Around the world and to Mars and back

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Kissimmee, FL – If you had told me that we would be flying in a space ship to Mars today and walking around the world, I probably wouldn’t have believed it, but we did just that and more! Our destination this morning was to Epcot, another of the Walt Disney World theme parks. It was a much kinder day this time, with fewer crowds and a more laid-back feeling that we both enjoyed thoroughly.

Epcot stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (or, some say, Every Parent Comes Out Tired!). With its giant geodesic dome, monorail and futuristic buildings, it does fire the imagination about the possibilities of the future. We had a taste of some of that when we took the ride inside that dome, and traveled through the stone age, the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the Renaissance and Industrial Revolution and into the computer age.

Then, when we went to the Mission: Space pavilion, we took on the role of navigator (me) and pilot (Val) of a space capsule, strapped ourselves in to our seats and headed off on a mission to Mars. It was my job to slingshot our ship off the moon’s gravitational pull toward the planet destination, and Val’s to initiate the thrusters to get us there after our five-month sleep (“it will only seem like a second”, our flight commander assured us). Overshooting the runway and nearly falling into a bottomless chasm was just part of the adventure.

Back on planet Earth, we continued through the park to the World Showcase, where we visited the pavilions of Mexico, Norway (where we rode a Norse ship through that country’s history), China (complete with the Temple of Heaven), Germany, Italy (with the Piazza san Marco tower), America, Japan, Morocco, France, the UK (with a psychedelic rock band playing Beatles tunes in the bandshell) and, of course, Canada.

In the Canadian pavilion’s 360-degree cinema screen, the show opened with a booming voice telling the audience about igloos, polar bears and 365 days of snow as a blizzard roared around us, until comedian Martin Short butted in to debunk the myths and provide a sweeping trek from Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island, across the prairies, through Toronto and Montreal and all the way to the maritimes. Val and I were delighted to note that we had visited every Canadian site featured in the film!

It was fun to see the replica of the Chateau Laurier Hotel and the staff, all dressed in red-checked lumberjack shirts. They even had fake snow outside where Donald and Daisy Duck plus Chip ‘n’ Dale, all dressed in mittens and mufflers, posed with visitors for photos.

We ran out of time when we got to the Seas, the Land and the Imagination pavilions, but we would like to visit Epcot again some day. Our evening treat was dinner with our friends Jeff and Louise from Ottawa, who invited us to their Florida home near Haines City, just south of Kissimmee. It was great to see them and talk about travel, current events and news from home.