paul riley

The 7th day of our holiday in Florida, and I woke up suffering. Although we had been pretty much on top of applying sunscreen since we had arrived, the combination of water, and being out in the sun continuously had resulted in me getting burnt, how much I would find out on the morning of day 8. So the first act of the day was a quick visit to Publics and the purchase of some after sun, back at the villa, once the after sun had been applied it was just a case of keeping fingers crossed.

Having already done the other main Disney parks at least once, we decided that this was the day to do Epcot, the park with the large iconic golf ball structure, and so plans for the visit where put together, as to what we would like to see on our first visit.

Despite the trip to get the after sun, we again managed to get to car park at Epcot nice and early, and soon found ourselves though the entrance and looking across the monuments, up towards Spaceship Earth.

As with all of the Disney parks there are photographers, at the most picturesque locations, who will take your photograph. These photographers are in our experience never pushy, and the photo system that they run (DisneyPhotoPass.com) appears to be a great idea (though subsequently we have discovered the photos are not cheap).

At some locations the photographers also seem to have the option to add a little extra magic to the pictures, and the entrance to Epcot seems to be one of those areas. We had had the usual group photographs and thought that would be that when the photographer asked for my wife and daughter to stay where they were for two last photos, these entailed holding and looking at something that wasn't there, what it was we weren't allowed to know until we saw the pictures later. I don't want to ruin the surprise for those who haven't experienced this yet, but suffice to say the surprise was very sweet.

We had decided that the first attraction we would try and get on to would be Soarin', a new ride for this year, though if you have visited Disneyland in California you will probably have already experienced it. Not wanting to give too much away, the ride is a full sensory 'flight' over the countryside of California, hanging under giant hang gliders. The experience is so real, you will even smell the oranges and pine trees.

The whole family enjoyed this immensely, though we did fib a little when telling the kids that the ride rouse no further than a foot or two off the ground.

A nice aside to this ride is the queue, which can be quite long, and to alleviate the boredom the projected artwork on the walls periodically becomes interactive, allowing the people queued up to play a large scale virtual game of keep up.

Walt Disney World Resort - Soarin'

From Soarin' we headed a little further into the park to the Imagination pavilion and stop to enjoy the Journey into imagination with Figment ride. The first thing that is different about this is the usage of famous actors in John Cleese and Eric Idle, who seem to relegate the character of Figment to a minor performer. The ride itself is a slow paced trolley car ride with wind and smell used to heighten the experience.

At the other end of the ride is a room of interactive games that the children seemed to love, though with anything that is popular it often attracted queues.

Walt Disney World Resort - Journey Into Imagination With Figment

Next door to Journey into… is another of the '4D' attractions, Honey I shrunk the Audience. As with Figment, this is another attraction that seems overloaded with A list actors, Eric Idle appears along side Rick Moranis, plus others from the franchise film 'Honey, I Shrunk'.

This attraction is quite old now, and rumours have it that 2009 might have been the last chance you'll get to experience it, sad as this might be, personally I felt there wasn't much to this attraction, of this genre of attraction my personal favourite has to be Mickey's PhilharMagic, although my wife and the children found it a little too intense.

Walt Disney World Resort - "Honey, I Shrunk The Audience"

By the time we came out of the 'Honey, I Shrunk…' attraction the kids had started to flag a lot, so we decided that some food and a little wander outside might be called for. With only a marginal improvement in how the kids felt we opted to cut the visit short and head back to the villa.

That said as we made or way back to the entrance we decided that one more attraction was definitely called for, and that attraction had to be Spaceship Earth.

As with all the popular attractions, the queue for the ride was long, but moved quickly, and before long we were ready to get on the ride. The ride itself is a continual train of two seater trolley cars that slowly take you all the way, inside the globe, to the top of it, through a history of our planet.

The cars have the ability to turn to the left and right, and eventually when you get to the top though a complete 180 degrees so that the journey back down is done backwards. The top of the globe signals the arrival in the current period in the planets story and you are greeted with a breathtaking view across the galaxies.

The journey back down, as explained before going backwards, is intended as a trip into the possible futures that await the planet. The cars are fitted out with a screen that for the journey up was blank, but as you sink down through the stars the screen starts to ask you what you want the future to be though simple yes/no questions. And as you approach the end of the journey the screen shows you how your future could look like.

Although there are parts of Spaceship Earth that are looking a bit dated, I expect that because of the iconic nature of the build, this is an attraction that will not disappear, a bit like Space Mountain in the Magic Kingdom, refurbishment may be the worst that happens.

Walt Disney World Resort - Spaceship Earth