It was 1990 and I was 10 years old the first time I can remember going to WDW (I was around 2 on my previous trip). Despite having 3 children ages 10 and under at the time, my mom decided to go to EPCOT Center on our first day, not MK or MGM. Remember, Epcot's reputation as an adult park was even stronger back then.
I remember being in awe the first time I saw Spaceship Earth (I'm still in awe every time I see it now) and recalling the television commercials from the 80s with Mickey standing on top of it. Once we got into the park, I remember being scared at first to enter Spaceship Earth thinking it was going to be similar to what I had read about Space Mountain (I hated coasters when I was younger). It immediately became my favorite attraction of all time, which still holds true to this day.
After Spaceship Earth, we proceeded to The Living Seas. At that moment, I decided I wanted to be a marine biologist. Although I did not grow up to join that profession, I remain fascinated with marine biology to this day.
Next we visited The Land. My mom was hesitant to take us in this pavilion because she had read that small children might find it boring. After much begging, she relented and I remember riding Listen to the Land. Although this attraction did not capture my imagination to the same extent as Spaceship Earth or Sea Base Alpha, I did enjoy it, and we always make time to ride Living With the Land every time we visit Epcot now.
After leaving The Land, we finally made it the attraction that I had we had all been waiting for: IMAGINATION! Similar to other "old timers" here, I loved the original Journey Into Imagination ride (although for some reason my mother did not). I also loved the original ImageWorks and would have spent the rest of the day there had my mom not finally dragged us out of there. I don't think we watched Captain EO on this trip, but we may have.
From there, we crossed Future World to ride World of Motion and Horizons, which as everyone knows were fantastically wonderful attractions. I believe my brother chose the desert ending to Horizons on our first trip, although I wanted to chose space.
Next up was Wonders of Life. Being the new pavilion at the time, that place was packed, especially Body Wars. I know we waited at least an hour to get on that ride, and being the first simulator I had ever ridden, I was blown away by the effects. I recall seeing Cranium Command and finding it hilarious, since I had just started watching SNL at the time. Similar to ImageWorks, my mom dragged us out of the pavilion before we had much to explore much else there. I wanted to ride the Wonder Cycles, but there was a long line for them.
We ended up skipping the Universe of Energy that trip, and I'm not sure if I ever did get to ride the pre-Ellen version. If so, it's not standing out in my mind.
As so many others do, we did all of Future World in the morning/afternoon and proceeded in to World Showcase that evening. We always started at Mexico and worked clockwise around the lagoon. I believe this was upon the advice of a guidebook my mom had read that said kids like Mexico and Norway the best because they're the only pavilions with rides. More often than not, I still start at Mexico whenever we visit World Showcase. Despite there only being two rides, I recall enjoying visiting all of the countries very much. Of course, I wanted to spend more time in the stores (especially China and Japan) than my mom would have liked. I also remember, that although I begged and begged to eat at the San Angel Inn, we ended up eating at the American counter service place because my brother was a very picky eating and would only eat a hamburger.
Our day ended, of course, with IllumiNations. I really loved all the lasers they used in that show.
So that's it, a rundown of my first trip to EPCOT, which forever cemented the park as my favorite place on earth. Even though, in my opinion, nearly every change they've made to Epcot since then has been for the worse, it is still my favorite park and likely always will be.
