Epcot
Epcot is a theme park dedicated to humanity, culture and innovation. Located at Walt Disney World in Florida, it opened on October 1, 1982.
History
The name Epcot is derived from the acronym EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow), a utopian city of the future planned by Walt Disney. (He sometimes used the word 'City' instead of 'Community' when expanding the acronym.) In Disney's words, "EPCOT ... will take its cue from the new ideas and new technologies that are now emerging from the creative centers of American industry. It will be a community of tomorrow that will never be completed, but will always be introducing and testing and demonstrating new materials and systems. And EPCOT will always be a showcase to the world for the ingenuity and imagination of American free enterprise."
Walt Disney's original vision of EPCOT was for a model community, home to twenty thousand residents, which would be a testbed for city planning and organization. The community was to have been built in the shape of a circle, with businesses and commercial areas at its center, community buildings and schools and recreational complexes around it, and residential neighborhoods along the perimeter. Transportation would have been provided by monorails and People Movers (like the one in the Magic Kingdom's Tomorrowland). Automobile traffic would be kept underground, leaving pedestrians safe above-ground. A giant dome was to have covered the community, so as to regulate its climate (this idea was later used in the 1998 movie The Truman Show). Disney said, "It will be a planned, controlled community, a showcase for American industry and research, schools, cultural and educational opportunities. In EPCOT there will be no slum areas because we won't let them develop. There will be no landowners and therefore no voting control. People will rent houses instead of buying them, and at modest rentals. There will be no retirees; everyone must be employed."
This vision was not realized. Walt Disney wasn't able to obtain funding and permission to start work on his Florida property until he agreed to build the Magic Kingdom first, and he passed away before its opening day. The Walt Disney Company later decided that it didn't want to be in the business of running a town. (The model community of Celebration, Florida has been mentioned as a realization of Disney's original vision, but Celebration is based on concepts of new urbanism which is radically different from Disney's modernist and futurist visions.) However, the idea of EPCOT was instrumental in prompting the state of Florida to create the Reedy Creek Improvement District, a legislative mechanism which allows the Walt Disney Company to exercise governmental powers over Walt Disney World. Control over the RCID is vested in the landowners of the district, and the promise of an actual city in the district would have meant that the powers of the RCID would have been distributed among the landowners in EPCOT. Because the idea of EPCOT was never implemented, the Disney Corporation remained almost the sole landowner in the district allowing it to maintain control of the RCID and the cities of Buena Vista and Bay Lake. That the RCID is now primarily intended as an instrument of the Disney Corporation was illustrated when the RCID redrew its boundaries to exclude Celebration, Florida which would have diluted Disney's control over the RCID.
The Epcot theme park was originally named EPCOT Center; later, the 'Center' was dropped and 'Epcot' was changed to mixed-case. The original plans for the park showed indecision over what the park's purpose was to be: some Imagineers wanted it to represent the cutting edge of technology, while others wanted it to showcase international cultures and customs. At one point a model of the futuristic park was pushed together against a model of the international park, and EPCOT Center was born.
At this time, Epcot's Future World is showing its age; the exhibits there can hardly be thought of as futuristic. A plan code-named 'Project Gemini' is rumored to exist which would change Future World into 'Discoveryland,' to change its focus to the idea of discovery and reduce the pressure to keep everything cutting-edge, and add a few more thrill rides in the process.
Park layout
The park is broken into two sections, Future World and World Showcase. Both are patterned after the kinds of exhibits which were popular at World's Fairs in the first half of the 20th century, only on a grander scale.
Future World consists of a variety of pavilions that explore innovative aspects and applications of technology.
- Spaceship Earth, the eighteen-story-tall geodesic sphere covered in triangular silver panels made of alcubond, is the gateway to Future World. Inside is a slow-moving dark ride through the history of communication, with a focus on the development of cultures and the future of technologies.
- Innoventions, located in two pavilions (aptly named Innoventions East and Innoventions West), houses hands-on exhibitions from various science-and-technology oriented companies such as IBM and Segway.
- Innoventions Plaza is the location of the "Fountain of Nations," a large choreographed musical fountain which performs every fifteen minutes. During Epcot's opening ceremonies in 1982 , water from sixty nations was poured into the fountain. Kristos, a circus-act of group strength and flexibility, performs daily near the fountain. Nearby are Mouse Gear, Epcot's largest store offering a wealth of Disney related merchandise; Ice Station Cool, an igloo which offers guests a chance to taste various Coca-Cola beverages from around the world; the Fountain View Espresso and Bakery, a coffeeshop; and the Electric Umbrella, Future World's main counter-service restaurant with typical theme-park-style fast food.
- Inside The Universe of Energy is a show starring Ellen DeGeneres, Bill Nye, Jamie Lee Curtis, Alex Trebek, and Albert Einstein in an episode of Jeopardy!. The categories are about energy and how people generate and harvest it. The audience's seats are part of large vehicles which move slowly through the attraction.
- The Wonders of Life contains several small attractions (such as Body Wars, a motion simulator ride through the human body) about the human body and how to keep it in good health.
- Mission: SPACE is a ride which simulates the training required to be member of the space program. Gary Sinese is the guide through a simulated mission to Mars in a spinning centrifuge gravity-simulator, which lets guests feel what it's like to blast off in a rocket.
- In Test Track, guests sit in six-seater cars and experience the wide range of testing that automobiles must go through before they are approved for mass production. Cars in the ride pass through extreme temperatures, over rough surfaces, and around high-speed turns.
- The Living Seas is one of the largest indoor aquariums in the world. Guests can view many different aquatic animals such as manatees while they learn about the preservation of the oceans.
- The Land is about human interaction with the natural environment. It contains a boat ride through a working greenhouse and a slowly-rotating restaurant which serves food grown there. A copy of the attraction Soarin' Over California from Disney's California Adventure is scheduled to open here 2005.
- Journey Into Your Imagination is a lighthearted ride starring Eric Idle and the Epcot mascot Figment. Guests learn to use their senses and their imagination.
World Showcase is made up of eleven pavilions: Mexico, Norway, China, Germany, Italy, The American Adventure, Japan, Morocco, France, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Each of these contains representative shops and restaurants and is staffed by citizens of these countries. Some also contain rides and shows.
