IanHi folks! So the next park on the list is EPCOT; now the first thing that’s probably on your mind is… “What is EPCOT” so basically, EPCOT stands for “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow” it was Walt Disney’s idea to serve as the centre of American enterprise and host their staff in a self-sustained living area. It was turned into a theme park in October 1982, where it now hosts rides and areas of different countries. It’s designed to teach people of many different cultures and ideas. OK, so that’s the history lesson done!
It was a very hectic for me today, and I struggled to get around the park; it is a large park with lots to see and do. I will do my best to cover what I did, but it might be overlong sorry in advance. It was a really good park, but I was tired at the end of it! So like yesterday, I jumped on an Uber and got dropped off at the park.
I decided to do rides first before exploring the “Worlds” section. They don’t have many rides here, but it was still fun! So the first ride for me today was Spaceship: Earth. This fun, entertaining, informative ride showcases our successes as a human race over the years; it was fun to learn about how we became the humans we are today!
Next up was Mission: Space. Now, this was challenging! It’s a ride based on astronaut training and what they feel when they take off on their mission; the story behind this ride is you are training to become an astronaut for a mission to Mars. This ride makes you experience the G force they feel and what to do in an emergency. The pod has four people in each with their assigned task you have throughout the mission. You do get promoted when to do it. I felt….odd at the end of this ride; it took a good 20-30 minutes to recover!
After I had recovered, it was time for my new couple of rides; one was “The Seas” with Nemo and Friends, where you go around with Nemo and explore the sea. Shortly after, there is a clever live Q and A called Turtle Talk With Crush. It’s a clever show where a voice actor acting as Crush answers questions and involves the audience. It was quite fun! I then had an exploration around the aquariums in Sea land.
The most anticipated ride in the park was next. This was Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. To queue up for this ride, you have to get into the queue from 07:00 in the morning to even get a chance to ride; it is so popular you literally have to sit there spamming the refresh button, hoping you can join! I was lucky I was boarding group 58. This was an awesome ride!! It’s basically a roller coaster ride featuring twists and turns and spins on your mission to help the Guardians save the world. The music was second to none, and the ride was awesome. The ride rotates between 6 tracks, and we got “Conga” by Gloria Estefan, which really added to the experience!! This ride did actually make me queasy; when you come off, there are several cast members holding sick bags at the ready. I imagine more people than not have vomited while coming off that ride!! Luckily for me, I did not need it!”
Once my body had recovered from that queasy feeling, it was time for lunch; today I had a burger and chips with an apple pie milkshake. This was really tasty!
Now that I have had my lunch, it was time to move onto the world land, now I am going to speed through this as there were a LOT of lands, and I don’t want to bore you too much, but if you have any questions, send them my way, and I will see if I can answer them for you.
The first land I came across on my tour around the world was Canada, this was a lovely zone, and it made you feel like you were in the country. They had a gift shop based on Canada stuff and a drinks bar.
Next up was the UK; I did go through this just to see how they make it look, and it does look quite good. It had all the hallmarks of the UK, such as red phone boxes and old-looking buildings. There is a gift shop showcasing some of the things the UK have. I spoke to one of the shop attendances and found out that Disney actually employs people from the UK on a yearly basis to be a cultural ambassadors. This was quite interesting. This is the same for all of the zones.
Following on from the UK, it was France; this was a good zone, and I even tried one of the foods on offer there!
After that, I headed to the Kingdom of Morocco; this was a nice scenic area showcasing everything Moroccan.
The fourth land was Japan; now I LOVED this area; as some of you may know, I have always loved the Japanese style of things like gaming and their culture, and I’d love to go there sometime! This area was larger than the others and had a huge store. I spent quite a while here!
By now, I was flagging a bit… I had been on my feet for over 5 hours walking around, and I had to stop more regularly to recover; I really don’t have the stamina any more!! Next up was American land. This land is focused around the early days of the United States; it was quite good and busy!
Italy was next, another great area, even had a street performer, perhaps I should have had lunch there as the food smelt so good!!
The next country was Germany, this really captured traditional Germany well, I have never been, but from the pictures I have seen, they did a good job!
I was really flagging now, it was about 16:30, and I was all peopled, coupled, familied out… I was running out of patience! So the next few areas were a while stop tour; here are the pictures for China, Norway and Mexico.
So that does it for EPCOT! I loved the park and would love to go back and see it, it had a good vibe going for it, and I enjoyed the tour of the other countries. I wish it wasn’t so busy, but hey, it’s Disney! They had some great shops, experiences and rides. Although I loved Magic Kingdom, EPCOT has become my favourite so far. Only a couple of parks left to go! Tomorrow I will be exploring Disney’s Hollywood Studios, so join me tomorrow for the next instalment of Ian’s Travels!
