Chapter 13
The Future Is Now

(Originally posted July 30, 2012)

After lunch, we made our way back into Future World.

We were really hoping the lines would have died down to levels more like the 1.1 day we were expecting. Our first test was going back to the Imagination pavilion for a third time.

Finally, the posted wait time was 10 minutes. That we could handle. We queued up, and in reality it only took us about 5 minutes to get to the front of the line.

As I said, this was our first time on this ride, though I had watched a ride-thru video of the original incarnation with the Dreamfinder. I would rate the attraction as it is now as sort of meh. There was nothing wrong with it, but I’m glad we didn’t wait 30 minutes. Figment is an interesting little creature.

After we were done imagining, we made our way toward Innoventions. We have had the Disney Visa card for over three years, so we should have been able to go to the special character meet and greet on our last trip to WDW and our trip to Disneyland. Alas, the weird hours and our bad memories got the best of us both times. This time, however, we were determined to get our picture. We just had to find the right place.

The Disney Visa photo spot is in Innoventions West. Unfortunately, we had no easy way of figuring out which Innoventions building was the west one. The first one we tried was actually correct, but we didn’t know where in the building to look, so we second guessed ourselves and went to the other Innoventions building. After wandering around lost for about 10 minutes, we finally looked up where we were supposed to be going, and quickly found the line for the meet and greet—about 10 feet away from where we started. Oh well. The line was pretty short. After about 5 minutes, we were led back behind the curtain. Who was there to greet us? None other than Mickey and his faithful pup Pluto!

Pluto is one of my absolute favorite characters, so we were really excited to meet him AND Mickey in one place. After meeting and greeting, we were stuck in a pretty similar situation to before lunch. The lines were all still pretty long, but we needed to get Future World over with before too long so we’d still have plenty of time to wander World Showcase. The line for Spaceship Earth was longer than we’d typically like to wait in, but it seemed to be moving pretty fast, so we got in it.

I always really enjoy Spaceship Earth. When I think about Epcot, the ride never comes immediately to mind despite the fact that the dome it’s housed in is the icon of the park. Once I do remember it, however, I’m reminded that it’s very relaxing and has some of the best audioanimatronics in all the parks. I also really enjoy the Judi Dench narration even if I liked Jeremy Irons’ accent better. It never hurts to be reminded to thank the Phoenicians. On the descent this time, we tried to mix our answers up a bit, but I think we pretty much always end up with the same general scenario. Here are our pictures on the post-show globe before they zoom off toward New York.

After Spaceship Earth, it was finally time for our Fastpasses for Soarin’. We made our way back toward The Land.

The Fastpass line was pretty short and we made our way to the front very quickly. We always like to be in the top row of the center section so we get the best view, but that row was already full this time, so we settled for the second row of the center. This ride wins the award for best safety spiel hands down between Chief Flight Attendant Patrick…

…and these little beauties.

Soarin’ is probably my favorite ride in the Disney Parks. Obviously I love some of the classic dark rides for different reasons, but there’s something about Soarin’ that is always thrilling. The technology is still some of the best of its kind, and one of the only attractions where you truly feel like you are flying. Possibly my favorite part of Soarin’, however, is the music. It is one of the most played songs in my iTunes. Talk about one of the most perfect pieces of instrumental park music. I don’t think anything beats it. When we land, I get to hear one of my all-time favorite sounds in WDW—the clicks of several hundred seatbelts being released at once.

We followed up Soarin’ with Living with the Land since we were in the pavilion and the line wasn’t too bad.

I think this was the first time I noticed a group taking the Behind the Seeds tour while we rode. I’d like to take all the Disney tours someday, and I like the fact that this one is so inexpensive. Maybe we’ll do it one of these trips.

We followed up The Land with (what else?) The Seas with Nemo and Friends.

There was a Photopass photographer in front of the pavilion this time.

The lines really had died down by this point in the day, so we basically walked onto our clam-mobile. We were very glad for that, because I can’t imagine waiting over an hour for this ride like people apparently were doing earlier in the day. The ride is fun, and the technology at the end where they put the Nemo characters in the tank is very impressive, but we probably would have skipped the ride rather than wait. The exciting part of The Seas pavilion is really the tanks you can view after the ride anyway. We saw dolphins, manatees, sharks and sea turtles. We’re huge animal lovers and go to the NYC zoos/aquarium about once a week, so these types of exhibits are some of our favorites.

After The Seas, we had hit pretty much everything we wanted to see in Future World (I do want to go on Ellen’s Energy Adventure someday, but we never have an extra hour). So we grabbed our passports and headed back toward World Showcase for the next part of our Epcot adventure.

Continued in Next Post