Also a disclaimer, that all opinions about Disney World and Disneyland are my own (unless others expressed an opinion and I relayed it), and include lots of spoilers about the park and its attractions.
We were all up pretty early this morning, considering how late we had gotten in bed, but rather than going into the theme park first thing this morning, I decided to let the girls go swimming. I knew we had a full 7 days here and we had been quite stressed the last two days, so I figured we could afford a little relaxing time. Besides, this was the first time they had seen a pool with water in it in a long time, and it seemed only right to let them enjoy it a little.
So, by the time we were ready to go to Epcot, it was already afternoon. The first thing that struck me about the parks down here is that you can't see any of them from the road. There is no iconic Matterhorn, and the parks are set SO far away from the roads and so far away from each other that you can't see any of them, sometimes even from their own parking lots. I've spent time during the last couple of weeks studying for this trip using a travel guide (affectionately referred to as "the book" from here on out) that talked in length about navigating the park and choosing the best hotel to do so.
I was surprised to find out that some of the non-Disney hotels are actually closer to some of the parks than the Disney-themed hotels. The four Disney theme parks are situated on more than 40 square miles, so a hotel that is partnered with a particular park may, in fact, be really far from the other Disney parks. The book also had comments from many people who said that Disney's transportation service down here was convoluted and confusing, and that overcrowded buses and inconsistent service meant lots of time wasted waiting for a ride to your hotel. The monorails weren't much better, with a weird 'compartment' design instead of public transportation-style seating. And to top that off, some hotels also had trams and ferry boats that took them to the parks or to other bus stations. Oddly enough (for us Disneyland veterans), you can't even walk to the parks. Not only is it far, it's just not possible. So, most people drive to the massive parking lots onsite for each park. In fact, that's how these parks judge capacity. When the parking lot is full, the park is closed.
After all my research, I booked a non-Disney hotel that was really close to all of the parks. It was centered right in the middle of all four parks on Hwy 192. Several freeways, expressways and roads make their way in and around the parks, most are public roads, but some are private. From our hotel, we can make it to any Disney park in less than 10 minutes driving with no traffic (that's as good as it gets here).
So anyways, we were off to Epcot today. It was weird going to a Disney park and feeling so disoriented after so many years at Disneyland, but I don't know if I would say that Epcot felt very 'Disney-ish' to me. The main themes of the park were science and discovery, conservation and environmental concerns, and um... consumerism ;) There weren't any characters in the park, and nothing was really character-themed. It was actually very commercial, with big company names on most of the rides and attractions.
We wandered around for a little while, grabbing a Fastpass for the TestTrack and visiting an indoor interactive area where Mike and K designed a virtual reality ride and then experienced it. I kind of thought it looked like a giant monster was trying to swallow them.
From The Book, I knew that Epcot was split into two parts, separated by a big lake. One part had rides and such like a typical theme park and the other part had sections that each represented a different country, like Germany, France, China, Canada, etc. After a little while in the park, we discovered that the first half of the park was pretty much a series of large themed buildings, each with rides or experiences, and stores and restaurants inside. We went looking for some lunch in a building section called The Land, and rode a boat ride that told us all about how they designed food to be grown in labs and not need much (if any) soil to produce fruit. It was about preserving the environment, and I thought that was kind of a weird thing for a ride to be.
We walked out of this building to a huge wall of people crowded just outside the doors. Soon we saw why they were there. It was pouring rain. So while everyone else stayed huddled under shelter, we just walked right out in it and got completely drenched. It was pretty entertaining, and was something to experience here in Florida, I guess. We walked to the next closest indoor area and just inside the doors we ended up in a line for a ride. We had no idea what it was, but waited anyway. It turned out to be a slow, silly ride that explored the 5 senses.
It rained off and on just a little bit more before quitting for good, but it was plenty warm enough outside to dry us off comfortably. I found out that my $12 Wal-Mart backpack was waterproof enough to hold up against the rain, so that was good. We decided now to head out to the 'country' area of Epcot. We looked at some of the building structures and shop names, but all the kids cared about was looking for lizards, bunnies and ducks, of which there was an ample supply in every square inch of the park. By the end of the day we would be so sick of hearing "Can I go look for lizards?", that we'd just about lose our cool. It was sort of like making your way through a theme park with a two-year old, where you have to keep one eye trained on them to make sure they don't wander away and that they're still following you and haven't stopped to look at some leaf or bug or something.
The country area was kind of strange but there were cool parts to it, like the fact that all the workers spoke the language of the country they were from and spoke English with an accent, and the fact that all the food and drinks were themed by country. But I also found it odd that pretty much all they had from each country was expensive gift shops (including several for perfume, of all things) and lots and lots of alcohol. There was hardly an adult around that didn't have a beer or a glass of wine in their hands, and some were already rowdy by mid-afternoon. Two countries, Norway and Mexico, had themed boat rides (like mini Small World-style), that were cute and entertaining, but the rest had absolutely nothing interesting for the kids.
It looks like Disney has heard this before, because they added something for kids to do in this area. The one highlight of the girls' day was getting a cell phone from 'Headquarters' and working with Agent P to stop Doofenshmirtz and his evil plans. They went all over Paris looking for clues and activating all kinds of secret, hidden mechanisms. Now this was actually pretty cool. They got a secret pressed penny, made potions in the window bubble, and even made Agent P move across his secret zipline. Pressing buttons on the cell phone activated all the machines when you stood in the right spot. They had tons of fun with that. You can do the missions in other countries, but we decided we wanted to go back and use our Fastpass for TestTrack instead.
In the first part of the ride, you design your own car with everything from aerodynamics to wheel size, and then choose the body style, paint color, and accessories. Then you ride in an open-top car (like the new Cars ride at California Adventure), and 'test' your car's handling, power, and efficiency against the cars of the other people on the ride. While the car Mike, A and K built looked pretty much like a typical car, the car C and I built was a super-wide weird-looking green wagon with giant monster tires. While our power was a little less than their car, we blew them away on Capability, making us the ultimate winners of our race. In fact, C and I placed in the top 5 capable cars for the day that day (and it was 7pm!)
Ours is second from the left
It looked a little bit like a giant bug
The ride itself was SO fun. The cars whipped you around as they fishtailed to a stop in 'snowy' conditions, they bumped and squirreled in the off-road handling test, and then just after the 'efficiency evaluation', a big bay door opened up and the car gunned it, going 65mph around banked turns and screaming on the outside track. It was an amazingly well-done ride, and pretty long, too. I can see why it's so popular.
For our last ride of the day, we went to a little Nemo ride that was in a building with manatees and dolphins in an aquarium, and of course some more restaurants and shops, and then we headed to the banks of the river to watch the evening fireworks and laser-light show. (Or, as the kids would call it, the play-with-the-ducks time). The show was at 9pm, and that's also when the park closed. We were amazed at the fact that we'd only been in the park for less than 7 hours, and yet (at a very slow pace) we had seen just about everything. We skipped the Soarin' Over California ride since it had a long line and we were told it was the exact same as the one back home, but other than that, we had done everything we wanted to.
Looking out on the 'countries' at night
Illuminations: Reflections of Earth night show
That was pretty much it for our first day at the Disney World parks. The thing the kids liked most were the wild animals, and they asked if we could not go to Epcot again. Oh well, at least it wasn't crowded there. :)
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