Monday January 25th 2016
This is the first entry in the daily blog series. I will be making my best attempt to post a blog every day.
Last week I purchased an annual pass to the Disney World parks. I plan to use it during the next few months to see each of the parks in detail at my pace. In the past, I’ve visited all the parks but usually in a “quick we’ve got 3 days lets go” fashion. The annual pass allows me to go to a park for a few hours any day I want and I get free parking. The current single day tickets are around a 100 dollars per park depending on which park your talking about. Parking is $20 a day.
My last visit to Disney World was at Christmas time in 2008. I started my re-exploration of Disney World with a visit to EPCOT last Wednesday and another today. I plan to make several other visits to EPCOT during the Flower and Garden festival in March. This blog entry will document the two visits.
Spaceship Earth at the Entrance to EPCOT
One general observation about EPCOT is that it needs a pick me up. All of the holiday decorations have been taken down and the flowers for the upcoming festival have not been brought in yet. Several attractions including Soaring are being refurbished. The only truly new attraction since my last visit, the Frozen inspired ride at the Norway pavilion is not yet open.
The Spaceship Earth ride, Living with the Land, Journey into Imagination with Figment, The Seas with Nemo and Friends and Ellen’s Energy Adventure were all pretty much what I remember. The Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros at the Mexico pavilion is different/new since I last visited. I enjoyed it but wasn’t blown away.
The audio animatronic show at the American pavilion was interesting but not for the right reasons. I don’t know when it was last updated. I know it has been several visits since I last saw the show. My view is that it is an overly simplified version of American history that comes across as a propaganda film. I truly wonder what people from other countries think about this show. Other countries have movies showing off their attractions and landscape with a little bit of culture thrown in. This show talks about the American dream, our political system, our “great” progress with race relations both Native American and African American. I just found it embarrassing not patriotic.
While I waited for the 9PM Illuminations show, I toured many of the gift shops and country dedicated shops looking at many things I like to have, but not at the prices demanded. One jacket that looked very ordinary except for its bright orange color was over $500 in the Norway pavilion.
The Illuminations show hasn’t changed. It still has good pyrotechnics at the beginning and end with a lot of slow periods in the middle where images are projected on a globe. A good fireworks display while not as thematic would be more entertaining.
Overall, I still enjoy EPCOT and will be back for more rides and viewing. I just wish it got a little more love from the Disney planners and builders. Given that they are finishing up enhancements to the Animal Kingdom park this year and starting on changes to Hollywood Studios, my guess is significant changes to EPCOT won’t happen until 2018 at the earliest. I just hope they do get around to it.
Rob's Rambling Road Trip 