Epcot at Disney World Orlando
The Popular Vacation Rides and Attractions
Helpful Info to Plan Your Vacation

Orlando, the home of Disney World, is the top vacation destination in the United States. Happy memories are the best souvenir of any vacation. Plan your vacation and your memories with this helpful advice.

Epcot is one of the four major theme parks at Disney World in Orlando, along with Magic Kingdom, Disney's Hollywood Studios, and Disney's Animal Kingdom. This article is dedicated to Epcot.

Epcot stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. It is a vast theme park with 300 acres, divided into two areas, Future World and World Showcase. Future World focuses on science, technology, and the environment. World Showcase presents the culture, architecture and food of selected countries. A walkway and a shuttle boat link the two sections. Epcot is designed to stimulate, educate and amuse you. There are lots of rides and opportunities for fun while you learn. You'll need at least a two-day visit to cover Epcot. Visitors 8 years and older will appreciate the "edu-tainment" exhibits of Epcot.

Future World in Disney World Epcot

Future World at Epcot is dedicated to scientific achievements, discovery and technology. It contains the Innoventions East Pavilion, Innoventions West Pavilion, Imagination! Pavilion, The Land Pavilion, The Seas with Nemo & Friends Pavilion, Spaceship Earth Pavilion, Test Track Pavilion, Million: SPACE Pavilion, and Wonders of Life Pavilion. Here are the most popular rides and attractions in Future World.

Popular Rides and Attractions in Spaceship Earth Pavilion

You can't miss Spaceship Earth. It is the huge aluminum ball at the center of Future World, a 180-foot geosphere. You can go inside Spaceship Earth on a gentle ride that displays the history of the way we communicate, from cave painting to the newest technologies. It concludes with a look at future possibilities.

Popular Rides and Attractions in Test Track Pavilion

Test Track is a very popular 5-minute ride in a convertible car as it brakes, curves and zooms home at 65 mph. It's one of the best thrill rides in Epcot, and a happy alternative for people who aren't comfortable on roller coasters. You should be 8 years or older.

Fuel for Thought, also in the Test Track Pavilion, is an interactive walking tour that presents fuel cells, hbrid cars, and other fuels for cars via touch-screen games and interactive kiosks.

Popular Rides and Attractions in Innoventions Pavilions

Innoventions East Pavilion has a smart house with next-generation technology. At the Internet Zone you can play games like virtual tag. You can build your own robot in Plastic Works, and take it home. Don't Waste It is all about garbage. Stormstruck studies hurricanes, tornados and storms around the world. There are also features on communications, the Segway, the Internet and business skills.

Innoventions West Pavilion has the very popular feature Video Games of Tomorrow for you to play. Medicine's New Vision also offers video games with a medical theme. ThinkPlace shows you how new computer software works. There's a fire safety exhibit called Where's the Fire? The Great American Farm teaches agriculture and life sciences. And Rockin' Robots invites you to help robots make music.

Epcot Character Spot in Innoventions West Pavilion behind Club Cool is where you can shake hands, hug and take pictures with your favorite live Disney characters, Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto and Chip 'n' Dale.

Popular Rides and Attractions in The Seas with Nemo and Friends Pavilion

The Seas with Nemo & Friends is another entertaining pavilion in Epcot's Future World. Everyone will enjoy the 5-million gallon aquarium on two levels, with sharks, dolphins, rescued manatees and 4,000 other water dwellers. Take a slow ride in a clamobile through a coral reef to find Nemo, while animated characters swim alongside you.

Kids enjoy the interactive show "Turtle Talk with Crush," because Crush, the animatronic sea turtle from Finding Nemo actually talks to the kids. In Bruce's Shark World, kids can climb on animated sharks.

Popular Rides and Attractions in The Land Pavilion

The Land Pavilion in Future World at Epcot includes the attractions Soarin, the Circle of Life and Behind the Seeds.

Soarin is a hang-gliding adventure ride over the scenery of California, all done with a giant-projection-screen dome, and motion technology. Feel the wind. Smell the oranges. Glide and swoop over the Golden Gate Bridge and Yosemite. "Absolutely one of the best in all of Disney." Located in the Land Pavilion, it is suitable for ages 8 and older.

The Circle of Life is a 15-minute motion picture, where characters you recognize from the The Lion King start a land development project in the savanna.

Behind the Seeds is a walking tour for gardeners and others interested in plant life.

Popular Rides and Attractions in Imagination! Pavilion

In the Imagination! Pavilion at Epcot, you'll find Honey I Shrunk the Audience, Journey Into Imagination with Figment, and the Kodak "What If" Labs. Honey I Shrunk the Audience is a fun 3-D ride with special effects that puts you in a setting where everything is larger than you.

Journey Into Imagination With Figment is a narrated ride with the theme of setting your imagination free. The upside-down house is part of the experience.

Also in the Imagination! Pavilion, check out the Kodak "What If" labs, with lots of creative activities.

Popular Rides and Attractions in Mission: SPACE Pavilion

Mission: SPACE is a popular thrill ride through space to planet Mars for those 12 years and older. It simulates what astronauts feel during liftoff and in space. You can choose the level of intensity, G-force or gentle. The Advance Training Lab nearby has interactive games.

The Universe of Energy presents Ellen's Energy Adventure. You take a gentle 30-minute ride with demonstrations of energy sources, humor and dinosaurs, narrated by Ellen DeGeneres and Bill Nye the Science Guy. Ellen wants to learn enough about energy so she can become the next Jeopardy champion. There's an animated movie, animatronic dinosaurs, earthquakes, and a trip inside a volcano. Everyone can enjoy it.

The World Showcase in Disney World's Epcot

World Showcase, the second half of Epcot Park, consists of eleven pavilions circling around a blue lagoon. Each country, Canada, China, Morocco, America, Japan, Norway, United Kingdom, Mexico, France and Germany, has its own pavilion. Arts, crafts, architecture, travel, cuisine, and history are presented, along with entertainment and shopping. There are also rides, films and hands-on demonstrations. At Epcot's World Showcase, you can travel around the world, pavilion by pavilion. When evening comes, gather at the lagoon to watch the stunning show of fireworks, lasers and fountains.

• Canada Pavilion features a CircleVision film in 360 degrees called O Canada. There is also a dogsled ride, mounties, and maple syrup.
• China Pavilion offers the Circlevision movie called Reflections of China. Visit a 15th-century Ming dynasty temple and luxurious gardens. The Dragon Legend Acrobats perform, too.
• Morocco Pavilion has a reproduction of the tower from a 12th-century mosque, beautiful architecture, carpets and the Casbah marketplace.
• American Adventure Pavilion is the centerpiece of the World Showcase, in a 108,000 sq.ft Georgian mansion. The 30-minute giant-screen film surveys all of American history, from the landing of the Mayflower, to the Civil War, Pearl Harbor and the Moon Landing. It features animatronic figures of historical personalities.
• Japan Pavilion is a five-story pagoda, with memorable Japanese gardens and a vigorous performance of traditional Japanese drumming. You'll see sculptures being made out of rice dough, and listen to Japanese storytellers.
• Norway Pavilion features a ride in a dragon-headed boat past a Viking village, magical trolls and a princess. The pavilion has a restaurant located in a replica of 14th-century Akershus Castle. A wooden Viking ship is on display, and Norwegian folk music entertains visitors.
• United Kingdom Pavilion has architecture from Merry Olde England, British shops, and entertainment by a Beatles tribute band. You'll also see the working red phone booth, a pub, a bandstand, a thatch-roofed cottage, English gardens, and of course, Shakespeare.
• Mexico Pavilion is designed as a Mayan pyramid. Inside is the Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros, based on the 1944 Disney movie, with Donald Duck, Jose Carioca and Panchito. It is an 8-minute boat ride through the Yucatan's Mayan pyramids, with an erupting volcano. There are also Mariachi bands performing, a Mexican museum, and lots of sombreros, pinatas and leather goods in the marketplace.
• France Pavilion has scale replicas of the Eiffel Tower and other famous French architecture, remarkable gardens, and good French pastries for sale. The theater shows an 18-minute film, Impressions of France, on a giant wrap-around screen. Francophiles will love this.
• Germany Pavilion has a German village, the Biergarten restaurant with a brass band, and a musical clock tower with a glockenspiel. You'll see Hummel figurines, wines, and cuckoo clocks. Nearby, a terrific model train runs through a scale-model Bavarian town.
• Italy Pavilion is a taste of Venice with gondolas on the lagoon, a bell tower, the Doge's Palace, Venetian bridges, and Bernini's Neptune Fountain. The amusing World Showcase Players perform here.

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