Birt Family Focus

Epcot, The Imagination Pavilion -- 7/18/02
Photo by Robin

We left off in the mood to garden after spending the day in the Land, so today, we indulge our inner children with a trip to explore our imaginations and visit Figment at the Imagination Pavilion.

This place is pretty cool. I enjoy spending time outside watching the fountains. Here you will find a waterfall that falls up and water that plays leap frog. Sit on a bench and watch the littles try to catch the water as it flies overhead. Grin as they look with wonder into the place where it landed and then disappeared, only to shoot out unexpectedly again and make them giggle with delight. Who needs to go inside? Oh, OK- no whining now- we're going!

The Imagination Pavilion

This area is sponsored by Kodak and has been the most often changed of all the pavilions in Future World. It consists of 3 attractions, the Journey into Your Imagination ride (recently reconfigured do to customer dissatisfaction and now prominently featuring Figment, the little purple dragon), Honey I Shrunk the Audience (not to be missed!), and the interactive What If Labs.

JIYI was originally about Dreamfinder and Figment who took you on a tour of how to use your imagination. It was engaging, informative, and funny. They then decided to add Monty Pythoner, Eric Idle, limit Figment, and take out Dreamfinder. This was a big mistake. Funny as Eric is, the whole feel of the ride was changed from a wonderful, funny tour to feeling like someone was banging information into your head with a hammer. You were not really allowed to actually use your imagination in this version and after one ride, I avoided it altogether. It has now undergone another revision. By all accounts, this one is a great improvement over the last. Eric is still there, but Figment is very prominent and does a good bit in the show. People are reporting that they like it so I suppose it will stay like this a good while, but I still miss Dreamfinder. I have not seen the new version yet, but do like Figment so I have high hopes.

Honey I Shrunk the Audience is a 3-d spectacular with physical effects that will make you scream with horror and delight. It is extremely well done. Even though I have seen it many times, I still squeal in certain spots. So, I expect, will you. The premise is that we are all guests of the Institute to watch Wayne Szalinski receive the inventor of the year award. Wayne has brought his shrinking machine and his Dimensional Duplicator to demonstrate. Of course, his plans go awry and the audience is shrunk. We are them terrorized in 3-d by a variety of creatures, and the Szalinski family dog. This show is a big hoot. You don't want to miss it. There are a couple of semi scary moments that may frighten little children, but any one over about 6 should have a blast.

What If Labs are a series of interactive areas that allow you to make sounds and such by stepping on stones or moving your arms or any number of other little tricks. You can have a family portrait made in here and you can send an email postcard from here as well. There are all sorts of distortions you can do to your picture on the email post card before your send it. These kiosks are very popular. We made one where my daughter's face was superimposed on a kitten sitting in a coffee mug. It was soooo cute! You will spend a great deal of time here if your have kids!

This is a fun spot and the last one in Future World. There are a few other neat things in Future World that I want to tell you about, though, so those will be covered next week in the Future World wrap up.