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Another day, another theme park here in Orlando. Today we went all around the world and into the future. We went to Epcot, one of the four Disney theme parks that make up Walt Disney World.
Epcot, according to Wikipedia:
"EPCOT is an acronym of Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, which was the name originally given by Walt Disney to a conceptual Utopian city of the future that he had wanted to build on the site that is now Walt Disney World."
Epcot is split into two sections: World Marketplace (a kind of permanent World Expo) and The Future. The Future is the part that has heaps of exciting rides and interesting exhibits dedicated to advances in technology. It was fabulous; for example Mission Space had you and your party in a simulation of space flight on a mission to Mars; Test Track was a simulation of tests new cars go through - with you as the crash test dummy!
A dubious attraction was the Captain EO 3-D movie - made in 1986 starring Michael Jackson. 3-D movie technology has moved on a bit since 1986. It was a bit of an 80's time capsule. There was no queue to see it, which was lucky for us - I don't think it would have been worth waiting more than 10 minutes for.
The World Marketplace was fun - there were pavilions representing Mexico, China, Norway, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Morocco, the UK, Canada, and the American Adventure. Each had restaurants and bars selling food and alcohol from their region, and souvenir shops, and some had museums and rides.
We enjoyed lunch and the Maelstrom ride in Norway, and the kids had crepes and ice cream in France. We saw terra cotta warriors in China, and participated in an interactive Kim Possible (a Disney Channel cartoon) mission to save the world!
We had our first (and most likely last) Character Dining experience in Norway. We were looking for somewhere to have lunch and accidentally lined up for a restaurant which had Princess Storybook Dining. It wasn't cheap, but we had three courses and two family photographs with a Disney Princess thrown in, plus four other Princesses came around to meet the children, sign autographs, and have photographs taken. We decided to go with it as an experience, much to Matthew's horror. We also had to fudge our children's ages as for the purpose of prices, an "adult" is anyone aged ten and up.
We were surrounded by families with little girls aged 7-2 dressed as their favourite Disney Princess, complete with make up, glitter hair spray, and in some cases, hair pieces!
I must say, The cast members work so hard and are so very professional. They keep in character and remain gracious and charming the whole time. Must be incredibly difficult.
Anyway, we had a fabulous day and stayed until 7 pm! Tired kids tonight.
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