Confessions of an RVer: FINAL DAY

I remember when I visited Epcot 25 years ago, I thought it looked so futuristic. Well, it still looks the same, but now I think it looks like something stuck in the 70's trying to look futuristic. I will say that there are a lot of really cool educational things for kids to do and participate in at Epcot. The biggest thing you notice from all around the park is the BIG EARTH!

The very first ride we went to was called Test Track and it is sponsored by Chevrolet. You start out by designing a car. Then you get on the ride and you enter your car design in the ride. It is a form of a roller coaster. When you get off, you can enter your car design again and see how well your car design did on the "race track". DIL's car did the best out of all of them.

Here's my car design

This was on display and I think this should be my next car. Don't you agree?

We did a ride that was Mission Space. When you enter, you choose whether you want to do the "green" experience or the "orange" experience. The green is less intense than the orange. So, all of us decided to do the green first. You enter a simulator and take a "trip to Mars". Green - no problem. OK, well let's do the orange. We enter the simulator and start our trip to Mars. In the instructions this time, he tells us that we should look straight ahead, especially if we start feeling disoriented. What? The spaceship (simulator) starts and this time the G force is REALLY strong and I start getting a headache. Mr. W starts feeling nauseous and Son starts feeling "funny" like he can't breathe. You notice the kids are all doing fine. It's the adults that are having problems. I was glad when I got off the "orange" trip to Mars.

They have this really cool ride, Spaceship Earth. It is an inside ride. You get on a chair lift that is sort of like a ferris wheel chair. They tell you if you have on flip flops or loose fitting shoes to take them off and leave them on the floor. When the ride starts, you go up like you are in a ferris wheel. We could see the people's feet dangling in the lift ahead of us. Once we were up about 20 ft., we remained at that height and an I-Max type movie began. You then feel like you are in a hand glider soaring over beautiful scenic places. The cool thing is you smell your surroundings. We went through/over an area that had pine tree and you could smell the pine. We went through/over another area with orange trees and you could smell the orange. Pretty cool.

Part of Epcot is also the showcase of the nations. Many countries are showcased and most show a short movie about their country and highlights people, places, and things in their country. Of course, there are characters here too and this time we saw Donald Duck. Our day ended pretty early. I'm really glad that Epcot was our last day. It made it easier to leave Disney. Son and family went back to Magic Kingdom the next morning for a few hours before they left and it made it so much harder to leave from there.

I will say that Disney has it going on with the way they do things. Most of the lines for rides are inside. There are things to look at or do or watch while you wait. It occupies your time and keeps you entertained while you wait. Their whole Fast Pass thing works really well. They keep the crowds moving as quickly as possible. We also stayed at Ft. Wilderness. Mr. W complained the whole time before we went about how much we were paying to stay in a campground. It is beautiful. For as many sites as they have, you do feel like you have privacy. They keep a lot of foliage around each site and the way each loop is designed, you don't feel like you are lined up side by side. They had walking/running/riding trails throughout the park. We had an issue with our electricity when we first got there and they sent someone out to fix it. It took them an hour to get there which I wasn't happy about. But, we did get there on one of the busiest weekends they have so I will give them a break. The bus transportation throughout the park and from the park to the theme parks was great. You could literally park you driving vehicle when you got there and not start it again until you were ready to leave. Good job Disney!