View From Along the Broken Road: January 5, 2008

thinking that the holidays crowds would have dispersed, i decided to go over to Epcot this morning. starting the weekend after New Years, the parks are typically pretty empty now until mid-March. apparently people took a few extra vacation days though. there were so many people! 140 minutes wait for Soarin'. 80 minute wait for test Track. even the single-rider line for Test Track, which is never more than 20 minutes long, was almost an hour. so i wandered around World Showcase for a bit enjoying the Christmas decorations one last time for this season, saw a cool mariachi band i've never seen before, rode the Gran Fiesta Tour in Mexico, and then decided to brave the 45 minute (!!!) line for Space Ship Earth. it was on soft-opening, after most of the refurb work on it was completed. it kind of bugged me to wait so long for this attraction though, having never waited more than ten minutes for it in the almost six years that i have lived here & been an Annual Passholder. my thoughts on the changes: i like most of the visual changes done to the first half of the ride, but those done to the second half really screwed with my eyes. and i really don't like the new narration. the new touch screens are kind of a cool feature, but i see people being abusive to them, causing them to malfunction or need frequent replacement. just my humble opinion. how about some photos now? you knew that was coming, didn't you? ;-)