EPCOT: Future World

EPCOT is an acronym for Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow, the brainchild of Walt Disney (I learned this in a museum-type area in Hollywood Studios). Unfortunately, Disney never lived to see his dream of EPCOT take place. Fortunately, we can all enjoy it.

I love EPCOT. When you first enter, the whole area is dedicated to the future. One of the coolest features was the design-your-own roller coaster/jet ride/snowmobile. It's a virtual ride. You choose which kind of ride you want from mild to ride. You touch a screen with all the elements of the ride--speed, twists, turns, loops--and the screen tell you if your speed is too slow or too fast for each particular element. You finish your design and then wait until it's your turn to get in the machine. You sit in a chair and a top comes over you with a screen in front of you. You watch the graphics that "create" your ride and the machine mimics going upside down and to the side. It's a large machine, but I wouldn't be surprised if a few years down the road they aren't made small enough to fit in a game room and marketed as the ultimate gaming console. Our ride was pretty fun for a virtual ride.

We also went on Mission to Mars. Oh. My. Goodness. What a ride. Wow. It mimics taking off in a rocket and going to Mars which is accomplished by spinning you around at about 100 mph. You sit in a seat alongside your "crew" in front of a screen. The flight commander tells you all about your mission and then it's time. You start spinning around, similar to a merry-go-round, until you get going so fast you feel weightless. My stomach knew it was getting all dizzy, but it was super cool. I was afraid I'd get barfy, but I didn't and the sensation was very weird but fun. My oldest son enjoyed my reaction.

We were able to experience a simulation of a tornado. Very odd. I kept jumping when anything flew at the screen because it seemed so realistic.

We explored an area dedicated to land. We saw an hydroponic green house that was growing lettuce and all sorts of food. They use what they produce in their restaurants. It was very interesting to see all they were growing. My husband is now researching how we might grow some things this way.

I enjoyed the area dedicated to the seas. There was a cute little ride with Nemo.











I loved seeing all the fish, including sea horses. I love sea horses. Supposedly, they choose mates for life. We watched a sea horse swim over to another one and wrap its tail around the first one as if they were holding hands. So cute!

We also saw a manatee, a dolphin, and lots of fish in the super huge aquarium. My youngest was mesmerized watching all the fish.









We rode the ride that goes up in the big silver ball that's so famous. It's a ride about communications. The "people" looked so realistic. They take your photo while you're riding and then impose your face on cartoon figures in the future, It was pretty funny to watch each of us in the cartoon future world.

We had fun on Test Track which simulates testing vehicles on rough rodes, braking, and driving really fast.

It took us about 5 hours or so to see everything in Future World.