Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground, Disney World, Orlando, Florida
Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. ~ Psalm 95:1
A slower start this morning. We didn’t arrive at our Epcot ‘extra hour from 8-9’ until after 8:30.
Today we took a trip around the world, went to Mars and back and time-traveled into our future. Whew! No wonder we’re tired!
And we found out about the cheer groups we’ve been seeing everywhere. There was a competition here on Disney property at their ESPN center – 950 cheer groups! We’re pretty sure they didn’t all visit the Parks, but many of them did
So here’s some additional information straight from Fodor’s:
Did you ever wonder what EPCOT stands for? Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. It’s not really that, but that’s what Walt originally wanted here. The dream was a community where residents (many of them theme park workers) could try out new forms of corporate-sponsored, minimum-impact technology in the course of their daily lives. (and no, I have no idea what all that means. 😊)
A peculiar thing about Epcot – – while the Park opening time is usually 9am, the World Showcase side (where all the countries are represented), doesn’t open until 11. Except Norway. Norway has the Frozen ride in it. And at least today, because of the early open time, they were already in full swing when we arrived. We didn’t know if they’d be open or not, but we weren’t able to get a FastPass for this ride and since it’s supposedly so popular, we decided to check it out. Just in case. The wait time was already at 15 minutes. I think many people were like us and didn’t expect them to open until 11. Good thing we checked, because later today, we never would have gotten close to the place without a FastPass.
After Norway, we pretty much just wandered around until time for our FastPass entrance time.
Soarin’!
It’s a little hard to describe this ride! You sit in seats, sort of like one of those parasailing things, and then they put a movie on an Imax-type screen and off you go! We sailed over a whole bunch of iconic views of countries around the world! Places like the Taj Mahal, Sidney Harbor, the Great Wall of China, Tanzania, Fiji Islands, and Paris. And they pipe in some smells too – like grass when we went over elephants in Tanzania, and flowers over the Fiji Islands! We can see why it’s such a popular ride! It was breathtaking!
Shortly thereafter, it was time to use our other FastPass for the day at Spaceship Earth. This is a slow ride through history and into the future of human life on Earth. And it’s inside EPCOT’s iconic geosphere! The best thing about this was the end when they . . . well, let me back up just a little. At the start of the ride, they told you to look up and smile. Not so unusual, they take pictures of you on almost all the rides at some point. But this one was different! And so fun! At the end, you had to answer a bunch of questions about your preferences, and then they put together this series of pictures of what your life could look like in the future. Made us laugh!
Currently, EPCOT is sponsoring a Festival of the Arts, which was really interesting! They have artistic food, mosaics, paintings, drawings, ‘street’ chalk drawings, sculptures, music . . . that’s all I can remember. But it was all wonderful! But while we enjoyed looking at the art, most of it had price tags. And really. Who would buy a 2’ x 4’ painting of Mickey Mouse? For a couple of thousand dollars? Blaine spotted one he really liked; a black and white of Mickey drawing Walt. It was really nice, but it wouldn’t fit in our coach, and I’m certain super expensive besides being large. Based on other things we saw, probably between $3-4,000.
We were checking out someplace to eat here at Epcot, and discovered there are a grand total of 393 places to eat at Walt Disney World! Can you believe that?? Of course, this includes places like the Dole Whip stand, etc., but still . . . Then again, if you’ve got 50,000 people in each Theme Park per day, ya gotta feed ‘em. I keep looking at that figure and am just blown away by it. It’s good Disney does a pretty good job of crowd control/management.
Speaking of eating brings us to the Living With The Land Ride. They threw a lot of facts at us via speakers on this tram ride – all of which was very interesting! You just don’t think of WDW in this way. But then again, it is the home of a lot of innovation! Because we couldn’t possibly remember everything they told us, I went ‘in search of’ and found this article by Christy Lynch on farmflavor.com written in May, 2018:
Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, is known for being many things: The place where dreams come true. The place where magic lives. The place where you can eat as much dessert as you want because you spend so much time walking.
But did you know that it’s also the place where innovative farming technology is developed?
To see this technology in action, ride the monorail over to Epcot, Disney’s theme park dedicated to experimentation and innovation. Epcot has a whole pavilion that focuses on humanity’s interaction with the earth, and it’s not just for show. There are 2.5 million square feet of active greenhouses on Epcot’s property, which produce much of the food served in the park’s restaurants while providing a space for scientists to research, test and utilize new high-yield indoor plant growing techniques.
Plants are grown vertically using either stacked gardens or specialized trellises that allow crops to reach gravity-defying heights. Produce grown in this way uses a fraction of the space required by conventional methods, saving water and increasing yields.
The most famous example of this technique is Disney’s “tomato tree,” so named because this plant’s special trellis allowed it to reach the shape and size of an actual tree – which is huge. In fact, in 2006 this plant set the record for the largest and most productive tomato plant in the world when it produced over 32,000 tomatoes in a 16-month period. All this without even a speck of fairy dust! (That we know of.)
Another groundbreaking way to grow food more efficiently is to grow it without the ground. Seriously. Hydroponics is a method of growing plants using just water and nutrients, and Disney uses this technology throughout their greenhouses. Epcot produces over 27,000 heads of lettuce a year using a form of hydroponics called the nutrient film technique. This technique allows a shallow stream of nutrient-infused water to circulate past the plants’ exposed roots, providing all the good stuff a plant would usually get from the soil. But it’s quicker than growing crops in the soil, it uses less water, and it allows growers to stack plants closer together.
Aeroponics is another form of dirt-free farming you’ll see at Epcot. It’s similar to hydroponics, but instead of feeding the plants with a stream of water, their roots dangle free in the air and are periodically sprayed with a fine mist of atomized nutrients. If you think this sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, you’re not far off. Epcot has partnered with NASA to pioneer new ways of growing food aeroponically since it’s exactly the sort of technology that could be used for a long-term space mission.
This next system of space-age farming is a little less out there. Aquaponics is a combination of hydroponics and aquaculture, or fish farming. Rather than planting crops in the ground, you grow them directly above a fish tank – like the tanks of tilapia, bass and catfish that are part of Epcot’s small fish farm. The fish provide a natural source of fertilizer for the plants, and the plants help keep the water clean for the fish, making it another great way to produce more while using less.
This brings us to the end of our agricultural journey, which just happens to be the best part: eating. Disney serves between 20 and 30 tons of their own produce in their restaurants every year, including nearly 5,000 pounds of fish.
Blaine goes through a lot of peanut butter. Think of the savings! : )
Then it was off to find Nemo – again. I think each theme park must have a Nemo something or other show. 😊 This one was a ride in a clam shell that took you past windows with various scenes. The best part of this one though, was the exit. They deposit you right into an enormous aquarium! We had no idea! And with 5.7 million gallons and house almost 10,000 various forms of salt water sea life, it’s the second largest aquarium in the US. Only the Georgia Aquarium is larger.
We ended our day by taking a walking tour of the world! But we only visited about half of it. There’s just too much to take in in a single
day! We’ll finish up tomorrow.
So just how many ways can you design mouse ears? We’ve run across dozens and dozens, both for sale, and on people’s heads! Usually children and women, but some men as well – who’ve spent anywhere from $14.99-$27.00 per head. (FYI-we didn’t see any tags for $14.99. Just $27.00) All that for something you’d probably never wear outside a Disney Park. But then again, when I worked at the veterinary office years ago, our boss went on vacation to WDW and brought all six of us girls a set of ears. We had to (grudgingly) wear them to work one day. But we got to keep them! 😊
And we’ve seen guests (that’s what Disney calls those of us who’ve bought into the magic.) with all manner of Disney paraphernalia – shirts, pants, assorted hats and bags, toys, etc., etc. I was curious, so I went searching and found this bit of trivia:
When laid end to end, there are enough mouse ears sold each year to stretch 175 miles or cover the head of every man, woman and child in Orange County, Florida. There are also enough Disney character T-shirts sold to put Mickey’s face on the chest of every resident of Montana. And some of you thought I was exaggerating. 😊