Our day at EPCOT

We arrived early, and were amongst the first 100 people into the park yesterday when they opened the barriers at about 8:50. This only lets you someway into the park, and then you are met by a load of Disney staff standing by a rope cordon.

During the 10 minutes, some of the characters come out and entertain everyone waiting in line.





Once the rope drops, you are escorted to the main areas of the park by Disney staff from the key attractions.... we followed the guys from Soarin' as this was likely to be the busiest ride in the park...this is a good system as it prevents people being trampled in the rush when the rope is dropped







Once we had ridden Soarin' we were off exploring the rest of the park.... it was a lovely day so we decided to take our time and "make a day of it"

Emma got to meet some of the characters up close:








I cant resist taking photos of Space Ship Earth (its a very impressive structure) even though I have got about 50 pictures already!


The ride inside has some very innovative face recognition stuff going on, and you end up taking part in a virtual online world .....




Emma, Norman and I convinced Denise and Maureen to come on the "Test Track" ride with us... that may have been a mistake, as Maureen said that she could hardly walk after the shock of the experience, and Denise said she will NEVER, EVER, EVER EVER go on that ride again.... oh well... us 3 enjoyed it!


As night time fell, the place takes on a lovely feel, with very clever lighting effects (this is Germany in the World Showcase)


There are a lot of special decorations here specifically for Christmas, including a lovely tree and a tunnel of lights that interact with the music that is being played







As always there is plenty of shopping opportunities to be enjoyed


but there are still things that we decide maybe should stay on the shelf


At the end of the day is a very impressive firework display that has an extra "Happy Holidays" section at the end


Thursday is likely to be a quiet day, but we are going to a special event called "Mickeys Christmas Party" at the Magic Kingdom in the afternoon... so there should be lots of photo's from that!

If you want to see all the photos from EPCOT, have a look here