The souvenirs didn’t go that well at Epcot. It is apparently not a character park, so there was no villain towel and no chest o’ dice. I did get the goofy (not Goofy) hat though. So I do have one thing to remember Orlando with.
The first thing to do in Epcot is to get a FastPass for “Soarin'” so that we can come back later and not have to wait in line. For our first time we couldn’t show up for an hour and a half. This was the most popular ride at the park, so it is the one you want to skip the line for. The second time we used a FastPass for it, the normal wait time was 90 minutes, and the FastPass was for four hours.
The first ride we actually rode, was the Mission: SPACE. This was my favorite attraction. You pretend to be taking a spaceship to Mars. To simulate the acceleration forces, you’re in a centrifuge. That was an interesting experience. We did this ride twice, but the first time it was dizzying.
The next ride was the Test Track. This was disappointing. It had all the hallmarks of a roller coaster, except none of the fun. Sit in a car and do a few tests on it; Braking, anit-lock braking, heat, cold, acid. Then they put you on the speed course, which just goes around in a long circle. Nice to do once, but no need to repeat.
We checked out The Seas with Nemo & Friends which was a bit of a dud. But, it led to the aquarium which was a lot more interesting. We saw Manatees! And I can totally believe that they are related to elephants. In another part a manta ray came right up against the glass and you could see its mouth. It looked like it was smiling.
By now Soarin’ was available. It was a basically an IMAX film with the viewers suspended in chairs that gently moved around. In theory you were hang-gliding over California. It was nice, but I think the only reason we did it twice was that it was popular. I liked “Mission: SPACE” better.
We next did Living with the Land which was basically a boat trip about the environment. The highlight was going through a greenhouse with a lot of plants that have been created. I saw a tomato tree!
After that we went through the eleven country exhibits. I’m glad we did Canada first because it was exhausting going through all of them. And Canada had a good video with Martin Short telling how great the country is.
We ate lunch in Morocco, and rode the Maelstrom in Norway. Those were the things we actually seemed to stop for. That and a Japanese presentation of candy art. She was good, working in the medium of gooey candy, and I liked her creation of a swan with open feathered wings, but she was impossible to understand.
The Norwegian girls were cute.
After the countries we repeated a few rides. We were about to leave when I saw an exhibit by my company. I felt I have to look into that, but it wasn’t a very good advertisement. The graphics weren’t that good and the controls were not responsive. Mind you, there were places for twenty people, but I would think they would be able to build a mainframe to handle all that.