Epcot after four years

It’s been almost four years since we were last in a Disney park (we have been to free places like Disney Springs); back in 2019 we let our annual passes expire – and then COVID hit. After COVID Walt Disney World changed everything, increasing prices (of course) while at the same time taking away fast passes and replacing them with more money costs – and imposing reservations which prevent “oh let’s just go”. For all these reasons we didn’t pay the $$$$ for more annual passes!

This week however, friends gave us a couple of one day passes – we booked a day at Disney Epcot, and tried to learn how the Disney Genie service works (basically give them money, get a chance to book a ride with a shorter line), and headed to the park. We eventually were there from about 10:15am to 7:30pm, a long hot day and about 7 miles of walking – but also a nice time!

We began with Soarin’ that we’d Genie booked; we followed that with Spaceship Earth, Nemo, Living With The Land and Figment – each time we booked the next Genie pass while in the line for the ride we were doing; all these rides had zero Genie “queue” so we could just book from one to the next in sequence!

We now headed to World Showcase and walked around, stopping in China for lunch at Nine Dragons; we then watched The American Adventure, and walked on to France, heading for the new Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, which was FABULOUS!

Before we left France, we also tried to re-stage a photo we’d had taken on our very first Disney visit back in 1996 … there’s been some changes (to us!):

England 2023: Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

Even though I was born just yards from here, I’ve never visited the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs till this trip; they are fascinating 150+ year old sculptures not very accurate by todays science understanding, and rather dilapidated now, though a “friends of” group is trying to maintain and renovate them. At least I’ve finally seen them …

That final view is one of the TV towers at Crystal Palace (I remember being told that we didn’t need a TV antenna when we lived here, because it was so close …)

UPDATE: There’s a recent Smithsonian Magazine article about the dinosaurs, that includes a link to this YouTube video (NOT created by me):