All Rileyed Up

My favorite Disneyworld park is Epcot. I went here the year it opened and fell in love with it and it “big golf ball.” I adored Figment, and to this day, will always stop and take a picture with Figment or any Figment images I come across. Now, I have many an amusing memory associated with my visits to Epcot (the junior high years are particularly silly), but my favorite visit would have to be the last visit I made.

It was 2003. Husband and I were visiting my family in Florida. The Boy was just a baby. Little No Limit was a Little Not Yet.

I had gone on and on to Husband about how he just had to go on the Imagination ride — it was the best, the greatest, my favorit-est ever ride (spoken like an 8-year-old). Well, well, well… imagine my surprise to get on that ride and find out they’d changed it. Disappointingly, the Imagination ride is not nearly as cool as the way it was when it first came out.

We got off the ride in awkward silence. Husband said, “That was a great ride, honey” in a voice that clearly didn’t mean it, and I was still trying to stutter out an answer/explanation when Big Brother said in an truly disturbed voice, “That’s not the way the ride used to be.” And right then and there, my plan to go on the ride three times came to an abrupt halt.

Epcot more than made up for Imagination, though, with their the G-force ride (Mission:SPACE) which really is as fast as they claim, and, of course, the World Village. At least The Maelstrom ride hasn’t changed. Every bit as entertaining as it was in my childhood, with the “Oh no! We’re going to go over the edge!” fear still intact. We also bought Iron Chef T-shirts in the Japan pavilion because we were huge fans of the show at the time, but best of all was the discovery of the Little Miss and Mr. books. You know the ones I’m talking about, by Roger Hargreaves. I remember my teachers in second and third grade reading them aloud to us. I just thought they were hilarious. I realize these books can be purchased anywhere, but I hadn’t seen them in years, and I had just had my own child and realized I could share these books with him. I bought six.

That was my souvenir from Epcot that day. Books that can be bought anywhere, and bear no image of Figment or Mickey Mouse or the Geosphere (AKA big golf ball). But they serve the purpose of a souvenir better than any souvenir I ever did buy at Disney. Every time I flip them open to read to The Boy and Little No Limit (who love them as much as I did), I think about that trip and how I found the books in the World Village. And I feel giddy, like a kid. “I-maaaaa-gi-naaation” flitters through my head and a smile involuntarily makes it onto my face. Which is probably just the right way to feel when I’m reading aloud about Little Miss Trouble and Mr. Nosy.

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This post inspired by a memory question from Orlando Fun Tickets. Want to go to Disney? Buy your Disney Tickets from them.