On Sunday (11/19) we woke up early and drove over to Epcot. We had made reservations to do the Segway tour of Epcot, and we had to be to the park by 7:45!
Obviously the park isn't open that early, so when we got to the entrance to the parking lot the attendant wasn't even set up to take money yet, she just let us drive in and not worry about paying. It was awesome. We parked probably the closest to the front gate that we will ever park in our lives.
Getting into the park before it is open is totally awesome. They have the crazy Disney music on and with no one around it sounds super loud. The deserted nature of the park is fantastic.
Once inside we gathered with our group and were escorted by our Segway trainer to the training facility inside one of the Innoventions buildings. They have a whole training course that you have to go through before they take you on the tour. The training lasted about an hour, and was of course thrilling. Once we were all trained it was time to hit the open road on the World Showcase. Our tour guides took us along the showcase and taught us little facts about each country and gave us challenges on the Segways, like driving down a ramp and up the other side; you might think that would be easy, but we did have one lady actually freak out on the upside and fall off the Segway :) Touring around on the Segways was totally fun and totally worth the money. I definitely recommend doing it before the park is open, that way you can see it all totally empty, plus you don't have to worry about dodging crazy kids. When we were diving back to end our tour, people were just showing up, and the looks on their faces as we drove by were awesome. They were looks of jealously and mock all at the same time. You know you look like a dork on a Segway, but at the same time, everyone wants to try it. Once we turned in our Segways they gave us Segway pins (Disney is way big into pin trading) which you can only get if you go on the tour!
All I have to say is that if you are going to ride a Segway just once in your life, you should definitely do it in Epcot.
After the tour we adventured in Future World and went to their new ride The Seas with Nemo & Friends. At the entrance of the ride they have this awesome fountain that splashes water on the rocks as if waves were crashing and there are the "mine" bird from the movie. They periodically will start saying "mine...mine...mine, mine, mine" It was totally awesome.
Joe caught some good video that I'll make him post. The ride was fine, they take you in one of those carts like in the Haunted Mansion and you go around trying to find Nemo. What makes it fun is that they have a whole aquarium behind the ride that they project the Nemo characters on so it appears as if the Nemo characters are actually in the water with real fish, it looked really good. Then After the ride you can walk around in the building and look at the aquarium and learn about fish and sea life. We even found the "hidden Mickey."
In the afternoon we went over to Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM Studios).
We wanted to ride the new Toy Story ride, Toy Story Midway Mania, and see the new Pixar Place area. All of it was totally awesome. The ride is great because they scaled everything so that you feel toy-sized. The line takes you through a bunch of toys set up like a fort, with Lincoln logs holding up board game boards as the roof. It was really fun. Mr. Potato Head does stand-up at one end of the room to keep you entertained too.
Once you are loaded onto the ride you can see you are in Andy's room. The ride itself was really neat, very interactive.
You ride on cars that spin around and put you in front of various screens presented by characters in the movie. You shoot relevant items out of your "cannon" and try to hit targets.
We of course rode on The Tower of Terror, which is always awesome. I especially enjoy the Hollywood Studios version compared to the California Adventure version. They are different in that the elevator car actually moves horizontally in Hollywood Studios instead of just vertically in CA. It gives an added feeling of not knowing what is going to happen.
The day was fantastic.
I'm super excited about this! It's
going to be totally awesome and Universal definitely needs it; this time around the Universal parks weren't as fun, they definitely lack the flare that Disney has, maybe it's that their employees aren't as excited to come to work.
The ride took over the old Back the the Future ride, and instead of throwing out the DeLorean they just refurbished it into this ride. You get in what is supposed to be a cart that goes on a roller coaster and then you are thrown off the tracks and end up bouncing all over the park while Sideshow Bob is trying to kill you and the Simpson's family. It's thrilling.....but was overall a pretty good ride.
