The Night We Closed EPCOT

I know it's Saturday, but my Tar Heels zapped all my energy last night, so  we are going to pretend we are having a Friday Flashback!  Today I want to flashback to the first time I took a youth group to Walt Disney World.  The year was 1987, and the group was from Springfield Friends Meeting.  The trip was an adventure.  The lat day was nothing short of EPIC...

The last full day of our stay in central Florida we were headed to EPCOT for the first part of the day, and then planned to finish our Disney time at the Magic Kingdom that night.  We parked our Chevy Suburban and our rented van in the EPCOT lot.  At the time, I was a Disney novice.  In later years I would have laughed and made fun of people for making the mistake I made.  EPCOT was closing at 9 PM, while we would be at the MK until around midnight. This would come back to haunt us!  We had a great time at EPCOT, then took the monorail over to spend our final hours with Mickey.

Everything was fine until we met for the last time at midnight to begin the journey back to our motel.  It seems that Jennifer Welch had become ill and was at the First Aid Station getting some attention (In case you are wondering, First Aid is located between Casey's Corner and the entrance to Adventureland.  We try to be a full service blog!). In hindsight, we were lucky it was just Jennifer- many of the youth had decided not to eat because they were running short on cash.  In any case, by the time Jennifer was released, it was nearly 1 AM.  The monorail to EPCOT (and our vehicles) was no longer running.  It appeared we were stuck at the MK.  After much inquiry, we were finally told we could catch a bus from the Transportation and Ticket Center (TTC) that could drop us at EPCOT.  This bus stopped everywhere, including a whole lot of places we had never seen before.  In fact, as Marilyn and I became true Disney Freaks over the years, there were some places we stopped that night that we never managed to find again!  The bus finally dropped us at the EPCOT bus stop area.  If you know that park, then you may know how far away from our cars we still were.  We still had to cross to the entrance and then make our way across the ENTIRE parking lot to our vehicles.  The good news was that they were going to be easy to spot- we were the only ones left!  It was around 2 AM when some guys driving trams and picking up trash gave some of our group a ride to the van.  All in all it was quite a night.  It gave that group a shared history that helped bond us together.  It's not very often you can be the last ones out at Walt Disney World!  I took a couple of pictures of our lonely vehicles, but I no longer know where they are.  They would be classics! 


I wish I could tell you that the trip home the following day was smooth sailing.  That would be a lie.  For that story, check out The Long Ride Back.  Come back tomorrow (Sunday) for our Saturday Shout Outs! I am so out of whack...


Because of Jesus,