Live from Orlando 2006 - Part 23

[Tannerman]

Into World Showcase we went, walking counterclockwise around World Showcase lagoon. According to the map, Canada is the first country you encounter when you head this direction.

It's time to sing the Canada song!

As I have a little Canadian blood in my veins, I always like stopping off here... even though the attractions are rather cheesy. Of note here is the Circle-Vision 360° showing of O Canada!. This film was shot by Disney using a film technique that utilizes 9 cameras for projection on 9 huge screens arranged in a circle. The same film has been showing here since 1982 (as evidenced by the opening credits mentioning "Walt Disney Productions"; when Eisner took over in 1984, the company name was changed to "The Walt Disney Company").

Waterfalls surround the waiting area

The 17-minute movie is quite dated. In fact, back in 2002, the Canadian tourism folks grumbled that they wanted the film changed since it shows such an old perspective on the country. As each country pavilion in World Showcase is actually sponsored and paid for by the host country, apparently nothing ever came of that. I guess Canada didn't want to pay for a new film. Amy and I have a personal attachment to the theme song in the movie, that plays at the end. I think Karl and Sara just thought we were nuts for making them endure this attraction!

A street in the United Kingdom

On to the United Kingdom we went in search of Twinings Tea for Sara. Unlike Canada, there really isn't an attraction in the UK. Actually, the pavilion is primarily known for the quality food found at the Rose & Crown Pub (never eaten there, so who knows if this is actually true). There are a bunch of shops here with stuff from across the pond, but that's about it.

Karl transforms into a cop out of a phone booth!

Of course, Karl had a field day here, picking up some great props to use in his Kids Church. Namely, a bobby hat and police whistle... which he then proceeded to use for the rest of the evening. I'm sure the other tourists thought he was nuts as he walked around blowing his whistle at everyone. We just made sure to not be near him when it happened!

Comedy improv folks put on a show!

One thing that is done very well in the World Showcase section of Epcot is entertainment. It's excellent and almost makes it worth the price of admission. There is always some sort of music or drama troupe performing somewhere. That proved to be the case in the UK where we were entertained by a group of actors who involved the audience in reenacting some humorous take on King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. It was fun to watch!

Fountains in France; note the Eiffel Tower

We continued around the lagoon, crossing over the river at the International Gateway (which, as you may recall, is the home to the "other" entrance into Epcot). This brought us to France, which Karl started to boo. Um, OK. The French pavilion is known for food, but it does feature an attraction of sorts... the 20-minute film called Impressions de France which showcases the beautiful French countryside. While we didn't check it out on this visit, I can say from previous experience that it's worth it if you have the time.

Disneyland Paris celebrates Disneyland's 50th

Remember how I talked about how Disney was taking the 50th anniversary of Disneyland and turning it into a global event? That celebration is being noted in microcosm over in World Showcase. It just so happens that all the countries that have a Disney theme park are represented here (United States, France, Japan, China). So in each of the lands around World Showcase Lagoon, banners and the like promote the celebration and how their native theme park contributes. It was a classy touch that I thought was quite clever.

Amy strikes a French pose

Amy and I dropped into a local shop to see what they had available. Not a lot that interested us, but she did find a cute beret that made for a fun photo. We also encountered some trash cans inside that I swear used to be in use all over World Showcase years ago... so maybe these are pretty old. They actually have messages on the side in both Spanish and French. The Spanish seemed rather out of place inside a French shop.

Trash Cans of Walt Disney World: Inside France (in Spanish?)


Trash Cans of Walt Disney World: Inside France (in French)

Since we were running short on time and it was getting dark, we continued around the lagoon, skipping over Morocco and Japan. (However, I did stop with enough time to snap a photo of the Tokyo Disneyland banner they had hanging up in tribute to Disneyland!)

Tokyo Disneyland celebrates Disneyland's 50th

By the time we got to the "host" pavilion, The American Adventure, folks were getting hungry. Sure, you could have grabbed a burger here, but this was World Showcase... you need to be more creative with your food choices!

Main building at The American Adventure

The American pavilion actually has a pretty good show you can watch called, get this, The American Adventure! It features audio-animatronics and film elements in retelling the American story. Granted, some of the story is clichéd and tends to overlook more controversial elements of our nation's history (such as how we ripped off the Indians), but overall, it's a good experience.

Disney's America logo

Disney actually pointed to this pavilion as well as the Magic Kingdom's Hall of Presidents as examples of what they could pull off when they were pitching to build a theme park in Virginia back in the 1990s. Called Disney's America, the idea was eventually pulled due to major opposition. I'd tell you more, but then I you wouldn't learn anything when I eventually launched my website about this theme park that never happened.

Disneyland, um, celebrates its own 50th

Of course the American pavilion paid tribute to Disneyland's 50th... which was just sort of odd in this case. But hey, I got to see that lovely big "50" logo again after getting away from it for two weeks (remember Live from Anaheim 2006?)

Italy's belltower on the left, American pavilion on the right

Next to The American Adventure is the Italy pavilion. It's interesting that there is no Leaning Tower of Pisa here, but perhaps the tourism folks wanted to downplay that stereotype of their country. Instead, Italy's icon is a 83 foot belltower that replicates an original from St. Mark's Square. It didn't matter, we kept walking.

Model railroad in Germany

Continuing onward is Germany, which is a great place to stop if you dig beer and lots of German food. They've got some nifty shops here too. But my favorite element is the outdoor garden railway. It's rather extensive and personally, I could spend hours just watching it. I had a rather extensive HO train layout in our basement growing up... and with recent LEGO train experiences, I'm still a big model railroading fan.

Location of missing pavilion

We then proceeded past a really huge gap between the Germany and China pavilions. How big of a gap is this? Take a look at the aerial photo above, which is a zoomed in version of the larger photo found here. The red arrow denotes the location of the Germany pavilion. The blue arrow locates China. Finally, the yellow arrow points to a small row of trees... with nothing behind them! Yes, folks, there was supposed to be another country located in this very spot around World Showcase. What countries could have possible been in this location? How about...

(Source: DisneyWorldTrivia.com)


(Source: DisneyWorldTrivia.com)


(Source: DisneyWorldTrivia.com)

It's a rather complicated explanation as to why there isn't a country there right now. Perhaps this article might shed some light on what might have been. Who knows if we'll see something there in the future?

Amazing acrobats in China

Eventually we did get to the China pavilion, lured by these amazing acrobats that were performing outside. Namely these two gals who did these complicated and gravity-defying maneuvers while simply being balanced with one hand on a pedestal. That's just crazy!

Hong Kong Disneyland celebrates Disneyland's 50th

China also had a small exhibit area called the "Hong Kong Disneyland Preview Center" that showed concept art for attractions from the new park over there, some of which I've already talked about in my Steve takes you to Hong Kong Disneyland series. Probably the most interesting element that I discovered was a potential alternate logo for the park. All of the displays featured little cards that talked about what you were seeing. And at the bottom was a logo I had not seen before. Here's an example of the display:

Logo appears on display cards

Attempting to clean up the logo a little from my photograph, I get the following:

Cleaned up Alternate logo

Contrast that with the official logo that is currently in use at the new resort:

Logo that is currently used

Personally, I think the logo found in the display is a little more creative and descriptive of the Hong Kong area, namely with the small boat found in the icon. But apparently boring won out! Nevertheless, we continued around the lagoon to Norway, where we rode the one "thrill" ride in World Showcase, the Maelstrom. It's a boat ride that has some drops and a pretty cool reverse element. One of the highlights for a little kid who is bored walking around with his parents all day in this area.

Welcome to Mexico!

Finally, we completed our loop around World Showcase Lagoon by stopping at Mexico. Given Karl's earlier negative experience with the Beverly soda, we thought we should play it safe with some food that wasn't too crazy for him. Thus we grabbed a bite to eat at small take out place located across from Mexico's icon, a large Aztec pyramid. And I was quite impressed when we ordered his meal in Spanish!

Steve gets in the spirit

Now you should understand that the reason we had to track time was not only to ensure that we hit the "highlights" of Epcot for Karl and Sara, but also because we had to plan our strategy for viewing Epcot's evening fireworks show, IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth. As I claimed when I saw the Remember Dreams Come True fireworks show with Karl and Sara at Disneyland just a few weeks before, "I've long held that the best fireworks show that Disney does is over at Walt Disney World's Epcot: IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth. That's quite an evening to experience. However, I'm going to give this show at Disneyland a 2nd place in my book. It was impressive." Well, now that I had talked up Epcot's show, they wanted to make sure we saw it.

Outdoor courtyard... located inside!

Thus, we ate quickly and then rotated saving a spot on the side of the lagoon between China and Norway. I had seen the show previously from this location and it was pretty good. Thus while Karl and Sara held the spot first, Amy and I headed inside the Mexico pavilion to check it out. This is actually one of my favorite places in World Showcase because of the different approach taken in the themeing.

Rather than decorate outside, Mexico recreates the outside on the inside of their building. You step inside and you are in an open marketplace, seeing pyramids in the distance. Buildings surround you and the sky is dark, creating the illusion of nighttime. There is actually a restaurant inside where we ate to celebrate our anniversary later on in the trip, but I'll touch on that in a future installment.

Finally, the attraction here is a boat ride called El Rio del Tiempo. This translates to "River of Time", or in my own words, "The Mexican It's a Small World". It's a fun little diversion with a catchy song. Overall, the pavilion reminds me a lot of Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean attraction, since they have an indoor restaurant located inside the ride as well called the Blue Bayou. We were able to eat there in January 2005. But I'll talk more about how cool Mexico is later!

It didn't take long, but soon it was time for the nighttime show over the World Showcase Lagoon!

Live from Orlando 2006 Story Navigation
Previous - Index - Next

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40