Epcot part 2

Happy New Year! One more bunch of pictures from our short day in Epcot. So I guess New Year and Future are kind of thematically related?

Future of the um... future? Epcot almost seems like it could be two different theme parks because they have the World Showcase with the lake and all of the "countries" around it, but also they have a lot of future-inspired attractions, too. And it looks like they are planning more.

It's odd to have a whole building advertising ideas of what they are doing next. I guess it's cool to be so excited that you want to share.

This is the main "ad" room. There's a giant white table in the middle with models on it, and the images are projected and animated onto it. It's an impressive technology considering all of the angles and shapes involved.

Here the walls are a 360 degree wrap around TV screen. Even over the doors. Another impressive tech thing. 

I was watching this space guy talk about telling humans the secret of the universe, when the transmission was interrupted by Rocket Raccoon. Turns out it was an ad for an upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy ride.

Nearby is a project for some kind of raised garden. Are you kidding me? Is this some kind of Garden for ANTS!? It needs to be at least... three times that size!

They are building a Ratatouille ride in the France area. Check out Little Chef in the jar! It's the ultimate movie for inspirational inclusion, would you really care if your delicious meal was cooked by a rat?

The Communicore buildings were wrecked and in the process of renovations. It's now old-future stuff. This poster shows the robot known as SMRT-1.

No spoilers, but you think they are going to have to update the Frozen ride based on the new movie stuff? 

Let's take a nice picture of the flower vines spilling into the lake. Nevermind the mob of people behind us.

We had Fast Passes to Test Track but this guy was not only telling people the ride was closed, but that everybody should move away from the building. As far away as possible. Quickly. Which was entertaining in a different way. Nothing really to do about that except to go away.

Next Fast Pass was for Soarin'. Nice to pass the longest line in Epcot. On this busy day, too. This is "total amazing relaxation" the ride and I could ride this all day.

This nearby elevator is so secret that it was totally empty. Considering the massive amount of people here today, that was a little shocking to see.

Over to the Figment area next. Is "imagination" technology of some kind?

This robot's name is Weebo. Not to be confused with the recent anime derogatory term weebo, which means someone who is so obsessed with anime that they think all Japanese culture is exactly like it.

Did they update this ride? Why don't I remember like, half of this?

Off the Figment ride, there's a big kid play area with tech gimmicks. Here's a giant wall panel "Simon" game my friends spent a few minutes at. Running back and forth to the big panels they won by getting to the last longest sequence without messing up.

Oh cute! Today I'm too shy to get my picture with Vanellope Von Schweetz. Notice the Ralph Breaks The Internet scenery behind her. Is it cool that's a picture of "The Internet" and most of these pictures will be posted on... the Internet? Whoa.

 We did go to the photo op place that's only available to people with a Disney credit card. This cool infinity mirror is in the line queue. My friends got classic Mickey and Goofy photos in there.

My friends bought sodas for a break. This would have been the perfect time to have visited the Coca Colas from around the world place, but that building was part of the now-closed under renovations area. Oh drat, we were looking forward to some Beverly. We sat down near these buckets with the water spouts jumping between them, and after watching them for a while, my friends totally had a blast swatting at the water as it crossed the path. Grown-ups acting like kids?

 Nearby there was a theatre showing a collection of three short cartoon films. All of them were excellent, and I don't think you can see them anywhere else. After they were over, we realized our early diner reservation was in twenty minutes. And it was all the way over in Italy! We were sooo far away.

 One friend was able to bolt over ahead, weaving his was through the crowds and walking as fast as he could without technically sprinting. He foolishly went the wrong way around the lake and wound up going a lot farther than he had to. He did make it on time barely. I'll post the food pictures later.

 We decided to check out Test Track again. It was back open and fine. No mention of whatever happened earlier and we were too lazy to ask.

Originally my Disney-enthusiast friend did not want to design a car, but really got behind the idea to make the biggest, clunkiest, mess of a car that we could. It was a ton of fun and we ran out of time before we could add a few more bits to it. Probably could have gotten that Efficiency rating lower than 07.

 It was hilarious watching our big messy car win our Test Ride. Of course we lost the Efficiency part but everything else we won. You know there's a coaster ride in here, right?

 My friend who was exhausted from a week's-worth of walking on his just-repaired knee decided to go back to the hotel to crash. We had to get on the Spaceship Earth ride before we left.

 Right under the sphere you can see it's made up of lots of triangles. It looks like it was probably super complicated to make this! But it came out so perfect. Maybe it was super easy instead?

 This wall mural at the entrance reminded me of an old Atari 2600 Video Game box cover art style. Seriously, look up some box covers and you'll see it's just like this.

Spaceship Earth takes you through the journey of the evolution of human communication. Like the hieroglyphics here. They end the ride with a very inspirational notice that we are right now living in an age where information is so freely available that the world is certainly changing and we are all part of it. Yay Minty!

 One last picture of the sphere at night using our new-hotness camera. We decided to skip the big lake fireworks show and took the bus from here right over to Disney Springs instead.