating time at the San Angel Inn restaurant at Epcot's Mexico, a place where we have both wanted to eat. We don't really go for fancy dining, and in fact we had only eaten at one other table service restaurant at Walt Disney World, the Coral Reef restaurant at Epcot's The Living Seas. And the main reason we went there was that we were invited by some friends, who treated us to the meal. I briefly thought about surprising Laura with the San Angel Inn dinner, but I decided that I would have to tell her sooner or later to get her to the right park, and since neither one of us is big on surprises, I told her about it before we left home. So we decided to spend our first park day at Epcot.

My first visit to Epcot was one day short of 18 years before the day we were there. I don't think I had realized at that time just how new the park was. But at that time, about to be thrust into the exciting world of junior high, I was completely fascinated with the park. I loved most anything that had any sort of technology to it, so Future World was my favorite part of the park. But I also especially enjoyed the American Adventure in World Showcase, perhaps as much for the technological aspects of the show as for its content. I remember being surprised after seeing an aerial photograph of the park, and discovering that the Mexico pavilion was a much longer building than the pyramid it appeared to be from the outside. Since that first visit, I have made many more trips to Epcot, and I have seen it slowly change and evolve over the years, especially during the last decade.

The new "Epcot" sign that replaced the "2000" sign over Spaceship Earth

On the morning of Tuesday, July 17, we got up, but not too early, since we were trying to relax, after all. We went down to the continental breakfast at the motel, where we discovered that most of the good stuff was gone. I guess the early bird gets the good breakfast. Once we got ourselves together and ready, we headed out for Epcot.

Upon arriving at Epcot, our first stop was the ticket window. This is the first time since we have been married that we actually had to buy tickets at Walt Disney World; always before we either had free ones from the Disney Store when I worked there, or we had bought our tickets in advance. The family in line ahead of us seemed to take a long time, but we got through pretty quickly since we knew what we wanted to get before we got there. Soon, we were inside the turnstiles among the graveyard stones, er, Leave a Legacy monuments. The sign reading Epcot over Spaceship Earth was complete; they were still working on it on my previous trip in April.

We first went to see about a Fastpass for Test Track, since that is now one of our favorite things at Epcot. The standby line was quite long, and the Fastpass return time was much later in the afternoon, so we headed for the single rider line. But when we got there, we noticed that there were no cars going around on the track overhead. Taking that as a bad sign, we went over to the Universe of Energy, which Laura enjoys much better than the original version. But when we were almost to the end of the pre-show film, just as Ellen was starting to take control of her dream, a Cast Member came in and said that we would all have to leave since they were having technical difficulties. We were starting to think that we were making everything in Epcot break down, but we decided to keep going. We headed back to Test Track, and the cars were going around the track this time, so we got in the single rider line, deciding it would be better to see the attraction at that time, even if we didn't get to ride together. The single rider line worked great, and we were through the briefing room and waiting to get on the ride after about 10 minutes. Although I do have a few mixed feelings about the ride (see the final paragraph), I do feel that it is quite enjoyable, and I always look forward to riding it. This was Laura's second time to ride it, and she enjoyed it too. After looking at some of the cars in the post-show area and looking around at the shop, we went to eat lunch. We decided to have pizza from the Electric Umbrella at Innoventions East.

Continued

We Were Started By A Mouse Too!  •  When In Cyberspace ... Disney Link Directory  •  

  •  Purchase Walt Disney World Tickets here - DISNEY TICKETS via DWTickets.com  •  

  •  Receive discounts on ORLANDO VACATION HOMES near Disney World from OrlandoVacation.com  •