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The Maybes

Image: DisneyIn evaluating the best choice to spend a single day at an American Disney theme park, a couple of gates fell into the middle category. They’re both spectacularly entertaining places, ones where you could happily spend the day. The only problem is the competition. Relative to the choices in the best tier, these two fall just notch below in terms of entertainment value.

Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Image: DisneyPrior to the opening of Pandora – The World of Avatar, Animal Kingdom clearly would have fallen in the Also-Rans category. Before you rush to judgment, let me explain. The technical achievement of Animal Kingdom is arguably the greatest thing in the interest since the introduction of Disneyland itself. More than 40 years later, Disney showed that Imagineers were still capable of making magic.

Uncle Walt famously wanted the Jungle Cruise to have live animals. He was disappointed that his co-workers thought the idea was insane. During the Decade of Disney, the 1990s, Michael Eisner championed the idea of an eco-friendly theme park with live animals as inhabitants. More than 20 years later, the idea still resonates and impresses.

In 2017, Disney upped the ante by adding the breathtaking world of Pandora as a themed land. It promptly increased park traffic by 25 percent, demonstrating the effectiveness of the project. Yes, Animal Kingdom started amazing and has only gotten better over time.

The reason why I wouldn’t pick Animal Kingdom as THE park to visit is its size and overall ride quality. While some of the attractions are phenomenal, others are lackluster bordering on cheap. This fact holds back Animal Kingdom in the discussion.

Epcot

Image: DisneyThis cut was the harshest for me personally. Epcot is my favorite park, and Spaceship Earth is my all-time favorite attraction. Since I was a kid visiting during the earliest days of Epcot, I’ve deeply admired the front of the park, Future World. Somehow, the overtly educational portions of its attractions never bothered me. Instead, they delighted me and triggered my desire to learn as much as possible about the world around me.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve grown to appreciate the World Showcase a great deal. The mechanics of it are exceeded only by the politics, including a couple of foreign governments that paid for their pavilions. At one point, the FBI was so concerned about the inclusive, tolerant nature of the World Showcase that they spied on Epcot. Apparently, they didn’t realize that it wasn’t the actual United Nations or something.

I’m in awe of the fact that Epcot embodies such diverse premises as an infotainment-based theme park and a daily World’s Fair. I could spend all of my time at Epcot…and on some vacation days, I do. When I recommend it to non-Disney fans, however, they struggle to understand the appeal of the World Showcase (beyond the cuisine possibilities, anyway). And when I suggest the best rides at Walt Disney World, only four of them are at Epcot…and one of those, Spaceship Earth, works more for me than for most people. For these reasons, as much as I WANT to pick Epcot as the best place, I just can’t.

 
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