Hello everyone… Sorry for the brief "hiatus," but I've been quite busy lately, and well… I just didn't have as much time to write as I have in previous weeks. So, please accept my apologies for the delay in continuing this series. Now, with that out of the way, let’s go to Epcot!

What with all the hurricane activity and my above mentioned busy week, it seems like months ago since I was at "The World." Oh wait… it HAS been a month!

We went on absolutely every attraction we possibly could in Epcot, with the one exception of the "Circle of Life" movie at "The Land" pavilion and "Impressions de France" at the France showcase.

Let's start with Spaceship Earth. As you may or may not have heard, Spaceship Earth recently lost their sponsor, AT&T. I noticed that pretty much all references to the company were removed, including in the spoken narration at the beginning and end of the attraction. Furthermore, the Global Neighborhood post show is now nothing but a construction wall, with seemingly little going on behind it. Overall, the ride was looking pretty good, although I don’t think it's possible to go on that ride anymore without it stopping at least once during the ride (usually for handicapped access). Spaceship Earth always reminds me of Epcot's early days where OmniMover rides through Audio-Animatronic shows seemed to be the norm. One by one, though, they are slowly falling by the wayside. World of Motion, Horizons, even the original Journey into Imagination all have been replaced with "new and improved" attractions. It's just nice to still be able to experience a little piece of that "golden age" of animatronic attractions. Hopefully, it will continue to be around in some form for many years to come…

Moving on, I always enjoy a ride on "Ellen's Energy Adventure," however it appeared to be running under reduced capacity, as one of the traveling theater cars was suspiciously missing from the group, leaving a total of 5 cars instead of 6. While I do think that "Ellen" keeps my attention more than the original Universe of Energy show, I still find that I miss the energetic music and laser-like show that used to be the finale to the attraction. I have memories as a child of being in that attraction and being looking around in awe during that finale segment, looking at the seemingly endless pictures in motion, and listening to the energetic music… Feel it flow! Here we go! Through the Universe of Energy! Feel it grow! See it glow! It's the Universe of Energy! It just seems like such a waste that now all we see in there is Final Jeopardy on one small screen. I just wish there was some way to get the best of both worlds!

This trip was also my third time to experience Mission:Space. While I do find the sensation that you experience on this ride to be exhilarating, I'm finding that the more I ride it, the more it looses it's re-rideability. All of the action happens right at the beginning, and I love the sensations, but I just wish there was a little more to it. Do I enjoy the ride? Yeah. Is it everything I was hoping it would be… Not entirely. Do I miss Horizons (which it replaced)? Yeah, I do. But that doesn't mean I dislike Mission:Space. I just don't think it quite lives up to all the hype.

Test Track, probably my favorite ride in Epcot, had extremely long lines as usual. I did notice that the swapped the standby and Fastpass return lines to better utilize the available queue space and to absorb more of the standby queue into the building. The only trouble we had with Test Track was when inclement weather approached and it was temporarily closed down. The great thing about having eight days to see everything is that in those cases, we could just leave and know we could come back later in the week!

Moving over to the other side of the park, Journey Into Imagination with Figment was deserted as it always seems to be (perhaps a sign that the original should return…?). I'm also still sad that the inspirational "True Colors" preshow has been replaced with the rather lackluster "Share Moments. Share Life" 15-minute Kodak commercial. I understand the need to update things, and I’m all for it. But the "True Colors" show always gave me goosebumps. The new one, well, it just doesn’t!

The Land pavilion is another one of those "usually deserted" places in Epcot, but hopefully that will all be changing next year. Construction on the East Coast version of Soarin’ seems to be coming along well, and as I understand it, there are going to be some major changes to the interior of the building concerning décor and crowd flow. Soarin' was probably my favorite ride at Disney's California Adventure when I was there in 2001, so I'm really looking forward to having our own version a little closer to home! I'm sure this will pump a little more life into the pavilion as well.

Over at the Living Seas, the "Sea Cabs" were still closed, but I was impressed with the addition of the Finding Nemo theming to several areas of Seabase Alpha. I usually don't spend a whole lot of time in this pavilion, but I found that I had a little more to look at this time. I just hope they continue this trend and extend the theming to the rest of the pavilion, and get the "Sea Cabs" operating again!

Before we leave Future World, we also wandered through parts of Innoventions, another area I have passed by on recent trips. I was delighted with the home theater presentation, which I had never seen before. And, while not technically a part of Innoventions, I always enjoy stopping in "Ice Station Cool" and sampling all the various Coke products from other countries. While technically not allowed, we did find ourselves filling up whatever we could with the "Smart Watermelon" soda, from China, I believe. Oh, and if you've never been there before, be sure to try the "Beverly" soda! I guarantee that you've never tasted anything else like it…!

And then, there's that whole other part of Epcot – Future World. It almost seems like a completely separate park! We actually took the time to do something which I haven't done in quite a few years… We spent an entire afternoon traveling around the world, stopping at every country. We ate meals at Mexico (my personal favorite!), and China, and had "snacks" in Norway and France.

I also got the opportunity to view the new Circlevision 360 film at China, as well as the same old "O Canada" 360 film that has been playing at Canada since 1982. Additionally, we experienced the boat rides in both Mexico and Norway, and took in the patriotic and inspirational "American Adventure" animatronic show.

Finally, we took in a performance of "Illuminations: Reflections of Earth" on the World Showcase Lagoon. The only difference I noticed was actually before the show began. It seems as though the preshow music that plays in the 30 minutes prior to the show has recently been changed out. I’m still not used to the new music, since this is the first time I've experienced it, but my initial reaction is that I liked the old music better. But, I'm sure after a few more times, it will start to grow on me, and I'll come to like it just the same.

Next week, we'll continue our exploration of "The World" as we make some movie magic at the Disney-MGM Studios! Until then, I'll see ya real soon!