February 2, 2000

Day 1 Check in - MCO - Epcot

I woke up REALLY early this morning and took care of our check in, but didn't go into the room just got all the paperwork out of the way and picked up our room keys, before heading to the airport to meet Peters flight since I had time to kill I took a back way that involved no tolls.

Above: On the way to the airport I saw a rainbow since I had time to kill I stopped and took a picture of it. I think this is an intersection of sand lake and some other road.

Above: Still killing time on the way to the airport I saw this lake at the end of a stub street and thought it beautiful so stopped to take a few more photos. the next photo too was taken here before I got back into the car.
Below: This is looking back up the stub street from where I took the photo of the pond up at the intersection of this street and the two lane road I followed most of the way to the airport there were some fruit bearing Orange trees too nice to see in February for us folks from places where it actually gets below freezing in February.

Above: This photo is the one that helped me find out where these photos were taken looking back at these photos 8 years later, I had headed north from Sand lake Road because it looked to me as if most access to the airport came in from the north and this worked well as there are not many east west roads through this area because the lakes (like Lake Conway) cut so many paths off in this area.
Below: While waiting at the airport I took a few photos of the Tower and the automated tramway

Finally I got to meet up with Peter, on the way back we took the toll road, which is after all the most direct route from the airport to WDW. I'm not sure if Peter wanted to stop at the room before we went to the park I suspected that we did, until I asked Peter he remembered that we did not. So we eould've been at Epcot not long after noon (any time codes in the EXIF information on Flickr for these photos were assigned, by me, after the fact, and are only approximations), either way here's the first Disney Monorail shot of the trip. The big Wand with 2000 on it was new to both of us, so I'm a bit surprised that I didn't take a photo of it from the parking lot side on the way in, perhaps I waited to get closer for a better shot and then decided I was too close, that sounds about right, or perhaps I was so excited about just being there that it never occurred to me.

The previous time I had been at Epcot to this was in December of 1998, at that time Test Track was still in (cast or AP?) previews, so this was to be a new experience for both of us, in fact when I FIRST visited WDW in 1996 The World of Motion was already closed, so this was my first opportunity to experience ANY attraction in this pavilion.

Above: Back in the era of film camera you'd take a picture like this and might not be sure if you're timing was good enough to get that Test Track car zoomed by, obviously mine was not, I have another shot, but it looks just like the one above, so I think we can skip that. Peter really enjoyed this attraction, I did as well but in his case I think it was really one of the top things he enjoyed of the entire trip.

Above: These two shots were taken from the sidewalk/ramp along side the Imagination pavilion, I'm not sure if this walkway is still open to guests since it really only leads to a side door of the building not for the use of guests.

Above: The now defunct Food Rocks with the "Peach Boys".

Above: This model of the Nautalis was in the queue of The Living Seas before its mid aughts renovation.
Below : since none of my dolphin shots came out particularly well I've included only the small versions here so that just in case there is some detail (of the tanks perhaps) that would interest someone they can see generally what is in each photo and then click on it if they prefer to go look at the larger version.

As you can see from the photos above it looks like we pretty much continued counter clockwise around Future World after leaving Test Track; Imagination, The Land, The Living Seas, even though I didn't take pictures of every attraction I'm pretty sure we gave it a pretty complete once over,it's always possible there were a few things we skipped if Peter had not liked them on his previous trip (5 years earlier). Presumably, next we would have hit Spaceship Earth, before heading to Ellen's Energy Adventure, and the Wonders of life, but first let's take a break at the Fountain of Nations (and Fountainview Cafe) or if the Pasta Piazza ristorante was still open we may have stopped there). I know we stopped at Ice Station Cool because Peter mentioned it in his report.

Although the second Dinosaur photo is quite blurry I wanted to include it because I feel that it seems to me to be an homage to a scene from the "Primeval World" dinosaur diorama from the Disneyland Railroad, just as that scene on the DLRR's diorama seems to me to pay homage to a scene in Fantasia's Rite of Spring sequence, besides that, as Bill Nye says "Dinosaurs are just Cool!" By the time we got out of Energy (or perhaps it was Wonders of Life) it was getting into the evening and at that perfect picture taking time when the sky shows such wonderful colors, I had mixed results here but still enough of interest to share.

At the very least we had knocked out a fair portion of Future World in an afternoon, as night fell we got to take in something else new for the both of us Tapestry of Nations, the closest thing Epcot has ever had to a parade.

After this I suspect we did stay for Illuminations: Reflections of Earth, but I'm thinking that in one of the slower parts toward the end of the show Peter got us started moving towards the exit(I belive a combination of jet lag and tired feet were starting to set in), still we hadn't gone too far before the real finale hit so we were still close enough to enjoy the end of the show and still have a good jump on the crowds to the exit, so it actually worked out quite well.

Above: Even from early on I liked the wand at night, better than in the daytime. Below: last Epcot subject of the day was the same as the first, one last monorail shot and then out of the park.

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