Yesterday I went to Disney World for the first time. We went to Epcot, one of the four Kingdoms available. For me it was either Epcot, since it’s the biggest with the most to do, or MGM since it had some good rides, and with Kim’s parents around I figured we’d all have more fun at Epcot. I didn’t want to do the Magic Kingdom to avoid all the kids, and pretty much the same for Animal Kingdom. The Disney World website wasn’t very helpful for choosing Kingdoms, but I found a few sites that did help, with this one probably being the most useful. Someday I’d like to come back and see some more. I’d say the highlight of the day was just the overall atmosphere, while my biggest complaints were that the vegetarian choices for food were awful (most places only had one thing without meat on the menu) and there weren’t any costumed characters running around. They’re probably all over at Magic Kingdom, but comeon, it’s Disney World for Pete’s sake.
I really am amazed at how big Disney World is and how much land they have. There’s four kingdoms near Orlando and they’re all bigger than Disney Land in California. Then there’s tons of land owned by Disney aside from the Kingdoms. Driving in there were big road signs that told you what exit to get off for each kingdom and they were spaced miles apart.
Kim’s parents have friends that love Disney and go there all the time, so Jim and Sue were our tour guides: they drove us there, found good parking, showed us around, made recommendations and knew how everything worked. It was nice to have them around, especially since they seemed to enjoy just being there.
The first thing we did was go in the big Epcot (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) ball on a ride called Spaceship Earth (not to be confused with Mission Space) that shows the history and future of human progress. It was fun but pretty lame. Nothing seemed very visionary to me, and the ride kept stopping. After that we went and got a FastPass for the most popular ride Soarin, and I’m glad we did because the line got up to 110 minute wait later. We came back after lunch and marched straight to the front. It was a fun ride, but I thought you were actually in superman style position like you would be on a hang glider. It was just a seat, but the screen made if feel like you were flying.
Then we did the few ‘fast’ rides in the park, Mission Space which basically uses centrifugal force (I think there was a ride called the Gravitron in my home town’s carnival that was similar) to make you feel like you’re blasting off, and Test Track, a little roller coaster that makes you feel like you’re in a car testing various scenarious like brakes failing and fast turns. We made use of the singles lines both times and saved a ton of time. We didn’t really even get split up, and it’s not like you can talk during the ride anyway. I think the Mission Space ride was my favorite just because of the feeling of blastoff.
We also did the Honey I Shrunk the Audience 3D movie, which was cute, and the Ellen Energy thing. It was kinda long and just a big schpiel about alternative energy sources and where energy comes from. I don’t think I learned anything, but it was nice to sit down for a while.
For lunch we left the park and went to the Wilderness Lodge to eat at Whispering Canyon. The draw there is that the wait staff joke around, tease and act like they’re insulting you. It was Jim’s birthday the next day so we told our waiter. He stood up in front of the restaurant holding a little cake and we all sang, and when were done the waitstaff ate the cake while he held it. Later they gave him his own.
After lunch we walked around the international area, where sections are themed like various foreign countries. Jim and Sue had dinner in Morocco while we snacked in China and Mexico. In China an acrobat troup of children came out and started performing and they were amazing. The were contorting, and flipping all over the place. The 360 movie of China was awesome too, especially after having been there and seeing a lot of the stuff that was in the movie.
At the end we stayed for the fireworks show, which was nice, but I think it had been overhyped to me. The fireworks were nothing spectacular, but I really liked the way they lit up then entire park in time to the music. Some of the music was awful too, very sappy and poppy.
I had a great time and really appreciate Kim’s parents taking us and treating. Disney really does do a good job of generating a magic ‘feeling. And even with the crowds, we got lucky and hardly had to wait in line. I think that was one of the biggest keys to my enjoyment.