After our family trip to Disney in 1982, a period of darkness fell over our family. No trips to Disney were planned.
There were practical reasons for this darkness - a new house, Belle and Mickey starting high school, Belle had a surgery scheduled - all valid reasons, but still no Disney trips.
One vacation was taken during the period of darkness - to Williamsburg, VA. While Belle loved this vacation, as she is a complete history buff, Mickey was less than thrilled. 20 years later he still speaks with bitterness of the boring trip to Williamsburg in the middle of the most evil heat wave ever. Even the Loch Ness Monster rollercoaster at Bush Gardens wasn't enough to put a smile on his face. The pool water on the trip felt more like water that was approaching the boiling point on a stove. Hot, hot, hot!
It was not Disney, but Belle and Mickey were not as smart and wiley as Princess Cin and Jas so they weren't able to finangle a trip to Disney.
Behind everyone's back though Pa Grumpy started to plan a trip to the world shortly after returning from the Virginia fiasco.
It took over a year of planning, but he wanted to plan one last family vacation before Belle started college in the fall of 1988, and wanted to make it the best family vacation ever. Now such lofty goals can easily go astray, (National Lampoon's Vacation anyone?), but he was not to be daunted. The trip was planned for a week and a half in May 1988 right near Mother's day, and included a visit to Ma Tink's sister in southern Florida for a few days. Plus instead of 2 days in the family roadster, we enjoyed a 2 1/2 hour flight instead.
(Ma Tink was thrilled not to have to sit in that car for days). Pa Grumpy got his wish. Hands down the best family vacation ever.
Ressies were made at the Poly again.
sad: My last trip to the Poly)
I know the buildings were renamed since this was taken, so I'm not sure what building this one is now. I remember we had a ground floor room, that had a patio overlooking the quiet pool.
We saw the Luau for the first time.
Mickey and Belle. I think this is one of my favorite pictures of the 2 of us.
Most importantly we got to visit EPCOT Center for the first time. Belle, again being a complete geek, fell in love with the place because of all the educational stuff.
This maybe though the first time she wished for a solo trip so she could play around with the exhibits in the Innovations buildings. (Or whatever they were called then). Mickey, again, didn't have the same love for the educational stuff as Belle, but liked Epcot anyways.
Some favorite things from that first trip to EPCOT that are sadly gone now.
The World of Motion Ride
I didn't have any pictures from inside the ride, but found this one of me, Mickey and Pa Grumpy outside the front. I used to love how the cars actually exited the building and passed by the entrance. As much as I love Test Track, I still miss this ride. Still it's a trade off I don't mind. Don't get me going on Horizons though. The Space ride has not real attraction for me whatsoever. I even ride the "rough" side, but I always get off feeling blah about it. Don't love it, don't hate it, just blah. Of all the rides at EPCOT it's the one I'd skip if I had to pick one. (And that includes the boat rides, and films in World Showcase). Horizons though was my favorite of the attractions at EPCOT. I'm still bitter that it's gone, especially for lame Space. Sadly I couldn't find any pictures of the ride.
Some pictures from the Imagination Pavillion. Yes, I know this is still there, but the best part of the pavillion is sadly all closed up. The upper level Imageworks play area. That stuff they have there now is just a sad imitation of what they used to have to play with on the upper level. Why in the world did they ever close up this cool area?
Also the ride was so much better then with Dreamfinder and Figment
, and for all of it's 80's cheesyness I loved the Captain EO film. I'd always leave singing that change the world song. I recently hunted down the old movie on youtube. What a blast from the past!
The Color Tunnel
See, it just knew. Even then it "assigned" me my favorite color while walking through.
A view of Spaceship Earth from the upper level.
Okay not the best picture of Belle, Mickey and Ma Tink, but the best one I could find of the view. So pretty.
I think we lost hours up in that area playing with everything. I sadly never got to to the television thing, but I loved playing with the large colored pinboards that you could run your fingers under. I think this was the one area where Mickey and I agreed we wanted to spend the most time. Definitely is what I miss most from old EPCOT, and the worst thing is that from what I've heard, it's all still there on the closed upper level. What a waste! There are few things that I like to play around with anymore in the new Imagination area. (What should I expect - they ruined the ride at the Imagination Pavillion, why not the play area?)
I know I have some more good pics of Epcot from this trip so I'll try to post them when I find them.
Brings it up everytime I see her actually. She points out to me that she saw sparkly slipper shoes.
Might as well save yourself the $88+ now than pay more later. Even if you don't end up going next year, or for a while after that, it's likely that someday youll be back and you'll already have the tickets.
