Epic Epcot Disney World

I'm not sure how old I was when I decided I wanted to visit what we used to call Epcot Center at Disney World, which is now just Epcot. I think it was when we lived in upstate New York and I think I was in third grade.

When we arrived at out hotel on the Disney World resort we had plenty of options. Our visit was only two days, so we needed to narrow our visit to two parks. We knew that we wanted to take the boys to Magic Kingdom on the second day, but which park should we pick for the first day.

We definitely considered Animal Kingdom. But we ruled it out because it was already past 1 pm, and we wanted something a little more low key since we had spent the morning driving in from Fort Lauderdale. We weren't sure what to expect with Epcot, but since we were staying a short ferry-ride away it quickly became the natural choice.

So it turns out Epcot definitely has more of an adult feel, but it is still a theme park. There were no lines on that Monday afternoon. We found some of the attractions a little preachy, still some of the highlights of the trip were at Epcot.

Highlights included

• Ellen's Energy Adventure - where you went into a movie theater and "inside Ellen Degeneris's brain." The theater seats become a ride, and take you past life size dinosaurs. Pretty amazing.
• The Seas with Nemo and Friends - similar to the Disneyland Magic Kingdom ride except you aren't locked into a submarine (strangely enough that part was pretty scary for my four-year old). The highlight is that when you exit there is a hands-on exhibit and the boys can play inside one of the Nemo sharks. 
• The Illuminations show (at 9 pm) - which included fireworks, a waterworks and light show. On par with the waterworks and light shows in St. Petersburg, Russia. 

We thought the Land was a bit boring for the boys (that is the ride where you get to see the experimental farming at Epcot) and Spaceship Earth was a bit preachy (for little kids the Lion King theme was poorly done, and older kids would find its Mary Sunshine view of recycling overly optimistic).  Also, at Epcot Character Spot we were able to get all of the obligatory pictures with the Disney characters ... and again we didn't encounter any long lines.
If you visit you should make dinner reservations. We couldn't get reservations, so we queued at Via Napoli in the Italian Pavillion. It only took us 30 minutes to get in, the service was great and boys liked the pizza and pasta.

Epcot perfectly fit our mood on our first day at Disney World. Everyone had a great time and we ended the day relaxed and ready for the Magic Kingdom.