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Published: December 24th 2010
The EPCOT golf ball..
The 'space earth' attraction is housed in here..Ambled casually into EPCOT, one of the four Disneyworld Parks, this morning around 11. It was 'busy' but that was to be expected given this is their busiest week in the year, but having said that whilst it became apparent some things were going to be out of the question, there was still plenty to do and see.
First stop was the Under the Seas with Nemo ride attraction, as again focus was getting into something for Caitlin first up. This showed a 10 minute wait but was closer to 30 but all the same no real big deal. Ride itself was a very child friendly trip through the ocean depths in a chain of clam shells whilst Nemo and the rest of the cast accompanied doing humourous bits and pieces. Very cleverly done, particularly the parts where the animated characters were superimposed into the real ocean aquarium amongst real sea life. Very clever, we thought.
Spent around 30 minutes in the oceans area which has a great reef aquarium, a Manatee enclosure and plenty of hands on computers and work stations. Alot of the stuff is interactive and allowed the kids to complete tests or similar and then
Caitlin and the old duck..
Also this chick in a costume and a pink ribbon in her hair.. email themselves their certificates. Suspect will be in regular correspondence with Disney.com as a result but thats easy to fix later.
Next we wandered into one of the 'Innovations' halls and then 'somehow' found ourselves in a game show presented by Velcro!! Reubs participated in the show and won a small prize. Do not know how we ended up in this but we did, and it was a bit of humour.
Next was the 3D Captain EO studio where the late Michael Jackson featured in a 15 minute musical aboard a space ship crewed by Muppet like aliens. The 3D was very effective and this was pretty good.
Good thing we took our own lunch again as the masses at the restaurants and in the food queues were horrendous.
Then looked to do some of the other attractions but by midday the park was heaving and the boards were showing the wait times for the main attractions as 2 hours plus. So flagged that and went to wander around the 11 nations represented at Epcot each with their own range of shops, replicas of key architecture and samplings of their signature foods and the likes. This
Kids meet Bruce..
One of the characters from the Nemo movie.. was a mixed bag with some of our party (Sandy) loving it and others (me) hating it with a religious fervour. An attempt to superimpose the chic and grandeur of Paris, the arts and style of Florence or the atmosphere of the palazzo in Venice is a bold idea. It just falls rather flat when you then fill these streets with overweight people wearing ridiculous Disney hats and bold, tacky Disney sweatshirts... (there should be a law against anyone over the age of 18 wearing Minnie Mouse ears and t-shirts...particularly if that person is of such a size that a full sized depiction of said disney character now appears as a chest logo)
The countries represented were Canada, United Kingdom (portrayed through a pub and a Yorkshire fish and chip shop and a small village setting), France, Italy, Morocco, Japan, United States, Germany, Norway, China and Mexico. To note the busiest shop in the entire park was the French boulangerie.. Again the idea is good but there seemed to be a lilliputian aspect to it more resemblant of a mini golf course than an accurate depiction of the key notes of the represented nations.
There were some exceptions
Velcro game show..
Reubs got involved and in a competition to build a velcro tower..his team won! to be fair. China has a hall dedicated to the Buried Army and this is very well done. Whilst Mexico has their entire display set inside a replica of a Mayan / Aztec temple / pyramid.
What I learnt today is that Disney really knows marketing...I did not know that Mickey Mouse had a stuffed toy teddy bear called Duffy that accompanied him on all his journeys, and who features EVERYWHERE around EPCOT. A good idea that happens in EPCOT in the nations is that they have areas called KID COT...not somewhere where you dump your offspring to sleep but rather, a check in station, or border where you get your passport...or your Duffy stamped with the stamp for that country. The kids get given a cardboard cutout of Duffy on a stick (the placement of the stick must be somewhat uncomfortable for him) which they then colour in. After Reubs and Caitlin having spent 30 minutes colouring in these bears I was thinking that if all they wanted to do was colour in then we should have stayed at Walmart and bought a colouring in book and pens and saved a tidy sum of money, but that thought
Caitlin and Alice..
Caitlin loved meeting the characters.. passed..
In Mexico there is a humourous little river ride through the attractions of Mexico accompanied by Donald Duck singing and dancing with some other cartoon characters. Again great for the kids and quite amusing and worth doing. Especially as there had been no queue..
By now it was dark and time to head out but stopped off at the 'Space Earth' ride. The queues there all day had been huge and so we were surprised to find it just a few minutes now. We did this and this was very good and focussed on education. This ride takes place in the giant EPCOT golf ball and winds around through a series of scenes showing the advancement of mankind and then into the future. Good 10 or so minute ride and very entertaining with hands on involvement with the touch pad computers in each carriage. Includes taking photographs of you going through which you can then find at the huge bank of screens at the end and email to your own email for no cost. There were also some very good educational interactive games here also which the kids had a crack at for a while.
All
In Norway...
Kids went Nordic and tried to kill the troll.. this was just after the blue slushy... in all, EPCOT is well worth a visit, just don't expect an adrenaline packed adventure, it is more sedate and focussed more on environmental awareness and education through entertainment as opposed to solely entertainment.
Ten minute trip home took 25 when I ended up heading for Tampa...Sandy got us sorted and home by 7:30 pm.
Note, kids had one of those blue slushy things...they should'nt have!! Both been climbing the walls on a sugar high ever since and only started to chill 5 hours later...
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Jacqui
non-member comment
EPCOT
Hi there Glad you enjoyed Epcot I think they told us it stands for Every Person Comes Out Tired! Or traumatised!!! Lots of walking around - Have a great Christmas Jacqui, Brent & Joel