Translation by Otávio Bernardi
Moving on with our journey, the next stop is the Epcot!
Epcot is the second theme park of the Walt Disney World Resort, inaugurated in October 24th, 1982. It’s dedicated to the celebrations of human achievements, mainly for the technological innovation and international culture.
Until 1994, the park used to be called Epcot Center, when it got its new names: Epcot’94, and the year later Epcot’95, and the next year, finally, just Epcot, as it is today. Represented by the Spaceship Earth, a geodesic sphere of 16,09 million pounds and 167 feet tall, the main attraction.
Epcot is an acronym for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, a city of the future pictured by Walt Disney, and on his own words “The Epcot will show the new ideas and technologies that are rising from the creative centers of the American industry. It will be a great community of tomorrow which will never be finished, but will always introduce, test and demonstrate new materials and systems (…)”.
Due to Walt’s passing, The Walt Disney Company decided the Epcot would be a theme park, representing the peak of technology and would show off international cultures and costumes, so that the ideals of the founder would not be forgotten, and a planned city was created, with the title Celebration City (more on this one later!).
Epcot is divided in two big areas, the Future World, where you can travel to the past, present and future, by doing car tests, travel through space, meet characters like Nemo, taste different flavors of Coke-Cola sold around the world and take photos with other famous Disney characters.
The second area is the World Showcase, where there are eleven lodges of different countries, those being: Mexico, Norway, China, Germany, Italy, USA, Japan, Morroco, France, the UK and Canada. The employees of each lodge are natives of these countries.
“To all who come to this place of joy, hope and friendship, welcome. Epcot is inspired by Walt Disney's creative vision. Here, human achievements are celebrated through imagination, wonders of enterprise and concepts of a future that promises new and exciting benefits for all. May EPCOT Center entertain, inform and inspire and above all, may it instill a new sense of belief and pride in man's ability to shape a world that offers hope to people everywhere.” – E. Cardon Walker.
If you wanna know more about this park, stay tuned for next week’s post!!