EPCOT is Mr Oh!Orlando’s favourite park. We think it’s the most educational of all of the Disney parks and there is currently a lot of work going on in and around EPCOT. It is essentially split into two areas – the future worlds and the world showcase. It is also home to the iconic EPCOT ball, which is actually the Spaceship Earth ride.
Just in case you folks don’t know – and wonder why the heck it’s called EPCOT it stands for Experimental Prototypal Community of Tomorrow. We are going to split the Epcot blog into two sections initially, so that we can talk about the future worlds area and then the world showcase and explain a bit about each section, in the hope that it might just tempt some of you good people out there to visit the amazing Orlando area and the Walt Disney World resorts. Anyone who thinks it’s just Mickey Mouse, cutesie characters, fireworks and set up essentially for small children (and frankly that would be enough to get us there!) couldn’t be more wrong. Lots of the theme parks have educational rides and shows and activities. EPCOT is one of the best of them!
To cover the whole of the park – Future Worlds and the World Showcase would be a really long blog, so here we’re going to talk about the Future world section, of which there are two, Future World East and Future World West.
Future World East
You enter the park in front of the amazing EPCOT ball – which can be seen for miles and it’s fun to look out for it from hotel windows, the top of water slides in the water parks, and in fact anywhere you are slightly elevated we have been known to utter “ooooh there’s the Epcot ball”. It is actually called Spaceship Earth and has a pretty cool ride inside it. The ride is a slow conveyor belt type car ride, which takes you through the history of human innovations from the Stone Age to the Digital Age. It is very educational and it’s a nice gentle way to spend some time if you’re catching a quick shower outside or want to shelter from the hot Florida sun for a wee while. It has been brought up to date and made more fun by the introduction of a little digital screen where you make various selections and answer a few little questions and at the end of the ride you get a little film message from your future selves – a funny quirky little cartoon film which is meant to be how your future will look based on the questions you answered. Always good fun and the kids will love it.
The unbelievable Mission SPACE ride is also in Future World East. This is a NASA -style training ride with a simulated space launch. The G-force is extremely intense and you won’t find anything like it anywhere else! It really does feel like you’re taking off in a rocket. Like we say, it is an intense experience, and in a very confined space, so if you’re claustrophobic we wouldn’t recommend it – they don’t provide sick bags for nothing! There are two different missions, the green one is a less intense version of the ride, so you get the experience without the excessive G-force. This is one of the rides that still fills us with trepidation when we’re in the queue, but it’s so clever and different and such an amazing experience!
Test Track is a fun ride in Future World East. To be totally honest we think they have made it a slightly less fun queuing experience now it has been updated. Previously you used to queue through a collection of crash test dummies and machinery testing various bits of cars, which was pretty cool and part of the queuing experience, whereas now you get to design your own concept car on a computer screen, and then “test it out on the track”. The ride itself when you actually get into your vehicle is still as great as ever, with the wild fast ride at the end which can be heard as you’re walking around the park.
The Mouse Gear store and Electric Umbrella fast service restaurant are also here as is Innoventions – which is a pavilion full of exhibits and fun activities, although at the time of writing this the Mouse Gear Store and a couple of other things around the fountain in this area are closed for a reimagining.
On to Future World West – where your first port of call will probably be the Epcot Character Spot. Want to find all of your favourite characters for autographs and photo ops – this is the place for you. Your one stop shop for meet and greets.
Some of these food and retail areas are closing later this year for refurbishment which is all part of the reimagining of the middle area of the park and the fantastic dancing fountain.
You then have a few different areas, containing rides, exhibitions, educational activities, restaurants etc – there is The Seas – with Nemo and Friends, The Land and also Imagination.
Let’s start with The Seas. Fabulous ride for the kids here – the Nemo and Friends ride. We say kids – we have been on it numerous times, without kids! You sit in a giant clam shell and have a gentle twirl around to meet Nemo and see some of the fabulous scenes from the film Finding Nemo. Very cute and another lovely way to cool off or stay dry as the queue and ride are both inside. Look out for the gulls outside – hilarious!
You’ll also find Turtle Talk with Crush and SeaBase which is an aquarium.
The Land has another of our favourite rides – Soarin Around the World – a simulated hang glider flight across the globe. We won’t spoil this ride too much for you lovely people, but it’s exhilarating and interesting and fully immersive so you do really feel like you are flying high. Fabulous ride – long lines for this one so if you’re going during a busy period you’ll definitely need to Fastpass this one. Well worth it. See if you can spot the hidden Mickeys and a certain pirate Capt Jack Sparrow on the flight.
Another interesting little ride is Living with the Land. It’s a great little gentle boat ride round greenhouses and exploring innovative and new ways to grow food. Worth a look, especially at the moment with all the news headlines about how we need to change the way we do things in order to save the planet and ourselves.
There are a couple of good places to eat around here – one of our faves is the Chip N Dale’s Harvest Feast at the Garden Grill. American Cuisine and an amazing place for a character breakfast. You can always see characters in here even if you’re just walking past.
The Imagination area has a cool Journey into Imagination with Figment! This is narrated and stars Monty Python’s Eric Idle. You get a little tour of the Institute with the Figment character and then there’s ImageWorks for the little ones to let their imaginations run wild. The imagination area is also going to close later this year as part of the reimagining of this part of the park. There is also a Disney & Pixar Short Film Festival in a little 4D cinema. There’s a new experience in this area called Ralph and Vanellope – where you apparently get to Break the Internet but as we’ve not experienced this we can’t exactly tell you what it is – one of the most fantastic things about the Disney and Universal Parks, IDrive, and in fact the whole of Orlando and surrounding areas – it is constantly updated and you never get the same holiday twice.
Talking of updates and new areas – the new Guardians of the Galaxy ride is opening in 2021 for the 50th Anniversary celebrations. The buildings that are going up to accommodate this vast part coaster, part film, part experience look vast. It is going to be one heck of a ride. The old Universe of Energy building has been re-purposed as the ride entrance. On most coasters the riders point strait ahead but on this new ride each individual car will be programmed to direct your eye to the story happening around you. You will be fully immersed in the story from the minute you launch. The coaster building is one of the biggest that Disney has ever built , 4 Spaceship Earths could fit inside it.
Fantastic photos of the Epcot park and new construction from Bioreconstruct here – amazing shots!
There is also a new space restaurant located between Mission Space and Test Track. The restaurant is set to open in late 2019 and has no windows. Instead it has large screens portraying scences from space as if you were actually in a space station. Sounds awesome already – add to that the internationally inspired menu and 1,000 different bottles of wine. Sounds like somewhere we may like to try!
All of the above is set in a vast area, lots of pretty fountains, plants and flowers, topiary and pretty places to sit. You always know how to get back to the beginning – just head for the giant Spaceship Earth!
And …… if all that wasn’t enough there’s the World Showcase set around the lagoon which we haven’t even started talking about yet. 11 countries of the world are showcased here, a little bit of popular culture, restaurants, landmarks, shops and street performers are in every country. There’s a real atmosphere here as you amble from country to country. We’ll look at each of those countries in detail in the next blog.
We get pretty excited about new stuff arriving at WDW and cannot wait to see the new gondola skyliner system in operation – you can see them being tested now over the lagoon in EPCOT. Much excitement for us.
The current firework show Illuminations of Earth is set on the lagoon after dark is amazing and we have seen it many times. It is truly magical, and sadly is going to come to an end this year on 30 September. We have no doubt that they have something equally as magical to replace it with, but it will be sadly missed and it has been something we have tried to catch every time we visit. If you’re lucky during the day you can sometimes see the barges out on the lagoon lining up the giant globe and setting up for the evening’s firework spectacular. Our last look at them was last September, but we will remember them fondly as it was the finale to our wedding day and a fitting goodbye from us to the Illuminations show.
The Food and Wine Festival in Epcot is well worth a visit – loads of extra food huts pop up showcasing taster dishes and drinks from loads of other countries not currently featured. It’s a real chance to try some new food and drinks and is a really fun time to visit. It starts on 29 August this year and runs through til November 23rd. The EPCOT flower festival and garden festival is also well worth a visit and runs from early March through to the beginning of June.
Join us for the next instalment – come around the world with us! Eating and drinking our way around and taking in lots of landmarks and famous buildings – all without leaving WDW.
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